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He recognizes me immediately and waves me over with a look of curiosity on his face. His very handsome face. All the O’Rourkes are handsome.
Cormac and his twin brother, Darragh, live in Seattle where they’re doctors. They moved away years ago, and from what I heard, they have nothing to do with their crime family.
Ducking away will raise suspicion. It’s not every day he sees a pakhan’s daughter.
I take a deep breath and steady myself. If he doesn’t regularly talk to his older brothers, maybe I’m safe.
“Stasia?” Cormac purrs the name I’m most known by back home when I get closer.
I can tell he’s drunk and this might work in my favor, too.
“Hi.” I lean in for a hug.
“God, I miss Astoria.” He grips me and sniffs. “I miss everything. How are things back home?”
Horrible.
“It’s great. I’m just here for the weekend with friends. Bachelorette party.” I swallow nervously. “I need to find them.”
“Looks like they ditched you.” He grabs my hand. “Come gamble with me.”
“No, that’s okay. I have to find them.” I need to get away from this guy.
I’m not sure sober Cormac would believe my father let me come here without a guard.
Pretending to call the girls, I dig into a worn and dated designer wristlet I had buried in the back of my closet. My purse, ID, and credit cards are still in Astoria. Reaching for my phone, I see the wad of cash Caruso gave me is gone.
Spinning around, I realize the older couple pickpocketed me!
Or maybe it was one of the bachelorette girls, and I didn’t notice. No wonder they ran off.
“Shit.” My heart pounds as the walls close in on me.
“Problem?” Cormac studies me.
His blue eyes hide the same kind of sadness that lingers on my skin. How we seem to have everything in the world, but we’re also chained.
Only… Cormac managed to break those chains.
“No. No problem.” I glance at all those chips in his hand. “Show me how to play roulette.”
Having no choice, because I not only lost all my money, I also have nowhere to sleep tonight, I let him steer me away.
We come up on a table I’ve seen in James Bond movies, but there are no chairs, and no one’s wearing a tux. In fact, most people around this table look one step away from being homeless, like me.
“That’s a grand, baby.” Cormac hands me a stack of black chips. “Put it on a number.”
I stare at one thousand dollars in my hand and consider running. But this place is swimming with security. I won’t get away with it.
“What are the odds?”
“Thirty-six to one. That’s what I love about this game.”
I see no chips on 21, so I drop the pile on it for good luck since it’s my age.
“No more bets. No more bets,” the dealer, who probably smokes a pack a day, bellows to the crowd.
She pinches a white ball into a sparkling, spinning roulette wheel, and it bounces all over the place.
