Chapter 4: The Poker Game

LUCA

“~Niente?~” Luca threw the brown manila file onto his desk in his casino. “How can you have found ~nothing~?”

He lit a cigar and took a long drag.

He’d tasked Nic, his cousin and second-in-command, to find out any information regarding Hayley Tate, yet he’d come back with nothing.

Nic shifted nervously in his chair. “Her passport is a fake. I asked around, but nobody knows anything about her. Except that Siobhan brought her from Paris.”

“A fake passport…so she could be undercover?” Luca felt a little sick at the thought of her being a cop. He stubbed out his cigar and grabbed his jacket.

“Where are you going?” Nic asked as Luca passed him.

He didn’t bother answering right away, knowing his cousin would follow him down to the parking garage, where Ric was waiting with a car.

“Siobhan’s!” Luca shouted as he threw himself into the back seat of the SUV. “She must know who the hell she is.”

Ric jumped into the driver’s seat and drove him to the Dublin, the legitimate club above the Venetian Lounge—and where Luca knew his godmother would be.

***

“Hello, Luca.” Siobhan didn’t even bother to look up when he entered her office.

“Hayley Tate.”

~That~ got her to put her pen down.

Siobhan looked up slowly. “What about her?”

He undid his suit jacket button and sat in the chair across from her. “Where did you find her?” he asked, his tone sharp. He hated wasting time.

“Why do you care, Luca?”

He kept his face impassive as he looked at his godmother, a woman he had the utmost respect for. She’d helped raise him when he lost his mother and his father was too busy being the boss.

“She has a fake ID, and that makes me and my family nervous.”

Siobhan sighed. “Yes. She has a fake passport and a fake visa. I know this because I gave them to her.”

Luca couldn’t believe what she was telling him.

“Her real name will lead those who want to find her straight to her.”

“Who wants her?” He knew Siobhan wasn’t one of his men he could order around, but he couldn’t help it. In his mind, everybody was under his thumb.

Siobhan shook her head lightly, and he narrowed his eyes.

“My aim is to protect Hayley,” she said. “She’s under my protection. And you know what that means, Luca Marcello…”

Luca sighed. She was reminding him of his vow to protect her and the club, and this included Hayley.

“… It means she’s under the family’s protection.”

Luca got up to leave, but Siobhan wasn’t done.

“She’s not a toy, Luca. Don’t think you can play around with her.”

Luca shook his head as he left the office. He’d just have to find out about her himself.

HAYLEY

Hayley wasn’t overly keen on working the day shift, but it was extra money, so she wasn’t going to grumble too much.

The club was always quieter in the day: there were fewer feather girls around, and there was nobody on the podiums, just the floating girls and the ones taking turns on the main stage.

She was trying not to think about everything that happened the night before. She didn’t want to be reminded how weak she’d been and how ~Luca Marcello~ had come to her rescue.

She wasn’t an idiot—once she’d heard the doctor say his last name, she knew exactly who he was. And Luca Marcello was someone she had to keep at arm’s length.

But he did have her switchblade—which she was determined to get back.

“Hayley!”

Georgia, a girl even younger than Hayley, walked over. “I’m filling in so you can take your break.”

Relieved, she thanked Georgia and went out to the back hallway. As usual, the door was open, so she went outside for a bit of fresh air.

Two men were walking toward her, but they were backlit, so she couldn’t see them clearly. “Who’d you piss off to get the day shift!” one of them called.

As they got nearer, she saw it was Frankie, the guy with the cheeky grin and hazel eyes.

And behind him was Luca Marcello. Her stomach dropped.

“I needed extra cash,” she explained. “So I picked up an extra day shift or two.”

Luca came up behind Frankie, and his dark eyes caught hers. “There are other ways for a Venetian girl to earn money.” He raised an eyebrow.

“You’ll never see me with a feather,” she huffed. She wouldn’t sell herself for cash—she wasn’t like Arianna, or even Ava—she just wouldn’t.

Luca chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t mean that, Little Miss No-Feather, though it is a good way. I was thinking of ways to make money with your clothes ~on~.”

Hayley felt herself blushing under her mask, but she tried to compose herself.

“I’m having a little game of poker with an associate in Meeting Room One, and I need a waitress. The extra cash will be added to your pay, and any tips you make are yours, obviously.”

Hayley couldn’t afford to say no to extra money. She was the girl in the Venetian making the least since she wouldn’t sleep with anyone, and this could be her chance to make up the difference.

“I’ll let Siobhan know I’m using you, and Frankie will explain everything in the meeting room.” Luca walked away, leaving her with Frankie.

“The extra money is silence money,” Frankie explained as he led Hayley to Meeting Room One. “We’ll be discussing family business. You’ll serve drinks and cigars.

“I won’t use your real name, and neither will Luca. He’ll just call you ~bella~.”

***

When they got to the meeting room, Hayley went behind the corner bar and checked that it was stocked with ice and glasses.

And before long, Luca and two other men entered the room with a card dealer. The men seemed friendly with Luca, and he referred to them as family. She smiled politely at them when they acknowledged her.

“Bella, a round of whiskey,” Luca said, looking at her. She nodded obediently and began to get the drinks as the men, including Frankie, took a seat.

“Nice to see you, Altera. Long time,” the older man said to Frankie, who responded in kind.

Altera? It must be his surname.

She walked around the table handing out the whiskey tumblers, going to Luca last. When he took the drink from her, his hand brushed hers. She suppressed a gasp, and Luca caught her gaze with his hypnotic eyes.

The simple touch seemed to have sparked something between them—something she hadn’t anticipated.

Luca was the first to look away, and Hayley shook her head and walked back to the bar.

He was bad news, she repeated to herself. Trouble. Yet something inside her still felt scorched by that spark.

Hayley watched from behind the bar as several games were played. She couldn’t believe the amount of money on the table.

The men spoke mainly in Italian, so she didn’t understand much of their conversation. She just went over with refills whenever their glasses became empty.

“La ragazza è bellissima, Luca,” she heard the guy whose name was Gino say.

Luca glanced over at her, so she pretended to be busy—using a towel to wipe down the bar.

“Sì. But she is unfortunately not a feather girl,” he replied, and she could feel his eyes on her.

“Tutte le ragazze possono piegarsi—all girls can bend…” Gino laughed triumphantly as he placed another winning hand down on the table. “~If~ you have the talent, Luca.”

Hayley watched the next few hands closely. Luca was either really bad at poker, or this Gino character was really good.

But as the play continued, it dawned on her that there was a third option.

Her father and her uncle had made her play poker when she was young, and even she knew you couldn’t be that lucky at every hand. So she stopped watching the players and focused on the dealer.

It didn’t take her long to figure out that the dealer was false shuffling—to Gino’s advantage. These guys were conning Luca and Frankie!

“Bella!”

Luca’s tone was aggressive, and she realized she must have missed him calling her name the first time.

He held out his tumbler, and when she nodded, he placed the glass back on the table.

She quickly wrote a note on a napkin—~the dealer is false shuffling~—before she put the drinks on the tray along with the note. She was careful to hold the tray away from each player as she placed down the drinks, leaving Luca until last.

She lowered the tray and took her time picking up the old glass and replacing it with the new drink. Luca looked annoyed, but then he noticed the note. His eyes flashed to hers.

She could feel them still on her as she walked back to the bar.

Over the next few minutes, she watched as Luca studied the dealer with narrowed eyes. And then he nodded.

“Darling!” he called out.

She looked at him expectantly.

“I want some of the Ben Wyvis whiskey. Be an angel and go to the cellar and get us a bottle.”

He gave her a dark look, and she nodded, saying nothing, and quickly left the room.

LUCA

Luca looked at the men at the table, one by one, and a feeling of anger and betrayal overcame him.

“I don’t tolerate cheaters, Gino.”

He pulled out his gun and fired three shots in rapid succession: one for Gino, one for Gino’s friend, and one for the cheating dealer.

“Well,” Frankie said into the ringing silence that followed, “I think you won that hand, Luca.” He sighed and threw his cards onto the blood-soaked table. “How the hell did you know, anyway?”

As Frankie got up from the table and pulled out his phone, Luca went over to the bar and held up Hayley’s note.

“Wow,” Frankie said, shaking his head. “She carries a knife, knows about poker, and she’s kinda fearless. I sure wish she wore a feather.”

So did Luca. He wanted this woman, and he needed to get her out of his system. A good fuck might be just what he needed from her.

She was just a girl, nothing special, but there was something about her, something light that his darkness craved.

He listened for a minute as Frankie talked to Ric about organizing a cleanup crew, then left the room and went to Hayley’s bar. The girl working there told him that Hayley had gone home.

So he headed to the staff-only section, where he spotted her hurrying toward the back exit dressed in street clothes.

HAYLEY

~Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!~

She’d been listening right outside the door when those three shots were fired, and she knew Luca Marcello—the ~mob boss~—had killed those men.

And she’d played a part in it.

“Hayley!”

She heard him call after her, recognized his voice, but she just pushed open the door and started down the alley behind the club.

“Hayley!”

She stopped, heart racing, then let out a shaky breath and turned to face him.

“Thank you,” he said as he approached her. He sounded surprisingly sincere, but for all she knew, he could be an excellent actor.

“It’s nothing.” She went to walk away, but he put his hand on her shoulder.

“That wasn’t nothing. You prevented me from looking like a fool. Let me take you for a drink. I’m sure you could use one.”

He was right, she could. But not with him.

This guy had just shot people. And she was a ~witness~.

“I don’t trust you,” she said stiffly.

“Smart girl.” His low chuckle sent chills down her spine. “And I didn’t ask you to trust me.”

He moved his hand to her lower back, then firmly guided her toward an SUV that had pulled up. She recognized Nic in the driver’s seat—not that that made her feel any better.

Luca opened the door for her, for all appearances a perfect gentleman instead of a control freak Mafia boss.

She hesitated, heart racing, but she knew she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

She had to get in the car.