His Savage Obsession (His Obsession #4)

1. Chips and Broken Glass

ONE

Chips and Broken Glass

I've been dealing blackjack for eleven hours. My feet are past pain, past numbness, into some territory that doesn't have a name. The smile I'm wearing has calcified into something that probably looks more like a grimace, but the pit boss hasn't said anything, so I keep it plastered on.

"Hit me."

The man in seat three has been losing for two hours. His chips are almost gone. His wedding ring keeps catching the light as he taps the felt. Does his wife know he's here? Sleeping in their bed, thinking he's working late. No idea the mortgage payment just went into the house's pocket.

I deal him a seven. He's got eighteen now.

"Stand."

Smart. First smart thing he's done all night.

I flip my cards. Nineteen.

"House wins."

He pushes back from the table without a word. The chips I've just taken join the mountain I've already built for The Sovereign tonight. None of it's mine. None of it will ever be mine. I'm just the hands that move the money from their pockets to the house's vault.

New player sliding into seat three. Woman this time—red dress, expensive perfume, the kind of confidence that comes from never having worried about rent. I shuffle. The cards whisper against each other, familiar as breathing.

Then the room changes.

I don't know how else to describe it. One moment, the casino floor has its usual rhythm—the electronic chirp of slots, the murmur of gamblers, the clink of glasses. The next, something shifts. A current runs through the space like a change in air pressure before a storm.

I keep shuffling. Don't look up. But it's there, conversations pausing mid-sentence, bodies angling toward the entrance like flowers tracking the sun. Or like prey animals clocking a predator.

Someone important just walked in.

My hands continue their work. Shuffle. Cut. Shuffle again. The cards are a bridge between me and whatever's happening in the room, a task that requires just enough attention that I have an excuse not to look.

But I look anyway.

He's crossing the floor like he owns it.

Which, with a small jolt, he does.

Sebastian York.

I've worked at The Sovereign for three years.

I've seen him exactly four times—always at a distance, always surrounded by people in expensive suits, always moving through the casino like a shark through open water.

The other dealers whisper about him. The pit bosses straighten their ties when his name is mentioned.

Even the high rollers, the ones who drop six figures without blinking, go quiet when he passes.

He's tall. That's the first thing. Tall and broad-shouldered, built like something designed to take up space, to command it.

He shouldn't look like this. That's the first thought that surfaces, unbidden and irrational.

Men who do what he does—men who build empires on ruthlessness, who crushed the Moreno family from first-tier to second with nothing but patience and brutality—they should look the part.

Scarred. Hard-edged. Dangerous in an obvious way.

Sebastian York looks like he was carved by a Renaissance sculptor who believed in cruel angels.

Blond hair, the color of spun gold, pushed back from a face that's almost obscene in its perfection.

High cheekbones. A jaw that could cut glass.

And those eyes. Even from here, even across the casino floor.

Ice blue. The pale, penetrating blue of a winter sky just before a storm.

The kind of eyes that make you feel seen in ways you don't want to be seen.

He has the kind of face that doesn't smile often, and when it does, it means something you should probably be afraid of.

He's too beautiful for this work. Too beautiful for any work. He looks like he should be on magazine covers or movie screens, not running a casino empire built on broken gamblers and buried bodies.

Tonight he's wearing black. Black suit, black shirt, no tie. The top button undone just enough to suggest throat, collarbone, skin. On anyone else it would look like they were trying too hard. On him it looks like armor that happens to be divine.

He's walking toward my section.

No. That's ridiculous. He's walking toward the high-roller tables, or the private rooms, or any of the dozen places in this casino that matter. My pit is mid-floor, middle stakes, nothing special. No reason for Sebastian York to…

He stops at the pit boss station.

Fifteen feet away. Close enough for the overhead lights to catch on his cufflinks. Close enough to watch Daniel, our pit boss, twenty years in the business, unflappable, straighten his spine like a soldier reporting for inspection.

I deal. Eyes on the cards. Professional smile locked in place.

"Mr. York." Daniel's voice carries just enough for me to catch it. "We weren't expecting you on the floor tonight."

"Surprise inspection." The voice is low. Controlled. The kind of voice that doesn't need to be loud because it knows people will lean in to hear it. "Walk me through the numbers."

They're talking. The murmur carries. Daniel's eager, slightly nervous cadence, and those low responses that don't quite reach me. I shouldn't be listening. I should be focused on my table, on the woman in the red dress who just doubled down on thirteen like a maniac.

I deal her a seven. Twenty. She laughs, delighted.

"Dealer shows sixteen," I announce, and flip my hole card. Jack. "Dealer busts. Winner."

I push chips toward her. My hands are steady. My voice is steady. Everything about me is steady, because that's what I do. I keep steady while the world falls apart around me.

And then it hits.

A weight. A pressure. Like someone has turned a spotlight on me. It’s hot, bright, and impossible to ignore.

I look up.

Sebastian York is looking at me.

Not past me. Not through me. At me. His gaze is direct, unhurried, cataloging something.

I don't know what. There's nothing interesting about me.

I'm just another dealer in the standard-issue uniform, hair pulled back, makeup minimal, exhaustion probably showing around my eyes no matter how much concealer I used.

But he's looking at me like I'm a card he's trying to read.

One second. Two. Three.

Too long. This is too long. People don't look at casino dealers for this long unless they're about to complain about something or proposition them, and Sebastian York doesn't seem like the type to do either.

But he's still looking, and I can't seem to look away, and something is happening in my chest. A flutter, a tightening, a heat that spreads down through my stomach and settles somewhere lower.

No.

I break eye contact first. Drop my gaze back to the table. My cheeks are warm. My hands have gone cold, colder than usual, and there's a tremor in my fingers that I have to concentrate to suppress.

What the hell was that?

"Place your bets," I say to the table, and my voice comes out normal, thank God. "Place your bets."

The woman in red pushes chips forward. A new player takes seat one—older man, scotch in hand, the easy confidence of someone who gambles for fun rather than desperation. I go through the motions. Shuffle. Deal. Call the cards.

But he's still there. Still close. The awareness of him prickles along my skin like static electricity. I don't look up, but I track him anyway—the way you track a thunderstorm on the horizon, the way you track anything that could destroy you.

He's moving closer.

My heart rate ticks up. Ridiculous. Stupid.

I'm a twenty-five-year-old blackjack dealer who lives in a studio apartment and eats ramen three times a week.

Sebastian York is a billionaire who owns half the city and probably has models on speed dial.

There is no universe in which he's actually approaching my table, no reality in which I'm anything to him but another employee, another face in the crowd, another person to ignore.

He stops at the edge of my table.

I'm mid-deal. Cards frozen in my hand. I can smell him now—something expensive and masculine: sandalwood, smoke, and underneath it, whiskey.

"Don't let me interrupt." His voice, this close, is even lower. There's a hint of something in it, amusement? Curiosity? Something I can't quite place. "Continue."

Continue. Right. Yes. I'm working. This is my job.

I deal the next card. Eight of hearts. My player has nineteen.

"Stand," the man in seat one says.

I flip my cards. Seventeen.

"Winner," I announce, and push chips toward him.

Sebastian York is still there. A wall of black in my peripheral vision, perfectly still, watching.

Watching me. My skin feels too tight. My uniform feels suddenly cheap, obvious, the kind of synthetic fabric that no amount of ironing can make look professional.

I'm acutely aware of my chipped nail polish, the small stain on my sleeve from a coffee mishap six hours ago, the bags under my eyes that no amount of makeup can hide.

What are you doing? I want to ask him. Why are you here? What could you possibly want with someone like me?

But I don't ask. I deal. Shuffle. Deal again. The cards move through my hands like water, automatic, muscle memory carrying me through while my mind spins in useless circles.

He's probably checking on the tables. Spot inspection, like he told Daniel.

I'm just one stop among many. He'll move on in a moment, and tomorrow I'll tell this story to the other dealers—you'll never believe it, Sebastian York actually stood at my table for like thirty seconds—and we'll laugh about it, and that will be the end.

But he doesn't move on.

He stays.

Through another hand. And another. The players at my table have gone quiet, tense. They know who he is. Everyone knows who he is. The woman in red keeps glancing between me and him like she's trying to figure out what she's missing.

I'm trying to figure that out too.

The thought surfaces before I can stop it: What would it be like?