There’s one empty seat at our table.
The dealer doesn’t look a day over eighteen. “Another few minutes and we’ll get going,” he announces.
He’s waiting for the tables to fill. I nod in acknowledgment and engage in polite conversation with the people at my table.
Five minutes later, Ed Wagner walks in.
I don’t know what I’m expecting. I’ve seen two photos of Ed. In one, the booking photo Carter sent me, he looked bleary-eyed and dazed. Dominic had sent me a different shot, and in that one, he’d been staring down at his kid, his expression tender.
But photos are never a substitute for seeing someone in person, as anyone who’s swiped right on a promising dating profile can tell you. Up close, Ed Wagner, a blond man with a thin face and hazel eyes, looks tired.
He’s also older than I expected. Looking at him under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting, I’m guessing he’s in his forties. Carter’s in his early thirties and his sister Chloe was a twin, which makes her at least a decade younger than Ed. Ten years isn’t a huge age gap, all things considered, but it’s notable. Maybe this is part of the reason Carter’s so angry with Ed. Maybe he thinks Ed led his sister astray.
This situation is filled with unknowns.
Earlier this evening, in the elevator, I’d tentatively broached the topic with Carter. He hadn’t snapped at me—a possibility that I’d braced for—but he also hadn’t exactly answered my question.
What does it matter? They’re paying you to play. This situation isn’t any of your business. Just win some money, pay Sammy off, and focus on your own goals.
That’s easier said than done. I can tell myself not to get involved, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s already too late. Like it or not, Dominic and Carter are more than just guys I’m planning on having casual sex with. I like them. I want them to be happy.
Oh dear.
The dealer raises his hand in greeting as he walks up to our table and takes a seat. “Ed, long time no see.”
That’s a lie. Ed’s a shill; he’s here all the time. Which means either me or Plaid Guy is the mark. I harden my focus. The last time I’d played in an underground room, I’d lost big, and my pride is still stinging. Carter told me he’d cover my losses as long as I played here, but I’d prefer not to have to take him up on it.
Time to focus on the game.
Lady Luck beams down at me, as if she’s trying to make up for the other night. I win and win again, and I’m up twelve thousand dollars in no time at all. Vittoria’s male friends make faces and mutter things under their breaths. Whatever. It’s not my fault they assumed a woman wouldn’t know how to play poker. Plaid Guy and Ed take their losses with better grace. Plaid Guy looks inscrutable, while Ed drowns his sorrows in drink after drink.
Or at least, he pretends to. This is the evidence that Carter sent me here to find, but I’m skeptical. I’m not sure Ed’s drinking any alcohol at all.
My conviction that he’s faking grows over the course of the night. Ed plays loose, and he’s drawing out Plaid Guy, getting him to make bigger and bigger bets. He’s trying to draw me out too, and if I hadn’t been forewarned by Carter and Dominic that he was a shill for the house, I would have taken the bait. Ed Wagner might have been forced to work for Denton Mitchell, but there’s no denying he’s good at what he does.
His voice is getting louder and more animated with each drink. His arm gestures grow more expansive. Plaid Guy buys the act, because he decides to go head-to-head with Ed. When it’s his turn, he takes a look at the cards in his hand, and then at the rest of us, and slides a thousand-dollar chip into the middle.
Far too rich for my blood. I set my cards face down with a wry shake of my head. “I’m out.”
The dealer turns to Ed Wagner expectantly. Ed surveys his cards, tosses back the contents of his glass, and then carelessly tosses some chips into the pot. “I’m going to raise.” He lifts his hand to catch the bartender’s attention. “I’ll have another rum-and-Coke, Mark.”
Yeah, he’s dead sober; I’d bet my last penny on it.
Plaid Guy raises again. The pot grows—there’s over thirty thousand dollars at stake. Vittoria folds, as do her friends. It’s only Ed and Plaid Guy, who is finally starting to show signs of nerves. Sweat beads on his forehead, and when he tosses his chips into the center and calls, there’s a tremor in his fingers that he can’t quite conceal.
Ed drops his cards on the table. Pair of aces.
Plaid Guy slams his cards down and surges to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. “This is bullshit,” he snarls, his mask of composure stripped away. The hair at the back of my neck stands up, and every instinct warns me to get the hell away from here. Plaid Guy went from zero to snarling rage far too quickly for my comfort. “This is fucking bullshit.”
Conversation dies down instantly. The room becomes so quiet that if a pin dropped in that moment, you’d hear it. Heads swivel to watch the confrontation, and more than one person looks openly nervous.
Bulldog materializes next to us, two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. “Is there a problem here?”
Plaid Guy seems to flip a switch. He goes very still. “No,” he says, eerily calm all of a sudden. “There’s no problem. I was just leaving.” He tosses the dealer a hundred-dollar chip, and heads out. It’s only when the door shuts behind him that I finally breathe again.
Vittoria breaks the silence first. She laughs, a high, brittle sound. “Well,” she says. “That was dramatic. Mark, I think we could all use a smoking break. Gabriella, do you smoke?”
I unclench my fists and wipe my sweaty palms on my thighs. “I haven’t smoked in more than ten years,” I reply. When I was sixteen, a rebellious teenager in London, my mother had caught me with a pack in my jacket. Shit had hit the fan, bigtime. My mom yelled and my father looked bemused, until he realized he needed to yell at me as well. Normally, that kind of parental disapproval would have just made me dig in my heels, but then my mother wisely made me smoke the entire pack at once. I felt so gross by the time I was done that I’ve never smoked again.
“Good for you,” she replies. “I keep trying to quit, but it doesn’t work.” She shrugs philosophically. “See you in a few.”
I get to my feet and walk over to the bar area. “What would you like?” the woman behind the counter asks me.
“Just a club soda, please.”
She hands me my drink. I drink it at the bar, keeping a discreet eye on Ed. He’s retrieved his phone from Bulldog’s closet and seems to be checking his messages. Then he heads outside.
On impulse, I get up to follow. So far, I haven’t done much by way of spying. This is my chance to fix that. Ed’s pretended to be tipsy for much of the night, gulping down one rum and Coke after another. But a regular glass of cola looks exactly like one with booze in it, and before I tell Carter his brother-in-law is drinking again, I want proof.
Conveniently for me, the women’s washroom is near the exit. If I hear anyone approach, I can always duck inside.
I stand just inside the outer door and do my very best to listen. I hear nothing. Damn it. I crack it open, just an inch. Luckily for me, Ed’s not far from the door. “He had a nightmare?” he demands, his voice clear. “Is he asleep now?”
The person on the other end of the line says something. Ed nods. “Put him on.”
He’s calling to check up on his kid. Huh. Carter thinks Ed is a terrible parent, but is he right? Or is he letting the ghosts of the past interfere with the present?
“Hey buddy,” I hear him say to Noah, his voice softening. “Mrs. Khan tells me you had a bad dream.”
He listens to his son, his face serious. “I’ll be back home soon,” he says, reassuring and calm. “Yes, Mrs. Khan will read you a story. Just one, okay? No, you cannot eat ice-cream in the middle of the night. Nice try though. See you in the morning, kid.”
He’s not drunk. Not even a little.
I finish the night with tw
enty-nine thousand dollars in my pocket—Carter’s ten thousand, plus my winnings—and one sobering realization. Carter’s not going to be happy about this.
19
Gabriella
I send Dominic and Carter a message when I get back to the Grand River, but I don’t see them until the next evening.
I spend most of the morning crafting Instagram stories for a few different celebrities whose accounts I unofficially manage. In true Karpis fashion, I do all the work and get none of the credit, but I’m used to that and I no longer even get annoyed about it.
What it does is leave me a lot of time to think.
Yesterday, I’d poked my nose in Carter’s business. I hadn’t been a jerk about it, but I had absolutely accused him about having a blind spot about Ed Wagner.
But he’s not the only one with a massive blind spot. I live in a glass house; I have no business throwing stones. The truth is, as Wendy would say, I need to put on my big-girl panties and deal with the mess I got myself into.
Deep down, I know that there is only one feasible solution to my poker debt. Sammy hasn’t given me much time to pay him, just fourteen days. And here’s the thing: I can’t take Carter’s money.
Carter gave me ten thousand dollars and promised to cover my losses. But no matter what he says, it doesn’t feel right to keep my winnings. It really doesn’t.
Last night, when Plaid Guy and Ed were facing off, there had been a part of me that had wanted in. I’d wanted to win that pot, because if I’d won, all my problems would have been solved in one fell swoop.
But I’d stopped myself.
Less than a week ago, I’d been overtaken by hubris. I’d chased the fantasy and taken the short-cut, and I’d lost big. Last night, in Denton Mitchell’s poker room, I’d been more sensible. When it came down to it, I hadn’t doubled down on the crazy. I’d made the smart decision.
And now I need to make another one. My gambling debt is my problem. I got into this mess, and I need to get myself out.
Get yourself out? My conscience sneers. Please. You’re running to mommy and daddy for help.
Feeling about two inches tall, I call my father and ask to borrow some money. “Of course, Gabriella,” he says readily. “How much do you need?”
“Fifty thousand dollars,” I mumble, shamefaced. My savings will cover the rest. “I promise I’ll pay you back. With interest. I’ll send you a thousand dollars a month for the next—” My voice trails off as I calculate how long it’ll take to pay them back. I have no idea where I’m going to find a thousand extra dollars every month either. Maybe my friends can help me brainstorm some side hustles that aren’t Sammy’s poker room of doom.
“Gabriella. Don’t be ridiculous. You are my only child. If you think that you’ll have to pay—”
“I don’t want a gift,” I say flatly. “I want a loan.”
He sighs. “This again. Why do you feel the need to struggle, bonitinha? You never ask for anything. You’re far away from home, determined to be miserable in your job. So stubborn. I don’t understand. You are my child, and I love you. All I want is for you to be happy. What else is our money for, if not for that? What do you think is going to happen to all of it when we die?”
“I don’t think about it,” I retort. My dad is fifty-nine and my mom is fifty-seven, and they are going to live forever. My voice softens. “Please, papa. I am asking for help, but I don’t want a gift.”
“Fine,” he grumbles. “I’ll do it your way.”
I blink away the tears that well up. I really don’t appreciate my mom and dad enough. Piper’s parents are actively trying to sabotage her restaurant, and here is my dad, offering me everything I want, no strings attached. “Thank you for not asking why I need the money.”
He laughs at that, a rich chuckle that sends a jolt of acute homesickness through me. “Don’t thank me too soon, meu filhinha. Your mother is going to want to know, and she won’t rest until she knows everything.”
We talk some more. I promise to fly home in the fall, and then we say our farewells. I hang up, a sense of relief filling me. I hadn’t wanted to ask my parents for help, and I’d done it anyway, and now that the weight of that is off my shoulders, my insistent refusal to let people help me feels rather silly.
My father’s connections got me into Karpis, but I’ve done a good job here. If I hadn’t, my boss wouldn’t rely on me to deal with his high-profile clients. I wouldn’t be managing the Instagram page of celebrities; I’d be huddled in the office, assigned to busywork projects.
I’d done a good job at that internship in London too. Sure, I’d screwed up by coming in late that day, but I’d completed every task assigned to me on time, even if they were as trivial as making coffee, photocopying paperwork, and ensuring that there was cake for the post-lunch meetings.
For far too long, I’ve been allowing the opinions of others to dictate how I feel about myself. But I’d had a one-night stand with Carter and Dominic without giving a damn what people would think. I wouldn’t let anyone dictate what I can do in my personal life. It’s time I started applying the same logic to my work.
Yes, I don’t have any seed money for my business any longer. Yes, any money I might have been able to save are going to go into paying back my dad. I’m not back to the starting line—I’m several feet behind it. But it’s okay. I’ve survived Karpis so far. I can tough it out.
Apart from crafting Instagram stories and writing pithy tweets, I also spend seven hours working on a rebranding strategy for a soccer club in LA. In the evening, I attend Nicky’s concert. Once she’s done, I post a couple of post-concert pictures on her social media and leave her with Fernando. From the way she looked at him through the show, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about late night tweetstorms—she looks like she’s going to be otherwise occupied. Phew.
I’m wiped. If I were being sensible, I’d cancel my late-night plans with Dominic and Carter and get eight solid hours of sleep.
Then again, being sensible has never been one of my key strengths.
It’s late. Really late, a few minutes before midnight. I knock on Dominic’s door, my heart racing in anticipation. A few seconds later, he opens it. “Gabby,” he greets me, his lips tilting up in a smile. “Come on in.”
I step inside. His eyes are shadowed, and his hair is tousled. “You look tired,” I tell him. “Long day?”
He nods. “It was both busy and frustrating.” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Ah well. You win some, you lose some.”
“We could have taken a raincheck on hanging out.”
“We could have,” he agrees. His eyes rest on me. “But I wanted to see you. I’m glad you’re here.”
His words take my breath away. I’m so used to Manhattan, where women outnumber guys two-to-one, and everyone likes to keep their options open and their feelings caged. Not so with Dominic. He’s a gorgeous guy, but far more importantly, he is nice. Direct. He doesn’t play games. It’s shocking and refreshing at the same time.
Carter comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “I got takeout in case you were hungry,” he says, pointing to the Styrofoam boxes on the dining table. “Do you like Thai?”
“I love it.” I give him a hopeful glance. “Any pad thai?”
“And that settles the ‘I hope she isn’t allergic to peanuts’ debate.” He grins and pushes over a container in my direction. “All yours. Drink?”
“Something cold, please.”
I settle on a glass of chilled Riesling. We sit down at the table. For a few minutes, we focus on our food, and then, when I’ve taken the edge off my appetite, I clear my throat. “About yesterday,” I begin. “Look, I can’t take your money.” I reach into my bag, pull out an envelope containing a handful of prepaid credit cards, and push it toward Carter.
He doesn’t pick it up. “What is this?”
“My winnings from last night.”
“No.” He shakes his head immediately. “No. We had a deal. Y
ou keep your winnings.”
“You wanted me to find dirt on Ed,” I reply. “I found nothing.”
I glare at Carter. He glares back. Dominic cuts in before our standoff can escalate. “Tell me about last night,” he encourages. “How many people were there? Did you feel safe? Your text didn’t get into the details.”
“About twenty,” I reply. “Two tables. Oh, and Vittoria Vitale was there with a few of her friends.”
Both men stiffen. “Was Denton Mitchell there?” Dominic demands. He shoots a glare at Carter. “I thought you said you were watching the place.” He pulls up a photo on his phone and pushes it toward me. “This is Mitchell.”
I survey the image. “No, he wasn’t there.” I give Carter a questioning look. “You were watching? From the outside?”
“I told you I’d be close.”
“What if you’d been seen?”
“I wasn’t. I’m good at what I do.”
“So modest,” I tease. A thought strikes me. “Did you get a look at Plaid Guy?” I take in his puzzled expression and elaborate. “Caucasian guy, in his thirties or early forties. Clean-shaven, no visible tattoos. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans.”
“He left an hour and fifteen minutes after you went in?” Carter asks. “Yeah, I got a photo of him. Why?”
I remember the cold look in Plaid Guy’s eyes, and even the memory of it makes the hairs at the back of my neck rise. “He creeped me out,” I reply. “He went head-to-head with Ed, and he lost a lot of money. He went from cold to hot to cold again in a second. It was…” I make a face. “I’m probably just being silly.”
Dominic sets his chopsticks down. “I don’t like this,” he says, a frown on his face. “Carter, we agreed that if there was even the slightest hint of danger, we’d drop this ridiculous plan.”
“There wasn’t any danger, you guys,” I cut in. “My imagination is probably just on overdrive, that’s all. I’ve watched too many movies or something.”
Ménage in Manhattan: The Complete 5-Book Ménage Romance Collection Page 34
