CHAPTER1
CASSANDRA
They wouldn’t laugh if they knew my little secret. Not a skill, but a natural talent. The only good thing life had ever given me.
“Fold,” the man to my left says with a sigh. He leans back, crossing his arms over his wide chest. Disappointment covers his face in the way his lips pull downward.
The dealer flips the first three cards on the table in a smooth motion. Nothing that could help me. Life always gives me bad cards, and I have to find a way around them.
“One-fifty,” the man across from me says loud enough we hear him over the surrounding noises of the casino. He gapes straight at me, wrinkles forming in the corners of his eyes as he holds back a smug smile.
I keep a straight face as I reach for my chips. “Three hundred.” And I add my chips to the messy pile on the center of the table.
My one competition lifts his brows in surprise. He checks his cards, then meets my gaze again. “Got anything good, beautiful?”
I hear that pet name a dozen times every night I come here. My lips tug into a small smile. “Yeah. What about you?”
“Yeah. Good cards.” He smiles. “That I do.”
Lie, says my gut, a feeling I learned to read and trust. My little secret. I bite my tongue to stop myself from smiling. He just exposed his game. This is going to be an easy one. The dealer puts the fourth card on the table. “Five hundred,” I say because something tells me it’s going to be so sweet to watch this man take a beating.
He swallows hard, then checks his cards. Again. I’ve played against men like him hundreds of times. They see the girl in the short dress and think I can’t be smart enough to play poker. Oh, how hard they fall.
Now that I’ve challenged his pride, he won’t stop. And his defeat will represent my wages for the week. “A thousand,” he stutters, lining more chips with mine.
“Two thousand,” I retort because I know his hand is bad, and he will drop out.
He sniffs, giving me a once over. “I call.”
The dealer flips the last card, a six of hearts. The man releases a chuckle and looks up at me. I don’t break eye contact. He narrows his eyes, studying my face as if I’m mad.
“Check,” he says. No bets.
I slide my bluff card to the dealer. She meets my eyes for the briefest moment, and I see amusement there.
“Can I show my cards?” he asks the dealer, who nods. He flips both. An eight of clubs, and a four of spades. Not the best of cards, but the four could still make a pair with the one on the table. He opens a grin. “See? I have a four.”
I blink. “I can see that.”
“Do you know what it means?” He points between his cards and the shared cards, every word of his dripping with his condescending tone.
I keep my straight face with a small smile. After many years of trying my best to be kind and smiley, I learned people don’t care. They create a prejudice the second they see you, and that’s that. No matter how much you fight, you can’t change it. My resting bitch face gets so much more done these days.
My competitor looks between me, the dealer, the others around us, and finally back at me. He scoffs in disbelief. He could raise my bet and win, but there’s one problem. He lied to me. He knows his cards aren’t that good. And he’s afraid.
The man throws his arms up. “I fold! What the fuck did you have there? It must be good. At least a Jack.”
I flip my useless ace and two of clubs and watch his features melt in shock. It’s so beautiful I want to take a picture. Better than winning a poker game? Winning with the worst cards, so I show them I know what I’m doing.
The dealer smiles at me, pushing my chips in my direction. I collect them into a neat pile to exchange. “Good game,” she says with a friendly wink. I almost smile back.
Shit. Staying in this town this long is softening me up. I thought I had learned this lesson already. No getting close to people. People lie. People play and use each other. It’s much better to be alone.
My gift comes in handy with that. After being abandoned and rejected my entire life, it’s much easier to move on the moment someone lies to me. Before they can hurt me.
It helps to win poker games too. I never go for the big ones, championships, and this sort of thing. Casinos in small towns pay my bills and let me lie low. Good enough for someone who expects nothing of life.
A slot machine ding-dings with the sound everyone wants to hear. A man cheers, and a choir of female voices follows. I peek among the crowd to the left of the tables. Did someone bring their personal entourage to the casino?