The Winner has a Russian accent, too. Not as heavy and broken as his employee, but close enough. Maybe I was mistaken about him being an athlete. Could he be mafia?
And they were talking about me before I got here? My stomach knots with fear. Seriously, what has my brother gotten himself into? Gotten the both of us into?
I glance over my shoulder at Clem, who’s still sitting on the couch like a little boy awaiting his punishment. Then I turn back to the Russian, irritation and fear chasing the next words out of my mouth. “Look, I don’t know why you had me dragged out of my house at four in the morning, but congratulations, you’ve officially freaked me out. Now can you please tell me what this is all about?”
Another amused half-smile…that instantly disappears.
“Clem, Vlad, you will give us the room,” he says without looking away from me.
Chapter Three
That one command is all it takes. Vlad grabs Clem by the arm, and Clem doesn’t fight him at all as he’s pulled off the couch.
“Clem…” I say when I realize he’s planning on leaving me here alone with a man I just met.
“It’s okay, Billie, he won’t hurt you,” Clem says as Vlad pulls him past us. “He promised.”
“He promised? What do you mean he promised?” I call after him. “What’s going on?”
The only answer I get to those questions is the ding of the elevator Vlad and my brother have obviously gotten on. Oh God, my brother’s been dragged away.
And now I’m alone.
With the huge Russian winner.
I turn back to face him, my heart racing with a strange mix of curiosity, fear, and uncertainty. What now?
Apparently, introductions.
“Hello, I am happy to make your acquaintance,” he says, holding out a large hand to me. “Cheslav Rustanov. But you may call me Chess.”
Chess…
Suddenly I know why he seems familiar. This was the hockey player we got a few years back. Some big deal who’d won three Stanley Cups, according to the local NPR station. For a while the city seemed to be littered with billboards of him standing next to a red king chess piece and the declaration, “The King has come to play for the Charleston Knights.”
So not mafia, I realize, putting it all together. Hockey. He’s a hockey player. With a henchman who was totally willing to pull me out of my condo.
“Hi, I’m Billie,” I answer, awkwardly extending my elbow into the air instead of shaking his hand. “I’m pretty sure this is what we’re supposed to do now.”
Chess lowers his hand, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Like I’ve said something really funny, not given him a proper COVID etiquette reminder. South Carolina hasn’t had any confirmed cases yet, but the virus landed on the West Coast in February. And Cynda, who’s a nurse, told me that she thought it was only a matter of time before it spread across the entire United States.
“Please forgive me for dramatics,” he says. “This situation is very confusing for you, da?”
Da. I think that means yes in Russian.
I nod, then force my voice back up my throat to ask, “What’s going on? Why did you make Clem leave?”
“Would you like something to drink?” he asks instead of answering my question. “Vodka? Wine?”
“It’s five in the morning.”
He moves up the sunken den’s short set of stairs toward a wet bar I hadn’t registered before on the sidewall. “Gin and cranberry. That is your drink of choice, da?”
I jolt. How did he know?
“I have no gin,” he says as if I answered him. “But vodka and cranberry is good substitute, nyet?”
“What’s this all about?” I demand again as I watch him make two drinks. A vodka cranberry for me and just a straight shot of some vodka with Cyrillic letters on the label for him. “Why did your employee break into my home with a gun?”
“Drink first. Business later,” he answers coming back to me with the drinks.
“That’s a terrible order to do business in,” I answer, ignoring the drink he’s extending toward me. “Business now, so I know what I’m doing here.”
“You are stubborn,” he notes. “This will be fun.”
“Maybe for you,” I answer.
“For both of us,” he says. Then he takes a step closer. Way, way too close. “This is my promise.”
My belly flips all the way over at that promise. And his proximity.
“You should take the drink. Let it calm you before our talk,” he says, holding up the glass again.
I take the drink from him. But only to set it down next to the chessboard, before demanding, “Why am I here? What is going on?”
He sighs with another half-smile, like I’m somehow disappointing and amusing him at the same time. “Okay, we do this your way, krasotka.”
He sets his drink down on the opposite side of the chessboard. “Your brother misrepresented to us his ability to enter into high stakes gameplay. And now he owes me money. Money he says he cannot pay.”
I blink. I mean, no surprise there.
Clem is going through a messy divorce right now, which is why he came to stay with me after the last football season ended, instead of going home to his wife and kids. According to him, Natalie not only tied up all his assets but is also demanding five-figures in child support.
With as much as he makes for the NFL, he should be able to pay that amount easily, but unfortunately, most of my brother’s money gets eaten up by his poor choices and bad habits. He goes to Vegas at least four times a year to gamble, and he insists I’m just “a hater” whenever I point out that the house always wins. Gambling losses are another reason he’s staying with me as opposed to getting his own apartment.
I can just see him telling himself that this high stakes card game was a sure bet and spinning dreams of how he’d cover all his child support and have enough money to move out of my condo with all of its boring rules.
“How much does he owe you?” I ask, already running calculations.
After Clem got his football contract, I badgered and badgered him until he finally relented to let me manage his money. I put him on an allowance, and though he lives a ridiculously extravagant lifestyle, after all his bills are paid, I managed to set a few funds aside in a higher interest savings account that I labeled “Save Clem.”
Sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to access the “Save Clem” money to get my brother out of trouble. He’s been asking to borrow from it for some supposed investment opportunities ever since he moved in. Luckily I said no because as of now that account’s accumulated nearly thirty thousand dollars.
I’d been planning on giving the money to Natalie if Clem didn’t find a way to pay his child support before that, but I’d be willing to pay some of that toward this if it meant getting my brother out of danger.
“Three hundred thousand dollars,” the Russian answers.
I’m glad I refused to take the drink. If I had, it would be flying from my mouth right now.
“He lost that much in one poker hand?”
Cheslav shrugs. “It is not called high-stakes for nothing. And I always bet big, not little.”