15. LEO #2
I lose a small, insignificant amount of chips in the first few hands by barely looking at the cards as anything more than evidence for their tells. They laugh. They think I'm Sal.
"Look at the brilliant IT nerd," Grigory says, taking the pot. "He folds with a good hand and bets on nothing."
"Computers don't teach you about luck," Marco grumbles.
I don't react. I don't care. I've heard better taunts.
I get another hand, a low pair. It's a shitty hand, but I think I have a solid enough foundation now.
Marco folds first. He didn't hide his disdain when he turned over his cards; he didn't even want to try. Grigory raises, Ruslan calls.
In the second round, instead of just calling to stay in the game, I raise. It's a reckless bet that makes all of them look at me as they would a dog who shits on the living room sofa. Unpleasant.
"What, feeling lucky, kid?" Ruslan asks. He lets out a mocking laugh. "Or did your little brain finally overheat?"
I don't answer. I know he's bluffing. He can't stop looking at his own hand.
"Come on, kid. Bet again," Grigory growls. He doesn't like this. He's feeling pressured. "Or are you gonna cry to Mommy? Think your pretty face will save you from losing everything?"
Feeling pressured is a sign. He doesn't want to risk losing to the nerd.
I raise again.
I look at my shitty cards. I look at Grigory. He's pissed.
Ruslan lets out a sarcastic laugh and folds, throwing his cards on the table. He curses under his breath, "Fucking kid." He's out of the round.
Grigory, the survivor, stares at me, scratching his chin. He has a strong hand and doesn't want to fold, but my bet caught him off guard.
He curses at me.
"Idiot. You don't know what you're doing," he says.
I smile at him. I don't say anything. I see a drop of sweat on his forehead. Really, losing to the boss's little IT kid would be a disgrace.
He looks at his cards, looks at me. Looks at the chips. He coughs.
"Fuck it," he says, throwing his cards face down on the table. "I fold."
Then they all lean in for the showdown—wondering what I could have in my hand to call out Grigory, the biggest of them all with the worst scowl.
Grigory turns his cards over first—a king and a jack. The entire table falls silent. In the community cards, there was a set of those—he would have made a pair of Kings and Jacks. A strong hand. Much stronger than mine.
Their anticipation is almost fun. It makes me laugh. I turn over my cards and toss them on the table in all their magnificent misery.
A pair of threes is a shitty hand.
"You had a pair of threes?!" Grigory exclaims immediately. "Damn, you folded a king and a queen last round, and now you beat me with a pair of threes?!"
I can't help but smile at the absurdity as I take all his chips. Yes, Grigory, you lost to the IT nerd.
The other capos start laughing. Not at me.
"He beat you with nothing!" Marco cackles. "What the hell was that bluff, Grigory? He doesn't even know how to play!"
"Did you see his hand? A pair of threes! I had a King and a Jack!"
The whole room explodes in laughter. It's chaos.
"That was a disgrace, Grigory," Ruslan says.
"It was beginner's luck, dammit!" Grigory insists, his face red.
"Bet again, let's see if it was luck," I say.
Grigory stares at me, furious. He wants to punch me. I wish he could.
It's only at this moment that I notice the air in the room has changed. There's a presence. A weight.
Dante.
He's leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, in the shadows. His gaze moves from Grigory's red face to my stack of chips. And then to me.
The anger I saw in Dante before, the fury he felt because I had exposed myself to Svetlana, all of that is here. But now it's different. It's possessive. He's watching his toy playing with other people.
That's why Grigory was so nervous. He didn't want to lose to the IT kid, of course, but he didn't want to lose to anyone in front of Dante. He couldn't, not in front of the boss.
Excitement rushes through my body. His perception is more important than any stack of chips.
I don't change my strategy. I keep bluffing with shitty hands, reading their tells, and betting high. With each round, the pile of chips in front of me grows.
Marco, with his neck scar, is sweating. He scratches his chin so hard his skin is turning red. Grigory curses at me with every hand he loses. Ruslan has pulled the knife from his waistband to spin it in his fingers as a nervous tic.
They look at me, searching for a clue, a hesitation, anything.
I win a round with a pair of twos.
"What the hell, kid?" Grigory shouts, throwing his cards in anger. "You don't have fucking anything! Again!"
I shrug. "What a shame."
I keep winning. The laughter and conversation cease, replaced by a tense silence.
They stared at me before with veiled contempt, but now the pile of chips in front of me is ridiculous, and there's nothing left to explain it other than the IT kid being better than them at a game of bluff and intimidation.
The perks of not giving a shit, I guess; I have all the chips. They have nothing left to bet.
I stretch my arms and push the pile of chips to the center of the table.
"You can have them," I say. "I was just bored."
The chips scatter like a pile of trash. The capos look at me, dumbfounded. They don't understand that I don't care about money.
I turn to leave the room, and I feel Dante's gaze on my back. A burning, possessive look that I crave. Satisfaction is my fuel, and I hope he enjoyed the show.
That's when I hear his voice. Low. Hoarse. A sound that makes me want to kneel.
"Nyx. My office. Now."
I turn to him. The smirk that escapes does nothing to hide my excitement. "Am I in trouble?"
He doesn't move. His eyes kill me with their heat.
"Now."
I nod. The apathy disappears. Finally .
I follow Luca out of the room, and I know all the capos are watching us.
The last thing I hear is Marco's whisper, "He's in trouble."
I smile. No, I'm not. I'm exactly where I want to be.
Luca abandons me at the door. He lets Dante walk in behind me, and I hear the door close and click shut.
We're alone.
Dante's office is what you'd expect of him—a large room in shades of wood and black, with an ebony desk and a genuine leather armchair.
Like the game room, this place also smells of tobacco, but the scent is richer, more intense.
I see bottles of smoky and spicy whiskeys, lowball glasses, and an ashtray with cigarette butts.
I turn to face him. He scrutinizes me with his chin raised and his arms crossed. He's much taller than me, and it makes him look even more superior.
Honestly, I'd let him fuck my mouth in front of those capos if he ordered me to kneel with that look.
"You're an arrogant little shit," he says. "What did you think you were doing?" He's not as aggressive as I'd like—but the thing that scared him last time is still there: a strange, intrusive softness that only appears between the lines, and which sends a rocket of heat to my groin.
"I was bored," I say. It's the truth.
He narrows his eyes. Then he approaches, and that's all it takes for me to get the good dose of adrenaline I've been looking for for days.
He holds my chin. He forces me to look him in the eyes, and his thumb slides over my bottom lip—his skin against my lips is reverent. I revere him.
"Tell me what you think I'm going to do to you."
He wants to hear it. He wants to hear it from my mouth that he has power over me, and damn, I would tell him every detail of every one of my fantasies if he wanted to.
"You're going to put me in my place," I say softly, and my heart is already racing, spreading oxytocin through all my nerves.
"And where is that?" he says, unyielding. I hold my breath to keep from moaning.
"Below you."
He pushes me back. My lower back hits the desk, and I can't help but groan—it would probably leave another mark, another purple stain.
He comes closer. The same hand that was touching my mouth now grabs my neck, squeezing the sides, feeling my heart rate against his fingers.
The world contracts into a thick fog. All I feel is his touch.
"Below me," he says, "is exactly where you belong."
His hand, with the same aggression as before, grabs my hair and pulls me into a kiss. It's an open-mouthed, messy, deep kiss. His tongue wraps around mine, and he devours my mouth, sliding his hands over my body, squeezing my waist, and pulling me against him.
His mouth glides to my jaw, where I feel the bruises throbbing. I shiver.
"I can't stop thinking about you," he growls, his voice hoarse and his mouth on my skin. His tone is more threatening than anything he has ever said to me. "Every fucking minute, I think about you and your mouth."
He goes down further. "And those sounds you make..." He nips at my neck, sliding his lips to where he was squeezing a second ago. "They drive me fucking crazy."
I'm used to—and always waiting for—being so desperate for him; having him push me to my limit and make me beg, but he's never kissed me like this.
Never kissed my neck, never spread marks on it, never confessed that he thinks about me.
Imagining it makes me throb. Imagining that he thinks about me when he's alone, about my mouth.
The fantasy flashes in my head; his voice calling my name, imagining my mouth around his cock.
"Fuck, mister," I say. It's almost a whisper—I have no breath. Not with him touching me like this. "You can't say those things..."
His hands firm on my hips, and he lifts me, pressing himself against me to sit me on the edge of the desk. He fits himself between my legs, his body brushing against my erection. It throbs.
"I can say whatever the fuck I want, Nyx," he growls against my mouth before kissing me again, biting my lips.
His hands move down from my hips to my pants. He unbuttons them quickly, pulling them down. I lift my hips, allowing him to take them off.