Page 60 of Hawk

I laughed, but I promised to save him one. He quickly declared me a prince amongst men before yelling into his headset that someone was a piss stain and if they cost him the top spot, he would never play with them again.

Hawk

I hadn’t been kidding when I told Mika I was behind on a lot of my paperwork, but I couldn’t focus on boring admin stuff when I should be working on finding out where Butch and his guys were hiding out.

I spent the day making phone calls and trying to find someone who’d seen them. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anyone who knew where they were. I’d spent the last few days going from place to place looking for Butch and his crew and hadn’t had any luck so far. I was starting to get really frustrated with the whole situation. How hard could it be to find a group of bikers in a city the size of Vesper?

Around four or so, I decided to call it a day. I had one thing I wanted to run by the twins first, though. They were like chameleons and were great at fitting in just about anywhere, so I thought maybe they’d have more luck at some of the bars around town. It was Saturday afternoon, so odds were, if they were in the building, I’d find them upstairs playing video games.

I shut down my computer and then headed for the ninth floor. I’d expected to find a fair number of the Three Bears employees there hanging out, but what I hadn’t expected was to find Mika at the poker table with a stack of chips and a grin on his face.

Crowe looked at me and shook his head. “You could’ve warned us.”

“Warned you?”

“Yeah, your boy looks so sweet. It never occurred to me he was a shark in disguise.”

“I’m not a shark. You just underestimated me. That’s my superpower.” Mika laughed. “And I raise you twenty.” He casually tossed a chip in the pot, and Crowe shook his head.

“You’re in trouble with this one. He has no tells. I can’t tell if he’s bluffing or not.”

I looked at him. Crowe might not be able to tell if he had a good hand or not, but I could. I recognized that mischievous twinkle in his eye—that told me he was totally bluffing. Not that I’d tell them that.

I loved seeing my friends treat him like he belonged—not that I expected any less from them. I pulled up a chair beside him and took a seat to watch my boy take their money. Sure enough, by the time the hand ended, they’d all folded, and he raked in the chips. I didn’t feel bad for a single one of them, though. My guess was when he sat down to play, they all assumed he’d be an easy mark.

“Are you done working for the day?” he asked.

“I am.”

“Okay, that’s it for me then, guys. It was fun, though. Thanks for letting me play.”

“Ah, I see how you are. You came in here with brownies to soften us up, then you take all our money and leave without giving us a chance to win it back.”

“You brought them the brownies? I thought you were going to save them for me.”

He reached over and patted my arm. “Don’t worry, big guy. I made extra. There are plenty upstairs for you.”

I leaned over and brushed a kiss across his lips. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” He stood up from the table and started to walk away.

“Hold up, don’t you want your winnings?”

He froze and turned back to the table. “Winnings? What do you mean, winnings? Were we playing for real money?”

Gator laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, we were playing for real money. That’s why I said I’d spot you when you showed up since you didn’t have any money with you.”

He looked up at me, eyes wide. “I thought it was just for chips. I didn’t know it was for real money. What if I lost?”

“Then Hawk would’ve covered you,” Crowe said. “We weren’t worried.”

“I sure wouldn’t have bluffed so much if I’d known.”

“Well, it’s good you didn’t know then because you did pretty good.” I turned to the guys at the table. “Now y’all pay up so I can go upstairs and have a brownie.”

“Can I come? ’Cause I want another brownie,” Maddox asked.

“Yay, my brownies bring all the boys to the yard.” Mika grinned.

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