Page 65 of Business or Pleasure

I nodded.

“All right. Follow me.”

The music was blasting in the near-empty club as we walked through the front. A few waitresses in skimpy, but not sleazy, uniforms took drinks to the handful of men who were already at tables. No one was on the stage right now, but I had no doubt there’d be an act of some kind up there later. Probably one with lots of skin but all the essential bits covered.

Like I said, this was one of Alesini’s classy joints.

I followed Bear past the stage to the far left where another massive man stood next to a door that said Authorized Personnel Only. He looked at me, then nodded at Bear, opening the door and motioning for us to go through.

It looked like something out of a Bond film. The front of the club was nice. This was…ostentatious. All fancy carved stuff along the bar and art on the walls. Apart from the main poker table at center stage, four other tables dotted the scenery. While a couple spots were still empty, the place was fuller than the main club.

I did a quick scan of the security at the edges of the room, breathing a sigh of relief when I didn’t see Snake, Len, or Remy among them. That was something I worried about when I came up with this plan, that one of the men who saw me in the warehouse would spot me here. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be around.

“Just tell me you’ll be careful,” Bear said.

“I will,” I promised. And I intended to keep that promise…as much as it was in my ability to do it. Some stuff was just out of my hands.

Bear looked like he wanted to give me a hug, but since we weren’t at The Catch-all, where no one would think twice of me hugging one of the security guys, doing that would just draw attention to me. In a place like this, with these people, it wouldn’t be good attention either. I wanted them to underestimate me, but they couldn’t think I was too weak, not without putting myself in danger. So Bear just gave me another concerned look and then headed back out to the front to do his job.

Instead of going straight to a table, I went to the bar and ordered a shot of tequila. My stomach was in knots, and I needed to ease my nerves, or I wasn’t going to be able to do what I came here to do. I was good at keeping my head in tough situations, but even I hadn’t gone up against someone like Alesini before. And never with these sorts of odds. The heat from the alcohol helped and the bartender gave me the run-down about the tables.

“The main table won’t open until Lucius Alesini arrives,” he said with the air of a man who gave this lecture often. “That’ll be later tonight. His table has a fifty thousand dollars buy-in. The other tables have a ten thousand dollars buy-in, and you can work your way up.”

The look he gave me said he thought I was going to lose big and early, but he valued his job too much to warn me off. Games needed people to lose, after all.

A dangerous night laid ahead of me, and the sooner I got started, the sooner it would be over. Having scanned the tables, I found a seat open at table four. I sat down and exchanged my bills for chips, ignoring the surprise on the faces of the men as I settled in to do some damage.

As the game started, I came out strong, and was up twenty-five thousand within half an hour. The guys I won it off of were pretty pissed, probably more than they’d have been if they lost to a man, but I wasn’t here to make friends. Besides, it wasn’t my fault they underestimated me.

I could only hope word wouldn’t spread too fast. The buy-in for the main table of fifty thousand dollars was within reach and I didn’t want everyone hearing about the girl cleaning people out. I definitely didn’t want Alesini to hear about it. I wanted the first time he saw me to be when I sat down across from him.

Drinks were free while playing, so I ordered a martini. Straight up with an olive, shaken not stirred. Not because I liked it, but the Bond thing made me smile and anything that could help take the edge off was an advantage. Unlike some of the other players, I drank slowly in order to remain alert. It helped that I wasn’t actually fond of it. Another good reason for me to order the martini.

While some people would say to stay away from alcohol while playing, having a bottle of water instead of indulging in free alcohol was definitely a sign of a professional. One of the first things Franklin taught me about poker was to recognize the amateurs at the table and focus on them for the most part, never going against another professional, unless I had a great hand.

Right now, the biggest amateur was sitting right across from me. I dubbed him Mr. Big Spender. He was the main contributor to my growing piles of chips, and it looked like he was about to lose it all. As I watched, he wagered everything with a Queen and a King. Not the best hand when his opponent had a Queen and an Ace. In this match-up, Mr. Big Spender would lose eighty-five percent of the time.

Dammit.

A straight. By some miracle, he won the hand and piled up his winnings.

But any luck, the stack of chips in front of him would shift my way soon enough.

* * *

I didn’t know how much time passed, but I finally made it to the main table, helped along by Mr. Big Spender and his inability to quit while he was ahead.

So after a brief break, here I was, sitting across from Lucius Alesini, mob boss and avid poker fan. I heard about Alesini before this, of course, but I never actually met him. Although my games may not have been legal before, there was illegal and then there was his kind of illegal.

As I sat across from him, he looked just as badass as I expected. About forty, dark eyes, thinning dark brown hair, and a scar running across his chin. Tall with broad shoulders, and slightly overweight, he was an intimidating man. And one of the best poker players in the city. I’d have to be at my best to beat him tonight. And I had to win. Losing was not an option. My father’s life and my future literally depended on it.

As the game started, I played safe and folded the first couple of hands, using the time to study the players. In particular, Lucius Alesini. He was, after all, the one to beat. Everything I heard said that he rarely lost. I just needed to determine how much of that was actual skill and how much was people just being too scared to beat him.

I hoped he’d think I was one of the frightened ones, assuming that’s why I kept looking at him, rather than reading him.

He was aggressive, playing most of his hands, even with weak cards. Then I noticed a slight twitch over his left eye whenever he bluffed, which surprised me. A player of his caliber rarely had such an obvious tell. He either was honestly unaware of it or was unable to control it. Or both.

Now that I found a tell, I figured the best strategy was to wait for a good hand, then, if I saw him twitch his left eye, gamble all my chips. Get in and out with a big wager before anyone asks questions. As for beating Alesini, all I had to do was win enough of his money to pay Franklin's debts.

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