Page 31 of The Wicked

Devil sighed, backing away. “I’ll be at the poker tables,awayfrom all of you.”

Dog and I looked at each other, speaking at the same time. “Blackjack?”

An hour later, we had more than fifty eyes on us. We were winning, we were loud, and we were pretend-drunk as fuck.

The exhilarating feeling of winning and pissing so many people off never gets old. We had bagged so much money and almost caused a massive fight in the casino, but it was settled thanks to Devil.

We had been noticed. There was a lot of whispering amongst the soldiers, and I was sure someone had gone to inform the bosses of the chaos we were creating.

Two hours flew by, and we were still winning; Milk was already worn out, and that was our cue to leave.

“All right. Let’s wrap it up,” Dog said, Milk appearing by his side as Upper joined Devil and me.

“Yeah, we did good,” I praised.

Upper held the bags of money we had collectively won for the night. “I think it’s pretty weird that no one—”

Silence slowly stretched through the casino, cutting Upper off.

People’s attention automatically shifted to the stairs. Devil was the first to turn. “Shit,” he muttered, “he came down himself.”

I turned to see Elio descending the stairs at a leisurely pace in his usual all-black outfit. Two soldiers followed behind him, with one holding a black briefcase in hand.

My back straightened as they walked directly towards us. I was nearly sober just by the sight of him; the last time we’d seen each other, I had mouthed off like an idiot. I didn’t know what to expect, and the thought alone made me nervous.

The intensity of his presence doused the room of whatever fire had gotten people going before. Some faces around us paled as he stopped before the guys and me.

The DJ had even lowered the volume of the music.

I could sense fear in the air, but none of it was coming from me. Maybe it was the fake alcohol or the fact that I had pictured a thousand ways I could deal with him, but I found myself looking him in the eye.

And…

Why does he have pretty eyes?He was a terrible person, and terrible people shouldn’t have pretty eyes… He didn’t look too bad either… He didn’t look bad at all. Fine. The man was something, all right, I admitted it; and the challenge in those dark grays seemed to look even deeper tonight.

“Fine evening…Street.My people tell me you have made big wins tonight,” Elio said, his face expressionless.

“It’s a really lucky night,” I answered.

“Isn’t that just fabulous,” he stated, eyes quickly running up and down my form. “I am pleased to see that you are all enjoying yourfreedomin my compound. It must feel like avacationfor you.”

“You have no idea,” I responded.

Devil stepped forward. “We don’t want any trouble; we just wanted a break from—”

“It’s okay,” I cut him off, smiling. “He knows we don’t want trouble; he’s only commending us for how lucky we were tonight, right?” I threw the question at Elio, and his left brow twitched, but he nodded.

“Indeed. It’s truly outstanding, this thing called luck.”

I laughed in mock wonder. “Right? So crazy.”

Elio’s gaze remained solely on me, my brows, eyes, nose, forehead, lips, jaw… his staring made me even more anxious, aware that he was singling me out. It took everything in me not to shift on my feet and give away the fact that he was getting to me.

Finally, he nodded. “Yes, in fact, I was so inspired by this luck of yours that I decided, why not come down to see if I can interest you in a small game of chess, nothing serious.”

I watched him as I locked my jaw. We didn’t break eye contactfor about a minute, and I knew he dared me to say no. He wanted to teach me a lesson.

I knew that look so fucking well.