Page 118 of Close Pursuit

They both knew that one. “Thanks for taking care of the lady and the baby, Dominic. I knew I could count on your sense of family to look out for them.”

“I want my money back.”

“You understand I won it legally, right?”

“You used that fancy math of yours to beat the system.”

“But unless your security guys could catch me, I got away with it, fair and square.”

“The money for the woman and the kid. Plus interest.”

The bastard cracked up over the last bit. Whatever. A few hundred thousand bucks extra wouldn’t strain Alex’s bank account. “Bring them to me along with an encrypted laptop computer, and I’ll transfer the funds to you.”

“Just like that?” Dominic blurted.

Alex shrugged. “It was never about the money, Dom. It was about beating the system. Proving I could do it.”

“Sick bastard,” DeMecci muttered. He gestured for one of his goons to bring the girls and the computer.

While they waited, Alex said casually, “Since we’re gonna be square in a few minutes, can I interest you in another deal?”

“What kind of deal?” DeMecci asked suspiciously.

“The lady and the baby—they could use a little extra protection in the future.”

“From whom?” DeMecci asked, unwilling curiosity vibrating in his voice.

“Your Slavic counterparts.”

“Damn Russkie bastards.”

“Not just them,” Alex said lightly. “Their friends, too—the Chechens, the Bosnians, the Albanians. All the Eastern European mobs.”

“What the hell do all of them want with you?” Dominic rightly assumed that the reason the Slavic mobs would come after Katie and Dawn would be to get at Alex.

“You know those Slavs. They’ll do anything for money,” Alex replied dryly.

“True.”

His mouth twitched in humor at the insult to his heritage. Good thing he thought of himself as an American or he might have been forced to react to that jab. He continued, “You’ve already seen for yourself that the girl and the baby are defenseless. I can make it worth your while to extend your protection to them.”

“How worth it? Them Russkies can be crazy bastards.”

Truer words had never been spoken. “I’ll give you my gambling algorithm. You can protect your casino from it. Hell, you can trot down the street and use it to rip off the Russians to your heart’s content if you want.”

Dominic stared intently, his pale eyes skewering Alex. “You fuckin’ around wit’ me?” The guy’s Bronx brogue was abruptly much more pronounced.

“I fuck you not, Dominic.”

“How do I know you won’t feed me a load of shit nonsense?”

“Let’s go out on the floor. I’ll demonstrate it right now. I can beat the house at blackjack seven times out of ten, and four times out of five at draw poker.”

“This I gotta see,” the mobster announced.

He hadn’t agreed to protect Katie and Dawn, yet, but Alex wasn’t worried. As soon as the guy watched his house money evaporating and reappearing in fat stacks of chips in front of Alex, the guy’s greed would force him to take the deal.

Ian caught Alex’s eye the second he stepped out onto the casino floor surrounded by a phalanx of DeMecci’s men. Alex nodded fractionally to indicate that everything was okay.

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