Chapter 4
JUDAH
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Wide eyes, the color of pale blue neon, met mine. “I—I just wanted to play.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing. Thankfully, my beard hid most of it.
Amelia Hawthorne was a shit actress.
I’d clocked her the second she crossed the street and came into view of the casino’s security cameras.
“Go somewhere else,” I quietly bellowed. It wasn’t a growl, per se. I just wanted to scare her a little. Fear was a good thing.
That’s when the waterworks started.
Amelia immediately burst into tears, collapsing into me and sobbing into my chest. I was a big guy, but she caught me off guard, and I stumbled back. My hands landed on her waist to keep her upright as I found my footing again.
“I—I just wanna have fun!” she wailed, then paused and peered up at me to see if I believed the hysterics.
I didn’t.
Heads began to turn.
“It’s m-my bachelorette and it’s ruined because my best f-friend slept with m-my f-fiancé!”
“There are other establishments that’ll show you a good time,” I said quickly and stoically as I tried to usher her back out the door. I had a hunch of what she was trying to do here, and I was not about to let her do it. “I’ll call you a cab. You smell like the bottom of a liquor bottle.”
“Please just let me—”
A throat cleared before I could get her outside. I shut my eyes and let a colorful string of curses fly through my mind.
I turned to face John Valentine, who’d just set his sights on the last woman who should have stepped inside this shithole. “Sir?”
“Jude, let the lady have some fun,” he said, reclining at the blackjack table he played at night in and night out. “Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud.”
“She was just leaving.”
He chuckled. “Nonsense.” He set his cards face down and punctuated the order with a flick of his hand. “One round won’t hurt.”
“Really?” Amelia squealed as she peered around my arm and batted her lashes at him.
Valentine smiled. “Sure, sweetheart. I’ll even give you a little something to play with.”
With a tilt of his head, another order was given. One of the dealers produced chips for her to bet with.
His snow-white hair and weathered skin made him look like a friendly grandfather who always had hard candy on hand for his grandkids, but that was the furthest thing from the truth.
John Valentine was one of the most ruthless men to rule the Valentine family in a century.
Orders were given immediately and emotionlessly.
His calm and quiet demeanor hid the blood dripping from his hands.
He ordered hits the way middle management signed off on expense reports. It was all just . . . blasé to him.
But once in a while, he’d latch onto something that amused him. A plaything. And right now, he seemed to have found a soft spot for the last person I wanted to see here today.
Amelia clapped her hands over her mouth and looked at the devil like he was her savior. “Thank you!”
There was no sense in dragging her out the door. Not since Valentine had made it clear she was playing tonight.
I tightened my grip on her arm and lowered my voice to a subtle murmur. “What’s your name?”
Deep blue eyes that were far too trusting met mine. “Amelia,” she said, quiet as a church mouse.
“Not here, it’s not.”
I didn’t release her arm until she nodded. I watched as she stumbled toward the blackjack table, pretending to be a drunken partygoer, and sat down, handing her soul straight to the devil himself. And she did it with a fucking smile.
Just great.
I slid through the casino floor unnoticed. Unless Valentine had something for me to do, I was invisible.
I knew exactly what would happen tonight.
Valentine would make sure she had a good time, make her feel welcome like an insincere preacher smiling as he shook hands at the door on Sunday morning.
He’d even play the part of a gentleman, making sure she wasn’t leered at by the rest of the dirtbags who frequented the joint.
She’d enjoy a free drink or two and leave at the end of the night with a little cash in her pocket.
But the house would win tomorrow.
And the night after that.
And the night after that.
The house always wins.
By the time I had made it into the back room that housed the security camera feed, Amelia was already being served her first drink.
Vodka cranberry, by the looks of it.
That was good. If she could keep up the innocent schtick, she just might make it out tonight. It would have been more suspicious if she was shooting whiskey straight.
Though she was nearly thirty, she didn’t look like it and could have easily passed for nineteen or twenty.
Apparently, minding your business keeps you young. Maybe that’s why John Valentine looked pretty good for a man of seventy-nine. He minded his business—he had me minding everyone else’s.
I grabbed the headphones on the security desk and held them up to my ear, not bothering to put them all the way on, and tapped into the feed at Valentine’s table.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Valentine asked with a smarmy grin as he fingered his cards.
Amelia chewed on her lip. “Um . . . Angela.”
Her mother’s name. It wasn’t far enough removed for my liking, but at least it wasn’t the name on her driver’s license.
“Angela,” he said, rolling around the name like a cat with a ball of yarn.
Something amusing to entertain himself with.
“Alright, Angela. The game is twenty-one.” Valentine grinned.
“You start with two cards and add up the value. Jacks, queens, and kings are all ten, but an ace is eleven. You wanna get as close as you can to twenty-one without going over.” He picked up one of her chips and slid it forward.
“Let’s start with a little bet to get your feet wet. ”
The dealer laid two playing cards face down in front of her before dealing the rest of the table. Amelia picked them up and made a show of adding them up by counting on her fingers, then took a long look at the up card—a nine.
John Valentine grinned. “Now, you can hit and take another card or stand and stay where you are.”
She hit him with doe eyes. “What if I want to bet more?”
The men at the table chuckled.
“I like you, Angela,” Valentine said, like a king amused with a new courtesan. “You can double down if you’re feeling lucky.”
She studied her two cards again—a ten and a seven. Seventeen was risky. It was high enough that most cards would make her go over, but low enough that most people would risk it to edge closer to twenty-one.
But Amelia Hawthorne already knew that. I watched the way her eyes darted over the dealer’s stack. He was working from six decks tonight, giving the house a greater advantage, not that it needed it.
I had to give it to her, she ran the odds and decided to hit.
The dealer slid her another card, and I watched through the feed as she added it to her hand.
A three.
The round played through. Some hit, some stood, some doubled down.
But Amelia won, raking in the chips.
To the rest of the table, a hand like that was beginner’s luck. To Amelia, it was strategy. To John Valentine, it was the beginning of playing the long game.
To me, it was a curse.