Page 12 of Deadly Hands

His new apartment in upscale Hayven Heights was another reminder of how far he’d come - a far cry from counting twenty-seven steps between bed and desk in his old cramped studio.

Now he had floor-to-ceiling windows that turned the city into an abstract painting of lights, and enough space that he could pace for hours without retracing his steps. The doorman still gave him questioning looks, as if sensing he didn’t quite belong among the lawyers and tech executives who filled the other units. Maybe he didn’t.

Funny how three weeks could normalize anything, even working for Nikon. Even waking up to a view of the river instead of a water-stained ceiling.

Still, the ghost of his old life haunted him in small ways. Like now, when his hand lifted to adjust a tie he no longer wore. Nikon had fixed that particular habit with a single suggestion that left no room for debate.

‘You look too much like a banker,’ Nikon had said, his calloused thumb brushing against Reuben’s neck just above the starched collar. ‘We want them to underestimate you.’ Thephantom sensation of that touch lingered longer than Reuben’s tie had.

Reuben’s phone sat dark and silent beside his chips, recently purged of all those job sites that had served up two hundred flavors of rejection. Now, his screen filled with text notifications from Nikon, instead of automated HR responses.

The transition from job hunting to playing million-dollar pots felt like stepping through a mirror - everything familiar turned strange, everything straight turned crooked. Yet still, in quiet moments, usually around 3 AM, when the adrenaline ebbed and the weight of what he was doing settled in, Reuben’s thoughts drifted to Corey. ‘Dead? Alive? Some state in between?’

But those questions stayed locked behind his teeth, along with others he wasn’t ready to voice, such as ‘why did Nikon keep watching me?’ and ‘when did I start watching back?’

The steady clip of poker chips hitting the felt matched Reuben’s heartbeat as he watched Benni return to the table.

Benigno—though the regulars called him Benni—was back at the table for his fourth visit this month. Same crisp suit, same perfect posture, same controlled expression that never quite reached Benni’s eyes. While the tech bros slouched and the hedge fund managers postured, Benni maintained the kind of stillness that spoke of training rather than breeding.

A waitress appeared at Benni’s elbow with his usual scotch. “Compliments of the house.” Her rehearsed smile didn’t waver when Benni’s hand brushed her ass - too long to be accidental, too brief to be obvious.

Reuben kept his face arranged in careful boredom while his mind cataloged the touch. Three weeks at these tables had taught him to distinguish between casual flirting and coded signals. While the touch might have been messaging, it was morelikely just Benni showing his true colors beneath that controlled facade.

The cards whispered across the green felt. Tonight’s poker dealer - Luka - had his own rhythm as he dealt. But something about his usual rhythm changed whenever Benni played - a microsecond pause or a slight adjustment in angle.

“Raise.” Benni’s chips flew into the pot. “Twenty thousand.”

The hedge fund kid across the table - Tommy or Timmy or some other name that probably came with a trust fund - flexed his jaw. “Call.”

Reuben folded his queen-jack suited, using the motion to check his watch. Forty-two minutes since Benni’s last phone check. Right on schedule.

As if summoned by the thought, Benni’s phone appeared. His casual glance upward caught Igor crossing the room in his usual patrol pattern. Igor, Nikon’s head of security, was a mountain of a man in an expertly tailored suit. He moved with the fluid grace of someone who knew exactly how much damage he could do, exchanging a subtle nod with other staff as security rotations changed.

Reuben remembered the lessons during his first week working here. Nikon had stood close behind him, speaking softly near his ear. “Our security guards switch places every forty-five minutes,”he’d said, his hand heavy on Reuben’s shoulder.“They overlap for three minutes. Don’t forget that.”

The river card slid into place. Benni bet. Trust Fund Baby called. Benni showed the nuts.

Reuben’s fingers twitched toward his phone, muscle memory from his finance internship days wanting to run the numbers. But pulling out a calculator would draw attention. Instead, he tracked the patterns in his head while pretending to scroll through sports scores.

‘Sixty-eight percent win rate on river bets with Luka dealing.’ Reuben thought. ‘The odds against that being luck stretches longer than my student loan debt.’

“Another round?” The waitress set fresh drinks on the table.

Benni’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Always.”

As the waitress set down the glass on Benni’s coaster, Reuben’s eye caught a quick glance shared between Luka and Benni.

Something cold settled in Reuben’s stomach.

Reuben first noticed something odd about Benni’s play two shifts ago. Since then, he’d been watching closely, taking notes on his phone. To anyone looking, it seemed like he was just tracking poker hands.

Each hand became a data point, each betting pattern a piece of evidence. He tracked win rates, dealer rotations, and those precisely timed phone checks, building his case with the same analytical rigor that had earned him his finance degree.

“Small blind to you, Mr. Hoyt” Luka’s voice pulled Reuben back to the present game.

Reuben put his chips down for the blind bet, his thoughts still working out the odds. Numbers never lied. But he knew Nikon would need more than just numbers.

A shadow fell across Reuben’s chips. The air shifted with familiar weight. Reuben looked up to find Nikon standing over him.

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