Chapter Two
In which Nikandr gets his ass kicked. By a girl.
Nikandr…
"Are we starting yet?"
I'm impatient. There are four of us sitting around the poker table, me, Alexsey, Andrey, and a key client of ours, Juan Castillo.
We've just opened up a counterfeit currency partnership, a little side business that I'm projecting will make around a hundred million a year.
He's smoking an enormous cigar, looking around.
We're in a luxurious, wood-paneled room built to look like an old English estate's study; richly colored oriental rugs, leather armchairs and a fireplace that I'm amused to find is piled high with firewood, merrily burning away.
Whoever set up the room also hit the A/C on high to compete with the heat.
There are two other tables like ours, and their dealers are already passing out the cards.
"Sorry we're late!" Liria has a huge grin as she joins us at the table and she's dragging her cousin Caroline by the hand. Caroline does not look happy about being here. She is also fucking gorgeous in a little black dress and all those bouncing curls.
Castillo shoots to his feet and holds out his hand, and I have a sudden compulsion to punch him in the throat.
"Hello, you beautiful creatures," he purrs.
He's not bad looking, with dark hair and eyes, in his mid-thirties.
Castillo just took over his father's counterfeiting business; money, wine, jewels. He’s running it very shrewdly.
However, he's a sleazy fuck. I've had to entertain enough of his twisted tastes over the last week to know it.
"I know the beautiful Liria Morozova, of course, but who is this? "
Liria's smile is professional. She doesn't like this guy. "This is my most beloved cousin," she emphasizes the 'beloved,' “Caroline Basha. We were looking forward to spending some more time with the family tonight."
He's kept his hand out, and just before it gets awkward, Caroline smiles and shakes.
He attempts to tighten down and pull her towards him so he can kiss her cheek.
I've seen this trick before and apparently, so has she.
Pushing her hand in hard and jamming the joint between her thumb and forefinger firmly against his, she squeezes his fingers.
If you're not ready for a grip like that, it immobilizes your hand.
Her knuckles turn white for a moment as she shakes briskly, and then she slides away, still smiling politely at the puzzled Castillo.
"A pleasure," she intones.
Caroline is seated directly across the table from me, Liria on one side, Alexsey on the other.
Her dress skims along spectacular breasts, hitting about mid-thigh on her legs.
They're long and toned, runner's legs, I think.
She has thick, brown hair, shoulder length, descending in waves from a face with sharply arched eyebrows and beautiful green eyes.
A deep green, like the moss on trees in the forest.
And that mouth.
Fuck, it's lush, like a peach or a plum.
I could kiss and suck on it for hours. I sit back with a jerk as if trying to disentangle myself from my own filthy musings.
Where the fuck did that come from? She's the General Manager of one of our hotels, with dead brothers who betrayed the Bratva and nearly got Liria killed.
Only Alexsey and the Morozov women's aggressive championing of her have allowed Caroline into the inner circle.
"Shuffle up and deal."
Mora, the blonde, tuxedo-clad dealer has worked for our family for years. The cards fly with quiet efficiency and we all check our hands. Caroline is sorting through hers, expressionless.
"Action is on you," Mora says to Andrey.
"Fifty thousand," he says, pushing his chips to the center of the table.
"Call," says Liria, Caroline says the same.
"Raise," Castillo pushes an additional fifteen thousand to the pile with a wink at Caroline, who doesn't see it.
"Raise," I say, pushing another twenty thousand into the pot. Caroline has a good stack of chips in front of her. How does a hotel manager have that kind of money? Liria and Alexsey must be fronting her.
The next round starts and Caroline keeps up an easy flow of banter with Alexsey and Liria. I order another drink, irritated by Castillo's attempts to worm into their chat. Andrey ignores us all.
There is muted conversation from the other tables, broken up by the occasional round of laughter.
Poker Night is one of my favorite Morozov get-togethers, it's an easy way to entertain clients and trash-talk my cousins.
Caroline's presence is distracting, the confident way she pushes in more chips, her utter lack of tells.
Alexsey, for instance, will tap his fingers against the felt surface of the table when his hand is good.
Liria hums, just slightly. Castillo puffs more vigorously on his cigar and the smoke is getting annoying.
My brother Andrey? Who fucking knows. I can't tell whether he's happy or sad or pissed off, much less what his poker hand is.
Taking a delicate sip of her wine, Caroline calls "Pass!" in the third round. Her steady gaze moves around the table, resting briefly on me before moving on. My next card is dealt: a ten. A surge of satisfaction warms me. Four of a kind. "Raise," I murmur, pushing in another two hundred thousand.
Fourth round. The cards are dealt, discarded, hands shuffled. Everyone calls for another drink. We're all dramatic assholes, enjoying drawing the moment out. Mora looks at Andrey. He lays out a good hand, three nines and two sevens.
"Full House," he says, still expressionless.
Castillo curses, throwing his cards on the table. "I'm out."
Alexsey shrugs, laying out another Full House, but lower than Andrey's. Liria laughs. "Just a Flush," as she puts out her hand.
It's between Caroline and me. That's a hell of a lot of money, and close to a quarter million of it is hers. Can she afford to lose that kind of cash?
Then she shouldn't be playing.
I lay out my hand, a ten of clubs, a nine, eight, and seven, along with a Queen of clubs. "Straight Flush."
The table is quiet, everyone, even Andrey, is watching avidly. Caroline takes her time, straightening her cards then lays them down. "Straight Flush. Queen of hearts, Jack, ten, and nine."
The first out of his chair is Castillo, cheering for, "The clever Caroline!"
Suck-up. He doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell with her.
She keeps her gaze steady on mine for a moment before leaning over to hug Liria.
"Well-played, Caroline," Castillo's oozing up to her with what he thinks is his most charming smile. I've seen him use it on numerous women this week.
She nods, stepping away to stretch a bit.
His gaze drops, as I knew it would, to her spectacular breasts.
That dress is doing a good job of holding them in, which is a shame.
Pulling her neckline down and setting them free so I could fasten my lips around her nipple would be extremely satisfying right now.
The image is so fucking vivid that I shift uncomfortably. I'm getting hard just looking at her? I need to get laid more often.
"At least I get to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman crushing her opponents." Castillo's still working on her. He's got a slick delivery and that smooth Spanish accent. Some women seem to find it seductive. It's hard to know with Caroline.
She gives him another brisk professional smile as we head to the table with the other finalists.
I wait till she's seated to make sure that I'm directly across the table from her again.
Liria is grinning maniacally, Alexsey's arm around her as he whispers to her.
She nods, her eyes on me, saying something that makes him laugh.
Maybe she's mentioning to her husband that her cousin Caroline is a fucking card shark and I suspect she was toying with us during that first round.
Let's see how she handles herself now.
It's me, Caroline, Uncle Maksim, my mother Tania, who is terrifyingly good at poker, Dmitri, and oh, fuck Alexi Turgenev is here.
We address Alexi as uncle, because our families are close.
He's the patriarch of the Turgenev Bratva, and even in his mid-70's, he still looks like the Angel of Death.
Blond, stern, and you don't want his gaze to fall on you.
Ever.
"Hello, Uncle Alexi. Sir." I nod respectfully. "It's good to see you again. Are Konstantin and Vadim with you on this trip?"
He makes a low noise in his throat, like boulders rumbling down a mountainside. "My grandson and I were addressing an incident in Chicago." His voice is like far-off thunder. "Vadim stayed behind to…" He smiles, and it's possibly the most horrifying thing I've seen in the last decade. "To tidy up."
The table is dead silent, and then everyone makes a nod or a pleasant noise, indicating they've heard and they really don't want to know anything more.
Andrey and Judge Meacham are sitting on a couch, close enough to see the action but far enough to discuss business in private.
The judge's eyes are glued on the cleavage of their server, a redhead who gives him a flirty smile before walking away.
Judge Meacham likes redheads. Andrey never leaves anything to chance.
Turning my attention back to the table, I watch as our usually unflappable dealer hands out the cards, his fingers shaking very slightly as he deals to Uncle Alexi, then moves on. He's sitting next to Caroline, and they share a brief smile before taking a look at their hand.
At least, I think that was a smile.
I'm not sure I've ever seen him smile before. It looks like an upward curve of his mouth, anyway. My mother is watching this with a little grin of her own before she glances at me and then attends to her cards.