Page 35 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

CHARLOTTE

I laid my green sequined purse on the poker table, angling it so that the camera hidden inside the rhinestone clasp was facing the other paramortals.

Given the harsh electrical tingle that had swept over me earlier, our comms had probably been fried the moment we’d stepped onto the second level, but it was worth a shot.

My back was to the glass railing and the steep drop to the first floor below. Normally, I would never put myself in such a vulnerable position, but it was the only remaining seat. Besides, Desmond was lurking at the bar, and he would cut off any potential threats.

“The game is Texas Hold’em, and the buy-in is two hundred thousand dollars. I assume that won’t be a problem, Charlotte?” Henrika asked, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me.

“Not at all.”

I pulled my phone out of my purse and accessed an account associated with Desmond Macfarlane that showed a three-million-dollar balance.

Gia had given us some money to play with, just in case something like this came up, although she had also given Desmond and me strict instructions not to lose a penny.

The woman acting as the pit boss came over and gave me a white business card, and I followed the instructions to transfer the funds to the casino account. A loud cha-ching! rang out from the pit boss’s phone, and the dealer pushed a stack of red chips over to my side of the table.

Henrika smiled. “Looks like we’re ready to play.”

The dealer shuffled the deck, then slid two cards over to Henrika, Niles, Steig, Oriana, and me. I lifted my cards. A three of hearts and a six of spades. Not a very promising start.

The dealer dealt three flop cards in the middle of the table and flipped them up so that we could all see them. A king, a jack, and a seven, all diamonds. No help for me.

Henrika started the bidding at fifty thousand dollars.

Niles, Steig, and Oriana joined in, but I had nothing, so I folded.

Besides, I wanted to see what the others would do and especially how they would play, since this was one instance where my magic wasn’t all that helpful.

Oh, if someone boasted they had a good hand when they didn’t, my synesthesia would whisper that they were lying.

But if someone didn’t say anything specific about their cards, my magic would remain silent, and I would have no idea what kind of hand they were holding.

The dealer flipped the fourth card, the turn card.

The ten of spades. Henrika bid again, even more aggressively, as did Niles, but Steig and Oriana both folded.

Oriana watched Henrika and Niles with avid interest, but Steig huffed in annoyance and signaled for a drink.

The assassin apparently didn’t care for poker, although his gaze latched on to the waitress who deposited his beer on the table, and he tracked her all the way back to the bar.

The dealer turned over the fifth and final card, the river card, the seven of clubs. Henrika and Niles both bid again, then flipped over their cards. Henrika had a full house, three kings and two sevens, which beat Niles’s two pairs of jacks and sevens.

“Sorry, darling,” Henrika crooned, raking in the chips. “But you lose. Then again, you always lose to me, don’t you?”

Niles shoved his glasses farther up his nose and jerked his hand at the bartender, signaling for another drink.

The dealer scooped up the cards, slid them back into the deck, and shuffled them.

Henrika looked at me. “You really need to get in the game, Charlotte. You can’t win if you don’t play.”

I’d said something similar to General Percy and the others earlier today at Section headquarters, and I hated Henrika expressing a similar sentiment. “I prefer games that focus on skill and strategy rather than the blind luck of the turn of a card.”

Henrika’s eyes glittered. “Ah, but blind luck is what makes the game exciting.”

Truth , my inner voice whispered.

“Why are we wasting time with this pointless charade?” Steig growled, rapping his knuckles on the table in a quick, impatient rhythm. “We came here to buy a weapon, not lose our money to you.”

Niles and Oriana both murmured their agreement. Henrika’s red lips pressed into a thin line. She didn’t like being challenged by her guests.

“Because, unlike the rest of you, I have a normal life and identity I am quite fond of, and I need to keep up appearances,” she snapped. “Redburn is my weapon, my formula, my brilliance, so I decide when and where and how to sell it. Anyone who doesn’t like those terms is free to leave.”

She gave an airy wave of her hand, then looked at Niles, Steig, and Oriana in turn.

“Although I imagine none of your employers or followers will be pleased you lost out on the chance to acquire a new weapon, especially one capable of killing your paramortal rivals, just because you couldn’t suffer through a game of cards. ”

Niles chewed on his lower lip, Steig rapped his knuckles on the table again, and even Oriana blinked. The three of them might be dangerous, but one way or another, they all answered to other people who were just as ruthless.

Desmond straightened up at the bar. His fingers curled around the glass in his hand, and his gaze flicked from one person to another, as if he was assessing who was the biggest threat and might make the first move.

Bryce and the four guards also stood at attention, their sharp gazes trained on Niles, Steig, and Oriana.

“No one wants to get up and walk away?” Henrika asked.

No one responded, and everyone remained in their seats.

“I thought not,” she drawled.

Henrika signaled the dealer, and the soft rasp of cards filled the air.

The other players all looked down at their cards with sour expressions, but I watched Henrika, whose green eyes gleamed with triumph.

She liked this charade, as Steig had called it.

She liked controlling other people and making them dance to her tune, and as much as I hated to admit it, she was masterful at it.

Henrika noticed my staring and gave a small shrug. I gave her a respectful nod, one enemy to another, then focused on my cards.

I was determined to beat Henrika at her own game.

T he evening wore on.

I watched the dealer carefully, but she was dealing from the top of the deck, and she wasn’t helping Henrika cheat.

Given my analysis, I knew that Henrika loved winning more than anything else, but she also had an odd quirk where she wanted to win fair and square.

It was a strange, unexpected bit of honor on her part.

Steig bet wildly and recklessly and had a terrible poker face, so he quickly lost all his money.

He cursed viciously, then jumped to his feet, marched over to the bar, and bellowed for another beer.

His gaze locked on the waitress as she handed over his drink, and his curses died down, replaced by a sharp, toothy smile.

The assassin had found another game to play.

Niles was the second one to go out, after bluffing with a bad hand and losing his remaining chips to Oriana. The biomagical chemist also got up from the table and stormed over to the bar. He slugged down a bourbon and kept going, his face growing a little more flushed with every drink.

Henrika, Oriana, and I swapped chips back and forth until Oriana also tried to bluff with a bad hand, and I knocked her out.

Oriana took her defeat far more gracefully than Steig and Niles, and she gave me a respectful nod.

I returned the gesture, and Oriana also went to the bar to get a fresh drink.

That left me alone at the poker table with Henrika.

“It’s just you and me now, Charlotte,” she purred. “I’m going to enjoy taking your money. Well, what you claim is your money. We both know who it really belongs to.”

The other paramortals pricked up their ears at her words. They probably thought Desmond was letting me gamble with his money, but Henrika knew it belonged to Section 47. She had already taken too much from me, and especially from Desmond. Maybe it was petty, but she wasn’t getting the money too.

“It doesn’t matter whose money it is,” I replied. “Only that it’s never going to be yours.”

“We’ll see,” Henrika murmured.

We kept playing. Henrika lucked out and got three good hands in a row, raking in large stacks of my chips every time. She had roughly eight hundred thousand dollars on her side of the table, and my own stack of chips looked puny in comparison.

The dealer dished out a new hand. Henrika grinned at her cards the way she always did, whether they were good, middling, or bad, and my synesthesia remained silent. I looked at my own cards—the queen of diamonds and queen of clubs.

The dealer flipped over the three flop cards—the three of spades, the king of hearts, and the three of clubs. Not terrible, since my pocket queens and the threes gave me two pairs.

Henrika’s grin widened. “All in.”

Gasps rang out as she shoved her chips forward.

“Your move, Charlotte.” Henrika smirked.

For all her bluster and bravado, Henrika was smart, and she only bet high when she had a good chance of winning. I was guessing she had at least one pocket king, maybe two. Either way, Henrika was so sure she couldn’t lose, she was finally going for the kill shot.

I studied my cards again, then looked at the cards on the table.

My mind whirred as I thought of strategies and scenarios, but really, I had no choice.

If I folded, Henrika would just take more of my chips I couldn’t afford to lose.

Time to make a stand and hope for a little bit of luck.

Henrika had said it made the game more exciting, a theory my pounding heart and sweaty palms supported.

I also shoved my chips forward. “All in.”