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3
THE ROYAL SAXON FLUSH
Pretty good for a chick.
It was an expression I heard routinely.
Pretty good.
Despite the hours I’d spent learning the craft, reading the books, eating mounds of M&Ms instead of dinner since they were the more appealing spheres to use as practice poker chips.
For a chick.
Regardless of my professionalism, of playing to win, of wiping out most of my competition once I’d gotten a knack for it.
Admittedly, I used my feminine wiles to my advantage. A flash of leg here, a bat of fake eyelashes there … it helped. But my salon-perfected hair and spin classes didn’t assist in spotting the right card in the river or playing the odds when they weren’t in my favor and winning anyway. The rush of success and the thundercrack of losing, the thousands of dollars more often than not slipping out of my fingers until I’d figure out how to rake them back. Nothing came without sacrifice. Not the fast way or with luck.
And this time, I’d lost. Terribly and irrevocably, both at cards and in life. But I’d fought, and finally sat in a suite at a luxury hotel in the center of Los Angeles. Yet, to the FBI and players alike, I was stillpretty good for a chick.
Well, this chick had breakfast sent up to eat in her room.
There was little cash to spare, but I figured the FBI could fork over a few more dollars for an omelet and some home fries.
Yeesh.I cringed upon looking at the room service menu. Or maybe more like $45.
Didn’t matter. I’d spent the better part of this year taking their ten grand sums and turning it to fifty. Eventually, I flipped that fifty into hundreds of thousands. On and on the wheel of fortune went as I took my seat at clandestine tables with no room for the tourists of casinos and hoteliers.
My talent for cards had flourished. I was no longer the cocktail waitress with rainbow hair playing her first round. Once Kai had spotted me, he’d sensed my cravings for something more. And once I’d discovered he was an undercover FBI agent, he’d pushed me to become as good as he was in order to lure his most coveted prey: Theo Saxon, dark prince to New York’s eminent mob boss, who preferred to supervise illegal poker games rather than traffic weapons and young girls the way his older brother was wont to do.
Unfortunately for Kai, within a year I’d surpassed his skill. Perhaps my determination to become better was because of my past, but more likely, it was due to the burn of losing the man I’d loved and the fact that he hadn’t said a word to me after he disappeared.
Not. One. Entire. Syllable.
Most of the time, I ignored the idea that Theo had long moved on. He wouldn’t—not with the kind of love we’d left on the table. Theo had to come back at some point. Whether it was to try to save, chastise, or just plain yell at me for refusing to exit sticky situations, well … that was up to him, because he’d have to fuckingappearfirst.
So, two years ago, when the FBI had proposed I become part of the tactical plan to chase down and eventually capture the fugitives, Theo and Trace Saxon, there’d been no room for hesitation.
In other words, I didn’t have a choice.
According to them, I was Theo’s weak spot. Using me, putting me into plays where I could be in danger and he’d be forced to swoop in and rescue the damsel. Somewhere in the midst of that, the FBI was convinced Theo would reveal where his older, more threatening brother, Trace, was—
Ha.
In the beginning, I’d followed the FBI’s rules and played into their idea that Theo wanted to be a hero, but underneath my guise, I’d planned. I’d learned and crafted, and instead of becoming a victim, I turned infamous.
A young female in her mid-twenties playing strong and winning big in the New York City backrooms wasn’t the norm. Within a year, I’d received invitations to the biggest sharks around and eventually, was able to stretch my talents outside the city limits.
Pretty good for a girl.
Theo had to hear of me. Unless he truly was a fugitive hiding under a rock. I’d made certain of it, winning big, taking on powerful men, earning notoriety.
Yet, there was no sign of him.
Two years of honing my skills with the government during the day and throwing chips in with the big boys at night, and I had yet to catch a single flash of his face.
I searched for clues. With law enforcement bearing down so heavily, Theo wouldn’t pop in front of me in a line at Starbucks. He’d send me hints, hidden in napkins in restaurants or written in the steam of mirrors after I stepped out from hotel showers. It was such a hopeless wish that I scoffed every time I checked my medicine cabinet, but I had tobelievethat he’d get into contact with me somehow, to at least let me know he was all right.
If Theo loved me, that was what he’d do.
