Beniamino DeLuca
Prologue, , Book 1
MARCUS
H igh card–Ace. I acquired my second card, silently rejoicing. In order to regain the fifty thousand dollars I lost. I had to win this hand. I’d break even and wouldn’t have to worry about how I was going to pay bills for the next three months.
Admittedly, I knew I had a gambling problem. It didn’t make it easier to shake. I tried to keep myself away from betting situations, but sometimes it snuck up on me. It was part of the reason I’d gotten a divorce from Simone. The other reasons…
A pair-Aces. I glanced up from my hand to see the other five men at this table sweating. We’d all lost at the other tables and hoped this one proved lucky. By their expressions, they weren’t fairing so well. The guy across from me, who I’d nicknamed Duck, liked to purse his lips whenever he thought something big was going to happen. His thin lips remained in a tense line as he studied those damn cards as if something was going to change.
Three of a kind–Aces. The dealer laid the first card down. Was I being played? Three aces? It sounded like a setup. I hadn’t touched the deck, and it was proving to be lucky right now. At the same time that I tried to keep a smile from my face, I saw Duck’s lips as he conveyed that his luck had just changed. By how much, though?
Four of a kind–Aces. Stop playing. The dealer flipped the second card over, making for a four-of-a-kind. This hand was mine, and it took every ounce of willpower not to fidget in my seat. Instead, I’d rather see how everybody else was fairing. Duck had that look on his face, so his luck was heating up. He needed a royal flush or a straight one to beat me. Were the odds in his favor or mine?
Whiskey, I’d named the man after he’d ordered one every time he’d lost a hand. He was probably too sloshed to be playing right now. He’d have the perfect cards in his hand and wouldn’t know it because he kept blinking to see the numbers.
Sniffles was the guy who appeared to have a coke habit. He paid more attention to snorting his nose as if he’d missed some in one of his nostrils. He hadn’t, and the congested honks from his nose into his throat were irritating. The man could play, though. He was also a beast at bluffing. He’d won two hands that way. Most of my money was in his pockets.
Paying attention to my cards, I had the highest four of a kind that I could get, but how had the others lucked out? A straight or a royal flush could knock it out of the park. Now, I just had to hope that the poker gods had only been nice to me and no one else.
“I’ll raise you 10.” Duck slid his chips forward, and I watched him slide an additional ten thousand dollars into the pot.
“Okay.” Sniffles added his ten into the pot, upping it to fifty thousand.
Chips, the guy who kept the potato chip bowl in front of his face, was up next. “Fold.”
It did not surprise me since he’d been doing that the entire game.
It was my turn. I added more chips to the pile. I wasn’t ready to fold yet.
“Fold.” Logan, an old friend of mine, said before he tossed his cards to the dealer and stood up. He downed the last of his drink, nodded at me, and walked off. He indicated that he was done for the night.
“Fold.” Whiskey put his cards face down and finished his drink. He raised his glass, and the server nodded before moving to the bar.
That left Duck, Sniffles, and me. Duck raised the pot and Sniffles upped it again. I swallowed, hoping that I wouldn’t regret matching them. Then it was time. Duck turned over his cards to reveal a second pair, kings. Nice work. It wasn’t enough, though. Sniffles flipped his cards to show a straight. Holy fuck. I’d won!
I flipped my cards over and both men hissed. With all the money we’d raised, the pot was one hundred thousand dollars. I pulled the chips my way and stacked them neatly on my side.
“What do you say?” I asked them, wondering if I could beat the stakes a second time.
“My wife is going to kill me.” Sniffles stood and walked away without saying another word.
Whiskey drank the beverage quickly and stumbled away from the table. Chips stared at the table, saying nothing. Duck’s lips were back in a tight line.
“I want a chance to win that back.” Chips said as he watched me set up piles of chips.
“I’m game.” I cleared my thoughts, needing water to get me through another intense round.
“I want in.” A man sat down in what used to be Whiskey’s seat. Two guards stood behind him, and one of them carried a briefcase. “I’ve been watching you all night and you haven’t done badly. I want to know if this hand was a lucky one or if you’re on a winning streak.”
“Ten thousand is the starting bet,” I warned him.
“You’ve just won a hundred thousand dollars. Let’s play big. All or nothing. Your hundred grand for mine.” He leaned forward to stretch his shoulders and then sat back in his seat. “You two can join in.” He looked at Chips and Duck.
Chips raised his hands in defeat and shook his head. He then stood up and left the table, muttering words I couldn’t make out. Duck ordered more chips, and he set them up on the table. He indicated that he was all in.
Three hundred grand was enough to make the game more than worth it. Who was this smooth motherfucka, though? Did he work here?
“Who are you, man?” I asked before I decided.
“Beniamino. You are?” He put his hand out to shake my hand and I took his immediately. Felt obligated to with the way everybody stared at me. Women wandered over and stood near him. Was he famous?
“Marcus,” I confirmed.
“Nice to meet you.” His words were thick with an Italian accent, but his sentences weren’t broken as one would expect with an accent..
Maybe he was American Italian. Changing my mind, it didn’t matter who in the hell he was. I just needed his money.
“Are you in?” He asked.
Something told me to stall a bit, figure it out with a methodical mind, and walk away. His smug demeanor and the way he seemed to command the room when he hadn’t said a thing made him both irritating and sexy as fuck. If I won, maybe I could find out if his mouth worked well on my dick. I was in for everything. The sex and his money.
“I am.”
This deal went quickly. Before I knew it, a king and ten of spades watched me. The ace, ten, and six of spades were there face up on the table, giving me a flush. But what did they have?
“I’ll raise another hundred,” Duck said while pursing his lips.
I had no more cash. I glanced at my phone to help with options. Was I folding? But my ex-wife’s name was on the screen, reminding me of our meeting tomorrow. We needed to sign paperwork on her club… then it clicked.
“I have a club, prime location. It’s worth more than the extra hundred thousand, but my share of the club should be more than enough.”
“Your share?” Beniamino inquired.
“Yes, I share ownership with my ex.”
Beniamino glanced over his shoulder and a man stepped forward. He pulled out his phone and asked for the address. I gave it to him and immediately, my leg bounced under the table. The longer he stared at his phone typing and doing whatever he was engaged in, the more my patience waned thin. Time ticked slowly, causing me to become nervous.
“He’s good for it.” The man spoke finally.
“Then, let’s add two hundred thousand. Make it fair.”
“Fold.” Duck dropped his cards and kicked his chair as he stood. “Fucking fold.” He left, waddling away with his hurt feelings on his sleeve.
“What’s it going to be, Marcus?” He asked.
“Flush.” I laid down my cards and waited for him to show me his.
“It’s a full house.” He put down his cards, and something quickly vacuumed the air from the room.
His man disappeared somewhere into the crowd while I tried to breathe. What the fuck had I done?
Beniamino leaned forward with his arms folded. “What kind of club is it?”
“Urban nightlife,” I whispered. Why had I taken the bait?
“And this was your wife?”
He showed me the screen of Simone smiling brightly as she stood in front of the club on opening night. Her cherry red dress complimented the red undertones on her skin. She was a beautiful woman. It was sad that she could never satisfy me the way a woman should. I’d been in denial about my sexuality and she’d paid the price for it. Something I regretted even more than giving away half of her dreams.
“Yes. Can we work something out?” I made a sound in my throat and shifted my weight on the seat. “I can figure something out with the money.” A few games were happening this week. If I won a few of them, this would be over before he knew it.
“We can. What did you have in mind?” He glanced up as the guard that returned handed him papers.
“I can get you the money in two weeks. Then we don’t have to sign the club over. I’ll give you the cash, and it’ll be like it never happened.” I rubbed my hand on my bouncing leg to get rid of the moisture softening my palm.
“I deal in the here and now. If you don’t have the money, you’ll sign this contract and you can try to buy me out in two weeks. Until then, you owe me now. That means that I’ll collect now. I don’t do IOUs.”
“This isn’t an IOU.” I pressed.
“A payment arrangement is an IOU. A debt. I always collect. If you don’t want me to take the club, you shouldn’t have offered it to me.” He looked down at his phone. “Beautiful. How can a man afford to give something so enchanting away?” He stalled, staring at the picture.
I leaned over a little to see that it was Simone’s picture there. The building faded into the background, and he didn’t seem to take his eyes off the screen.
“She’s not for sale,” I said defensively.
She deserved better than me and what I’d brought her into.
“A man who just lost everything spoke those words. The poor man doesn’t know the value of money the way a man with it does. Everything has a price, knowing the stakes would help with figuring out how much that is.” He placed the papers in front of me and looked down. “Sign them.”
The guard nearest me pulled a gun from his waist and held it toward the floor casually. His grip was ready to fire it if he needed to. I took the offered pen and signed all the places he indicated. I moved to push them back to him and he shook his head.
“You missed one.” He flipped it over and pointed to the blank line. “Here.”
I did, and when they took it away, I knew Simone was going to give me hell. I’d just put her in business with someone that I didn’t know if they were trustworthy.
“Mr. DeLuca, your car is ready.” The guard said.
DeLuca? I’d heard that name. The Italian mafia family that ran most of the state of Florida.
“Nice doing business with you Marcus.” He stood up and when I moved to get up, one of his guards stepped forward.
“I need your ID.” The man said to me, with his gun still in hand.
I scoffed, offended that he hadn’t bothered to ask. I took it out and gave it to him. He took a picture of it and tossed it on the poker table.
“Don’t make this a problem.” He said as he walked away.
How could I when I was too busy scraping my pride off the floor? Suddenly, my stomach lurched, and I ran to the bathroom where I threw up my dignity. I had to warn Simone. It would be better if this all came from me instead of some sexy stranger. She had to know that this wasn’t my fault. I've done everything… Well, I’d tried to keep him away from the property. Made him an offer. If I could keep him away from the club for two weeks, I had a chance of her never finding out.
Wiping my mouth, I rinsed it before taking out my phone to call a few people I knew. I had to do something fast to get that building back before Simone found out. Thinking about that made Beniamino less scary. I didn’t need to know anything about him, but Simone was going to go batshit crazy if she ever did.
Not.
Happening.
Caught in the web of her husband’s dirty secrets, Simone could lose everything she’s worked for. The debt her husband has with the Italian mob threatens to bankrupt her completely. Her club is the one thing that can save her. She can either do business with the devil and sacrifice her soul or she can walk away from it all.
is cleaning up the mess his father left behind. Simone's husband is too good of a mark to let go. His debt gives Beni opportunities he didn’t have before. The club he owns with his wife is the perfect location for what Beni has in mind. What he didn’t consider was what kind of woman Simone is. He could think of a few ways she could help her husband pay.
And he didn’t mean money.