Page 46 of The Irish Rogue

She smiled, tapped the table with her finger, then nodded towards another group of men. “I’ll be right back. Deal me in.”

All three tossed their cards to the center of the table, then Levi pulled all of the chips towards him, acting as if he’d won the hand. When Matteo and Sean glared at him, he chuckled. “Hey, I’m faster on the move.”

Matteo snorted as Sean teased, “You act like it’s real money.”

“Everyone in the club thinks it is,” Levi pointed out in a low voice, careful not to let anyone else overhear the comment.

“I would have won that hand,” Sean commented.

Levi flipped over Sean’s cards, then laughed. “Not a chance.”

Sean chuckled, then turned to watch as Emily delivered beers and scotch to the table in the corner. She walked over to the bar, whispered something to the bartender on duty, then moved smoothly through the other tables of gamblers. It was a light evening tonight, with most of the club members preferring the blackjack tables. That was fine with Levi, Matteo, and Sean since the house usually won at those tables. That wasn’t the case with poker tables, since they didn’t require a buy-in amount for just regular games in the club.

When Emily sat down, Matteo was already dealing cards, preparing for the next hand.

Emily lifted her cards and, in a low voice, she asked, “What do you know about red dresses?”

Sean was equally as quiet and they both watched while Margaret, one of the other members of the wait staff, hovered close by. At the moment, her role was to keep other club members from coming close to their table. If anyone started walking close enough to overhear the conversation, she would give Emily a signal.

Sean leaned forward, surveying his cards. “I’ve seen three flashes of red in a small town in Georgia. I spoke to the sheriff in the town and he’s aware of a problem, but he didn’t tell me what was going on, although I have my suspicions.”

“So nothing concrete?” she prompted, shifting her cards around.

“I saw a woman in a red dress running across the lawn of my rental house two weeks ago.”’

“But nothing since?”

“I haven’t spent much time there. I’ve been at…” he hesitated, not sure what to call Kennedi.

“His future fiancée’s house,” Levi filled in.

Sean considered that definition, then grunted his approval. “Exactly.”

“Well,” Emily sighed, “from what I’ve overheard at a few of the tables, there’s a new pimp that has taken over the prostitution rings in several cities. They have a well-orchestrated system where they bring in women from different parts of the world on private planes, then set the women up in houses, usually rental houses, and then bring in local politicians. The women are forced to have sexual relations, then they disappear.”

“What happens to the women?” Levi asked.

“No one knows and I haven’t heard anything. But I know that George Kincaid and Martin Nilgen have both been caught in the red-dress-trap. They were complaining about the blackmail amounts to a small group last week.”

“Senator Kincaid?” Levi clarified.

Matteo snorted. “He’s one of the sticklers for private boarding schools.”

Emily shuddered. “I don’t like the idea of what that senator might do with the girls in those schools. I suspect they are indoctrination centers, and what they are indoctrinating might be really bad for those young women.”

“So, from what I can gather, someone is bringing in vulnerable women, forcing them to have sex with important men, then the same people are using video to blackmail those people. Is that a good summary of the situation?”

“From what we’ve overheard so far, that sounds about right,” Emily replied.

All four of them continued playing the round in silence, contemplating the implications of what was happening.

Levi was the first to break the moment. “Okay, so what’s our next step?”

“I need to get back to Kennedi. I don’t like her being so close to this situation,” Sean snapped. He folded his cards and tossed them into the pile, pretending to fold that hand. “Let me know if you hear anything else,” he whispered.

Before he could pick up his remaining chips, a text came to his phone. Absently, he looked at the message. It was an image of Kennedi holding up a red dress in front of her with the words, “Thanks for the new dress! I love it.”

Sean stared at the image, dread pooling in his belly and he swallowed painfully. “Whoever is behind this, they’ve just escalated the problem.” He turned his phone around, showing his friends the image that Kennedi had sent.

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