Page 138 of Sin Bin

They shared an ironic smile, and for a moment the years fell away and they were just two orphaned kids again. Battered, world-weary, bearing scars from a war that no one but them could see.

Meadow swallowed more whiskey and lowered her glass, her thumb tracing the rim. “Do you play poker?”

Logan’s lips twitched wryly. “Not anymore.”

Her skin tingled. From the whiskey, she told herself. Not from anything related to her dream. “You used to play?”

He nodded, propping his shoulder against the window. “I used to sneak out of group homes and catch a bus down here to play poker at different casinos. I was tall for my age, and I knew people who let me bypass the age restrictions as long as I gave them a cut of my winnings.”

Meadow tsk-tsked. “Shame on them.”

He laughed low in his throat.

She slanted him a smile. “Were you any good?”

“I was very good.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said with a disgusted eye roll. “Hockey, boxing, pool, poker. Is there any sport you aren’t good at?”

“I kinda suck at golf. But I don’t really consider that a sport.” He grinned and took a swig of whiskey before continuing. “I won lots of cash playing poker. I even started making a name for myself.” He gave her a sour look. “Santino eventually put a stop to that.”

Meadow grinned. “For your own good. You were a minor, Logan. And gambling is addictive.”

He grunted. “Sure. I guess.”

She laughed, shaking her head at him. “How’d you learn to play so well?”

He sobered, his eyes growing shadowed. “My mother used to take me to work with her when she couldn’t afford daycare. Children weren’t allowed on the casino floor, of course, but they looked the other way because I was Marisol’s kid—”

“Marisol? That was your mother’s name?”

He nodded, staring out the window. “There was a booth in the back where I’d sit playing with my toys and watching TV while she worked. When I got sleepy, I’d lay down on the seat and take a nap.” He raised his glass to his lips, pausing to explain, “My mom was very beautiful and the customers really liked her, so her boss made a lot of allowances for her. She checked on me and brought me food during her breaks, but sometimes she got so busy she would forget about me. Whenever that happened, I’d sneak over to the poker room to watch the players. Even as a kid, I knew that’s where the real action was.”

He paused to take a meditative sip of his whiskey. “One of the best poker players was this Italian guy named Gino Roselli. He was a mobster, which I didn’t really understand at the time. I just knew he was a sharp dresser and everyone seemed afraid of him. Sometimes when he was playing poker and the pot started getting really high, he’d calmly take out his gun and put it on the table just to warn the other players that they’d better not even think about cheating.”

Logan chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. “One day when he saw me peeking around the corner, he called me over to the table. I was terrified. I thought he was mad at me for spying on them. I gulped hard and slowly made my way over to him. He picked me up, sat me on his lap and told me that I reminded him of his grandson. One of the other guys joked that I was much cuter, and Mr. Roselli laughed and agreed. He taught me how to play poker that day. It was the most fun I’d had in a very long time.”

Meadow smiled as she pictured an adorable little boy with a mop of unruly black hair and shining dark eyes, grinning and giggling as he played poker with a bunch of mobsters.

“My mom freaked out when she saw me sitting on Mr. Roselli’s lap,” Logan continued. “She ran over to the table, snatched me off his lap and carried me away to the bathroom. I remember her being so upset that she was shaking. Shaking with anger and fear. She didn’t speak Spanish often, but when she got riled up, she could leave your ears ringing. She was yelling in Spanish and she kept repeating the words mal hombre, which means bad man. She gave me a good spanking and warned me not to go anywhere near Señor Roselli again. I didn’t listen to her, of course. But I never got caught again.” A small smile flitted over Logan’s face. “And that’s how I learned to play poker.”

Meadow nodded slowly, wondering how a mother could be that worried for her child’s safety and still make the heartless decision to abandon him.

Logan stared out the window. “About a year after she left me, I ran away from my foster home and found my way back to the casino.”

Meadow stared at him in horror. “You were only six!”

He nodded tightly. “I went back to look for Mr. Roselli. I was hoping…I don’t know. I guess I was hoping he could take me in. Give me a home.” Logan paused, staring down into his glass. “I’ll never know what he would have done because he wasn’t there.”

“Where was he?”

“He was dead. Killed by a rival mob.”

“Oh.” Meadow hesitated. “I’m…sorry?”

A rueful half smile touched Logan’s mouth. “No condolences necessary. He was a mobster. He killed people for a living. I knew he wasn’t a good guy. But he was one of the few people in my life who’d been kind to me. I thought living with such a dangerous man had to be far better than staying at the fucked-up foster home I’d just run away from.”

Meadow touched his arm, her throat aching with sympathy for the wounded child he’d been, and the haunted man he was now.

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