Chapter 38: One of Them
"What do you mean, they didn’t arrest him?" Rick’s voice bounced off the walls of the private room like a thrown glass. "He was in on it! He was one of them!"
Alen remained seated, his posture composed, hands folded on the low table between them. "Unfortunately, Ghost isn’t one of them. He was registered as a new participant just last week. Argent met him only at the start of the event. We found no ties between him and the staff. He’s clean."
Rick stared at his uncle, mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t process the words.
"No—no, that’s not right," he said. "I was there. I saw them. They were working together, Uncle. That Ghost was picking perfect stones like he already knew what was inside! That’s not normal. That’s not luck." He refused to believe that the man really has an ability to identify gems! It must be because he was working with the staff!
"We checked the logs, the surveillance feeds, the internal staff reports. Nothing points to him being involved. He didn’t speak to anyone beforehand. No digital messages. No money was exchanged. The attendants verified the carts were randomized. Cosim tampered with the earlier batches alone."
Rick took a step back and dragged a hand through his hair. He turned away from Alen, pacing toward the drinks cabinet, then stopped, spun back around, and pointed toward the door like Ghost might suddenly walk through it.
That man humiliated him in front of his uncle. All this time, he thought he was there to scam him. Now... "I thought he was one of them."
"Is that why you kept watching? Thinking, he was trying to scam you into using your own money to bet?"
"I was waiting for him to slip!" Rick fired back. "I was observing him. I saw how he acted. Calm, like he knew he was safe. That’s not someone innocent."
"We even did a secondary scan," Alen added. "No tech on him. No implants, no signal jammers, no third-party transmissions. We ran his prints twice. Nothing suspicious. No criminal history, no known affiliations. Ghost is... a ghost. He appeared from nowhere, but nothing illegal tied to his name."
Rick turned again and kicked the leg of the armchair across from him. The sharp crack echoed through the room, but Alen didn’t react.