Page 62 of A Touch of Treachery
Desmond straightened up at the bar.His fingers curled around the glass in his hand, and his gaze flicked from one person to another, as if he was assessing who was the biggest threat and might make the first move.
Bryce and the four guards also stood at attention, their sharp gazes trained on Niles, Steig, and Oriana.
“No one wants to get up and walk away?”Henrika asked.
No one responded, and everyone remained in their seats.
“I thought not,” she drawled.
Henrika signaled the dealer, and the soft rasp of cards filled the air.The other players all looked down at their cards with sour expressions, but I watched Henrika, whose green eyes gleamed with triumph.She liked this charade, as Steig had called it.She liked controlling other people and making them dance to her tune, and as much as I hated to admit it, she was masterful at it.
Henrika noticed my staring and gave a small shrug.I gave her a respectful nod, one enemy to another, then focused on my cards.
I was determined to beat Henrika at her own game.
Theeveningworeon.
I watched the dealer carefully, but she was dealing from the top of the deck, and she wasn’t helping Henrika cheat.Given my analysis, I knew that Henrika loved winning more than anything else, but she also had an odd quirk where she wanted to win fair and square.It was a strange, unexpected bit of honor on her part.
Steig bet wildly and recklessly and had a terrible poker face, so he quickly lost all his money.He cursed viciously, then jumped to his feet, marched over to the bar, and bellowed for another beer.His gaze locked on the waitress as she handed over his drink, and his curses died down, replaced by a sharp, toothy smile.The assassin had found another game to play.
Niles was the second one to go out, after bluffing with a bad hand and losing his remaining chips to Oriana.The biomagical chemist also got up from the table and stormed over to the bar.He slugged down a bourbon and kept going, his face growing a little more flushed with every drink.
Henrika, Oriana, and I swapped chips back and forth until Oriana also tried to bluff with a bad hand, and I knocked her out.Oriana took her defeat far more gracefully than Steig and Niles, and she gave me a respectful nod.I returned the gesture, and Oriana also went to the bar to get a fresh drink.
That left me alone at the poker table with Henrika.
“It’s just you and me now, Charlotte,” she purred.“I’m going to enjoy taking your money.Well, what you claim is your money.We both know who itreallybelongs to.”
The other paramortals pricked up their ears at her words.They probably thought Desmond was letting me gamble with his money, but Henrika knew it belonged to Section 47.She had already taken too much from me, and especially from Desmond.Maybe it was petty, but she wasn’t getting the money too.
“It doesn’t matter whose money it is,” I replied.“Only that it’s never going to be yours.”
“We’ll see,” Henrika murmured.
We kept playing.Henrika lucked out and got three good hands in a row, raking in large stacks of my chips every time.She had roughly eight hundred thousand dollars on her side of the table, and my own stack of chips looked puny in comparison.
The dealer dished out a new hand.Henrika grinned at her cards the way she always did, whether they were good, middling, or bad, and my synesthesia remained silent.I looked at my own cards—the queen of diamonds and queen of clubs.
The dealer flipped over the three flop cards—the three of spades, the king of hearts, and the three of clubs.Not terrible, since my pocket queens and the threes gave me two pairs.
Henrika’s grin widened.“All in.”
Gasps rang out as she shoved her chips forward.
“Your move, Charlotte.”Henrika smirked.
For all her bluster and bravado, Henrika was smart, and she only bet high when she had a good chance of winning.I was guessing she had at least one pocket king, maybe two.Either way, Henrika was so sure she couldn’t lose, she was finally going for the kill shot.
I studied my cards again, then looked at the cards on the table.My mind whirred as I thought of strategies and scenarios, but really, I had no choice.If I folded, Henrika would just take more of my chips I couldn’t afford to lose.Time to make a stand and hope for a little bit of luck.Henrika had said it made the game more exciting, a theory my pounding heart and sweaty palms supported.
I also shoved my chips forward.“All in.”
More gasps rang out.By this point, everyone was gathered around the table to watch this final hand.Bryce was behind Henrika, while Niles, Steig, and Oriana were standing behind their previous chairs.Desmond was hovering off to my right, watching the others the way he had been all evening.Knowing he had my back was one reason I’d been able to focus on the game instead of worrying about the other paramortals.
“All in on both sides,” the dealer said.“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
She flipped over the turn card—the queen of spades.
