Page 14 of Tangled Lies
Jett snorted but was smart enough to choke down the laugh I knew should have followed.
“Angel, you really don’t know when you’re dancing with the devil, do you?”
Knox dropped an open bottle of beer in front of Ronan, although I doubted that bastard was paying much attention. That little vein slowly coming to the surface on his neck? The show was going to start.
I grabbed a bottle from Knox and kicked back.
I loved when life gave us surprises. I was tired of being the guard dog for Barone senior, Ronan’s dad.
What might have been more unexpected was the way Ronan hit the table.
“Alright, little bird. Boys? Deal. We play for clothes and then?” Ronan paused, never turning away from her as he tookher chin between his fingers. “Then we get to see who destroys your fiancée’s claim on you.”
I took the cards and dealt the hands, all while waiting for her to panic. Hell, I’d feel a little better if she at least seemed to gather just how dangerous this situation could be. Four men with questionable morals at best and an innocent little princess like her.
She finally turned away from Ronan and smiled at me. I wasn’t going to give the little stutter of my shriveled heart a second thought.
“These are mine?” she asked.
“Yeah, princess. Yours. Those two cards you keep to yourself. These?”
I pointed to the five in the center.
“These you need to help create a winning hand.”
She pulled the two cards toward her and looked at them, and us? Fuck, we were a sorry lot of bastards. We sat there and just watched her like she was some kind of glorious goddess, and hell, maybe she was.
“What’s a winning hand?” she asked.
Jett pulled his chair closer to her and started to whisper what I had to assume were the rules. Couldn’t really be sure, but I shrugged. She wasn’t supposed to be ours. Hell, we were expecting some little broken doll and maybe she was, but this wasn’t broken porcelain. She wasn’t broken and waiting for a prince to glue her back together. No, it was almost like she was begging for someone to add to the cracks until what? She became sharp shards?
I fucking wanted to know.
From my side of the table I watched Ronan glare at Jett and Jett did not even notice. He liked fire, so I supposed he’d play with this little flame until Ronan burned him. Wouldn’t be the first time Jett learned shit the hard way.
The seconds ticked by, and when I was pretty certain our guest of honor had some idea of her hand, I called it.
“Alright. Show your hands, boys and princess.”
“Ace high,” Jett said, tossing his cards down.
Knox tossed down his three of a kind sevens. Not the strongest show at the moment.
“Princess, what do you have?”
She smiled.
“Does it even matter? Four against one? Seems like I’ll lose no matter what.”
I stopped with the beer bottle halfway to my mouth.
“It sounds like you don’t really want to win,” I said, tossing down my own pairs of queens and tens.
It was down to Ronan and her. If she wasn’t showing her cards, maybe it wouldn’t matter.
“That’s not how this works. You said you’d play. We accepted your terms. Tell you what. You play by the rules and we’ll give you all the chips on the table. That’s about ten grand,” Ronan said, pushing his stack toward her.
That got her eyes going from the cards to the chips then back to him and around the table.
