Chapter 22
Something has gone wrong. Really fucking wrong.
Maddock is standing from the table, cards thrown down so he can point a finger at the man who remains seated across from him. His usual all-black ensemble partially hidden by the frankly obscene pile of money now in front of him.
“You’re a fucking cheat,” Maddock snaps, enraged. “How the hell did you pull that card?”
“You sure like to make a lot of wild accusations, Maddock,” the older man from the night before says, stamping out his cigar before getting to his feet himself. “I saw the whole thing, and you lost fair. You shouldn’t play unless—”
“Fair?” Maddock replies, disbelief clear. “All week he’s barely been playing well enough to keep his shirt and now all of a sudden he can’t lose? It’s bullshit, and you know it.”
The conversations around the bar are growing progressively quieter as their table gets louder, similar to last night, only this time I’m not caught in the middle. Still feel like I am, though, even before I find myself up from my barstool and inching closer.
“Maddock,” the older man tries again, calm as he holds up a hand for order. “You understood the stakes and you agreed. It’s no one’s fault but yours if—”
“You can’t tell me you’re really buying this,” Maddock says, starting to sound a little frantic now. “You can’t be planning to accept this when he’s—you’ve lost almost as much as me. Nearly half the money in that pile is yours.”
“It is,” he replies, still appearing more amused than upset. “However, it would seem that your pocketbook apparently does run out before mine. You’re done, Maddock. Time to call it a night and get to moving on.”
My boss stares back at him, purposefully not looking at his men, who I suspect are far more shocked than I am that we’ve arrived at this conclusion, all their hopes for a share of the week’s profits now dead because of a man who really does look more than ready to preside over the funeral.
And who is…still remarkably quiet.
“I’m not leaving without my money. I can’t—” Maddock clears his throat, but his voice remains as unsteady as the hand he lowers to hover over the pistol that is most definitely at his belt tonight. “I won’t stand for being cheated.”
At long last, Cypress sighs, his head tilting up from where he had been looking down at the table, and neatly compiling his winnings.
Now that I can see his face again, the unaffected demeanor he has somehow appears far more menacing on him than I think it would on anyone else.
“I’ve not cheated you tonight, Maddock. Although, even if I had, I do not think you ought to be talking about dishonesty.
” His eyes flick in my direction, but only for a moment, and I wonder what it means before he continues, “You can lick your wounds all you like, but don’t for a second pretend you are not the one who inflicted them. ”
“You will give me back—”
Maddock’s sentence cuts off as Cypress pushes away from the table, tucking all the money into his vest before drawing himself up to his full height. He smirks as his opponent unconsciously takes a step back.
Can’t say I blame Maddock. Because suddenly, there’s not a trace of the charming aristocrat who has been sitting at the poker table with him for half the week, the disguise wholly abandoned to reveal the captivating thief I keep meeting in the shadows.
The one who walks right up to a gun without flinching. The one I’ve known all this time.
“Believe I’m done here,” Cypress says, turning his head in the older man’s direction just enough that he’ll know he’s talking to him even if he never takes his eyes off my employer. “You’ll mind my other winnings, won’t you? All except—”
I know Maddock is going to do it. Maybe before he even knows it himself. I see the way his fingers twitch, see the way he widens his stance too far again like a goddamn idiot, making it all too easy for me to draw my gun before Maddock even reaches for his.
Around us, the previously silent room erupts into exclamations of panic as pistols are pulled and aimed. Tables and chairs scrape loudly against the wood floor as people hurry to take cover beneath them. And, God, I can’t say I fault them this time, because I’m almost as shocked as they are.
Maddock hadn’t outdrawn me. Not by a long shot. But Cypress sure as hell had.
“Gentlemen.” He calmly aims the gun in his left hand at Maddock while the one in his right moves to each of his men in turn.
All except the kid, who has joined most of the other bar patrons in hiding beneath the table.
“Being a poor loser really is so…unattractive. And as you already have so few redeeming qualities, I’d recommend not adding it to the list.”
Twin pistols. He has two shining silver pistols, though I would have sworn he only had one.
Drawn faster than I’ve seen perhaps anyone else do so from a shoulder holster beneath his coat.
Anyone but me when I’d been at my best, and since I’m certainly not right now, he would’ve had me had he been aiming my way.
But he isn’t. And he hasn’t been. Several times now we’ve been alone, and he clearly could’ve killed me during any one of them without me seeing it coming. He could’ve, but he didn’t. He hasn’t even tried to hurt me. Not even when I hurt him.
As if he can hear me thinking, his focus switches momentarily to me, and in that brief second, I see him take in not only my raised weapon but precisely where it is I’m aiming. He grins, those blue eyes of his practically dancing, and I know exactly the reason why.
Because I’m also not aiming at Cypress. I’m aiming at Maddock.
Or at least, I am, until I see the distinct outline of a shotgun appear to my right.
“That’s enough,” the bartender says, pointing the barrel past me toward the table, although with far less accuracy of target. “I’m not having this. All of you need to take this out of here. Now.”
At the order, I glance in his direction without changing my aim, and I’m surprised to find him to be around my age, even though I’m certain I’ve ordered a drink from him every night this week.
“Not sure that’s such a good idea,” I say, quietly.
“It goes into the street and there’s likely to be bloodshed. ”
“Better there than in here,” he says with a shrug. “Don’t really care if they end up killing each other, so long as I don’t have to clean it up.”
“Right,” I say back, able to see his point, though I’m not sure I share the same indifference on whether or not they keep breathing. Well, at least one of them.
It’ll really eat at me if Cypress dies without me having a chance to figure him out first, to at the very least understand his motives even if I likely won’t have a prayer of ever really understanding him.
Although, maybe this is his motive. Maybe all of it was just to get us right here. So that when this very thing happened, I’d be the fool pointing at Maddock instead of at him.
My arm starts to drop, the pistol moving from aiming at my employer to aiming at the floor, so that by the time Maddock pivots toward the bartender while leaving his gun on Cypress, it looks like he’s far more ready to shoot than I am.
“I mean it,” the bartender says while I keep my eyes on Cypress, feeling guilty for some reason for the way his smile falls with uncertainty as he watches me finish lowering my weapon. “I’ll call for the law.”
“A fine idea,” Maddock agrees, the brightness in his tone undercut by the desperation in his eyes. “Let him come and arrest the criminal.”
“You really think anyone will agree with you on that charge?” the older man argues from near Cypress. “Everyone here saw him play a fair game. Just as they saw you lose.”
“They will,” Maddock says, glancing and nodding at his men for the first time since he stood from the table. “That’s the word of five—” He seems to remember again that I’m here. “No, six men. Against the word of two.”
“No judge is going to take the word of men you’re paying as gospel.”
“That right?” Maddock replies, gesturing with the gun between Cypress and him. “And what’s he paying you? How much did he offer you to go along with this? Once a servant, always a servant, hm?”
For a moment, I worry if Maddock might be on to something, if perhaps I’m not the only one who received an attempt at a bribe. I’m not sure why it bothers me. A lot more than it fucking should.
“There are worse things…” the man mutters, giving Maddock a glare that would be enough to kill if there were any real justice in the world. “Far worse.”
Maddock sneers back at him, then turns to the bartender.
“Go on. Call the sheriff. He’ll have an opportunity to weigh the evidence, same as everyone else in here.
” He looks around, meeting the eyes of more than a few men who are still barricaded behind tables and likely prepared to reach for their own pistols if they need to.
“Everyone can determine if they want to be on the right side of this. If they’re going to allow some pathetic thief to rob a Douglas right in front of their eyes.
If they’re ready for the type of retribution that might come about as a result. ”
All around us, I can see a few people exchanging looks at the name, and the power, it holds in this state.
Even the older man, who has been so outspoken up until now, seems to falter as the tide of the room shifts.
But Cypress? He only laughs, shaking his head before he replies, “If your only hope here is calling on your daddy’s name, then I’m not sure I’m the one they’re going to find pathetic. ”