The smoke in the room makes me dizzy, or maybe it’s the fear running through my veins. I never lose. Truly, I am not prepared. This isn’t a backroom game with a pimp. The stakes are too high, and then I go bust.
Born to a hooker, raised under the lights, the glam, and the life of the Vegas Strip, I survive. One hand at a time, I get by. For me and for my momma, I do what needs to be done. Tonight was for her.
She had me at sixteen. As a runaway, she saw the illusion of fame as a showgirl quickly fade and reality kick in. She worked the streets. She survived. Her pimp took her virginity, knocked her up with me, and kept her under his thumb all these years. It could be worse. He doesn’t beat on us, and he keeps a roof over our heads. I have clothes. I have food. First and foremost, I have to remember he let her keep me. Sometimes, though, I wonder if Momma wishes he would have asked her for an abortion, because keeping me has forced her to stay with him and in this life.
As a child, I wasn’t permitted to call him “Dad.” Truth be told, that was fine by me. He wasn’t a father; he was a sperm donor. Fuck that—he was a rapist. Momma calls life with him her penance for poor choices, one that she had to endure until her time was served. “Atonement,” she would say. He mind-fucked her as much as he actually fucked her, which was a lot, so he had the power even when I begged her to leave. He held all the cards.
Warped. Fucking warped.
What does a woman do when she is dealt a shitty hand?
Play the fucking cards she’s dealt until she can find a way out.
I may be what tied Momma down, but on the flip side of that chip, I am her way out. Me and Momma, a Bonnie and Clyde of our own damn making. After years of watching, years of waiting, my patience is finally paying off.
Momma worked to get the connection. Then we hustled for the two-thousand-dollar buy-in, and here I sit, at the underground table with the ballers in the back room of a stuffy hotel. The smoke fills my lungs, the window curtains are drawn, and the door is locked until the final hand is played.
Ante up. Call the bluff. Everyone folds but me and him.
Sean “Monte” Timmons.
Some call him dangerous; others say he is sex walking. He is the youngest man to rake it in from the house in New Jersey twice over. His reputation precedes him, and oftentimes, cowards fold before the stakes climb so high.
I should have tossed my cards. I should have given up the pot. I should have walked the fuck away. Hell, I shouldn’t even have allowed myself to be talked into this in the first place. I know Momma wants off the corner, but at seventeen, I have no business in the big leagues. This is beyond a table game with her pimp and his buddies.
Only, I don’t fold. I don’t give up. Instead, I raise the pot and go all in on something I don’t have to begin with. I got to the table on a hustle. A flash of a smile, a grab of the right cock, and an innuendo of more to come got me past security. Then, with a stack of counterfeit bills tossed on the dimly lit table while bending over and letting my cleavage hang out, I had these fellas eating out of the palm of my hand.
That is, until the cards are dealt. Business is all business the minute the first two-and-a-half-by-three-and-a-half-inch paper hit the felt.
Hand after hand, I manage to survive until the final match.
Monte smirks at me from behind his aviators after looking over to his phone, which was handed to him by the dealer. All electronic devices have to be silenced and turned over to the dealer so there are no distractions. Why was his given back? Could I be lucky enough to win by default? I have never wished for someone to have a family emergency as hard as I do right now.
With his lips turned up in a half grin, I feel my chest tighten.
“Hailey ‘Hard Knocks’ Poe, are you ready for the hand that’s sure to change your life?” His whisper turns my veins to ice. He has me figured out.
I swallow hard. How the hell does he know my name? I used a fake ID to get in.
He taps his finger against his mouth menacingly, then pulls his glasses down, his deep, brown eyes cutting into me. I want to crawl under the table, but I hear my momma’s voice in my head, saying, “Show no fear. Never let them see you sweat, Hailey Sue.” Time to make my momma proud, no matter the cost.
“It’s a practice of mine to know my opponents. You almost had me, minx. Don’t worry, baby. Your secret stays in this room, because, after this hand, I assure you that everything you think you know is about to be changed.”
I should have folded, but my ego clouded my vision. Now my concentration is gone, the game thrown, and my sight clouded again, this time by the tears I refuse to let fall.
Five-card draw, Texas hold ’em, jokers wild—all is lost before I can blink.
Fighting to push back my emotions, I try to still my now trembling hands. He knows too much. When he finds out his payment isn’t real, what happens to me? To Momma? Will I even survive tonight?