The Player

by Kresley Cole

  Realization struck. He hadn't been burned--he'd been hurt. A sense of protectiveness surged, startling me. I'd only ever felt this way about family.

  Our motto was "To the grave," because our loyalty to one another would never die.

  Dmitri was revisiting some kind of pain; I wanted him to stay in the present with me. "Okay, big guy"--I skimmed the back of my fingers along his rugged jawline--"you ready to find out how I got my nickname?"

  His eyes lit up with interest. "Yes. It does not make sense." He was obviously a man who liked things to add up.

  "When I was little, I was fascinated with vices. A mobile spinning above my crib would make me cry, but the sound of shuffled cards and clinking poker chips soothed me. I laughed and clapped if someone popped a bottle of bubbly, and I smothered other toddlers with kisses. All of them." I grinned. "I was very inconstant."

  "I could listen to you talk about yourself for . . ." He trailed off. "There is no quantifiable limit of time."

  His compliment made me smile. Such a computer guy.

  "I want more of this with you, Victoria. Be forewarned: I will have it."

  Had I made myself seem like a sure thing? Or was he thinking like a typical male in Vegas? "People have weird ideas about cocktail waitresses, Dmitri. You know that I'm not for sale, right?"

  "I know. Or I would have already bought you."

  I grinned, thinking he was kidding, but he just stared into my eyes.

  Too intense! So I tried a playful turn. "And what would you do if you owned me?" I tweaked his strong chin. "Would I be your slave?"

  He shook his head. "I would free you, Victoria. And then I would buy you the entire goddamned world."

  My grin faded, my grift sense taking over. "Dmitri, are you . . . crazy?"

  His chest stilled as he held his breath. Never looking away, he gave me a slow nod.

  Oh, yeah, this family had some secrets. What kind of crazy? Eccentric billionaire? Or "I keep ladies' ears as trophies"?

  No, my grift sense told me he wasn't the type of man who'd harm a woman, a spanking aside. Just to be sure, I asked, "Have you ever hurt anyone?"

  He exhaled a gust of air that heated my ear. "Never a woman, never anyone weaker than myself."

  Not a lie. I suspected Dmitri's damage was turned inward; he'd been hurt. I had no idea what to say.

  He cupped my nape and pulled me in until our foreheads met. All of a sudden, we were the only two people in the world. "Are my chances blown?" he rasped.

  In real life? Yes. I would end this tonight. With my family in survival mode, I didn't have time for a damaged man. Hell, I didn't have time for any guy. "I'm surprised you'll admit it."

  "I will never lie to you. And you asked me a very direct question."

  As I considered his admission, my mind hurtled to that last night with Brett--when I'd found him naked in our bed with a showgirl, his fingers deep inside her.

  I'd known men were dogs, yet for some reason I'd let down my guard with the big, affable high-school football coach.

  Now as I gazed at the Russian, I realized where my preferences lay. I looked Dmitri in the eyes and told him the truth: "I'd rather have an honest madman than a sane liar."

  He squeezed me to him so tightly I thought I would bruise, but I didn't want it to stop. . . .

  CHAPTER 8

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  "Tell us what happened!" Karin called from my bedroom before I'd even shut my apartment door.

  Had Dmitri heard that? He'd walked me from the limo, taken my key, and opened the lock for me. His kiss goodnight had been brief but tender. "Until tomorrow," he'd said.

  I peered out the peephole. He stood at my doorstep with his brows drawn. He'd made no secret that he wanted to come in, but I had grift gear out in the open: wigs, ID maker, props, etc. Besides, I needed to be elusive at this point.

  With clear reluctance, he finally headed toward the limo.

  I put my back against the door and exhaled, as if I were catching my breath for the first time tonight. . . .

  Still buzzed, I veered toward my bedroom, passing the tiny living area I used as a sewing studio. My mom had taught Karin and me how to make our own clothes because many of our cons required us to look like money; retail couture would eat into profits.

  As I passed my dress dummies, garment racks, and my old busted-up Singer, I tried to remember when I'd last had time to use them.

  Karin, Pete, and Benji were camped out on my oversize bed, flipping through textbooks from my stint at design school.

  "What are you guys doing here?" Hanging out in my lame one-bedroom unit? I had barely any furniture, zero decorations, and no TV. Boxes filled with posters of eighties bands and movie memorabilia lined the walls, unopened since I'd moved from Brett's last year.

  I'd meant to do a POP--pratfall on property--at a better apartment complex, but hadn't gotten around to it.

  Karin sat up against the headboard, beaming. "We could hardly wait for you to divvy what happened!" She wore shorts and a broken-in T-shirt that read: It was me. I let the dogs out. Our grandmother had given that to her. Out of love, Karin wore it constantly.

  My pink cellphone had been a present from Gram, which meant I cherished it--no matter how much I hated the color pink. Not to mention that "dialing the pink telephone" was a euphemism for masturbation. I told myself it was better than the Snuggie she'd gotten Pete or Benji's hobbit-feet socks.

  "Holy shit, sis." Benji's coffee-brown eyes lit up. "What a difference a day makes, huh?"

  To see my brother today, you'd never guess how much he'd suffered on the streets as a little boy. He'd grown up to be lava-hot, tall and built, with a quiet strength that drew people.

  Eighteen years ago, he'd been a seven-year-old street urchin trying to hustle my dad. A scrawny thing with huge eyes, he'd had a talent at cards that rivaled mine and little memory of how he got to the States. He'd called himself Benji because he'd probably been born in Bengal, India.

  Dad had seen potential. With no parents to be found, he'd brought Benji home, and we'd adopted him.

  "Did you really tangle with a billionaire?" he asked.

  I hiccupped and grinned.

  "You didn't sleep with the Russian, did you?" Pete asked, seeming to brace himself for my answer.

  I made a chopping motion. "Sex--nyet."

  Relieved looks all around.

  I tossed my keys and my purse onto my dime-store desk. Lucia's watch rattled inside that secret compartment. "But we did hook up." I sat in my fold-up chair and took off my heels, wincing from my aching feet.

  "Tell us, hon!" Karin said. "What's he like?"

  "He's . . . he's . . ." I tried to put him into words. "With him, it's . . ." I gave up. "Lemme go take a shower."

  Under the paltry water pressure, I considered and discarded descriptions. How to explain someone like Dmitri Sevastyan?

  Once I padded back out in my robe, Benji said, "Well?"

  I hopped up on a free corner of my bed. "Dmitri is magnetic and fascinating and . . . unconventional."

  Karin studied my expression. "Then the con won't be such a chore. Everybody's so excited, Vice. I've been bragging about my boss of a little sister." She would; she didn't have a jealous bone in her body. "Pete said he's never seen a mark respond like this."

  He chuckled. "Not fifteen minutes after I told Vice she needed to practice sexual manipulation, she had the Russian shoving her up against a wall, groaning into her mouth, and hard as rock."

  I blushed. "I wondered if you'd seen that detail."

  "As if I could miss that huge . . . detail."

  Karin laughed. "The student has become the teacher! I tried every trick in the book to get that man's attention--even a noob move like the toppled tray."

  She'd dropped a tray filled with plastic cups of ice, enabling her to spend lots of time on all fours in a miniskirt hunting for each cube.

  The i
dea of my sister doing that in front of Dmitri . . . Jealousy hit me. Again.

  Benji said, "Start from the beginning and tell us everything that happened."

  I did--because this was my first sex con and I needed their input. But I omitted the finer points of each orgasm, and I found myself leaving out details that made Dmitri sound even more . . . eccentric.

  I finished with: "He walked me to my door, all gentlemanlike, which blew my mind after the way he'd been sexually."

  "He spanked you?" Pete raised his brows. "I did not see that one coming. Pun intended."

  "Yep." My ass still burned. I'd gotten a glimpse of what sex would be like with Sevastyan.

  Earth-shattering. Filthy. Baffling.

  Pete snapped his fingers. "Now that I think of it, I've overheard some jokes and innuendo about BDSM from the Sevastyan couples."

  Natalie and Lucia just didn't seem like the type.

  "Did you like it?" Karin asked. "I didn't think your tastes ran that way."

  "It's not my bag," I said, even though I'd gotten off on being whipped.

  Karin tilted her head. "Luckily, you won't have to deal with his penchant for very long."

  Because I only had so much time to fleece the man.

  I'd once been asked if I felt guilty conning people. Nope. You have to play to pay. Behave yourself, and you'll never know my family exists. We targeted those who could never report a con to the police--because of their own dirty deeds.

  So what had Dmitri done to deserve me? What if he was a little crazy--and a lot vulnerable? I kept replaying how he'd leaned into my touch for comfort. He'd already been burned in his life and still bore the scars.

  Maybe Pete's initial instinct to cut that family had been right on. "I've been thinking about tomorrow night," I said to no one in particular. "About the congressman."

  Blackmailing him could be the family's largest score yet. Badger games were like grifter annuities; they paid for life, and sometimes even appreciated if the mark made it big.

  The congressman could be a presidential hopeful. We wished him all the best in his future campaigns.

  Unfortunately, Karin would have to turn over the big payout from that asshole to service our debt.

  Her blond brows drew together. "What about him?"

  Benji perked up too. He was instrumental in badgers. He'd earned his nickname "the Eye" from his remarkable camera work.

  "My string of bad luck, or whatever, seems to be over." I got up, knocked on the wood of my desk, then returned. "If I start roping guys and you bag the congressman, maybe we . . . shouldn't run Dmitri."

  "What?" the three exclaimed in unison.

  I played with the sash on my robe. "We might be able to scrounge up enough if Mom and Dad make good on their art scam. And Nigel could reconnect. Plus there's the watch I lifted." From a genuinely nice woman. If I felt this shitty about that, I couldn't imagine what playing with Dmitri's feelings would do to me.

  In a scandalized tone, Karin said, "You like him."

  "Or maybe I'm thinking about our own rules? No sins, no in. We have a code, remember?" In all my life, we'd never broken it. "What has the Russian done to merit a financial punishment and a helping of pain? We prey on vulnerabilities, not the vulnerable."

  Benji scratched his head. "Why would you consider a brilliant and handsome BDSM billionaire vulnerable?"

  "Call it grift sense."

  "He simply hasn't shown you his sins yet," Karin said, disturbingly confident. "Give him time. Sins always out. I guarantee he's part of the ninety-seven percent."

  Like the father of her kid?

  She was right. I knew better. You'd think I would've learned after all the lying, two-timing scrotes I'd encountered in the grift. Hell, my own ex-fiance should've taught me.

  "The point is moot anyway." Karin sighed. "Dmitri could be pure as driven snow, and we'd still have to target him. Hon, think of the alternative."

  Three months ago, we'd swindled a drug-trafficking couple from overseas for a cool million, our largest take to date. We'd spent ages doing foundation work, yet no amount of research would've revealed that the woman was an untouchable. The lovechild of a cartel kingpin.

  In lieu of an outright execution, the man had allowed us to repay the score in full--while owing six million in interest.

  Karin had banked one and a half of it with her nonstop badgers. My parents' art scheme might net us five hundred. I would contribute two fifty. We had less than three weeks left to pull together the rest.

  If we failed . . . That kingpin enjoyed necklacing: shoving a gasoline-soaked tire around a victim's chest and arms, then lighting it on fire. He'd threatened to do that to the primary on the con--my dad.

  Pete said, "Vice, it's life or death. You have to break the code."

  Dad was the bighearted rock of the family, nicknamed Gentleman Joe because he could mingle with the upper crust--but also because he had a kind smile and was a softie for a grifter.

  My mom and dad were freaking symbiotic. If anything happened to him, I'd lose both parents.

  Our only other option was to rabbit. The problem with that? We had dozens of people at Sunday dinner. Would everyone in our extended family go into hiding? What if someone wanted to remain?

  To the grave. "You're right. When the Russian calls tomorrow, I'll do what I need to do."

  CHAPTER 9

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  As I skulked in platform high-heeled boots and a party dress through the dark, I could have sworn I was being watched.

  I narrowed my eyes and surveyed the murky brush around our prop house, a.k.a. the badger den. I strained to hear, but A2B continued to wheeze and rattle long after I'd turned off the ignition.

  For months, I'd been feeling paranoid like this. Probably because I was jinxed.

  Dmitri hadn't called today, had written me only one cold line of text.

  DSevastyan: I will contact you tomorrow.

  My sixth busted mark.

  At the back door, I glanced over my shoulder again, unable to shake the feeling that I wasn't alone. Maybe one of the cartel's henchmen was following me until we paid.

  Surely it couldn't be Brett. . . .

  I slipped inside and headed toward the camera room. Recording equipment crowded the small area. Benji was already here, manning a desk with a mic and several monitors. The screens played streams from video cameras all around the exterior--and interior--of the house, but I didn't spot anyone outside.

  Benji swiveled around in his chair. "I thought you were meeting us later." Like me, he was dressed up to go out afterward. His stovepipe pants and fitted jacket accentuated his tall frame. He'd shaved his lean face.

  "Got stir-crazy." I couldn't stand my lonely apartment any longer.

  Earlier, Pete had texted me not to come in, that the VIP lounge was dead.

  Vice: I can still take a shift.

  P3X: We'll celebrate tonight and let off steam. Tomorrow huge group of Canadian high rollers.

  Trying not to appear desperate for news on Dmitri, I'd asked about Nigel.

  P3X: He checked out.

  Seriously?? Vice: Dmitri? How could a one-word text be so pathetic?

  P3X: No one's come down from the penthouse. Not a peep from them. But I know he'll call you.

  Vice: Two tears in a bucket, motherfuck it.

  I dropped my false-bottomed purse on the couch, then plopped down beside it. I would've gone biking in Red Rock Canyon today to burn off some energy, but A2B might not have made it back, and I'd worried about spotty telephone reception. Not that I'd needed to.

  One sentence, Dmitri? After he'd spanked me so much I still felt it? I didn't know if I should be pissed or worried, so I'd settled on pissed.

  Benji said, "Well, you're just in time. Karin's ten minutes out."

  Like clockwork. In less than an hour, I'd be on a dance floor. Vegas was the capital of electronic dance music; even our loc
al club had EDM Saturdays. After so much work, I craved one wild night out--and I'd dressed accordingly.

  I pulled my Bee deck of playing cards from my purse, then mindlessly cut and shuffled for comfort, warming up with basics. Pinky cut, false cut, double cut, the false riffle shuffle.

  "Bad day?" My brother knew me all too well.

  "It was fine." It was shit. Though I should've caught up on sleep, I kept replaying what the Russian had done to me.

  When I'd pictured the look in Dmitri's smoldering eyes--and the glint of his piercing--I'd gotten so horny I'd had to take the edge off. Repeatedly.

  Then I'd broken down and looked up Vika. It was a Russian diminutive of Victoria, an endearment. I'd sighed like a sap.

  Yet all that had been before I'd known he wouldn't call me the entire day. I flashed cards from my right palm to my left, lifting a king of hearts.

  Benji asked, "You never heard from him?"

  Everyone in the family now knew I'd fooled around with the richest mark we could ever imagine--but hadn't set my claws. Why had I even expected him to call? Talk about reaching for the stars! I'd reached for a different galaxy!

  Roughly eighteen hundred male billionaires existed in the world. Only one out of every four million people was that rich.

  My suggestion that we cut him loose now embarrassed me. "He texted that one time." I gave Benji a breezy nod that would convince anyone but a fellow grifter. "He'll call tomorrow." Long cons had taught me to be patient. I drew on that inner well.

  "Hey, that's a big mark for anyone."

  The unspoken words hung in the air: But especially for you, Vice. With my six busted cons. Everyone was so focused on my recent failures, they seemed to have forgotten my years of success.

  I'd had such a great start, and all the support I could ever need.

  My mom loved to tell our friends: "I remember when Vice pulled her first card hustle at four." Her voice would grow thick with emotion. "Her hands were so tiny, she could barely palm-deal. And don't get me started on her first three-card monte."

  In a monte, the dealer would shuffle around three cards, two black and a queen of hearts, using misdirection to obscure the queen. Dealers of montes were called broad tossers because of the queen card.

  Mom had home movies of me hustling tourists, lisping, "Can you keep your eyeth on the queen, thsir?"