“Break it up, assholes.” X’s voice is calm as he takes on the aggressor. Borg already has his hands on the other fighter. The victim wheezes, clutching at his neck with wide eyes.
“He…came at me...for...nothing!” Each word out of the poor guy’s mouth is a dusty wheeze.
I step over to the table, my feet crunching over scattered poker chips as I approach. I don’t stop until my nose is right in the face of the wheezing player.
I poke a finger in his chest. “Were you cheating?”
His eyes flick to the left before meeting mine again. His mouth sets in a line, but his pupils dilate slightly in his light blue eyes before he answers. “No.”
Liar.
I lift my chin toward Borg. “He’s out.”
With a grunt, Borg drags the cheater, probably a card-counter, toward the door of the warehouse.
“That’s not fair!” The cheater’s yell is hoarse as he’s dragged out of my ring. “I didn’t do anything!”
I scan the eyes of the players now watching me. “My ring: my rules. I don’t tolerate cheaters. And—” I nod toward X, who hefts the attacker up by his collar— “I don’t tolerate fights. Not in my ring.”
There’s a young woman standing beside the attacker; I hadn’t noticed her until then. She’s pulling at both sides of her long auburn hair, her skin pale under a sprinkling of freckles. I scan her body: long legs, creamy skin, a designer dress and shoes taking up residence on her slight frame. I flick my eyes back toward the attacker.
“You’re out.” Borg drags him toward the door.
“But you, love…” I stop the woman from following her date with a hand on her wrist. “Don’t have to go with him. The seat beside me is open tonight.” I shoot her a smirk. The dirty kind that lets her know I’m not a nice guy. A night with me won’t be dinner and roses.
Her eyes flicker with interest, but then her gaze darts toward the door as the Neanderthal yells, “Aubrey! We’re outta here. Now!”
With one more heated gaze in my direction, she scurries after her meal ticket.
Not my type, anyway. I need a woman with a backbone.
I survey the room. Everyone is still shooting furtive glances my way, wary apprehension on their faces. I gesture toward the door.
“If you’re a cheater, might as well give up your two G’s and follow them out. If you wanna stay and play fair, stop eyeballing me and start watching where your money’s going.”
That’s all it takes to force everyone’s eyes back to their games. With a deep sigh, I head for the bar. I might have ice water flowing through my veins, but right now, a cold beer is calling my name.
X throws me a smirk as I saunter past him on my way to the small bar area on the other side of the couches.
Just another night at the G-Ring.
Two
ACE
I never had any illusions that I’d go to college, but I was the first person in my family to ever graduate from high school. No one before me had ever done it before, and I always tried to take a path as different from my parents as possible.
The uncle that I borrowed X from got his GED in his twenties when he got out of prison. He had enough sense to use the money he’d made illegally before he went in to take business classes and open his bar.
The goal was to be more like him. Without the stint in a federal pen.
The Monday after the fight at the Ring, I’m sitting outside a coffee shop near my condominium building in uptown Charlotte. My laptop open in front of me, my eyes are glued to my screen. When I’m not helping my uncle at his bar and restaurant, I’m spending my days working on my plan for my future.
Because I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life running an illegal gambling ring. That’s what’s giving me the capital to move me into position to do something really big and incredible…open Charlotte’s first hotel and casino right here in Uptown.
I tear my eyes away from the numbers on the screen when the other chair at my table scrapes across the sidewalk and someone sits down.
“Ace!” His drawl is long and pronounced, and by his greeting you’d never guess that this man was the smartest kid back in our high school. By leaps and bounds.
I sip my coffee, noting the suit that my best friend wears. He’s on his lunch break from his office right down the street. “What’s up, Counts?”
“Counts” is his last name, but it fits him better than his first, which is Sanders. Because the guy knows numbers and math like no other. It’s like they live inside his head, and he’s doing quadratic equations in his sleep at night. He never even had to study that stuff back in school.
“Just grabbing some lunch.”
Nodding, I close my laptop. “That’s what I thought. Busy morning at the office?”
Counts rolls his eyes. “It never ceases to amaze me how little these rich fuckers actually understand their money. If they didn’t have an accountant, they’d be up shit’s creek.”
Chuckling, I scratch my eye behind my shades. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks, buddy.”
He smiles. “You’re damn right. Stopping in at your mom’s today?”
My expression darkens. It’s a question he asks me regularly, and it always brings down my damn mood. We grew up in the same trailer park not too far from here and going back to check on my mom isn’t something I’d planned on doing today.
“Why? ‘Cuz she took such good care of me growing up?”
Counts’ brows climb higher as he runs the palm of one hand over his close-shaved, chocolate-brown head. “Man…she’s shacked up again. And the dude is bad news.”
A tremor of foreboding rolls through me, but it’s just habit. “When is she not shacked up? You find that tidbit out from your dad?”
Counts’ dad is a real asshole. Drinks too much. Doesn’t have a clue that his son is a fucking genius. Basically failed out of parent school the same way my mom did.
“Dad might be a useless piece of shit, but he’s a knowledgeable piece of shit. I trust his intel.”
I don’t know how many times I told Counts when we were teenagers that his ticket out of that trailer park would be his brains. A full-ride academic scholarship would save him. I don’t think he ever really believed me until it happened.
Since I didn’t have anything like that to save me, I had to dig myself out my own way. I never would have made it at a fancy university, but I had brains. After I got out, I never wanted to go back again.
“Check on your mom, dude. Just do it.”
Sighing heavily, I contemplate. Counts will always have a soft spot for family, especially my mom. It’s because he doesn’t have one. His mother left he and his dad to fend for themselves when he was like, two. But I grew up with mine, and I know for a fact that I would have been better off without her.
There’s a heavy, oily feeling snaking into my gut, though, that tells me I should at least check in.
Every month since I left, I’ve sent my mom a check. I include a note, telling her to use it for groceries, bills, whatever she needs. I don’t know what she actually does with it, but I would bet my left nut that it ain’t groceries.