"Hey, there she is," Morgan made an unnecessarily loud greeting as Aitana walked into the conference room.

Aitana let the files in her hands drop on the table with a thud and gave him a sharp look. "Are you going to do this every time I come back from a school break?"

"I will when it stops being annoying," Morgan shrugged and smirked. The others at the table snickered.

Aitana rolled her eyes and plopped down in the chair furthest from Morgan.

"How's it going, kiddo?" Rossi asked her a moment later when he thought Aitana wouldn't snap anymore.

"Okay," she said. "It's mid-November now so we'll be heading into finals very soon again. God, I feel like I just started the semester."

"Two months ago," Spencer remarked, "I have the exact countdown if you want to be accurate."

Aitana smiled dryly at him. "Pass, but thanks. What are we in here for? It's Sunday and I should be at church right now. My grandmother's still around, so…"

"Unfortunately, psychopaths don't usually take the weekends off," JJ said with a lamentable sigh.

Penelope came in a few minutes later with Hotch, the former looking a tad shaken about something. Hotch brought up the case to the group, being the one who accepted it in the first place.

"Danny Savino, the floor manager at the Sapphire Lady casino in Atlantic City was found dead in his office this morning. Blunt force trauma to the head. An empty wallet and money clip left next to the body."

The picture of the corpse certainly left some questions in the air. It looked like a poker game gone wrong on the ground.

"This guy's got a record," Morgan wolf-whistled as they got a copy of said record.

"Savino was a member of the Agnoli crime family," Hotch said. "They're active in the Atlantic City area.

"It looks like a robbery gone bad," Emily remarked. "Why was the BAU called in?"

"Eight one-dollar bills surrounding an 8 card."

"That's highly ritualistic," JJ said, her brow furrowed.

"Could it be like one of those crazy good luck rituals a gambler makes?" Aitana suggested the theory as she kept studying the pictures in their file copy. A bunch of random dollars spread around the corpse — it could be.

"Savino has ties to organized crime," Hotch said, "So it could be related to that. Either way, agents in New Jersey are worried about things escalating."

"A mob war?" Aitana said, her body stiffening.

"Well, it doesn't take much to ignite a mob war," Rossi said, "And collateral damage means nothing to these guys. If we don't get a handle on this soon, innocent people are gonna die."

Hotch agreed completely and so set the timer to meet at the jet. The team arrived accordingly and took off soon enough.

"No question. Godfather II, hands down," JJ said, laughing at the question that stumped Emily beside her.

"No, no, gotta be Scarface," Morgan said from his seat opposite the two women.

"For me, The Untouchables," Emily finally gave her response. "Spence?"

"Mm, probably Le Cercle Rouge, the 1970s French classic. But "Den Tredje Vaagan" is definitely a close second."

"Yeah, that was my runner-up, too…" Emily said thoughtfully, causing the others to laugh. "What about you, Aitana? Best ever gangster flick?"

Aitana had sat on the other side of the table, occupying herself with a book she would later need for a paper. "Umm, they're not really my go-to movies. I think the closest I've gotten to is Ladrón Que Roba Ladrón. And that isn't much."

"We might have to do a sit-down and give you the best gangster flicks," Morgan warned her.

Aitana laughed. "You know what? If you can figure out a time between work and school, sure. I will watch whatever the hell you want."

"I'll take the challenge!"

"Hello, hello!" Penelope's face appeared on the monitors.

"Garcia, did we get the crime scene surveillance video yet?" asked Hotch.

"No, sir, because there wasn't any."

Spencer made a face. "That's not possible. Every inch of the casino is surveilled every minute of every day."

"Yeah. Apparently the footage was tampered with, so…"

"All right. Reid and Prentiss, go to the crime scene. Dave, you and JJ find out if Savino was involved in anything the local authorities don't know about. Morgan, Serrano and I will contact the local FBI office and arrange a ceasefire with the families."

"I will?" Aitana blinked, feeling totally stupid for blurting.

Hotch was kind enough not to point it out. He simply nodded at her. "A good opportunity to be a liaison."

"O-okay," Aitana nodded, delving back to her book. Sometimes, she felt like missing so much of work at a time was beginning to affect her work strategy again.

~0~

Agent Goslin of the Atlantic FBI office was in charge and as such was there when the "ceasefire meeting" finished. "So how'd it go?"

Aitana kept her mouth shut until each mob boss was well and gone. "I was afraid to breathe," she confessed later on.

"You were fine, sprinkles," Morgan patted the top of Aitana's head until Aitana shoved his hand away.

"We bought some time. What about the crime scene?" Hotch asked, moving things along. They headed to the conference room to keep discussing.

"Well, Savino purposely bypassed the standard casino security. And I think we know why," Goslin said as she closed the door behind the group. "Danny Savino supplemented his income by loaning money to casino patrons. It explains why he changed the camera in his office. He didn't want his bosses to know he was freelancing."

"So we are looking for a gambler," Aitana beamed and looked at the others, "Can we go back to my gambling theory?"

"Not just yet," Hotch said quickly, already thinking of the imitations it would mean if they were looking for a gambler.

Later that evening, they got word that another victim was found in the parking lot of a casino. A poor woman in a bright red dress laid on the ground dead, next to what was allegedly her car. Eight dollar bills surrounded her body just like the last one.

Aitana went around the body several times, eyeing the dollars. "Has anyone looked into the meaning of those dollars yet?"

JJ was bent down beside the corpse, noting the injuries the woman sustained. "I'm sure Reid is making a list as we speak."

Aitana mused about that. She glanced to their left and saw Morgan searching for something. "Hey, what are you looking for?"

"Discarded matches," Morgan said. Aitana and JJ gazed over the fallen cigarette beside the corpse. "The victim had a freshly-lit cigarette. But there was no lighter or matches in her purse or the car."

"Our unsub lit it for her," JJ realized. "It means she wasn't afraid of him."

"Were they friends, maybe?" Aitana thought to herself. In a minute, her cell phone went off. "Hey, Garcia, you're on speaker!"

"Patti Riolo, aka Francesca," Penelope went straight into it. "Hometown, Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Up until 3 years ago, she worked with a high-end escort service in Manhattan. How high, you ask? I will tell you. Nosebleed high. $5,000 a night and up. Now she's trolling gaming tables in Atlantic City."

"That kind of downgrade means she must have thought that 5 grand a night window was very short in her profession," JJ said as she got up on her feet.

"We should see if we can make connections between her and anyone else," Morgan suggested as he returned to the others. "Comb over the security cameras again, see if we have better luck than the last one."

With that idea in mind, the group returned to the precinct. They were only just starting to delve into the work when Aitana stalked into the room.

"What's wrong with you?" JJ asked the woman, fairly amused with the way Aitana was frowning.

Without saying anything, Aitana went around the table and grabbed the t.v. remote. She turned on the television and flipped to the news channel.

"Both residents and visitors to Atlantic City are on edge tonight as the Circle of 8 kill has apparently struck again…"

"They went ahead and named the guy!" Aitana exclaimed. "I swear every time I come back to the BAU, I'm slower! I should have been on this!"

"Give yourself a break, you're doing like 20 things at a time," JJ said, thinking she would know best what Aitana was feeling right now. "Being a liaison has so many parts and you're trying to couple that with profiling and college. You're going to miss some things. It's okay."

"JJ's right," Emily nodded, "You can't beat yourself up over every single thing that you miss. You're human, like the rest of us."

"Not true," Aitana turned around to meet their gazes, "I have a good suspicion that Spencer is like half robot or something."

Emily swayed her head. "Yeah, alright."

Aitana decided to switch off the television for the rest of the night. There was no point making herself even more mad watching the news make everything worse.

~0~

The next morning, the squad had created their profile to deliver to the precinct. Afterwards, they moved into the conference room to keep looking at their previous victims.

"This doesn't make sense. Danny Savino was a bottom-feeder, handing out nickel-and-dime loans to small-time gamblers," Rossi looked between their victims' crime scenes on their evidence board, "But Patti Riolo was exclusively about high-rollers."

Emily completely agreed with Rossi. "The unsub wouldn't have naturally crossed into both worlds. He'd be in one or the other."

"Unless his fortunes changed drastically between murder Savino and meeting up with Patti Riolo," Aitana looked at the evidence board from her seat. "Woman like Patti — all it would take is the unsub flashing the money he stole from Savino in front of her to do it."

"Or he gambled with it and won big," Rossi said and turned to the squad.

Aitana made a face at those words, thinking they sounded slightly familiar to her. "Hey, wait…"

"That's what Aitana was saying from the beginning," Spencer cut in, flashing her a smile from across the table. "He was in financial trouble and immediately after murder Savino, his luck changed. In his mind, he could have connected the two."

"Gambler's faith in superstitions!" Aitana exclaimed. "Every compulsive gambler believes in a system, no matter how illogical. And he'd figure the part of his system he'd been missing was murder. See? You should listen to me more often." The others exchanged smiles between each other while Aitana proudly waited for her props. It certainly lifted her mood.

Agent Goslin stepped into the room then with the announcement that another victim had been discovered in an alleyway.

"Let's go see if he kept the system the same," Aitana rose from her seat first. She, Spencer, Emily and Hotch left to examine the crime scene.

The man had been posed to sit on the ground against the wall of a building. The blood on his chest wasn't even completely dry yet.

Spencer picked up the bills sprawled around the corpse and counted them to 88. "The unsub's getting generous," he remarked, thinking about counting the dollars just to double check he hadn't counted more. Of course, he wasn't wrong.

"There's less rage than the others," Aitans remarked slowly, rather puzzled with the differences they'd found pretty early on. "He was shot from the back? Classic unsub move so they don't have to face their victims." There was way too much evidence of remorse to be overlooked.

"No robbery this time, either," Emily added. She and hotch went over the victim's personals and found everything a normal person would usually carry. "Wallet's intact, except for anything to I. D. him. Is this even the same kill?"

"The ritual's too similar to discount it," Hotch said with a shake of his head. "The change in the M. O. makes sense if the unsub is still refining his system."

"I think there's still something else," Aitana said, bringing one hand on her hip, "The other kills were just…and then this guy's all…" She couldn't explain her thought process but the point still was made.

"Maybe killing the cashier at the gas station didn't work, so he's back to the drawing board," Hotch said, also thinking.

"Two 8s instead of one could also be significant," Spencer said, "I know in China the number 8 symbolizes prosperity. The more 8s the better. As a matter of fact, in Chungdu a telephone number consisting of all 8s recently sold for over a quarter million dollars."

"So why would he be doubling up on his luck out here, away from all the casinos?" Emily made a pass at the rundown alleyway they stood in.

"There's been another kill," Agent Goslin said upon joining the group. "A guest in his room at the Sapphire Lady."

"Same ritual?" Aitana immediately asked.

"No. His neck was broken. And he was robbed of 50,000."

"See? Now why did this guy get a pass?" Aitana gestured to the corpse. "Why show remorse here and then go slaughter someone else?" A good question that went unanswered.

"The strange thing is, the killer left nearly 20,000 behind with the body," Agent Goslin added, leaving more questions for the squad.

Hotch pulled out his phone to call Penelope. "Garcia, is there a casino in the neighborhood of Penrose and Morningside Avenue?"

"Uh...no casinos per se, but there's a private gambling establishment right around the corner."

"Is it legal?"

"Yeah. But it's ultra exclusive. They have a monthly high-stakes poker tournament, today being the day for the month, coincidentally enough. Or no coincidence at all."

"What's the buy-in?"

"Um...yikies. $50,000! But it's a million-dollar guarantee if you win."

"And there's one answer to our questions," Aitana mumbled to Emily and Spencer.

"What time does it start?" Hotch asked Penelope, and to their luck the answer was a helpful one.

"Later this afternoon!"

~0~

"Forensics got a fingerprint match on the last victim," Aitana walked into the conference room with a file in her hands. "Eddie Langdon." She planted the file between Rossi and Agent Goslin.

"We're looking into him," Emily said, gesturing between herself and the rest of the group at the table.

A moment later, Hotch stepped inside with his phone in hand as he handled an ongoing texting.

"Hey, any luck?" JJ asked him.

"No, they don't want to allocate agency funds for the buy-in," Hotch said, shaking his head. He excused himself to go try the call again.

"Well, I can't imagine why not," Rossi playfully smiled. "We're only asking for 50,000 bucks of taxpayer money so that FBI agents can play Texas hold 'em."

"Hey, what about you?" Emily abruptly asked Rossi, leaning forward in her seat when Rossi sat directly across her.

"What about me what?"

"You could stake us the buy-in!"

"You could," Aitana gasped excitedly, "You're like stupid rich!"

"Stupid rich?" Rossi hated more and more where the conversation was heading.

"You know, like unnecessarily rich? Stupid rich?" Aitana felt like she was digging her own hole the way Rossi was staring at her with sharp eyes.

"No."

"Why not?" JJ insisted.

"One, it's against regulations, and I'd like to hold on to this job for a little while longer."

"It's a minor administrative violation—"

"And two, I prefer to spend my money on actual things, like single-malt scotch, a fine cigar, and beautiful artwork."

"Poker chips are things," Emily threw in the idea desperately, earning a few chuckles from the others.

"Maybe just think of it as like a new experience," Spencer decided to help as well. "I mean, at your age, how often does that happen?"

Much like a few moments ago, Rossi's gaze sharpened as it fixated on Spencer. "At my what?"

Spencer ducked his head knowing he could easily be thrown out the room now.

"At the risk of making it even worse," Aitana said, clearing her throat, "Stupid rich also means being able to spend money without ever feeling it. This may be our only chance to get this guy."

"All right. Fine!" Rossi groaned. "I'm a decent poker player. But I can't promise that I can stay in the game long enough to—"

"You know what? I bet you're a great poker player, but what if we sent in Reid?" Emily suggested and JJ seemed to get on board pretty fast.

When Rossi showed his doubt, Spencer decided to speak up again. "I am banned from casinos in Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Parump because of my card-counting ability."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Aitana turned towards Spencer, planting a hand on the table, "Did you just say you're banned from casinos in Las Vegas? Like-like all of them in the area?"

Spencer nodded. "That's where I'm from, so…I had a lot of time to build up the list."

"Never thought I'd see the day Spencer Reid was banned from multiple places," Aitana said, subtly glancing at the others to double check she wasn't being played.

"Look, I know I'm not a genius like the boy wonder here, but poker is not Blackjack," Rossi cut in, "It's about bluffing, reading human nature, head games. It's not math."

"That's not entirely accurate," Spencer shook his head. He stood up from his chair and moved to the board where he picked up a marker to scribble down an equation. "There actually is a mathematical equation for knowing when to raise and when to fold. If P represents the size of the pot at the time of play, then P times N minus one—" Aitana looked back at the others with wide eyes, JJ and Emily both grinning at Rossi who looked so overwhelmed, "—with N representing the estimated number of players in the final round of betting—"

"Ok, fine. I surrender!" Rossi exclaimed. Spencer turned around to see everyone else so amused. "Just try not to lose all of my money."

Spencer dutifully nodded at Rossi and gave him a thumbs up.

~0~

The squad grouped together in a van not too far from the casino where Spencer would be entering shortly. They managed to hack into the cameras outside thanks to Penelope and so they were checking everyone who went inside. Unfortunately, there were already so many others inside and others who knew to keep their heads down.

"Some of these guys have records, but the don't fit the profile," Emily remarked after yet another wrong face showed up on their screens. She'd taken multiple pictures of the arriving guests and not one had turned up as their unsub yet.

"Keep looking, he's gotta be there," Hotch instructed. He looked around the van and saw Aitana busying herself with a file in hand instead of watching over the cameras. "Serrano, you need to focus."

"I know, I'm sorry," Aitana said with an apologetic smile. "I just keep going over the last victim. Eddie Langdon was wearing a watch that was much too big for his wrist. Did he steal it or did the unsub give it to him? It looked brand new too…maybe he gave it to Eddie right before doing the deed?"

"That fits, given the care and remorse for the victim," JJ chimed in. "They could have known each other."

"Exactly," Aitana pointed at the blonde, "Which means, we should really be combing over Eddie's friends and family. We might find someone who fits our profile."

"I got you," Morgan pointed at her and then proceeded to call Penelope.

"Ok, the link is set," Emily announced, her screen flashing red as Spencer activated their signal from the inside of the casino. "As soon as Reid triggers the alarm, we can move in."

A few moments later, Penelope came through with their latest victim's file.

"So if he was naturally broke, how'd he get that fancy watch? I doubt he'd have any stupid rich friends around…" Aitana mumbled.

Penelope made the promise to keep digging for social relationships and hung up.

"Does she seem a bit weird to you?" Morgan happened to ask Aitana when he put his phone away.

"This is Penelope we're talking about," Aitana said distractedly as she went over Eddie's file again. "And this is a murder case which is something she hates. Think that's pretty much Penelope in these situations." She shut the file again with a groan. "Okay, you know what I want to know?" Morgan raised his brows at her as she turned her chair in his direction. "How the hell do you get banned from every casino in Las Vegas? That's impossible!"

Morgan let out a light chuckle. "You don't know Reid and his math tendencies."

"It's not math! I mean — gambling is math?" Aitana's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Clearly, no one here has ever played lotería because I swear that's not math at all."

"You did see the long equation he was writing out for Rossi, right?" Emily asked, still going through the multiple faces of their guests on her screen. No matches were made yet.

"Yeah, but that was for poker and blackjack. You mean to tell me he used it for every casino?" Aitana couldn't and wouldn't believe it.

"Believe it, Sprinkles," Morgan shrugged, "It's frightening, really."

"Nu-uh," Aitana leaned back in her chair, propping an elbow in the armrest, "He can't possibly use math to win every game here. I detect a challenge."

Morgan side glanced at the woman with a smirk. "Don't start something you can't finish."

A little while later, Spencer activated the alert.

"That's Reid. Let's go!" Hotch said, leading the way out of the van.

The group's emergement prompted the rest of the officers around the street to do the same. They were just coming in as Spencer was being thrown out by the local security.

"He's an FBI Agent!" Hotch yelled at the security guard on his way past them.

Aitana lingered behind to instruct the other officers. The guests were taking their opportunity to escape and she wasn't going to let that happen.

"Hey Spencer, are you alright?" She touched his arm comfortingly seeing that he was shaken up.

"Yeah, yeah," Spencer passed a hand over his hair, his eyes darting from one person to the next, "They were just touching me and — I don't like people touching me!" Aitana pulled her hand off Spencer's arm the moment he words left his mouth.

"Sorry about that," Aitana apologized and looked past him. The guests were in a frenzy. "Here, come on out and take a fresh breath of air." She was about to reach for his arm when she remembered and stuck her hand on her side instead.

"Thanks," Spencer mumbled and followed her out the casino, rubbing furiously at his sleeves. He hated the feeling of foreign hands touching any part of him.

Hotch and Emily regrouped with them outside without their unsub.

"We need to look at the victim again," Hotch declared. Their time was running out again now that the unsub knew they were onto him.

"Ok, uh, Garcia said that Eddie Langdon was a high-school dropout, right?" Emily said, forcing the wheels in her head to start working again. "Chronic underachiever? Does that sound like someone who has the financial know-how and business sense to start his own company from scratch all by himself?"

"The watch!" Aitana exclaimed. "The expensive watch the unsub gave him. They were friends which means that sooner or later Penelope will find out…"

And when they dialed Penelope's number, she had the answers ready for them. "You guys were right," she told them first and foremost, "Eddie Langdon did have a partner in that plumbing supply business. Curtis Banks. And Banks pops up more than once in Eddie's life. They shared an apartment together. When Langdon was in jail for that forgery charge, it was Banks who bailed him out. Oh, there's more! Banks' dad was a compulsive gambler, too. Won some sort of big jackpot in 1988. The father abandoned the family, ended up 6 months later dead in a Las Vegas hotel room, completely broke. Drank himself to death."

"Do you have an address for Banks?" Hotch asked her.

"Yeah. 800 Brigantine Road, Galloway Township. That's 10 miles from Atlantic City."

"Thanks. Serrano, Reid and Morgan go to Banks' house. He may head back there."

"Are you okay?" Aitana quietly asked Spencer when they turned away to go find Morgan.

"Yeah," Spencer nodded fervently. It still looked like he was a little shaken up.

Aitana took the lead to give him the chance to come back from the incident. She found Morgan around the back of the casino and told him where they needed to go. The three then headed for Banks' home. They didn't bother getting out of the car once they saw a foreclosure sign on the front lawn.

"Now what?" Morgan frowned.

"Any chances he's going to Eddie's place?" Aitana threw the question out.

Morgan decided to call Hotch just to let him know that they had come up with nothing.

"All right, you and Reid stay there in case he comes back…"

"So that's it? We just wait?" Spencer sounded unusually grumbled in the backseat. He wouldn't mind seeing Curtis Banks get arrested.

"Guess so," Morgan said, looking at him through the rearview mirror, "Why so grumpy, pretty boy?"

Spencer would rather not answer that and since Aitana knew that, she cut into the conversation.

"Do you guys know my grandmother ended up loving you guys?"

It definitely drove Morgan's attention away from Spencer. "Really?" He was already smirking, prompting Aitana to roll her eyes at him. "Well, what can I say? I am good with grandmothers."

"Mm, she said you needed to learn how to dance better," Aitana said, chuckling. "Penelope said you danced like a cat and then that started a whole conversation."

Morgan deadpanned the woman beside him. "Tell me you're kidding. I told her to stop saying that!"

"Nope," Aitana smirked. "I think my family likes you a lot more now too."

Morgan no longer liked the conversation. He scoffed and looked away. "Alright, so what she say about Reid then? Too tall?"

Spencer frowned. "Hey —"

"Too skinny?"

"Hey!"

"Actually," Aitana couldn't help her laugh while Spencer glared at Morgan, "she was witness to his terrible tolerance with spices."

Spencer's eyes then flickered to Aitana. "Those spices were not supposed to be on sweets — who does that!?"

"Oh c'mon Spencer," Aitana shifted in her seat to better face him, "A sweet and spicy lollipop?"

"I thought the chocolate marshmallow one was a lot better," Spencer huffed. "That's actually candy!"

Aitana giggled. "You wouldn't survive a day in Mexico, Spencer. The food itself would kill you for breakfast. We like spices on everything."

"What could you possibly spice up for breakfast?" Morgan curiously asked the woman.

But Aitana shrugged nonchalantly and answered in the same manner. "The eggs, beans…sometimes we like to put salsa over the stuff." Morgan and Spencer both stared at her like she was insane. "What?"

"Sprinkles, you are shock-worthy," Morgan concluded with a shake of his head.

Aitana had to roll her eyes at that. "Because I like spicy food? It's just what we eat, what's the big deal?

"You've basically desensitized yourself," Spencer remarked, "The more you eat the same spicy food, the less your nerves react to the pain of the spice."

"Thanks, Spencer," Aitana leaned in her chair, "But you do realize that now I will be introducing you to more spicy food right?"

Spencer's eyebrows shot up. "I-I would rather you didn't."

Aitana smirked. Her expression begged to differ.

For the rest of their car trip, Aitana listed the foods that she would definitely have to bring around for Spencer, and Morgan for that matter.

And when they got to return home, the conversation expanded to include the others' spice intolerance, in which they all concluded that the winner with the least spice tolerance was in fact Spencer. He had been absolutely irked with the whole squad afterwards. He might just have to get them back for that one…


A/N:

This one's kind of a filler but I promise you the next chapter is def cute and fluffy and I won't take forever to update it ;)

I also posted a new fic that's going to be Aitana's & Spencer's collection of one shots outside this story! It's titled Wonder and it's on my profile!

As always, I have AO3/Wattpad accounts under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)