“I’m just here to watch,” he assured her.
Hitting the table, she signaled for a distracted Maria to place her bet. “Mmhmm.”
Putting two, one-hundred-dollar chips in the circle, Maria felt like a lucky charm had suddenly appeared in her pocket. That feeling didn’t last long, however, when she was dealt a sixteen. The most hated fucking number for a Blackjack player. It was a fifty-fifty shot either way, so you either took the shittiest hand you were dealt or you hit it and prayed. The only thing that made it better was the dealer’s faced-up card showing a six.
Even though it was Maria who was supposed to scratch, Sal tapped the table.
“Against a six?” She never understood what Rain Man ass shit went on in his head, but she just couldn’t help questioning it sometimes. “I could let Sadie bust for me.”
Sadie, being the house, being her father, that was.
Repeating the motion, Sal tapped the table harder.
Rolling her eyes, Maria tapped the table herself this time. Everything in her intuition told her a face card was going to show up and make her bust, but she had gone against her gut, the thing she trusted the most in this world, betraying it all because of the man sitting beside her. Why? Because it wasn’t her money, and she wanted to see his face when he finally got something wrong.
Sadie drew the card, placing a five over her sixteen, making it a perfect twenty-one.
Well, hell.
Carefully, they all watched as Sadie flipped over the card under the six, revealing a ten to match the dealer’s own sixteen. Drawing another card, the face card that Maria had felt coming in her bones, came up a card short. All of them knowing what Maria knew, that if Sal hadn’t have made her hit, the dealer would have ended with the twenty-one, not her.
Even though she might’ve won a matching two hundred bucks, Maria huffed, feeling like the loser.
“Cherry,” Sadie snapped, stopping the drink girl who was carrying a massive tray full of various drinks. “I need a water and a shot of tequila.”
Getting the drinks from her tray, which were meant for someone else, Cherry expertly set them down on the table.
“Tequila for your mood and sleep.” She pointed at Maria like she was giving doctor’s orders before motioning to Sal. “And the water’s for you.”
The pleased look on Sal’s face from winning disappeared.
Maria didn’t think twice about questioning the woman whisperer this time. She picked up the little glass and knocked it back. Salute.
Cleaning the table, Sadie looked at her empathetically. “Better?”
“Much.” Not knowing what exactly was in that glass, besides the fires of hell, as it burned like a bitch going down, but something about it made her feel instantly better.
Turning to look over at the man whom her father wished she would marry, she raised a brow. “So, what are we thinking, Sal?”
Giving it no thought, he carefully nodded his head. “All in.”
“Fuck it.” She rubbed her hands together before sliding all her chips in the middle. “It ain’t my money.”
They quietly watched each card as it was drawn. The pit boss’s usual fast dealing went at a slow-as-fuck pace as she, too, was enthralled for what was to come once she placed the ace in front of Maria.
Her eyes slipped, staring at a cool Sal, who seemed to already know what the cards were before they hit the table. Her brother Lucca might’ve been known as the boogieman in this city, but Sal’s nickname was known throughout the globe. The Great Salvatore was a world-renowned hacker, and he was sitting right next to her, helping her count cards that casinos deemed as cheating. Not because it was, since it wasn’t, but because the house was outsmarted from their money, so the casinos slapped a label on it and asked you to leave, making players think it was illegal, when in truth it wasn’t. It was a strategy, and the only thing that scared casinos shitless. That was why they didn’t offer you to play chess, a game solely based on strategy … not luck. They knew they wouldn’t win, and that never sat right with “the almighty man.” So, poor Sal was forced to never play, which was honestly shocking considering the love her father had for him.
Dante loved Sal, probably more than his own children, hand-picking him off the streets when he had been a kid, swearing that he saw greatness in him, even at a young age. When that wasn’t the fucking truth at all.
Dante had seen what she saw now, looking into the almost soulless, black-rimmed eyes—the Luciano blood that coursed through his veins. Another son birthed by the devil. The only thing saving his soul was his dead mother and the blue his eyes carried in the middle.