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“I know.”

“But”—Duke pins Cade with a look—“he’s hard to beat.”

Cade grimaces. “No contest.” He turns his cards over, pushes them away. “Fold.”

Duke picks up his drink. “Elena was my father’s mistress’s daughter,” he says to no one in particular, but mostly to me, because everyone else knows the story. “I didn’t know that when I met her. We were kids. When I found out—” He stops. Works the glass. “I blamed her. Not for what her mother did. For what the knowing did to me.” He exhales. “For a decade, I treated her like she was the source of the damage instead of someone who had been living in the shadow of it her whole life.”

The table is quiet. The jukebox plays something slow.

“How’d she take it?” I ask.

“Like a queen.” Duke smiles as if to himself. “Then she forgave me. The best woman I know.”

“But did you ever say that she was masculine and unattractive?” Mav muses, looking at his cards. “Raise.”

Those who haven’t folded raise, except Hunt, who folds.

I frown. “You called Aria unattractive? Are you blind?”

“You lookin’ at my wife, Brooks?” Mav turns on me.

I raise my hand, the one not holding cards, palm out. “Just saying—calling her unattractive makes you fucking blind.”

“Call.” Mav turns his cards over.

Three kings and a pair of fives.

“Full house,” he adds, like he’s already halfway to the pot.

Duke lets out a long exhale and folds. “Yeah, I’m out.”

Hunt doesn’t hesitate. “Not beating that.” His cards hit the table, face down.

Kaz studies Mav for a second longer, then flicks his hand in to fold. “Fuck!”

It comes to me.

I look at my cards again—two twos in my hand, the other two face down from the draw. Not much to look at unless you know what you’re holding.

I turn them over. “Two pairs.”

They all wait and then see that the two pairs are four twos.

Mav leans back slowly, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“Jesus,” Duke mutters.

Cade just laughs. “You drew into that?”

“Something like that.”

I pull the chips in, not rushing it. Mav watches me with narrowed eyes.

“You stayed in on a pair,” he muses.

“Of twos?” Duke shakes his head.

“I’ve stayed in on worse.”