It’s a night made for mistakes. Drunken or otherwise. And I’m realizing I’m making just that as I stroll into the Strip-emporium on the corner of Corinth and Lexington.
The music is blaring, a stream of laser lights scanning the expanse of the dark carpeted floor. The screaming sounds of Def Leppard lyrics drum overhead, searing into my subconscious and as I pass by Walter, the meathead bartender, my eyes skim over the blonde dancer swinging around the shiny metal pole in the center of the club, her long legs capturing the looks of every man within a hundred feet.
Every eye…except mine.
My eyes are stuck on the far side of the strip club, and I bypass the drooling onlookers in favor of the small curtained area just beyond VIP. The site of many wins, sins and more.
I pull back the black curtain, slipping behind it, opening the hidden door carved into its cheap wall. I unlatch the lock, pulling.
A new room opens up to me. Hell, a new world. With welcoming arms, the gambling tables invite me in, and I step inside the dimly lit area, my stare scanning the stacks of chips and money over every green-fibered tabletop. Taunting me.
As they always have.
In a way, this is my addiction. Always had been.
Risk was a regular part of my life, a thrill I’d never gotten over. Stability bored the hell out of me, and somehow I’d discovered at the tender age of twenty-two that the taste of sameness would never satisfy. Never quench my unending thirst for more.
It was the thought of that permanence, that perpetual droll that had driven me away from Harvard Law, had changed the course of my life. Forever.
I stare at the several decks of playing cards splayed before my eyes, feeling that itch that burned in my fingers every time I was ready to take a bet. And tonight that itch was nuclear, my body seeming to know what it needed when someone like Violet Keats was within fifty miles of me.
I stand, hovering, over a set of players focused on a particular poker game when the dealer at the center of the circular table stares over at me, his dead eyes piercing right through my skin. He points at my chest and then the surface of the table.
“In or out, Heath?”
I slide my silk-lined coat from my shoulders, slipping quietly into a seat. I meet his stare. “I’m in.”
He adds me into the dealing rotation, handing me a set of cards along with everyone else. A waitress swings by, taking several orders, and I ask for the darkest bourbon they’ve got. A vintage to mirror my tormented mood.
I settle in, staring at my selection of cards, my eyes soaking in a pair of Kings. My pulse picks up.
Setting a stack of hundreds in the center of the fuzz-covered table, I lean back in my chair, admiring the view of victory in my palm. Until I feel a cold hand on my shoulder—an unwelcome touch that feels strangely familiar.
I pull away, glancing up into the face of another King—this one much worse than the first two. I take in his face.
David King.
My father’s law partner was always a prick. No matter what his nameplate said.
A money-hungry asshole more interested in swimming in dollar bills than being a decent person, he had always regarded me in some way like the scum beneath his Oxford shoes. His wrinkled hands are rough against my shirt collar, his stare steady. His blue eyes are cold—arctic, despite his smile, and as he grins down at me, I resist the urge to wrap my fingers around his… and squeeze. Squeeze until I hear a crunch hard enough to break bone.
But I put the bone-splinting thoughts aside and do nothing but glare as David King finds a seat across from me, his lightly weathered face smug as he peers at me through a set of ocean blue eyes crinkled at the corners.
He runs a few fingers through the thick salt-and-peppered strands across his head, glaring back at me, his countenance just as harsh. Just as coolly conceited as ever.
I flick a thumb over the cards between my fingers. I nod. Just once.
“David King,” I utter slowly.
“Heath Sparrow.” His stare holds a dash of humor. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Thought?” I respond. “Or hoped?”
“Does it make a difference?” He motions towards the waitress, who takes his order, smiling down at him as she does.
The overconfident prick.
I’d push the table on him, if I thought I wouldn’t get kicked out. The itch of risk in me from earlier becomes harder and harder not to scratch.
I’m ready to make a bet that has nothing to do with the game in front of me. I smile.
“Nice to know you think so highly of me, David.”
“Oh, I do.” He blinks, baring a little of his teeth. It’s more a grimace than a grin. “Especially now… Considering what’s happened with your dad.”
I want to strangle him dead. If my hands weren’t currently occupied with my cards, I might hold them around his throat. Choke the fucking life out of him for even opening his dickheaded mouth to mention my family.
My eyes never leave his face. “Thank you for your condolences.”
“My sincerest apologies.” David places a hand on his sturdy chest. “That was my attempt to give them to you. Your dad is a fine man.”
Fine to who? I’m tempted to say but don’t.
Especially as David continues, kicking back in the black paint-chipped seat as if he belongs there. As if I won’t break every bone in his goddamned body for being the asshole he always was.
He crosses one suited leg over the other, adjusting the cuffs to an English-styled ensemble. His tailoring is perfect. Just like mine.
He, of course, has no qualms, letting me know that I’m not the only high roller at our little illegal poker game, and he gazes at me like the cat who ate the canary, his eyes full of some sentiment I can’t yet describe.
I feel an ambush coming, but can’t tell from what angle. I wait.
“A very fine man,” he keeps going. “The best, in fact. Just like Chris Jackson.”
Here we go.
“It’s a shame Chris has been implicated in all this mess. He’s a fine businessman himself. A good man.”
“If by ‘good,’ you mean ‘ruthless and money-grubbing,’” I counter, and David grins—amused at my rising anger, his mouth open to say something else when the shouts at a table across from us reaches our ears, the sounds of a verbal shuffle bringing us back down to earth.
I glance up, only to catch a drunken player swinging at one of his poker opponents, his fist flying through the air as he tries to throw a punch at the other man. He misses, stumbling to the floor as momentum carries him downward.
The room erupts in laughter, cheers and jeers, and as security swoops in to escort the two men out, David King’s eyes never stray from mine, his poised stature seemingly more empowered by the violence happening around us.
He gets off on it. The prick.
And I’d love to shove my fucking cards exactly where the sun doesn’t shine. I hike one eyebrow high as he eyeballs me.
“What about those men, David? Are they ‘fine’ too? Seeing as how your standards for decency couldn’t be any goddamned lower than it already is.”
He smirks in response, one side of his slightly wrinkled face pulling upwards towards his ear. He leans back, unfazed by my comments. With the confidence of a man with the perfect poker hand, he straightens his shoulders, his size seeming to increase as he angles forward. His voice sinks to almost a whisper.