Page 3 of The Alpha's Gamble
Before I could muster the right words to express my outrage, my tongue thickening in my mouth, he went on. “Mr. Franklin, here,” and he tipped his head toward the middle management stooge, “can have the police here within two minutes. They’ll take you away, charge you for fraud, and hold you on bail that you can’t afford and your family won’t care to pay. I’ll make bloody well sure of it. And if you think alphas do well in prison, think again. They’ll put you in with all the other supernaturals, and you won’t be the biggest and baddest in there, believe me.”
“I’m a Castelli alpha,” I spat, even though deep inside, I did believe him. In a general human prison population, I’d be the strongest and the most resilient. But the authorities tended to split the humans and the weaker magical species off from the real threats. I’d be seen as the latter. And I’d be no match for two or three alphas in a gang, or a couple of vampires.
Ifthey went after me, anyway. But everyone had heard of the Castelli pack, right? We were one of the richest and most well-known in the country.
After all, my dad talked about it all the time…yeah. Shit. I was really, truly screwed.
I lifted my chin. MacKenna couldn’t read my mind. “They wouldn’t dare fuck with me. Not once they knew I was an alpha from the Castelli pack.”
After a beat, he burst out laughing, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling under the glow. It echoed off the concrete of the room. My own face went as hot as the surface of the sun. His two yes-men both smiled, shaking their heads.
Lightheaded and tingling, my hands clenching on the armrests with a horrid scritch of the claws that had crept out involuntarily, I had to practically bite my tongue in half to keep from screaming.
Laughing. This arrogant bastard, and his miserable peons, werelaughing at me.
And I couldn’t do anything about it. Because the son of a bitch truly did have all the power here.
He finally subsided, his laughter fading into a nasty, malicious grin.
“Sorry, Castelli,” he said, with an emphasis on my last name that wasn’t lost on me. “I was imagining you telling all those hardened criminals they had to leave you alone because of your blue-blood pack. I was being kind. Not the biggest and baddest? You’d be meat.Castelli. A pretty-boy rich kid like you? Fresh meat. Delicious. You’d be lucky to survive your first week.”
My mouth went as dry as the desert outside this miserable little concrete box I’d been confined in. The way he was looking at me…as if I was meat to him, too. Nothing more.
“I’ll pay back what I lost at the tables,” I tried, the words scraping my throat raw. His eyes had caught and held me, and nothing existed but that dark, sinister glow. “I’ll pay it all—”
“How do you propose to do that, exactly?” It wasn’t MacKenna’s voice. It was the third one, who hadn’t spoken yet, his tone light but hollow, without any kindness in it. “Our background check shows you have no assets whatsoever.”
“I’m sure we could come to some arrangement,” I muttered, still looking at MacKenna, because I couldn’t look away. And fuck that other asshole, anyway. He didn’t deserve eye contact after interrupting me like that.
MacKenna smiled, a hint of fang showing. No smile in the history of smiles had ever been less friendly, and I stiffened my spine so I didn’t throw myself back in my chair to try to get the hell away from him. I was a Castelli. Castelli alphas didn’t cower, even when they were…meat.
“Maybe we can,” he said after an endless moment of watching me, his eyes brightening even further. His scent had changed, gone darker, richer. Spicier and more overwhelming, his alpha pheromones pressing on all of my instincts. He was stronger. He knew it. I knew it. And my body and my magic couldn’t deny it. I fought the urge to bare my throat, shuddering. “And this may not be the best venue to discuss it, after all. Castelli, a conversation with me, or the LVPD?”
I swallowed hard, and it did nothing at all to clear the tightness in my throat. Prison couldn’t be that bad, I thought wildly. It couldn’t be worse than dealing with this man.
But I’d come to Las Vegas on a gamble, after all, hoping my skill with cards would be enough to bluff my way through the line of credit I knew I couldn’t pay for. The police, jail, all the horrors and indignities of the criminal justice system—those were known quantities. I mean, I didn’tknowwhat would happen, but I could take an educated guess. And none of it appealed to me. In fact, it made me want to run screaming.
Time to throw the dice.
“I’ll talk to you,” I managed to choke out.
And MacKenna’s smile widened, showing way too much fucking fang for comfort. I’d made the choice he wanted me to make.
The LVPD suddenly sounded a lot better—but too late. He’d already turned away and put his hand on the door. “Bring him up to my suite,” he threw over his shoulder, and strode out, leaving me alone with his minions.
The middle manager grimaced, eyebrows raised, and waved a hand at the door. Too-handsome guy’s eyebrows drew together, the heated glance he threw after MacKenna and the quick glare he shot me giving me an unpleasant shiver.
My heart fell even further.
“Well, then, Mr. Castelli,” he said, frowning a little, eyes still shooting sparks, “if you’d come with us?”
One of the security goons poked his head in the door and grinned.
I’d never wanted to claw out and rip everyone present to shreds more in my life.
Instead I got up, straightened my back and held my head high to try to preserve at least a tiny scrap of dignity, and let them escort me out.
Jail probably would’ve been better than throwing myself on MacKenna’s not-so-tender mercies.
