Page 12 of Wild Card
I snatched her phone and threw it across the room. She let out an unintelligible scream and slapped the shit out of me. Her palms cracked against my face and chest, the only real pain coming when one of her rings bashed my lip.
A glint of silver caught my eye over her shoulder.
I shoved her aside, ignoring her outraged insults about how I was a bastard and a son of a whore.
Someone had brought a blade to a fistfight.
“Behind you, Jett!” I called as I charged forward. Time to end this mess before we got in serious shit. Illegal gambling was one thing. Brawling, too. But I drew the line at stabbing. “Sully!”
Jett turned, distracted by my call, and took a fist to the face.Ouch.
Our doorman—a beast who was well over six feet and built like a brick shithouse—barreled into the crowd, grabbing up men by the back of their necks and throwing them aside like they were rag dolls.
“Party’s over!”
I kicked the knife away from the scrawny biker dude, and Sully shoved him toward the door so hard he went airborne, landing in a heap.
“Get the fuck out,” Sully snarled.
The room emptied real quick after that. Fox sent me a look as he passed. “Glad I’m on your good side.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
“Ax, you shit, what am I gonna do about this mess?” Ruby demanded.
I’d feel bad if she hadn’t done this kind of shit to her dad since high school. She was a spoiled party girl. Still, I handed her a hundred-dollar bill to sweeten her up.
“I’m sure he could use an extra tax write-off. He’ll never know you were here. After all, you’re a good girl. Right?”
She snatched the bill from me with a huff. “We’re not fucking after this bullshit.”
I pretended to look sad about that. “Right, well. Okay. That’s my bad luck.”
“It sure as fuck is!”
She stormed off. That was the second woman I’d sent running in one night. I might get a complex if I cared.
Jett laughed. “Damn, man, you ruined that.”
“Nothing to ruin.” I turned back to survey the mess. “Let’s get the rest of this picked up so we can divvy up our cash and get out of here.”
Sully shook his head. “Why does it always end in a fight?”
I grinned. “How else are we supposed to know when to call it a night?”
Jett laughed. “Game’s not over until someone’s got a black eye.” He poked at the swelling on his face with a grimace. “Kind of prefer it when it’s someone else, though.”
I snorted. “You fight angry giants, you get angry bruises.”
We picked up overturned tables and chairs, gathered up all the cash we’d taken in through admission, liquor sales, and the few bills that had slid under other furniture during the skirmish.
By the time we divvied it three ways, I had a nice roll to tuck into my pocket. It wasn’t going to make me rich anytime soon. We didn’t do these nights too often. That would attract too much heat.
Most of my take went to food and vet bills for my junkyard dogs, anyway.
Holden needed every penny we could squeeze out of the auto and junkyard business, and I wasn’t about to let a single animal suffer because their previous owner was an asshole.
The poker nights were a win-win. So long as we could stay off the sheriff’s radar.
