As soon as I stepped on the sidewalk, all thoughts of my steamy plans for Lizzie and me dissipated. My nerves began jumping around like a pogo stick. I’d rather have pinned Terrance down at a legal casino, not a mob-infested underground game. I’d suggested to Dillon and Lizzie that I could reach out to Jeremy Pitt for help in snagging Terrance from this game. After all, he was the Russian mob. But Dillon had told me that the game had been set up by the Italian mob. Which would only spark a fire between the Russians and the Italians, and I didn’t want to be the one to start that war, especially when I knew how much Pitt hated the Italian mob. After all, he’d been instrumental in rescuing his niece, Lacey Robinson, when her grandfather, head of the Italian mob, had kidnapped her.
We checked in with the security guard at the door, who scanned the list of names. Once cleared, we entered the narrow hall of the brick building only to be stopped by two more security guards. I watched intently as Lizzie slipped off her jacket, revealing her body to the guards. My muscles hadn’t loosened, and they wouldn’t until I was comfortable she was out of this place and safe. They went about their business, sizing her up instead of searching her. She couldn’t hide any weapons with that dress. The garment barely fell to her knees, the spaghetti straps were angel-hair thin, her hair was up, and her sandal-type heels had no room to store even a razor blade. They sifted through her jacket before they waved her through. I went next, then Kross, then Dillon. We were all in jeans and button-up shirts, and we’d left our jackets in the car.
We made it through easily before we were escorted by another guard down a set of stairs and into a basement that smelled of piss and other unpleasant things. I kept my hand on Lizzie’s lower back as much as I could. Just before the guard opened the door into a room, I whispered to her, “Last chance to back out.”
“No way,” she said, smiling at me.
Son of a bitch. The woman was determined as hell, which made me love her even more. But she didn’t know what she was walking into. None of us really did. I didn’t want to jeopardize my law career, but I couldn’t let anything happen to her. I would never recover if I lost her again.
26
Lizzie
Cigar smoke choked me as we entered a dungeon-like room: cement walls, cement floors, a bar that appeared to have been wheeled in, and a cluster of metal folding tables. The lighting was dim, except over the two poker tables. The room hummed with mostly middle-aged men. It took me a second to orient myself, and I blew out air through my nostrils.
Kelton guided me forward with his hand on my back. “You’ll get used to the smoke in a few minutes.”
I didn’t know about that. The haze was thick and suffocating. But no amount of cigar smoke would deter me from the reason we were there. Plus I was actually excited to play poker.
Heading to the bar, I scanned the crowd. All manner of men—tall, short, skinny, hefty, fat, bald, hairy—mingled. A handful of women, mostly short in stature, chatted as though they were long-lost friends. But no man resembling Zach with a big belly.
A bartender with a buzz cut was serving a beer to a large man with a comb-over when we joined the group. The other bartender, a female who had biceps as big as Kross’s, served a lady with short brown hair.
We hovered near an empty table away from the other people in the room.
“Drink?” Dillon asked us.
“Water,” Kross said.
I wouldn’t have minded a shot of tequila to calm my nerves. It wasn’t like I couldn’t have one, either. After all, everything there was illegal. Kelton and I declined. Better to keep my wits about me and my bladder empty. Dillon had schooled us that a poker game could go on all night. And I wasn’t sure how many breaks we’d get.
“Are those two men the dealers?” I asked Kelton.
Two men, one short, one tall, both dressed in black suits and red ties, stood between the two round, felt-topped poker tables, talking.
“Probably,” Kelton responded as he eyed the room with mechanical precision, reminding me of a robot.
Dillon brought over two glasses of water. Kross plucked one from his hand. Dillon sipped on the other.
“Terrance here?” Dillon asked.
“No,” I said, my voice cracking. Then something depressing popped into my brain. “What if he doesn’t show?” With Zach and Kelton not on speaking terms, maybe Zach had warned his father of our plan. We’d told Zach about the poker game, although he didn’t know we were playing in it.
“Then we still play poker,” Dillon said. “We paid the money. Might as well see if we can win seventy thousand dollars.”
Yeah, that would be the icing on the cake. I could pay back my debts and have money left over. I dismissed the thought, as exciting as it sounded. I’d only learned the game a week before. Unlike some of the people playing that night, who I imagined had been at it for years.
“This is all wrong,” Kelton said. “I got a bad feeling. Particularly with the frightened look on Lizzie’s face.”
My muscles tightened. “I’m good.”
Kross set his water down then pushed up his shirtsleeves, revealing a rattlesnake on his forearm. “Make them believe you have something you don’t. It’s like boxing. During a match, I always throw a left hook when my opponent thinks I’m going to throw a right.”
“I know, bluff.” Habits were hard to break, especially with frayed nerves.