Chapter 22 #2
It pained me that she hadn’t looked at me yet. She hadn’t noticed I was here, for her. She was either drugged or she was in a disassociative state.
I needed to help her. I needed her in my arms, in my bed.
I needed her safe.
I placed my card down and had one more dealt to me.
My new hand was dull, it was a winning hand if none else had any higher, but I couldn’t risk it all for a low winning hand.
My eyes drifted over the others, keeping an eye on tells and behaviours as I was accustomed to.
Vegas and I had our own language simply with a look.
It was why we worked so well in Brisbane.
Fold.
Hardy’s face lifted in a smirk. I hid mine, because I didn’t want him to know I was figuring his tells, or the others’.
Again, another deal. Slowly, with every game, we lost more and more at the table until it was just me, Vegas and the seedy politician who I knew had his hands in shit I didn’t want my Tavi being involved in.
“Double or nothin’,” I announced, drawing everyone’s attention to me. “I win this hand and she goes with me. I lose, and I’m out.”
Vegas looked at me, his eyes giving away that he had no idea what I was doing and he was worried. Hardy pondered it, and when the politician gave a shrug, he turned to me again. “Even before you see your cards?”
“Did I stutter?”
Hardy’s face twisted up in an evil smirk. “Okay.”
My heart beat so fast, I couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing through my veins in my ears. I could see my girl was struggling to stay upright, even though her eyes were still cast to the wall behind us.
The cards were dealt. I put my hands on the backs of my cards, praying for a miracle. Suddenly, I saw movement to the side of Hardy. Tavi had fallen to her knees after hours of standing on stilettos.
“Perfect,” Hardy remarked, laughing out loud. “She’s showing you how good she can be on her knees. Her favourite place—if you’re wondering.”
I held onto my cards tighter than necessary. It would have been noticeable.
That’s when she looked at me. A spark of recognition lit her eyes before the glaze from before landed over her gaze. It was almost like a shutter on her eyes. Had she seen me or was she too out of it?
I couldn’t get a read on her. My heart broke without being able to do a damn thing to help her. All I knew, I wasn’t leaving her without her. I didn’t care how this hand went.
Looking down at my cards, I felt my chest tighten. Don’t reveal your hand, my old training repeated in my head as I took in my cards. Vegas was giving nothing away, but I could tell he had nothing. He placed two cards down, and then looked at his new cards.
I choose to put my lowest card down, and risk it.
I could have probably won with my hand, but I didn’t want to show Hardy how confident I was.
Tavi’s breathing was heavy, I could feel it in the way she was wincing with pain at being on her knees on the hard floor, but to her credit, she didn’t crack. She didn’t try to move.
My mind kept going to all the ways I could prolong Hardy’s death after this. How I could elicit the worst kind of fear from him, to make him piss his pants and embarrass himself. How I could send a message to his friends who protected him from his crimes.
I had made up my mind. He was going to be made an example of.
They’d find his body.
I’d make sure of it.
A warning to all of our enemies. Don’t fuck with a Shackled Son.
Picking up my one card I was now dealt, I bit down on the way I wanted to jump up, grab Tavi and take her to safety.
Looking around the table, Vegas made his tell to me. He had nada. It was down to me.
“Ryan?” Hardy urged the politician to begin. The beads of sweat on the top of his brow told me he had a hand, but it could go either way. He looked from me to Vegas, then to Hardy.
“Fold.”
He threw his hand down, and Hardy moved to Vegas. It felt like everything had stopped moving when Vegas put his three of a kind down. Damn.
I was going to need to work on figuring out his tells. That was a better hand than I thought he had. Hardy placed his cards down, a smug look on his face, like he’d won already.
There, in front of me, sat a full house. Fuck. That was a good hand.
“Guess she’ll be staying with me a little longer,” he said, as if he were speaking only to me.
“That’s only if my hand doesn’t beat yours, Bainbridge. That hand you got, it’s considered the fourth highest in rank. There’s still so many possibilities for me.”
Hardy’s smirk was wavering. “You can’t tell me you have a royal flush.”
“I didn’t say that, no,” I replied.
“Then that settles it. Good evening, gentlemen, there’s a party going on upstairs if you’d like to sample some of the goods.”
He stood, his gaze falling to Tavi for a moment, before he turned back to me. “Go on, Williams, show me your hand.”
I looked down at my hand, and then slowly, placed the cards facing up.
“Jesus,” Vegas shot out a breath. “Four of a kind. Mr Williams is the winner.”
Hardy’s smile died immediately, and he looked down at the cards in question, as if he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Vegas stood, watching as Hardy crept back, toward Tavi, blocking her from my view.
“A deal is a deal, Bainbridge,” Vegas said. “Hand the girl over to Mr. Williams.”
“He’s cheated. Somehow he’s cheated.”
Slowly, the room emptied of the previous players, leaving us just in the room with Hardy and his associate.
“She’s mine, Maverick,” he sneered at me. “Mine, by way of the law, and by way of our child together. She’ll come back. She’s weak like that.”
“I don’t know what torture you put her through, Hardy, but I can tell you that woman is stronger than you think. Step aside before I make you.”
“You’ll never get out of here alive,” he warned. “I have guards everywhere.”
Hardy had backed up enough that he was now standing flush in front of Vegas, who had his revolver in his hand, under Hardy’s chin. I pulled my piece out and shot his associate between the eyes, quick, and clean. The sounds of the casino outside would have hidden the shot enough, but we had to move.
“Take him,” I told Vegas, who nodded and clocked Hardy on the top of the head.
He fell immediately. Vegas and Chaos, who had been waiting outside, dragged him down the darkened corridor and toward a back entrance.
I knelt in front of Tavi, smoothing her hair away from her face, praying she could see it was me.
“Tavi?” I said, trying to shake her slightly so she would focus on me.
“Not real–not here.”
God, she didn’t think I was real. Shadow was at the door with Reaper then, and I looked up at him, not sure what to do.
“Go,” Reaper told me. “Look after him so this doesn’t come back on us. We got her.”
I nodded, and helped Tavi up. She felt so good leaning against me, but there was something off about her. Something I was worried was broken.
Shadow helped her into a chair and Reaper guarded the door just as I slipped out, giving her one last look, before I went in search of Chaos, Vegas and the man who was going to experience every inch of pain and suffering I could inflict tonight.
Once I saw Chaos at the door to an emergency exit, I knew. This was going to happen now, and here.
“We got the car being pulled around, what you want with his body?”
I should clear this with Reaper first, and it should be his call, but I needed this fucker to be made an example of. I needed people to know what happened when you fucked with the Shackled Sons.
“Outlaw pose.”
Chaos’ eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Too much for you?” I queried, annoyed he was questioning me.
“Not at all,” he replied, his sick, twisted little smirk appearing on his face. “Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I got you, brother.”
Stepping into the cool night air, I looked down at the piece of shit on his knees, the revolver at his head, and Vegas behind him, calm as ever. That was Vegas.
“Vegas, what’s the worst punishment I could deliver without messing up my hands?” I asked him.
“You afraid to get bloody, Mav?” he asked, a smirk on his lips.
“Usually no, but I have a woman to go home and please, and I’d much rather be able to use my fingers.”
Hardy scoffed. “Whore–”
He didn’t get far in his tirade. Vegas smacked him with the butt of the gun, silencing whatever vile shit was about to come out of his mouth. Vegas let him drop to the ground, knocked out.
“I got the perfect fucking thing for him, but you’re gonna wanna wake him up for it. He’s not gonna wanna miss this.”
Somehow, I chuckled, and undid my pants, pulling my dick out and aiming at the motionless fuckhead who had tried to ruin my woman, on multiple occasions.
My piss hit him directly on the face, coating him.
Watching as he came to, his tongue coming out to taste the liquid on his lips, before realisation took over just as my stream ended.
“Fuck–”
He was about to call out to me, when Vegas kicked him in the side, causing him to howl in pain.
“We’re going to play a little game, Hardy,” I said, kneeling down, and taking the revolver off Vegas who stood to the side, his arms crossed over his chest. I flicked out the cylinder and made a show of removing all the bullets except for one.
Vegas always carried this gun around with him.
It was a reminder of everything his father had taught him, and a reminder that he took his father’s life with this very gun.
“We’re going to see how lucky you really are. ”
“You fucking asshole,” he spat viciously. “My men are inside, they’ll have you and your club for this. The Ironborne will come down on you so fucking hard.”
“Yeah, see, you’re already losing favour with the Ironborne from what I heard. Mannix has been gathering an army under your nose. The old guard is out, or will be taken out shortly, and then rises the new Ironborne. The one who will work with the Sons to bring peace to Sydney.”
“Fucking mongrel,” he spat at me. “It’ll nev—”