Chloe presses her lips together, but aside from that, she hides her shock far better than she did when she walked into the first Banks Resort.
The first deal begins, and rather than look at my cards, I briefly study everyone at the table, working to memorize their expressions because while everyone claims to have a poker face, few do. Minor details often reveal their relief or concern, and at least half of this crowd is here simply because they don’t want to deal with being recognized at a casino, believing their money makes them a celebrity. The other half is here knowing these guys are easy money.
Chloe folds consistently for the first ninety minutes. I can tell she’s nervous, see it in the way she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, and declines getting anything to drink. It’s her turn to be on the button, giving her the best position because she’s the last to act.
I fold pre-flop, and when a waitress walks by, I raise my hand to catch her attention. “Two Sazeracs.” I point to Chloe to let the waitress know one goes to her.
Chloe’s green eyes slide to me, and I nod.
“Call,” she says.
“Was wonderin’ if you were gonna play or just sit there and tease me.” The guy in the tan suit laughs, taking a drink before he looks at me. “Don’t worry, I know she’s hands-off.”
“She’s fucking eyes and thoughts off, too,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “Can’t blame you.” He leans back in his chair. “Call.”
The driver from the Aston Martin with black painted eyelids chuckles as she calls.
Joseph flips over an ace of spades, eight of spades, and a ten of hearts.
“Check,” Cowboy says.
“Check,” the woman beside him echoes.
“Bet,” the woman beside me with crazy long fingernails says, sliding a short stack of chips forward. If I had to place a bet on it, I’d say she’s the best player here.
A man beside her, wearing a tired expression and more diamonds than sense, folds.
I take a drink as I watch Avery smile—all confidence and bullshit. He pushes a tall stack of chips forward.
Chloe takes a drink. “Call.” She matches the bet.
Cowboy folds. Beside him, the woman with dark eyeshadow folds as well. Crazy-ass fingernail lady stares at Avery, running her nails silently over the felt table. “Call.”
I turn to watch Joseph flip over an ace of diamonds on the turn.
The pair of aces on the table has everyone excited as we turn to crazy fingernails to hear her play. “Check,” she says.
Avery grins, a sadistic glint in his eyes as he watches the unease in Chloe’s expression and posture that has every one of my muscles growing strained with a restless tension. “Bet. Eight hundred.” He counts out the chips and slides them forward.
Chloe blinks, staring at her cards for a long moment before setting them face down. “Call.” She takes a drink.
The lady beside me shakes her head and folds.
I glance at the pot that’s nearly three grand, hoping that if Chloe loses, she doesn’t take it hard. The river comes as a seven of spades.
Chloe takes another drink, ignoring Avery as he attempts to make eye contact with her.
I clear my throat, ready to give him a similar warning that I gave to Cowboy, but Chloe looks at me and shakes her head once, smiling as she does.
“Bet. Twelve hundred,” Avery says.
Chloe licks her lips and finishes her drink with one pull. “All in.”
Avery chuckles. “Call.”
I drain my glass.
Chloe’s eyes flare, and regret slides through my gut. The money is nothing, but convincing her of that fact is going to take effort if she doesn’t win this hand.
Cowboy whistles. “This is gonna be good.”
Avery drops his cards to the table: pocket eights, giving him a full house. Cowboy shouts out a cheer, and then Chloe flips her cards over, revealing pocket aces, giving her four of a fucking kind. My chest swells with excitement and pride and something that sits too fucking close to my damn heart as I look at her, noting the gentle smile her lips are curved into as Joseph announces her the winner.
We play for six hours, and though Chloe loses a few hands, she wins far more.
“So glad you came,” Jericho says as we leave with our winnings. “Make sure you bring her again next time.”
I give a polite nod, leading Chloe to the lift.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her.
Her green eyes meet mine, bright with the adrenaline from winning. “I think I’m shaking,” she admits.
I laugh. “Now we have to go celebrate.”
A smile spreads across her face. “That was crazy.”
“You fucking wiped the floor.”
“I got lucky,” she says.
I scoff.
The lift doors part to a darkened parking lot. Two more security guys meet us, one of them following us to where we’re parked.
“There’s something slightly unsettling about needing someone to walk us to the car,” she says as we fasten our seat belts.
“It’s more to make Jericho look good rather than because there are any potential threats.”
“Is it weird that Mr. Avery was here?” she asks. “I mean, what are the odds?”
I glance at her seconds before the dimmers fall and the interior of the Tesla goes dark. “I knew he’d be here.”
She’s silent.
“I have some suspicions, and I knew he liked to play because his ex-wife is now married to the GM of the San Francisco site. He hates Avery and is happy to tell me all about it, so, I asked Jericho to invite him.”
“But you didn’t even talk to him.”
“I wanted to see how he played.”
“Because knowing he sucked at poker told you something?”
I chuckle. “Watching him buy back in four times did.”
“I’m not following.”
“He lost twenty grand tonight and drank his way through a bottle of gin. He’s either up to his eyeballs in debt or he’s embezzling money.”
17
Chloe
“Embezzling?” the word squeaks out of me.
“I can’t prove anything yet, but remember what I said about the numbers not adding up for the New Orleans hotel?” His gaze shifts to mine as he stops at a red light. “I thought maybe I was missing something, but then when we got to Austin, I assumed that the hotel was doing shitty because the GM is a clown. But then I learned that they’d paid to do a bunch of remodeling and nothing had been done or was even scheduled. When I asked Sid about it, he didn’t even know what I was talking about. So I contacted Vivian, our accountant at the San Francisco location because she’s worked for the hotels forever, and my dad’s always complained about her being paranoid and rigid—which means she’s good—and I talked to her about the examples and hired her to start looking over the other sites.
“Before we got here, she sent me a whole list of concerns. Half of them are likely erroneous and loose bookkeeping, but there are too many inconsistencies and not enough answers from Avery. He keeps telling Vivian that he’ll look into things and follow up, but he never does, or when he does, it’s some bullshit answer that doesn’t address the issue.”