Page 129 of Restless Hawke

“I hear the purse is quite large, almost four million. You can’t expect me to walk away from that when I have an inside man.”

Anger heats my blood as I pace farther away from the surveillance room’s sliding glass doors. “You can’t expectmeto be able to rig a tournament with an hour’s notice in your favor, either, nor can you expect me to do it in a casino my goddamn family owns.”

“For now.”

“Excuse me?”

“They own itfor now. Any number of things could happen in the future that could take that establishment out of your hands.”

It isn’t even a veiled threat.

It’s a statement of intention.

“That’s your ultimate goal, isn’t it? To take the hotel from us.”

“Believe me, Coen, partnering with you and having the resources and strength of Hawke Enterprises and the family behind me would be far more beneficial, not to mention easier. But you’ve repeatedly told me, as have your uncles, your father, and your quite-animated brother, that it would happen over their dead bodies, which doesn’t leave me much choice, does it?”

Fuck.

I scrub my hand over my face and glance up and down the hall to ensure no one’s within ear range. From here, I can still see Savage and Gabe talking with one of the security personnel, likely going over the last-minute plans for the tournament before the players start arriving in the room.

“Go to the front desk and pick up the package that was left there for you. It contains a marked deck.”

“You can’t be serious. You don’t think anyone will notice?”

“They won’t. My player knows what to look for. No one else will notice the discrepancies on the backs of the cards.”

“You haven’t met my fucking family.”

He chuckles low. “This is what you agreed to, Coen. I don’t want you to have to suffer the consequences of trying to deny me. So, let’s not argue about this.”

Shit.

I don’t have any choice, and he knows it. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“That isn’t good enough. Make it happen.”

He doesn’t say “or else” before he ends the call, but he might as well have.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The man knows exactly what he’s doing, wedging his foot in by asking me to do something like this when he really wants more. Next, he’ll ask me to start skimming, and eventually, he’ll figure out a way to take over the hotel entirely.

This isn’t good.

This is really, really fucking bad.

I slip back into the monitoring room, and Gabe and Savage both glance over at me as I approach them.

Savage immediately notices my shift in mood. “Everything all right?”

For the briefest split second, I consider not telling them about the call, but they’re too observant, too smart, far too fucking intelligent not to notice if I swap out the fucking deck. “We need to have a talk, privately.”

I scan the security personnel seated at the various consoles and incline my head toward the hallway.

They know what I’m about to say, or at least suspect it, without me even uttering the words.

Gabe issues a low curse. “Does this have to do with our friend?”