Page 152 of What Started In Deception

“Yeah, it is.” Will closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean for things to get this out of control.”

Ty nodded, knowing that saying nothing was usually the way to go when someone was ready to spill. And Will was finally ready to get it all off his chest.

“For years, I played in a couple of Fantasy Football leagues. We’d place some friendly wagers and have a little fun. Sometimes, I would win. Usually, I didn’t. It was never a big deal. I never gave it much thought once the season was over.” Will shrugged.

Ty nodded again.

“But something changed last summer. Mac was sick all the time with the pregnancy. It was so fucking scary to see her so down for the count. She lost so much weight when she didn’t have any to lose in the first place. She could barely eat, and she slept all the time when she wasn’t vomiting. There wasn’t much that I could do but hold her close in bed and promise her that everything would be okay when I had no idea if it would be. I watched a lot of sports on my phone while she slept snuggled up against me. I kept seeing all these advertisements for a first free bet on those sports betting sites, and one day, for reasons that I can’t explain, I gave it a shot.”

Ty sighed, understanding where this conversation was going to go.

“I won. Five hundred bucks. Then a thousand. It started out as fun, you know? Just little bets here and there to pass the time.”

Ty sighed again. “Yeah.”

Will shook his head. “But as the weeks passed, it wasn’t fun anymore. I had accounts with all the online sportsbooks. I wasn’t just betting on money lines anymore. It turned into point spreads and parlays. Then I tried a couple of the online casinos. I started taking smallish chunks of money out of the savings account, and I would lose it. Then I would take out more because I was sure that if I doubled down, I would win it all back, and a couple of times I did. But then I would bet that so I could get us ahead, and before I knew what was happening, I’d blown through one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Ty blew out a long breath. “I can’t even imagine how that felt.”

More tears slid down Will’s cheeks. “At that point, Mac was finally feeling better. Life was getting back to normal around here. There was no way in hell I was going to tell her that I’d messed up big-time.”

Ty nodded again because he had no idea what to say.

“I should’ve told her, Ty. I should’ve sat her down and promised her that I was going to get help. But I’m clearly a complete dumbshit because I started tapping into the money that we set aside from the sale of her business. I was embarrassed and ashamed, and I wanted to win it all back without her ever knowing. By the time Maverick arrived, I’d blown through most of that, too.”

“Fuck, man,” Ty said.

Will nodded. “Everything was completely out of control by that point. I’m losing money left and right. Everly was regressing and acting out. Mac was stressed out because the breastfeeding wasn’t going well, and we were both sleep-deprived. And she kept bringing up the idea of moving to Connecticut to be closer to her family. Dad was talking about the presidency and our obligations to the campaign, and I just kept making bad choices.”

“I’m assuming this is where ‘the wrong people’ enter the picture.”

Will nodded as he sighed. “I’m truly the world’s stupidest man.”

Ty shook his head. “You have a gambling addiction.”

Will huffed out a humorless laugh. “I wish that saying that out loud somehow made a difference.”

“So, you met the wrong people,” Ty said, wanting to get them back on track.

Will nodded again. “I met him at The Tap Room—you know the place with the killer cheeseburger?”

Ty nodded.

“He was there several times when I was. We talked regularly whenever I came in for lunch. He’s an investment banker. I thought he was an upstanding guy.”

Ty nodded again.

“We got to be pretty chummy, talking about our families and our jobs. Then one day I said something. I don’t even remember what, and he said that if I ever needed a loan between friends, to let him know.”

Ty exhaled another quiet breath, because again, he knew where this was going.

“At first, I politely refused. There was no way I was going there with someone I didn’t know all that well, but then I lost the last of the money for the buy-in, and I got desperate. He loaned me fifty grand, and I lost all of it by the end of the next fucking week.”

Ty rubbed at the back of his neck instead of cringing. Because listening to the downfall of Will Monroe was damn near excruciating.

“I kept telling him that I would get the money back to him, and he kept telling me not to worry—that I could get it back to him when I could. I knew I was out of control, so I started giving chunks of my paycheck to Asher to hold on to for me so I could get the funds back to Richard.”

Ty perked up when Will said the name that he’d been waiting to hear.