One would have to be blind not to see that she was having serious misgivings about this whole endeavor, perhaps about him as well.
“So you’re interested in the participating in the game I take it,” Jacob said with a pleased smile. “I should have known tempting you with that juicy tidbit would get you to bite. You are your father’s son. Poker’s in your blood.”
Chance didn’t want his father being brought up at all. He had enough emotions to keep in check right now. Starting with the ones he had about the woman sitting next to him, who was still staring at the table, her mind no doubt working a mile a minute.
“Just tell us if this game is legit, Jacob,” Katherine said, then leaned in to give him a direct stare. “I need to make sure my son is actually coming back home to his mother.”
Jacob gave both of them a placating smile. “The game is legitimate. I’ve propositioned both parties and they are interested in what you are offering. The usual rules will apply of course.”
Both Chance and Katherine knew those rules backward and forward, having spent a good number of years around Jackson McCoy.
“What rules are those?” Juliet asked, looking up for the first time.
Jacob raised his eyebrows at her. “No phones, no weapons, no friends, or associates. Just you and poker.” He turned to Chance with a smile. “Right?”
“So basically, Chance will be sitting there with two known mobsters. Because that’s what they are right?”
Jacob just pursed his lips, as though answering that question would be distasteful.
“I’ll take that as a yes. So he’ll be there defenseless. And the rest of us will be stuck here hoping nothing happens to us in the meantime, or after the fact?”
“Juliet,” Chance said in a warning tone, watching her face and body become more and more animated.
“Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay, Chance. First that damn bear and now this,” she said shaking her head in frustration.
“What’s this about a bear?” Jacob said, totally lost.
Juliet ignored him, turning to Chance with an accusatory stare. “They’ll kill you, you know it. And when they’re done with you, they’ll come for me. And maybe your mother. Who knows, maybe they’ll even throw in my family for good measure. That’s what these people do, right?”
“Now, now. It would never come to that,” Jacob interjected.
“Stop it,” she said sitting up in her chair. “Everyone stop telling me it’s going to be okay or that I’m going to be fine or that this is just a silly game of poker. It’s not. This is not normal!”
She began breathing heavier and her eyes darted wildly around the table. “I can’t believe this. What the hell am I even doing here? This—this is not my life. I’m a college professor. I go to spin class and Starbucks and spend boring Saturdays watching Netflix. I don’t get involved with underground poker games or the mob or the—the Bratva,” she spat the name as she gave Chance a hard look, “or whatever you call it.”
Everyone around the table was too stunned to interrupt her.
She stood up and frowned at Chance. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I should have known from the start. You are nothing like the men I’ve dated before. I thought that was a good thing. And yes, it was fun, but it’s not fun anymore. I need to go back to men who are…normal.”
Chance felt his temperature rise and he knew his eyes were getting dark. He wouldn’t let that one go. “You mean the doctors and lawyers? The men who are so much better than me?”
Now he was standing, giving Juliet a hard look that she shot right back at him.
“You know what? Yes. Yes, they are better than you. They at least wouldn’t get me killed.”
“So you’re blaming me for all this? In case you’d forgotten I’m a victim here too Juliet.”
“And I’m only a victim because I decided to go slumming for two weeks,” she spat.
A stunned look came to his face. Even though he could see the instant regret in her eyes when she said it, those words were meant to sting hard.
He thought about last night. How they had made love so fiercely. He thought about the absolute assurance Juliet wanted from him that he would come back to her. He thought of how she had sleepily told him she loved him. Everything from the past two weeks was completely destroyed by those words from her mouth.
Chance tensed his muscles in response, hardening his jaw. He had no choice but to give it right back to her. Show her how it felt to be whittled down to nothing more than a piece of meat. If they were going to end this thing, he had no problem sending her off with a bitter little pill to swallow. “Well, I have to say. For someone who was nothing more than a two-week fuck buddy to me, you’ve certainly caused your own share of headaches.”
Juliet gasped, a stunned look on her face. Then she slapped him hard across the face. She looked at him defiantly, as though daring him to slap her back.
Chance wasn’t about to go that far. The last thing he needed was to have the police storming in. As it was everyone in the restaurant was already focused on them. “Go then. Good luck with your fucking doctors and lawyers. Good riddance.”
She stared at him a moment longer, then stormed out.
Katherine gave a loud sniff. “Well, I certainly overestimated that one. What were you thinking, Chance?” she said giving him a look of disdain.
Jacob still looked stunned by the whole scenario. His eyes were on Chance as he settled back down in his chair. He could feel the expression of shock and defeat on his face.
“Collateral damage,” Jacob said ruefully. “Perhaps this is for the best, Chance. You have a lot on your plate.”
“Fuck her,” Chance said coldly. “Just tell me what I need to do to get this ball rolling.”
Jacob gave him one last sympathetic look, then exhaled and got down to business.
“First of all, do you have the money?”
Chance looked at his mother. Her eyes darted briefly away.
“We have the money,” he assured Jacob.
He sat back with a satisfied air. “Good. Good. It’s also good that you were restrained in your terms. I know both of you would like to see these men dead, but let’s face it, that won’t be happening.”
He looked at Chance. “However, if Leo is out before you, the debt you and Chip owe is gone and you’re free to play poker…unless you lose to Peter in which case he gets his way.
“If you win to Peter, then he’ll give up the actual man who murdered your father. That’s the best you’ll get.”
So Peter Antonov was a coward and a rat.
“And if I lose?”
“Aside from the money? You all have to let bad blood lay. No seeking out revenge, either on your own or through…associates.” He gave Katherine a meaningful look. She gave nothing away in her expression.
30
Step 1.
Juliet folded one corner of the paper into the other corner. She made sure it was all perfectly aligned before pressing down on the fold, nice and firmly, then pulling it open again.
It was eight hours until the poker game began.
Outside, the lightning from one of Houston’s trademark thunderstorms flashed. She ignored the bright flash of light, just as she ignored all the thoughts that fought to overtake her mind.
Step 2.
She folded the other corner into the opposite corner, again making sure it was perfectly aligned before pressing the fold, then opening it up.
The table was littered with paper cranes that she had spent the evening making.
She and Chance were over. Finished. Kaput. And in the most spectacularly glorious fashion. Anyone who’d been at the Backstreet Cafe that morning several days ago could tell you that.
Every word she’d said still ate at her. Every word Chance had said bit twice as hard. It was almost enough to make her cry.
Almost.
Each time she felt the tears come, she reminded herself that the outburst, as crazed and impulsive a
s it had been, was for the best.
It was one thing to have a man take her out for ice cream and champagne. It was an entirely different thing to have a man drag her down the rabbit hole of a mafia—Bratva—turf war, complete with her in the crosshairs.
Ending it was for the best.
Step 3.
She folded the paper down the middle horizontally. When she pulled it open, she stared down at all the folds in the paper. Each line was perfect, all connecting in the center.
Juliet thought of the plan she had helped Chance and Katherine hatch out.
Something was nagging at her and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
The sound of her phone nearly caused her heart to jump out of her chest. She took a moment to recover, hating herself for being so damn jumpy. When it rang again she snatched it up and sent her heart on another rollercoaster ride when she saw who was calling.
Chance McCoy.
They were at Jacob Weinstein’s house. Katherine, Juliet, Chance, and Jacob himself. Outside, the storm raged harder than ever.
Juliet and Chance stood on opposite sides of his living room avoiding eye contact with one another. Katherine on the other hand had made damn sure that everyone noticed the daggers she was throwing her way.
She couldn’t blame her. Juliet still cringed when she remembered the hurtful things she’d said about the woman’s son. The woman’s son who, as it turned out, was still inadvertently responsible for the danger she was in.
“What the hell is this supposed to mean?” Chance said, pulling out his phone.
Juliet had already seen the pictures he’d been sent. It was of the two of them outside the hospital Chip was in. Someone had caught them leaving, looking like the perfect couple supporting one another through a difficult period. In many ways, the two of them looked even more intimate than they would have had it been a series of shots of them actually having sex.
“Why would they send this to me today? Are they just trying to fuck with me? Is it Leo or Peter?”
“Chance,” Jacob said calmly, trying to defuse the situation. “It’s obvious one of them is trying to throw you off before the game. Shame on them. As to who it is?” He just shrugged.
“Apparently, whoever sent this is unaware of your recent…ah,” he looked toward Juliet, “return to the single life.”
“This is no time for joking Jacob.”
“What do they want with me?” Juliet finally asked. “Can’t you just tell them that I’m not even with him anymore.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say his name or look at him. Part of it was guilt. Part of it was shame. Part of it was anger. Part of it was what she would find looking back at her.
Did Chance hate her? Even now?
Just because he had called her in to this meeting—which she had every right to be at—didn’t mean that he had feelings for her. Anyone who looked at the two of them now, especially compared to that photo, could have known that much.
“At this point it would make no difference. The photos obviously did what they were meant to do. Look at you, Chance.”
Juliet finally looked Chance’s way. Even from across the room she could see how dark his eyes were. Despite everything, it made her fear for him and this upcoming game. Just because they had parted ways, didn’t mean she wanted him dead.
Pull yourself together, Chance.
Katherine put into action exactly what Juliet was thinking. She walked purposely toward her son and put one hand against his face.
“Hey you,” she said forcefully enough for him to focus on her. “You don’t think about these photos. You don’t think about her.” Juliet flinched at the way she spat that word. “You don’t even think about me or Chip. You think about what you’re good at. That’s poker.”
“If it makes you feel better, your mother and Juliet can stay here with me,” Jacob said. “Everyone knows this is neutral territory.”
Katherine turned to him with scorn. “I don’t need protection. I’m a big girl, a big girl with a gun. And I’m still a Vasiliev.”
Jacob chuckled at that and shrugged his shoulders.
That left Juliet. She was not a big girl with a gun and she certainly wasn’t a Vasiliev, whatever that meant.
As though reading her mind, Jacob turned a sympathetic eye toward her. “The offer stands. I’ve got some very good vodka, which you could no doubt use. I also make a mean pastrami sandwich. The secret is in the mustard.”
“I think that would be a good idea Juliet,” she heard Chance say. “You’ll be safe here.” It came out stiff, almost reluctantly. He still wouldn’t look her way.
That was about all she was getting from him.
31
The thunderstorm was a good predictor of how the day would go.
The thing with the photos of Juliet and him had definitely been a nice little monkey wrench in the works. Chance wondered if whoever had sent them realized that Juliet and he had broken up. All the same, Chance didn’t want her in danger.
Since she wouldn’t go to San Antonio, and definitely couldn’t stay with his mother, Jacob was the safest solution. Everyone knew he was neutral territory, off limits when it came to starting any shit. Jacob had spent his entire “career” making damn sure that he never took sides. In a manner of speaking Juliet was also neutral territory. If she wasn’t safe at Jacob’s place, she wouldn’t be safe anywhere.
Chance brought his head back around to the game. It was taking place in a warehouse located in that industrial area of Houston that was slightly northeast of downtown. He huddled himself and his bag full of money against the wind and rain and ran into the building that Jacob had told him the game was going to be held in. He’d done additional reconnaissance this morning just to make sure the coast was clear and found everything to be in order.
Copacetic.
At least he hoped so.
It wasn’t a large warehouse. For their purposes it didn’t need to be. The poker table had been set up in the center of it
Peter and Leo were already standing inside, giving each other a wary but not too wide berth. They both looked over at him as he walked through the door. The air in the room seemed to freeze as though creating a photograph to recognize the significance of this moment.
One of these men had killed his father.
The other had tried to kill his brother.
Either or both of them had threatened Juliet.
Chance knew that if this game didn’t work out in his favor, he was going to kill both of them.
The dealer was supposed to be an independent party with no ties to anyone in the game. As such, he also served as the banker, taking Chance’s money to be counted before the game. He was also the security, meaning he was responsible for making sure everyone stuck to the no weapons or any other contraband rule.
That came even before the money was counted. Chance was in nothing more than a t-shirt and jeans, still wet from the pouring rain. As the man patted him down, he began to feel the first stirrings of guilt. Presumably this man was an innocent party, an innocent party that would get caught in the crossfire depending on how this game went. On the other hand, if this game truly was legit, then the man had nothing to worry about.
Once the pat-down was done and Chance had deposited all personal items—phone (turned off), wallet, keys—on the table by the front door, he deposited his bag full of cash with the man. Games like this didn’t deal with credit or wire transfers. The three men in the room were some of the few in all of Houston who could gather up that much cash in only a few days.
Chance left the bag in the trusty hands of the individual whose name was purposely never mentioned, and walked in to greet the men he’d be playing that day.
Both of them had the same look about them that a natural predator had when approached by another predator. The eyes were calculating, determining how much of a challenge this newcomer presented. The bodies were erect, muscles flexed to show the maximum threat, but also tense, ready to act
at the drop of a hat if need be.
Chance kept his body and face loose and easy. No threat here guys. Instead he took charge of the situation, heading toward Leo first. As he walked, he fiddled with his dad’s ring that he’d worn today mostly for good luck.
Today he was going to need it.
“Chance,” Leo said in an almost amicable tone.
The usual Russian way of greeting was more physical, a firm bear hug. Chance was fine keeping it perfectly American.
“Leo.” He reached out to shake his hand, looking him firmly in the eye. Leo hesitated for one moment, testing this simple gesture for any traps, before relaxing and taking the offered hand.
Leo was in his early 30s, too young to be the head of a family. No wonder he was desperate enough to resort to using Chip. The blue of his eyes was so pale it was practically white, which could either make them mesmerizing or terrifying. He somewhat resembled a younger, paler Christopher Walken with platinum blonde hair.
“Listen, about Chip. I had to defend myself. I never intended for it to happen like that.”
“What’s done is done,” Chance replied, which wasn’t the response Leo was looking for.
He removed his hand and headed to Peter. Peter’s eyes were drawn to it and Chance saw a hint of a smile appear on his face.
“Peter Antonov,” the man said by way of greeting.
“Chance McCoy,” was all he got back.
Peter was dark in all the ways that Leo was pale. Dark hair on his head and filling his neatly trimmed beard. Despite being almost sixty there wasn’t a trace of gray in anywhere. Neither man was as tall as Chance, but Peter was shorter and bulkier than Leo. His eyes were practically pitch black, intimidating in the same way Leo’s were at the other end of the spectrum.
This one wasn’t going to bother making excuses for his past sins. For a moment, Chance thought he wouldn’t even bother shaking the hand he’d offered. It took one too many seconds but he finally did.
Chance looked him hard in the eyes. Just the feel of his hand sent a wave of disgusted anger through Chance. He itched to remove it from Peter’s grasp and place it around the man’s neck instead. Instead, he placed his other hand firmly on top of Peter’s hand and squeezed tight.
High Stakes: A Texas Heat Romance Page 16
