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She grinned at him, and though a burr of jealousy flickered through me, I set Lucas on her the most. It was only natural she’d get friendly with her guards, and Lucas was so unlike his brother it was unreal.
Both of us had dyslexia, and both of us had been tormented by that fucker.
The rule of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ was pretty much why I’d picked him as captain of my crew.
"What do you want to go up to?" she grouched. "Five thousand?"
Findley whistled under his breath. "That’s too high for me."
"You just got a promotion," Cade retorted.
"I got expenses, bud. I have a kid."
Findley’s son was one of the reasons Savannah had suggested him as a new member of my crew.
I had to assume she knew as much of the shit she did about my men because she’d asked Conor. Even I didn’t fucking know Findley had a kid until Savannah had come to me with the information.
I was coming to learn that having a wife involved in the business both saved and drained time.
"Can you spare fifty bucks?" Savannah asked, her concern clear.
Findley’s cheeks burned. "Yeah, fifty’s okay. I could go up to two-hundred."
"You sure? I know it’s tough being a single parent."
"How do you know it is?" Cade asked her.
I made a mental note to give Findley a raise—if money was that tight for him, his kid didn’t deserve to be brought up on the poverty line. Not when Findley’s wife had died of cancer a year back as well. Did he have insurance bills to pay that he hadn’t told me about?
She huffed. "I just know. It’s obvious. All the bills and no help."
"Okay, two hundred it is," I stated, trying to get things on track. Taking a seat, I asked, "Who wants to deal first?"
After Cade tossed a couple hundred bucks onto the center of the table, he raised a hand. While Savannah doled out poker chips, I threw him the new pack of cards and watched as he started shuffling them.
Savannah eyed his abilities with the deck, and I could see her interest flickering to life when he made two equal halves with the pack, squared the bottom half on top of the other, then interwove both of them before performing a bridge shuffle.
"A Faro shuffle," Savannah mused. "Interesting choice."
Cade smirked at her. "I used to date a dealer at a casino."
"And you wasted time getting her to teach you how to shuffle cards?" Findley mocked.
I chuckled which made each of them, aside from Savannah, freeze like I’d withdrawn a weapon.
"Come on, guys," my wife said lightly. "Aidan’s here for poker, not as your boss."
I cocked a brow at her but didn’t correct her.
Each of us knew I’d always be the boss, and each of us knew they’d always treat me like the boss—no matter what she said.
None of us had the heart to point that out though.
"Findley’s right," Lucas said after he took a sip of beer. "You’re talking about Lacey, aren’t you?"
"Yup," his brother said.
"Lacey had tits bigger than a couple cantaloupes. You need some charm tips, Cade, if all you got her to do was teach you how to shuffle cards."
