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Fortune tellers, psychics, mediums: they are all cheats. And there’s nothing I hate more in this world than a cheat.
And yet…
I swallow the rock in my throat and rub at the scruff on my jaw.
And yet, this old gypsy in front of me—she knew my mama was going to die.
“You knew.”
She slowly sweeps up the fanned cards and places them in a neat pile. “Your mother drew the death duo.”
That fucking phrase. The first time I’d heard it, I had laughed in disbelief. Now, I don’t find it so funny.
Less than a month ago, Mama had turned up at my penthouse suite, loaded with an overnight bag and a spark in her eyes. She gifted me a watch to celebrate me opening my first casino, Lucky Cat. But it soon became clear that supporting my struggling business venture wasn’t her only reason for her visit to Sin City.
“There’s someone I’d like to see,” she’d said coyly, sitting at my dingy casino bar and white-knuckling a lemon drop martini. “A fortune-teller just off Fremont Street.”
I’d rolled my eyes, but she’d insisted. She’s the best. Nobody in the Pacific Northwest reads playing cards. Come on Rafey, when in Vegas…
I’d darkened the doorway of the wagon during the entire reading, fists in pockets, making sure she didn’t get ripped off any more than she’d agreed to.
First, she drew the Seven of Hearts. A betrayal by a loved one.
Then, the Jack of Diamonds. The bearer of bad news.
Lastly, the gypsy had flipped over the Ace of Spades.
The wagon had fallen silent. Eventually, my mama dragged her palms over her skirt and said, “Well, then.”
Now, I grip the edge of the table and shoot the gypsy a blistering glare. “The Death Duo,” I repeat. “You seriously telling me everyone who draws the Jack of Diamonds, followed by the Ace of Spades, keels over and dies?”
She hitches a shoulder. “It’s a rare combination.”
“Not that rare. The odds of drawing both cards consecutively from a single deck without replacing them is one in two thousand, six hundred and fifty-two.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“No, I’ve done the math.” I slip my hand in my pocket and brush my fingers over my dice. “It’s statistics. The law of probability.”
“Not everything in this world can be explained away with reason or logic.” There’s a smugness to her tone; one that makes me want to choke the life out of her. “But you’re beginning to see that, aren’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”
I run my tongue over my teeth. Drag my eyes to the dusty beams propping up the roof of the wagon. The odds of my mama drawing the supposed Death Duo were slim, but the series of events that happened in the month after are near-impossible to put a statistical probability on.
Mama died from a heart attack, despite having a clean bill of health. Then, less than a week later, my father died from a sudden bleed on the brain.
I huff out a laugh of disbelief. A week. Seven fucking days; that’s all it took to wipe out half my immediately family. Seven days for the rug to be pulled from under my feet.
Today, it was Angelo who tugged the last square inch of said rug with his sudden announcement.
I’m not coming back to Devil’s Dip.
We were standing on the edge of the cliff, three feet from our parents’ freshly buried bodies when he told us. It wasn’t so much of a bombshell but a venomous whisper; he’d muttered the words so quietly I thought the wind was playing tricks on my ears.
But with one look into his dark eyes, I saw turbulence and an iron-clad resolve.
I guess I’m a liar. I do believe in fate in some way. Like every made man, my life path has been mapped out for me since the day I was born. My father was the capo of Devil’s Dip, and it was a given that once he died, the title would be passed to Angelo, my oldest brother. It was also a given I’d become his underboss, and Gabe, our youngest brother, his consigliere.
I’ve learned a hard lesson in seven days. Because now Angelo is halfway across the Atlantic, Gabe is fuck-knows-where, and I’m left standing at the end of my so-called path, alone, wondering where the road went.
