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Time to go in for the kill.
While the dealer shuffled the deck, I finished off my gin with a hard swallow. If I had to drink, I always chose whiskey, so leave it to my brother to only ever have gin when he knew I would be around.
Of course, I could have ordered a servant to go fetch whiskey from my father’s cellar if I’d wanted to. Instead, I flicked my chin at the maid to get her attention.
She knew me well enough to know what I was asking for, and she turned quickly to make me a coffee at the sideboard. I hated even the barest alcohol buzz when I was at the table; hated the way it blurred my logic, hated the idea of being the least bit sloppy. If ever there was a time to be on my game, this was it.
As the dealer began to deal, I said, “I’m out.”
“Figures,” Petre sneered on a snorting laugh. “Your playing sucks because you’re thinking about virgin pussy. But unfortunately, the virgin pussy you’re thinking about is between my soon-to-be-wife’s legs, and there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it.” He snickered and tapped the table for another card.
I might just kill this motherfucker right here and now.
Turning up the edge of my cards, I knew I had him. I wanted to kill him, but humiliation would have to do.
For now.
I sniffed hard and ran my tongue over my teeth. The maid handed me my coffee and I downed it in a gulp. The cook was Turkish and the coffee was top notch.
“Fine,” I said. “This is the last hand. Winner takes all.”
Petre shot a glance at me. “Winner already has all.” He spread his hands over his stack of chips. Like I needed the goddamned demonstration.
“I have no interest in your princess. I can get anything I need from any woman in the kingdom.” I seethed, trying to throw him off the scent of my attraction to Valeria. I raised the stakes to distract him even more. “Winner takes all…in cash,” I said, as I tossed one card to the dealer, keeping my four of a kind.
That got his attention.
I knew from talking to my father that my brother wasn’t as personally wealthy as he liked everybody to think; he depended on my dad for an allowance, like some fucking eight-year-old kid. I, on the other hand, had plenty of money that I’d earned all on my own.
The money wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to feel the sting of loss. The dwindling of his self-inflated power.
“You’re on,” he said and I did my best to hold back my smile.
CHAPTER 6
Vasile
Petre grinned as he met my eyes. He was happy that his hand was enough to beat me. But it wasn’t. I’d known him all my life and I could tell from his whole body that he was underestimating my hand, and overestimating his own.
Five card stud was a game where two good hands rarely came out. It made for long evenings and out there, in the cold, that was exactly what we needed. But when he’d exchanged three and picked up a matching card, he thought he was unbeatable.
I was about to teach him a lesson yet again.
“Turn them over, brother. Or just fold now.”
I shook my head, frowning. One thing about winning: it’s a lot less fun if your opponent expects it. And I intended to have fun making him regret what he’d done to Valeria.
“Perhaps we should just call it quits,” I said, aware that I was giving him an out. I also knew he wouldn’t take it, because Petre never knew when to cut and run.
“Not a fucking chance. You started the game, now finish it. Turn over your cards.”
“It’s a lot of fucking money, Petre.” I ran a hand over the top of my head, giving him an obvious tell that he was too dumb to know wasn’t real.
“He’s right, Petre, maybe it’s time to graciously withdraw—” Our father tried to help him but he was again, too dumb to understand. His ego and pride always overrode his sense of reality.
Petre shot my father a look that had more venom than a scorpion, and my father shrugged in response.
Did he know for sure that I had the upper hand? Perhaps. He loved both his sons, but Petre frustrated him with his bravado and lack of self-control.
Thus, why Petre still did not hold the combination to the safe where his allowance was kept. Father doled it out to him only when he made a request and never in large amounts. He did not have access to the stacks of gold and piles of money that came from the many streams of illegal, and legal, business ventures of the Greengallows.
“Well?” Petre fixed me with a glare, and I drew a sharp breath.
