Page 77 of Devious Madness

“This war with the DeAngelos is going to cost you,” he warns.

“It will.” I nod. “I should get over there. You’re done with this?” I unhook the iPad from the laptop.

“Yeah.”

Tucking the iPad under my arm, I grab my leather jacket from the back of a chair and head to the door.

As I step out into the hallway, my phone goes off again. An alert this time.

Mira.

Opening up the tracking app, I find her icon. My teeth clench.

Another text comes through about the warehouse. The police are arriving, and they need to be dealt with.

I step into the elevator, my nerves on edge, my muscles tense.

I’m a man standing at a fork in the road.

“Explain it to me again. I missed the last thing you said.” I tap Elana’s arm.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Okay, last time though.”

Elana picks up the deck of cards sitting in the middle of the table Megan and me are sitting at with her.

“Preferans is easy,” she says, dealing out the cards with a practiced flick. “We each get ten cards. Then we bid to see who thinks they can take the most tricks—that’s the hand. So, if you win the hand, you won the trick. The highest bidder gets the talon—that’s two extra cards—and picks the trump suit.”

She glances up, her eyes filled with mischief. I’m lovingthis girl. Even if she is related to the enormous Volkov men whose glares could strip paint from a wall.

“Your goal is to win enough tricks to meet your bid. The other two try to stop you. Simple, right?”

Megan looks as confused as I feel. None of this makes much sense to me at all.

“So, first we say how many hands we think we’ll win, and whoever bets the highest is the one who declares the trump suit?” I clarify.

“Exactly! You got it.” She shuffles the deck; minus the cards she’s pulled out and piled to the side.

“We’ll pick it up as we go,” Megan says confidently while collecting the cards her sister-in-law flicks at us while dealing.

“It’s easy. My brothers taught me when I was little.” She places two cards face down in the middle of us. “That’s the talon. So, whoever wins the bid gets to pick those up and can swap them out with two cards from their hand.”

“And whoever wins the bid picks the trump suit, meaning that suit that beats the others?” Megan looks over her cards.

“Yep.” Elana moves her cards around in her hand.

I have no idea what’s happening, but I do have some pretty high cards in my hand.

“Okay, so who bets first.”

“Bids,” Elana corrects me and points to Megan. “Megan, you bid.”

“Oh, okay,” Megan looks over her hand some more, her brow furrowing. “I think I can probably win six rounds?”

I laugh. “You need to work on your poker face.”

“It’s not poker,” she teases back.

“I bid seven.” Elana announces as her phone dances next to her drink on the table.

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