Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 493

I chased it.

With every loss I bet bigger, telling myself the next hand would turn it around. The next hand. The next hand. The dealer kept dealing, the cards kept falling, the pile in front of me kept shrinking, and I kept raising the stakes, desperate to get back to that feeling of being unstoppable.

When the dealer laid down the final hand and the man across the table turned over a nine, the room went very quiet.

I stared at the cards. Then I stared at the empty felt where my chips had been. The dealer ran the numbers through a small machine, and when he looked up his face was expressionless.

"Your total loss comes to thirty billion," he said.

The excitement died in my chest so fast it felt like a physical blow. Thirty billion. My mouth opened but no sound came out. Every face at the table had turned toward me, hard and cold.

I had more than twenty-five billion in my account, a few million scattered here and there, and a fifty billion cheque I had not cashed. But I would rather die than hand over a single penny of the money I had bled for. I had not come to this table to lose money. I had come to win it.

The man in charge of the table stood up slowly. He was large, with a face like a slab of meat. "You played. You lost. Now you pay."

"I do not have that kind of money." My voice came out high and shaky.

"Then you will transfer it." He held out his hand. "Your phone."

I almost laughed. My phone was not in my bag. I had meant to leave it at home, had even planned it, and then I had ended up bringing it and used it to read Blaze's message, and somewhere in that frantic, glorious mess against the wall it had fallen out and been left behind. I only realized I had left it back there, after I started gambling and planned to go back for it once I was done. The men could demand all they wanted, but without that phone they could not touch a single zero of my money.

I screamed and bolted for the door. I did not make it three steps. Rough hands caught me and dragged me back, and I fought, kicking and screaming, but it was no use. They hauled me out of the room, and as they carried me down a hallway I looked back and saw Cara slip quietly out through a side door and disappear into the crowd.

They dragged me into another room and threw me at the feet of a man.

He was ugly, likely in his fifties, heavyset, a black eye patch covering one eye and a cigarette burning between his fingers. Three armed men sat around him drinking, watching me like I was a mouse they had caught. The men who had dragged me in explained the situation in harsh, quick words. I played. I owed thirty billion. I refused to pay.

I started to cry, real tears, hot and shameful, streaming down my face. I crawled toward his feet. "Please. Please, sir. It was my first time. I did not know the rules. I did not mean to offend you. I am so sorry. Forgive me."

The man with the eye patch smiled slowly and stubbed out his cigarette. He rose, walked around his desk, and lifted me gently to my feet, his hands surprisingly soft on my arms.