Page 25 of Roberto

I flipped mine over.

Full house – three Queens and two Jacks.

I had known that my hand was the best possible. That had been the only reason I’d continued betting.

Han looked morose as I raked in all his money.

“I toldyou I neverbluff,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah…” he grumbled.

Han got another $100,000 in chips and we continued playing.

Over the next two hours, I folded 36 out of 39 times. Most of the time, I folded on the first round of betting.

I won the other three hands and raked in $175,000.

“When are you going to believe me?” I asked Han.

“I believe you now,” he groaned. “Youneverbluff.”

I just smiled as I arranged my chips into piles.

When Han was on his sixth whiskey and third rack of chips, he said out of nowhere, “I’m bored with poker. What about you?”

“We can stop whenever you want.”

Even figuring in the $100,000 I had to pay back, I was up over $200,000 – more than half of Niccolo’s and my private flight to Hong Kong. A good night.

“Let’s cash out,” Han slurred.

We left the table immediately and went to the cashier’s.

I retained a small portion of my winnings in Hong Kong dollars just to have some walking-around money. The rest I took as a check for $227,510 US.

Once I’d pocketed my winnings, I looked at my watch.

11 PM Hong Kong time. Although it was only 5 PM back in Italy, I was starting to feel the weariness from my plane trip.

“What do you want to do now?” Han asked.

“Go back to my hotel room and sleep.”

“Come on–don’t beboring.”

“I pride myself on being boring.”

He snorted. “I can believe that. How about a nightclub?”

“Absolutely not.”

“There’s a couple of good strip clubs nearby.”

“No, thank you.”

Han looked around as though afraid he might be overheard, then leaned in close. “I know a couple of brothels we could go to.”

“Why are you whispering?”

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