"You know how to count cards?" Silas asked, the corners of his mouth turning up. "That's kind of awesome."
I slapped his chest. "I'm not fucking joking, Silas."
"Neither am I," he said. "You're not your parents. I don't believe you're someone terrible."
"Then you're naive," I said.
I didn't know why I was pushing him away, why I wanted him to think I was someone awful. I didn't think I was someone awful. I was conning bad guys - I believed in what I was doing.
The prospect of letting him in just felt so damn terrifying. I'd worn so many masks, so many identities, for so long that I didn’t know if I could let anyone see me.
Silas shook his head. "You think you can hide from me, but I damn well know who you are, Tempest. I've seen you all along."
"The grifter part of me is who I am," I said. "There's nothing more. That's all there is to it."
Silas looked at me long and hard. "You were conning Coker in Vegas, weren't you?" he asked.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SILAS
"Of course I was," she said. "But I know you already realized that. You knew I wasn't some television producer."
"I knew you weren't a TV exec, but I didn't know what exactly your angle was," I said. That much was true. Once Deborah returned the money I'd won in the fight, though, I started really wondering what Tempest was doing with Coker in Vegas.
Tempest shrugged. "You got me," she said. "I conned Coker. So? You already know I'm a grifter. It's no big surprise."
Why the hell was she being so stubborn about this? It's almost as if she wanted me to hate her.
Part of me wished I could hate her.
"You're the one who gave the money to Johnny and Deborah," I said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she responded quickly.
"You're so full of shit, Tempest," I said. But the fact that she was avoiding telling me that she had done this amazing thing for Johnny and his family was no longer pissing me off.
Instead, I was beginning to find it endearing.
I slid my finger under her chin and tilted her face up toward me. "You and your team stole the money from Coker and gave it to the family."
"Yes," she said. "Coker deserved it. He was an asshole."
I couldn't hide the smile that crossed my face at the idea of this girl destroying Coker. "Fucking A right he deserved it."
"You don't care, then?"
"Care that you conned that dickhead and gave the money to Johnny and his family?" I asked. "Why the hell would I care?"
"Because it's not exactly legal, Silas," she said.
I laughed at the irony of her thinking I would care about her engaging in illegal behavior, when I was the one considering having Coker taken out into the desert.
"What?" she asked. "You're laughing."
"I'm laughing because you're the one who's naive, Tempest," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Coker and I have a past," I said. "I'd have thought you grifters would do better research."
"We didn't drill down to the individual fighters," she said. "This was about Johnny. I didn't know you were one of his. I mean, we knew that he had done some real shady shit..."
"I was one of his fighters for a while," I said. "The fuckhead asked me to take a dive - he had bet against me. I was tired of his bullshit and ready to quit anyway. I was going to go with someone else. It was my last fight, and I'd bet on myself. So there's no fucking way I was taking a dive."
"So he made sure you lost," Tempest said. I felt her palm, warm on my chest, and she looked at me, anger in her eyes.
"He knew I didn't trust him," I said. "But I was seeing someone..." I watched Tempest's expression change, and I could feel her stiffen in my arms.
"I don't want to hear about someone -"
"Not someone important to me," I said. But I had to hide a smile. The fact that she was bothered that I mentioned another woman was charming. I liked this little jealous streak that Tempest had going. "The girl I was seeing slipped me something before the fight. She put something in my water, and...well...shit happened."
"Jesus, Silas," Tempest said. "They - my crew - said that Coker had a history of that kind of thing. I didn't know that he had hurt you, though."
"I'm fine," I said. "Now. But I got the shit kicked out of me something fierce. "So after that, I got the hell out of Vegas and came back to West Bend."
"Why were you in Vegas, fighting again?" she asked, shaking her head.
"I was just doing a favor to a friend," I said. "He wanted me in his corner at a fight. I was the only person he trusted. And then he got mowed down in a hit and run. It was a one-time deal – my doctor said I wasn’t supposed to fight again, after what Coker did to me, because of the head injury. But I couldn’t say no."
Tempest nodded. "That was our fault, Silas," she said. "We were roping Coker, but we didn't think he'd go that far."