Levi returned to his hotel, showered, and then wiped the steam off the mirror to consider his reflection. Sawyer hadn’t left any marks on him, not like Dominic would have. There was no evidence of what they’d done at all, except a slight ache and the creeping sense of numbness he couldn’t shake.
This was what he’d wanted, right? To stop feeling the way he had earlier?
He left the bathroom and lay down on the bed. When the sun rose the next morning, he was still awake.
Wherever there was a way to bet money on the outcome of an event, Dominic had been there. Poker was his favorite, with blackjack a close second, but he also had history with craps, roulette, sports betting, horse racing, lottery tickets, even bingo. Hell, he’d once wagered on a game of Go Fish.
There was one form of gambling he rarely turned to, though—slot machines. In Gamblers Anonymous, they had talked a lot about the difference between “action” and “escape” gambling. Dominic was usually in it for the thrill, the challenge, the adrenaline rush, all sensations he could obtain from exciting, skill-based games like poker. Slots, on the other hand, had an almost narcotic effect, which tended to be the opposite of what he sought.
Today, though, they were just what the doctor ordered. Suffering his first hangover in years, Dominic didn’t have the energy or mental focus for any activity that required strategy. Staring at a screen and mindlessly pulling a lever over and over helped distract him from his problems without too much effort, even if all the bells and whistles worsened his headache.
He was trying not to dwell on what had happened with Levi. That unexpected encounter aside, the bachelor party had been a rousing success. Carlos had enjoyed himself immensely, which was the most important part, and when they’d met up with Jasmine’s bachelorette party, the two of them had been in an enviable state of drunken prenuptial bliss. Dominic had been forced to sit between them in the Lyft home to prevent a public indecency charge, and once they were back in their respective apartments, he’d been able to hear exactly what a good time they were having through their shared bedroom wall for over an hour.
Carlos and Jasmine were family to Dominic; he would do anything to protect and preserve the happiness they both deserved. But he had to admit he was jealous.
He had begged off the usual Sunday lunch at his mother’s house, claiming to be too wiped out from the party. His mother hadn’t tried to talk him into coming—he’d skipped so many family events over the past few months that she’d given up on arguing with him.
Now free of all obligations, he pulled the lever on his machine and watched the images scroll by with little interest in the result. He’d loaded two hundred dollars in cash onto it earlier, and he hadn’t run out yet, though he wasn’t sure how long he’d been here.
The reels came to a halt without a payout. He pulled the lever again.
“Dominic?”
He swiveled on his stool, dumbfounded by the sight of the person standing a few feet to his right. “Natasha?”
“I’m sorry to intrude, but Diana Kostas told me I might find you here,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said reflexively.
Her mouth twitched like she was struggling not to smile. “I’m glad to hear that. Is it okay if I sit?”
He shrugged, watching in bafflement as she dragged the stool from the next machine closer to him. On a Sunday afternoon, the Railroad Pass was doing good business, but it wasn’t crowded; there were plenty of empty spaces at the slots.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Levi all weekend,” she said, propping her purse in her lap. “So have Martine and Leila and even Adriana. He’s not returning any of our calls or texts. We’re starting to worry.”
“I ran into him for a few minutes last night. He’s fine.”
Levi wasn’t fine, though. Dominic had been too drunk to think through the implications at the time, but Levi had passed out in that bar, even if just for a second. He shouldn’t have been out alone in the first place with the city in its current mood. His clearly deteriorating physical condition made things even worse, to the point where Dominic had to suspect he was being intentionally self-destructive.
What if something had happened to him after Dominic left? The city was turning against him, and Utopia was out for his blood now more than ever before. If he’d been attacked—
Dominic put a firm halt to his spiraling thoughts. Levi had told him in no uncertain terms to stop acting like they were still together; he wasn’t going to waste energy worrying about a man who would only rebuff his concern.
“Levi doesn’t . . .” Natasha hesitated, her mouth working open and shut like she was searching for the right words. “He’s a very strong person, but he doesn’t have the healthiest coping mechanisms, and the things that are happening right now are tied to some of his deepest wounds. I’m afraid that without support, he’ll end up hurting himself.”
“And you think I’m the right person to offer that support?”
“Who better?”
“Just about anyone else!” Dominic scrubbed a hand over his face. “Look, Natasha, I know you mean well, but Levi doesn’t want my help. I’m not guessing about that. He shouted it at me and everyone else within earshot with plenty of color commentary on Friday night.”
She winced. “Yeah, Martine told me about that. I’m sorry. That must have been awful for you.”
He waved a hand, not wanting this to turn into a conversation about him. “My point is that Levi would not appreciate my interference.”
“He may not want your help right now, but he needs it.”
“So I’m supposed to reach out knowing he’s just going to kick me in the balls for my trouble?” Dominic yanked viciously on the lever, then sighed as the machine came up with another losing combination. It had been a dud all afternoon, so it had to be nearing a good payout soon. “Why would I set myself up for that?”
She was quiet for a moment, watching him pull the lever once more. “After you started gambling again, how did you react to Levi’s attempts to help you?”
“You call what he’s been doing helping me? Having cops follow and harass me, blackballing me from casinos—” Handcuffing me to my bed, he almost added, but bit back before it came out.
“They’re not necessarily techniques a counselor would recommend,” she said with a rueful smile, “but I happen to know he’s tried gentler tactics as well. And every time, he gets the same response from you.”
Dominic wasn’t proud of all the times he’d lied to Levi, manipulated him, deliberately caused him pain to force him to back off. But he wouldn’t have had to do any of those things if Levi had just left well enough alone.
“Despite all that, he never stops trying,” Natasha said. “Because love isn’t rational. It drives us to do inexplicable things, like forgiving a person something that would have been unforgivable coming from anyone else. Or refusing to walk away from someone even when the situation seems hopeless. Now, I’m not saying that’s always a good thing, but it’s part of the human experience. And sometimes the only thing that can pull someone back from the brink is knowing there’s that one person who will never give up on them no matter how bad things get.”
Dominic frowned, staring at the slot machine. His hand itched to pull the lever.
“I don’t doubt the strength of your love for Levi. And I don’t think even what happened the other night would keep you from going to his side in a time of crisis. That’s not why you’re sitting here.” She placed her hand on the screen, breaking his eyeline and startling him so badly he jerked backward. “If you had to get off this stool right now and leave this casino, could you?”
Of course he could. This wasn’t like last time. He could stop whenever he wanted.
He imagined walking out of the casino and felt suddenly queasy. If he stopped gambling, there would be nothing to distract him. He’d have to feel everything, all the heartache and anger and grief, and he didn’t want any of it.
“If there was an
earthquake or something, sure,” he said lightly.
“Short of that?”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I could have just called you to talk about Levi,” she said. “I chose to come looking for you instead because there’s something else I’d like to talk to you about. Would you humor me for a few minutes?”
“Sure.”
While Natasha dug through her purse, Dominic’s phone chimed with an incoming text. He pulled the phone out of his pocket.
The text was from a blocked number. We have a big problem.
Dominic tensed from head to foot. An ominous text from a blocked number could only be the Seven of Spades, but what the hell were they talking about?
“Is that Levi?” Natasha asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
“No.” Dominic shoved the phone back into his pocket and looked at her to see she was holding a quarter.
“Call it,” she said as she tossed the quarter in the air.
“Heads.” He was intrigued by her approach. As a social worker, Natasha would know that compulsive gamblers weren’t supposed to bet on something even as seemingly innocuous as a coin flip. What was her angle?
Natasha caught the quarter on the back of her hand, then removed her hand to reveal George Washington’s profile. A pleasurable zing shot up Dominic’s spine even at that trivial victory.
“Great,” she said. “What were the chances this coin would come up heads?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
“And if I flip it a second time, what are the chances it’ll come up heads again?”
“Fifty-fifty,” he repeated—more reluctantly this time, because now he knew where she was going with this, and he didn’t like it at all.
Natasha flipped the coin on the back of her hand over and over while she spoke. “What if I tossed the coin ninety-nine times, and every single time, it came up heads? What’s the chance it’ll be heads on the hundredth toss?”
“Still fifty percent.”
“Really? But it just came up heads a hundred times in a row. It has to be tails now, right?”
“No,” he said, the word dragged out of him by pure force of will.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why not?”
Scowling at her, he said, “Because each coin flip is an independent event.”
“Exactly.” She dropped the quarter back into her purse. “Every time you flip a coin, play a hand of poker, pull the lever on this machine, the probability of the outcome is unaffected by your prior results. You can make general predictions about patterns over long periods of time, but when it comes down to an individual event, those predictions mean nothing. The mistaken belief that statistically independent events influence each other is called the gambler’s fallacy.”
“I already know all of this.”
“You may know it, but you haven’t internalized it. The gambler’s fallacy plays a large role in problem gambling. When a gambler is having a lot of success, he’ll say that he’s on a hot streak, and he needs to keep going to preserve it. When he’s doing poorly, he’ll say that he’s due for some good luck, and he just has to stick it out until the tables turn. You’ll notice that both conclusions lead to continued gambling.”
Yes, and they were both things he’d said and thought countless times throughout the years.
He was struggling for a counterargument when his phone chimed again. Muttering an apology, he checked it without withdrawing it all the way from his pocket.
I’m serious, Mr. Russo. Don’t ignore me.
With a roll of his eyes, Dominic did exactly that. He wasn’t playing this game with the Seven of Spades. If they wanted to tell him something, they could just spit it out.
Natasha’s brow furrowed as she observed his reaction, but she didn’t ask any questions. Instead, she gestured to the screen in front of them.
“Take this slot machine. It’s run on a random number generator regulated by the Gaming Commission. The scrolling of the slots is just for show; your actual result is determined the second you pull the lever—and each time you do so, the odds are exactly the same, because the computer chip always uses the same algorithm. You understand the math. Yet you can’t tell me that, while you’ve been sitting here, you haven’t had the thought that this machine must be getting closer to a jackpot because it’s come up empty so many times in a row.”
He rocked back on his stool like she’d shoved him. Too caught off guard to lie, he said, “You don’t understand. It goes so much deeper than that. I . . .”
He didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so he just threw his hands in the air and took a shaky breath.
“There may be such a thing as luck, but it can’t be predicted or controlled,” she said, her demeanor as calm and gentle as ever. “And while there are some games where skill and strategy can give you an edge, like poker, there’s always an element of random chance. That’s why gambling can become such a problem. You’re drawn to it because you’re seeking a sense of mastery over your environment, the elation that comes from taking a risk and succeeding. But any feeling of control gambling gives you is an illusion that can be shattered the very next moment.”
His stomach churned.
“That’s a difficult thing to accept. Because if you can’t control those risks, if your success or failure is determined more by chance than your own competency, why would you keep gambling even when the consequences become so severe?”
“Because I’m weak,” he said raggedly.
She snorted. “There’s not a weak bone in your body, Dominic. Compulsive gambling isn’t a moral failing. It’s an illness that requires treatment. You just have to be willing to seek help and put in the work. You’ve done it once before; there’s no reason you can’t do it again.”
His phone went off again, making him jump. He glanced at the screen.
Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Do you need to answer those?” Natasha asked.
“No.” Dominic switched the ringer off. “They’re not important.”
Go to hell, freak, he thought, spitefully pleased by the image of the Seven of Spades sitting somewhere with their own phone in hand, growing ever more frustrated as he refused to respond.
Natasha accepted that with a nod. “I only have one more thing to say. You can’t control this slot machine. What you can control is what you choose to do right now, in this moment, when the man you love is falling apart and you may be the only one who can get through to him. I’d like you to think about that.”
She stood, slinging her purse into the crook of her elbow. He gave her a startled look.
“You’re not going to . . .”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You’re the only one who needs to be convinced of your own strength.”
She rested her hand on his arm for a moment before walking away.
Dominic automatically reached for the lever on the slot machine, then hesitated.
The more pain Levi was in, the further he would isolate himself. It was classic Levi Abrams: if he couldn’t fight or fuck out his uncomfortable emotions, he’d try to run away from them, which meant avoiding anyone who would make him confront them head-on.
Some time off to rest—by himself, with no risk of ruining his relationships with unintentional outbursts—might do him some good. The problem was that being alone, especially in his current unstable emotional state, made Levi exponentially more vulnerable to whatever the Seven of Spades had in store for him.
The killer’s earlier texts could have been a genuine warning of an impending threat, or the opening salvo in the endgame they’d flat-out admitted to Dominic they were planning for Levi. Either way, a frightened, lonely Levi would be easy prey.
So why couldn’t Dominic take his hand off this lever?
He was furious with Levi, and deeply hurt. But that didn’t mean he was going to abandon Levi to the whims of an obsessed serial killer. Levi had no suppor
t system right now; there was no telling what the consequences would be if Dominic didn’t do his best to help him.
Dominic tried to withdraw his hand, but the thought of getting off this stool and walking out of the casino was like standing at the edge of a cliff, about to step off into absolute darkness. His heart pounded, causing blood to ring in his ears. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.
This wasn’t what being in control felt like. This wasn’t having a handle on things. He’d been here before—this sickening sensation of being a puppet in his own body, unable to cut the strings of his compulsion no matter who he hurt.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Levi could be in danger.
Dominic snatched his hand off the lever and slammed his other hand down on the Collect button simultaneously. The machine spat out a ticket with a bar code containing the balance of his cash; he grabbed it and hurried away before the toxic urge hammering at his brain could make him sit back down.
After stopping by the cashier, he left the casino as fast as he could without breaking into an actual run. He didn’t stop moving until he was in his truck. When he pulled out his phone, his hands were shaking so badly he fumbled it into the footwell and had to scrabble around to retrieve it.
He set the phone in his lap, forcing himself to take several deep breaths. Then he snagged a towel from the gym bag he kept in his truck and blotted his damp face. Only when he felt less on the cusp of an imminent meltdown did he pick the phone back up.
He didn’t know where Levi was, but that wasn’t a problem. It only took him a few minutes to track down Jay Sawyer’s cell number.
“Hello?” Sawyer said with a touch of polite wariness.
“Sawyer? Hi, this is Dominic Russo.” At the complete and utter silence that ensued, Dominic frowned and said, “Hello? Are you still there?”
“Um, yes.” Sawyer cleared his throat. “Ah . . . what can I do for you, Mr. Russo?”
“I’m looking for Levi. None of his friends have been able to get in touch with him, and I just wanted to make sure he’s okay. I’m assuming you know where he is?”
One-Eyed Royals Page 21
