Chapter 3 #3
Brian laughs at me, like I’m being stupid. “Buddy, you can pick up your hand now.”
“I know what’s there,” I say evenly. “I don’t need to stare at it.”
Gregory scoffs, but Brian just gives me another assessing stare, then flips over the first three community cards; AKA the “flop”.
It’s a King, a six, and a three.
“Dealer goes last,” Brian says, elbowing Gregory so hard he almost knocks the brother off his chair. “Make your bet or fold.”
“I’m in,” Gregory says, too casual. “Five hundred, the standard.”
“Call,” Leonard adds quickly, meaning he’s also staying in the round.
They look at me. I stare them each down, but besides their sneering haughtiness, I can’t tell much about how they feel this round. The stakes aren’t high enough for these kids to sweat it, and their nerves aren’t getting the best of them.
Finally, I make a decision. “Call.”
“Call,” Brian says with relish. “We’ve got ourselves a game.”
I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and look up to see Kira heading toward me, her eyes on someone at my back. She leans down and puts a hand on my shoulder, murmuring in my ear as she goes.
“My uncle is here.”
I shift my weight to try and stand, my belly flipping with excitement at meeting a possible bratva leader, but she uses her hand on my shoulder to gently keep me in my chair. I look up at her, our faces close, her huge doe eyes right in front of mine.
“Don’t worry,” she whispers, putting her mouth even closer to my ear so no one can hear her but me.
I instinctively put my hand on hers over my shoulder, leaning closer.
“Stay and finish the game. I don’t want Brian to have any reason to drag you back into another round later.
Get this over with, alright? I’ll go say hi, smooth things over with him, and introduce you when it’s done. ”
“If that’s what you want,” I concede, remembering my decision to make her week easier, not harder.
She pulls back just enough to smile at me, and I place a kiss on her cheek before she stands to leave.
Lexie follows Kira, but Janessa seems to be too shy or too nervous to go chat with the mysterious uncle, and instead wiggles her way onto Brian’s lap.
“Ready now, Casanova?” Leonard snickers while Brian flips over the next dealer card.
It’s a ten. I hum thoughtfully, only to cut it off abruptly as Leonard looks at me sharply in response to the audible tell.
I raise a finger to get Brian’s attention. “What were the rules about pairs again?”
Gregory snorts, but Brian keeps his expression congenial as he responds. I can read how smugly superior he feels in his body language, but he’s playing nice for now. “One pair is a fine hand, two pairs is better.”
I feel a presence loom behind me, and stiffen. I don’t like having enemies at my back, and I don’t know yet if Kira’s uncle is an enemy.
The boys sitting across from me start throwing nervous glances over my shoulder; even Brian looks a little cowed. Janessa is trying to busy herself by looking at her boy toy’s cards.
“Raise,” Gregory finally says, trying to brush off his nerves with brashness. “I’m feeling lucky.”
“Call!” Leonard says defiantly, playing chicken with his brother.
“Wait, so if I call, how much am I betting?” I ask, scratching my head.
“Gregory raised, so the bet went from five hundred to one thousand,” Brian smirks. “We already put in five for the buy-in, and five for the first bet. If you call, you’re adding another thousand, leaving two grand in the pot from you. If you fold, you’re only out one. What will you do?”
I hesitate. Two thousand dollars. If I lose, will I have to take that out of the pay Kira is giving me?
I take a long time to stare at them, one by one. I don’t want to give them two thousand dollars. But I can’t afford to let them think of me as a coward, either. I’m not folding to these losers.
“Call,” I finally say, my tone begrudging and doubtful.
“Call,” Brian says so soon after me that we’re almost speaking on top of each other. Eagerly, he flips over the final dealer card, the river card as he called it.
“Another King,” Gregory whistles, looking at all of us in turn to see our reactions.
“Well?” Brian prods him, eager and supremely confident.
Gregory chews on it for a while, then sighs mightily. “I fold, fuck you.”
Leonard laughs, and flips his brother off. “I raise!”
They look at me. I take a deep breath–
A knock at the door gets everyone’s attention, and we all turn to see a maid waiting by the exit to the hallway. I’m too distracted by the tall, dark suit hovering beside me in my peripheral to really pay much attention to her. Young-gi was standing closer than I expected.
“Dinner is served,” she bobs her head and hustles away.
“Read them and weep!” Leonard shouts and tosses his hand on the table, revealing that his cards, combined with the ones on the table, hold three of a kind–three tens.
“Sorry, boys,” Brian says smugly, interrupting Leonard’s victory cheers and Gregory’s pouting. He places his cards face up on the table, revealing a flush–five cards of the same diamond suit, although not the same rank or in sequential order.
“Aw, fuck you!” Leonard complains. The boys stand, and I stand with them. The parlor is emptying out, and I’m ready to turn around and meet Kira’s uncle already. But I want the boys to walk away first.
Brian pauses, seeming to realize something. He looks at me with lingering doubt and uncertainty in his eyes. He still isn’t sure if I’m a moron, or if I’m something more.
His eyes dart down to my cards, which still lay face down on the table.
The brothers hesitate, too, when they realize their leader isn’t with them. They look back at me. The moment stretches.
I can feel Kira and her uncle waiting for me, looming right behind me. There is a more important threat in the room than these boys. I have no more time to waste playing around with them. They’re small fishes.
I give them an embarrassed smile and a shrug. “I guess beginners’ luck wasn’t with me this time. Good game.”
Reassured, Brian relaxes and sneers at me, puffing his chest. Janessa is clinging to his shoulder, congratulating his win and looking up at him through her siren-like lashes. He grabs her ass as they walk to the exit, lewd and aggressive.
I shake my head and turn to Kira.
And I probably do the most obvious double-take of my life.
Because holy shit.
Kira’s uncle is a smoke show of the highest order.
He’s tall and lean and strong and wearing the fuck out of a suit that fits him just right.
He’s paired a designer watch and gold cufflinks with unstyled dark hair that isn’t quite long enough to look messy; nor is it long enough to cover those intense, slanted dark eyes set in a flawlessly pale face of angles and sharp edges.
His wide brow and strong nose resemble Kira’s Russian heritage, but his cheekbones, mouth, and eyes hint at his mixed ancestry.
He looks like he’s in his mid to upper thirties, but I’ve always enjoyed maturity in a partner–yeah, it’s fucked up, considering my childhood, but I can’t help it.
“Tommy,” Kira slides her little hand in mine, and I reflexively pull it up to kiss her knuckles, trying to center myself. She blushes. “This is my uncle, Young-gi Sokolov. Uncle Young-gi, this is my b-boyfriend, Tommy.”
“Tommy…” Young-gi trails off meaningfully, prodding me to give my last name.
He has a startlingly blank face; besides the intensity of his stare, his expression is giving me nothing.
No hints about his thoughts or feelings.
His mouth is sexy but stern and flat and serious, and that immediately makes me want to see what those lips look like when he softens them, when he kisses with them. Sucks, licks, fucks. Et cetera.
My mouth goes dry, then salivates a little too much. I clear my throat so my voice won’t crack. “Claremont.”
“Hm.” He puts out a hand for me to shake.
I look at his calloused palm for perhaps a few seconds too long, then shake his hand belatedly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sokolov.”
He grasps my hand in his, and squeezes just a little too tightly.
We meet stares again and I immediately know that the rumors are true.
Whoever Young-gi is in his free time, he’s dangerous.
He’s killed a man before, maybe lots of men.
I see it in him as clearly as I see it in myself.
But I doubt he can see it in me. I’m good at disguising it, and powerful men like Young-gi don’t bother with hiding.
“I can’t say I’ve heard of the Claremont family.”
“Um–” Kira tries to interject, but I’ve got a handle on things, so I answer for myself.
“To be fair, I can’t say I’d heard of the Sokolovs before meeting Kira.”
He doesn’t hold back. “I can’t make any statements about the depth of your knowledge–your education is not my concern. But I make it a point to know the names of powerful families. I don’t know yours.”
Oh? I mentally purr. Tell me how scary and fucking crazy you are. Out loud, I say, “We keep to ourselves. Real shy, us Claremonts.”
Yeah, we are still shaking hands. He’s got surprisingly big hands.
Strong, firm.
Choke me, holy fuck.
Thank god my dick doesn’t get hard most of the time, or I’d be really embarrassed right now.
“I think you misunderstand,” he squeezes a little harder. “I didn’t say I know the families that seek my attention. I said I know the families who have wealth and power. Whether they know me or not, I know them.”
“I–” Lexie tries to get a word in.
“Good for you,” I say, infusing my tone with saccharine praise, like I’m talking to a puppy. “That must be such hard work.”
Yeah, I’m a brat. I know it, and I don’t give a fuck.
He raises a brow for a nanosecond, finally giving me a micro expression to work with. He’s annoyed, maybe. Or unimpressed, at the very least. There is a twitch at the corner of his mouth and I can tell he thinks I’m an asshole. Well, that makes both of us, baby.
We finally let go of each other’s hands. He wipes his on his jacket without even trying to be subtle about it.
“I’ll leave you to your friends,” he says to Kira, who is watching us with huge owl eyes of trepidation and surprise. “I don’t want to get in the way. I simply wanted to say goodnight and let you know I was here.”
“You won’t have dinner with us?” she asks, and I see the way her face falls.
Despite her complaints about her uncle being overbearing or overprotective, she cares about him.
It makes me refocus on him, reevaluate him.
Because if Kira–an anxious mess–likes him and wants him around, he must have a gentle side to him that he saves for her. Maybe he’s not a total asshole, then.
“Unfortunately, I’m on a working vacation, so I have some calls I need to take,” he says, patting her head like she’s a pet he’s fond of but isn’t comfortable with. She takes the weird affection without flinching or making a face, so I can only assume it’s a common thing for him to do.
“Will you stay the whole week?” Kira asks hopefully, her fingers squeezing mine as she waits for the answer.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Young-gi confirms, giving a single sharp nod. And then he looks at me. “I’ll be keeping an eye on things here.”
Oooooh, a threat, so sexy. I want to smirk at him, but I decide to act stupid and stare at him blankly like I have no idea that he means me.
“Kira, come on!” Lexie calls from the hallway. “We’re going to make everyone wait on us!”
Kira immediately grabs my hand and drags me down the hall away from Young-gi, who sighs at our departing backs as we race to catch up with the rest of the group for dinner.
****************
Young-gi
I watch my niece and her new boyfriend leave the parlor, narrowing my eyes at their joined hands, unsure if I approve of him.
Tommy Claremont. I’ll look into him.
He seems…off. I can’t put my finger on it. Something just isn’t adding up there.
I glance at the poker table he’d been sitting at with those three other young men. Gambling isn’t a great sign of his character, and he seems to be shit at it. I didn’t even need to see his face to read his thoughts. His body language and tone made it clear he had a weak hand and no strategy.
I’m about to spin on my heel and join Yosef in my home office, but I hesitate.
I don’t like underestimating people. I try to make sure it never happens.
So, moving quickly, I go to the table and flip over his cards to see what he had.
A king, and a three.
My eyes widen slightly. Combined with the dealer cards, he had a full house. That would’ve won the game. It beats a flush, which was that boy Brian’s hand.
So why did he let the other boys think he’d lost?
I reevaluate my impression of him with this new information. Tommy is a better actor than I gave him credit for, with strategic motivations that are known only to him. He remained calm under pressure, not giving anything away.
He walked into a game and let himself lose money, on purpose…but why?
I focus on the events that just occurred, trying to recall every detail.
I mentally re-watch Tommy’s casual touches with Kira–the intense way he stared at her, the delicate way he held her hand and placed kisses on her cheek and her fingers.
Perhaps genuine, but perhaps not. He’s clearly no stranger to disguising his feelings.
I stare down at the cards again, and I realize…I don’t know how I feel about any of this.
I don’t know how I feel about him.
So I decide I feel nothing.
Logically, I know suspicion is the most reasonable response in the face of this new evidence.
So that’s what I’ll go with. Suspicious.