High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) (7 page)

“Maybe,” I say, moving into the glowing blue light emanating from the six screens surrounding Cole in a half-circle. “But it’s good for
us
. You look like shit.”

Cole gives me a thin smile. “You look only slightly less invincible than normal. Big opening getting to you?”

“Lots of things are getting to me.”

“Like this pretty girl who tried to rob us?”

“Girls? Yeah. You remember what those are, right? We should go out sometime.”

Cole sighs. “Why? So I can play wingman?”

“No. So you can get laid.”

Cole nods at a picture on the screen directly in front of him. It’s Summer, although the girl in the photo looks so different from the one I met in the alley it takes me a few moments to recognize her. First, she’s a bit younger. The photo was taken maybe three years ago. She’s sitting in the back seat of a beater black mid-eighties Porsche convertible. The car’s parked in front of a dumpy-looking lime green motel. Summer’s wearing a white dress, the lightly-patterned, frilly kind women wear when it’s hot outside. The dress’s thin straps run down her shoulders. My eyes linger over her skin, trace down to the shadows formed by her breasts. Her hair is long, whipped wild from riding in the convertible. The dirty-blonde color she had in the casino tonight is gone in the photo, replaced by a lovely coppery brown. She must’ve dyed it tonight, or been wearing a wig. Her long legs are tossed with casual abandon over the Porsche’s red leather passenger seat. She’s wearing spiked black boots.

Everything about her turns me on. Her careless slouch. Her leg up in the air like that. The dress’s thin fabric. The saucy, not-taking-shit expression on her face—

Summer’s also sighting down a handgun, something mean and semi-automatic from the look of it. The gun has a gleaming chrome barrel and a bright pink handle. The look in her eye as she pretends to gun down the photographer is playful. But it’s not a stretch to imagine her aiming with real intent to kill.

“She’s a fucking basket-case,” Cole says.
 

“That’s saying something, coming from a guy who never leaves this room.”

Cole gestures at the computers. “World’s right here at my fingertips.”

I decide to ignore him. It’s an old argument, doomed to go nowhere. “What’s her story?”

“Her father, Dave Mason, died in the military when Summer was three. Fluke accident on the firing range during basic. She was raised here in Vegas. Her mother, Carrie Mason, made ends meet working the casinos in…just about every capacity they asked her to. Money was tight, given Carrie’s predilection for the slots. ”

“Mom gambled whatever she made.”

Cole nods. “Summer hit the streets early. Mom worked two jobs, sometimes more. Very little adult supervision. Summer basically raised herself.”

Something’s building in me as I stare at Summer’s photo. A kind of sadness mixed with longing. I want to hold her. That’s the short of it. It seems silly. Even juvenile. But I want to fucking hold this complete stranger and tell her it’s all right. Tell her she’s with me now. That everything’s changed in her life, and that I’ll never let anything lousy hurt her ever again.

Which is odd, considering how I plan to use her—
 

“What?” I interrupt Cole, realizing I’ve zoned out on his last few sentences.

Cole gives me an odd look. “Sure you’re all right, bro?”
 

“Been a while since I fed. I mean…ate.”

“Do that, then. Cuz you’re looking…off you’re game.”

Cole leaves the rest unsaid.
 

That it’s a real bad time to be off my game.
 

“Tell me about her.”

“All right. You know about the grifter stuff. She works at Trader Ho’s, stocking shelves a few nights a week. But that doesn’t keep the fridge full. She supports herself and her mother almost exclusively through robbing casinos.”

“Even now? On parole?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Any big scores?”

“Nothing I could find, but who knows? I think she’s a kind of con-artist grinder.”

I toss Cole a blank look.

“You really need to study up on this shit, man.”

“I’ve been a bit busy lately. Besides, that’s why I have you.”

Cole gives me an exasperated sigh. “A grinder’s a gambler who ekes out a grim living winning small bets. Never goes for the big score, so never loses his ass completely. Just day in and day out, a few hundred here, a few hundred there, flying under the radar—”

“Summer didn’t stay under the radar. She got busted once already. Then tonight.”
 

“Yeah. Well. Sooner or later, every con’s luck runs out. Or maybe she just got greedy. This is Vegas, after all. Greed’s in the fucking water. The bust that landed Summer in prison happened two years ago. She spent a year in juvy. Out on parole a year ago. Quiet since then. Until tonight.”
 

“What about her mother?”

“Moms is still with her. Not doing too well.”

Cole presses a key. Summer’s image is replaced by a second one. Another run-down motel or apartment. A woman, very thin, bald, hooked up to a respirator, sitting on plastic lawn chair on a balcony, staring across an oil-stained parking lot at an empty pool.
 

“Carrie’s too weak to leave the apartment,” Cole says. “Stage two lung cancer. Terminal.”

“Summer supports her. Pays the rent. Puts food on the table.”

“By any means necessary. Dropped out of school when she was thirteen because she had to work. Studies distance ed now. Working toward her GED.”

I don’t know why, but I almost feel vindicated.

Summer’s not a charity case. There are thousands more like her in this country, maybe even millions. Life dealt her a shitty hand and she’s trying to get by. Trying to survive the best way she knows how. I respect that. I might not agree with what she has to do. But if I were in her shoes…I’d be doing the same damned thing.

“Do you see her being beneficial to our interests?” I ask.

Cole shrugs. “She might be. You got a lot on her, for sure. That parole she violated is no joke. With her record, she’s looking at ten to twenty. But it gets
better
.”

Cole pauses. He likes it when I have to hang on his every word. It’s a little, micro-sized power trip. I let it slide. Cole’s the runt of the litter. He doesn’t have any power other than what his geekery give him, and he never will.
 

After a while he says, “First, Summer’s in with the Abatelli Family.”

“No shit? The Gaming Commission woman mentioned that.”

Blake nods, hits a button. A Jersey Shore looking dude appears on the screen. Fake tan. Roid-monkey build. Rhinestone shirt. Slicked-back hair. “Seems like a douchebag,” I say.

“You think? Meet Vito Abatelli. He’s a bottom feeder in Il Potere. A small time enforcer. Runs drug deliveries too. A glorified mule. But he has the famous family name, and he slings it all over town. Summer’s been fucking him since they were in their early teens. You should see some of the emails he sent her. Dude’s no poet, but Summer’s gotten way under his skin.”

He’s not the only one.

“You think Vito was involved in her playing the Savannah tonight?”

“Nah. Not his style, from what I gather. More of a gun-in-your-mouth kinda gentleman. But…”

“Say it.”

Cole tenses. “Don Luca Abatelli
does
have a beef with you.”

“I paid that motherfucker off.”

“Not how the dons work. You disrespected a mafia boss in his own town.”

“Bullshit,” I say, getting pissed off. “I can’t help it if the fucker didn’t want my casino on the property next to his. Tough shit. I have more money. It’s not the early Twentieth Century in Sicily. Welcome to America. He with the most cash wins.”

Cole cringes. “I know, I know. But you asked about dirt on this Summer girl. There it is. A potential connection linking the grifter who just fried your soft opening to the crime boss who hates you.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out.
 

My entire body tenses.

“What is it, Landon?” Cole asks, his eyes wide as he scents my anger. “What the fuck is it?”

“Nothing. I want cameras on the girl. Everywhere. In the next hour.”

“That’s gunna be—”

The six computer screens go black.
 

Cole looses a panicked choke and begins frantically banging on his keyboard. Written across each screen is a single word that makes a sentence that matches the threat I just read on my phone:
 

YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD AND BURIED, WILDBLOOD.

“WHERE THE FUCK were
you
?” I yell at Alfie as he pulls to the curb in his shitbox Porsche 911.

“You followed?”

“What kind of question is that? No. Where were you?”

“Getting stoned. Playing Angry Birds. You should see my score. Why? Something go down?”

I slide into the passenger seat and smack him on the shoulder. Alonso’s one of my oldest friends. He’s a smallish, thin-boned Latino guy with a knot of curly dark hair and mischievous eyes that sparkle when he’s taking the piss, which is just about always.

“Nah,” I say. “You know. Tried rolling the largest casino in the world. Had my usual shit luck. Got chased down by tools. Oh, and this…”
 

I lift my broken pinkie finger in Alfie’s face. It’s duct-taped to a Bic pen. It’s a shitty splint, but it’ll have to do. I don’t have the time for a trip to the hospital. Or the money.
 

Alfie punches into traffic along the Strip. “What the fuck happened?”

“Assholes happened,” I say, wrapping the finger with another few layers of duct tape, chewing through the end and spitting a piece out as we gain speed. “Caught me in the alley. Where
you
were supposed to be, engine gunning, ready to tear ass outta there.”

“Got held up, Summer. Sorry.”

“Oh yeah?”

Alfie flicks me a quick glance. “I got the fire alarm going, didn’t I?”

“You want a medal? What happened?”

“You’re not the only one who had a run-in with assholes. I was jacked into Savannah’s security network like we planned. Took a bit longer than expected. Whoever’s running firewall security at Savannah’s knows his shit…”

“But you got in.”

Alfie grins. “I watched your play through their video feeds. Nothing you coulda done different. Just a bad roll.”

“Fuck that. You see the good samaritan rat sitting beside me? The one who called me out for pocketing my chips? I could’ve had another round if he hadn’t opened his mouth. The croupier might as well not have been there, she was so fucking blind.”
 

I dig in the Porsche’s glove compartment until I find my pack of Nicorette. Pop the foul-tasting gum in my mouth.

Grimace. Resist the urge to spit it out.
 

“Fuck. We can put a man on the moon but we can’t make quit-smoking gum that doesn’t taste like ass?”

Alfie giggles. “I have a pack—”

“Oh, shut up. I’m pissed at you already.”
 

I settle into a quagmire of feeling pouty and pissed off. The Strip’s mostly deserted. The tourons are all safely tucked in after a long day of losing money. Just a few late-night stragglers and hustlers, drunks and druggies. Us full-time Las Vegans, minus our happy-face make-up. Porn flyers spin in the nooks and alleys between buildings, caught in the warm spring breeze.
 

Do I ever think about getting out?

Constantly. Then I remember my mother.

“So anyway, there I was, sitting in my car, minding my own business…kind of. And who rolls up?” Alfie gives me a you’ll-never-guess look.

“The tool.”

Alfie’s face crumples. “Yeah. Fucking pigs. I was double parked.”

“Bet that conversation went downhill fast.”

Alfie laughs. “Whatever. Me and the po? We’s
tight
.”

“Sure. Tight like an old married couple about to murder one another.”

“Didn’t come to that. But you owe me a hundred bucks.”

“A hundred bucks?” I almost shout. That’s a fortune to me right now. This night’s going from shit to super-shit.
 

“Fuckers wanted my laptop,” Alfie says. “Settled for a c-note.”

He takes the old Porsche hard left around a corner. In a few blocks we might as well be in a different world. The fakey glamor, flashing lights, wide boulevards and swaying palm trees of the Strip have been replaced by liquor stores with caged windows, shelters, boarded-up buildings and fast food joints that give me indigestion just looking at them. Everything looks faded and run down, like it’s about to topple over, especially compared to the blistering newness of the Strip.
 

We drive for a few blocks in silence, both of us lost in our own worries.
 

Alfie’s worry is that his dad’s a drunk who likes to kick his ass at every opportunity, then spend a few days being overly nice to make up for it until the next time he hits the bottle. That’s how Alfie got the Porsche. His dad won it in a round of poker, then gave it to his eighteen year-old son because he felt bad for breaking his boy’s arm in a drunken rage.
 

Alfie keeps saying he’s gunna sell the car.
 

But I’m not sure he will.
 

It’s the only thing his dad’s ever given him.

“Oh shiiit,” I say, putting my palm over my eyes.
 

“What?”

“I was supposed to hand in a report this morning. The civil war and blah blah blah.”

“Is it finished?”

“Shit no.”

“How’s school going?”