junk.
Besides the poker players, there were always a few other people hanging around. One was an older man with close-cropped gray hair and steely eyes. He spent most of his time either keeping some sort of records in a book, quietly watching the poker game, or talking to other men who came and went. Any conversations were always nearly silent.
Grey always tried not to look at the man in the corner too much. Something about him made her uneasy, and that was hard to do — after all, she hadn’t seen anything wrong with taking a back alley that led her to a dead body. But even though she knew she was at a fairly high stakes poker game, high enough stakes that the room had a body guard, that guy was the thing that made her nervous.
Right now, he was deep in conversation with another guy, someone with chin-length wavy brown hair. Grey could tell that things were getting heated, but she could only see the older man’s face, not whoever he was talking to.
Behind him was a door that she’d never seen open, though she was nearly certain that sometimes she could hear strange noises coming from behind it that no one else in the room seemed to notice. Grey tried not to think about it, which usually wasn’t hard. Once she started playing, the warm hum of anticipation and adrenaline sang through her.
At the center of the table was a big guy with thinning red hair pulled back in a ponytail and a red goatee, watching Grey enter the room.
“Deal you in next round, Princess?” he asked.
Grey hated that he called her Princess, but she knew it might be useful. After all, no one else was likely to thing that a sweet young thing named Princess was much of a threat, right?
She thrived on the other players underestimating her. It was how she’d won three hundred bucks the night before.
“Yes, please,” she said, as politely as she could.
After all, princesses were polite.
At the sound of her voice, one of the guys playing poker turned around. She didn’t know his name, she just knew that the other players always called him Shovel, and she wasn’t really sure why.
“You got some nerve,” Shovel growled at her.
Grey froze.
Everyone turned to look at Shovel, then at her: the other players, the dealer who’d called her princess, the somber older man in the corner.
The guy the older man was talking to, the one with the wavy brown hair. For an instant, they made eye contact, and Grey felt a shiver move down her spine.
Not the time for cute boys! she reminded herself.
“What are you talking about?” she asked Shovel. Somehow, she managed to stay polite, keep her voice calm.
“You nearly got us busted wide open,” he said, turning in his chair.
Grey could see the empty whiskey glass in front of him. Half of her was scared, but half was excited — Shovel could be an unpleasant drunk, but when he was drunk, he was also a terrible poker player.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said.
Shovel stood, his metal folding chair scraping along the concrete floor, the sound like nails on a chalkboard.
“Walking through the alley after a game like that,” he said. “Now the cops are sniffing around everywhere, asking ‘what’s a nice young lady like her doing in a dark alley at night?’”
Grey swallowed, her spine stiffening.
If you were smart, you’d leave right now , she thought.
I guess I’m not smart, then, because this guy’s an asshole and I’m staying right here .
“I didn’t tell them a thing,” she said defiantly. “I’m not an idiot, I didn’t tell the cops I was walking home from an illegal gambling den.”
“Yeah?” said Shovel. “How do I know you’re not wearing a wire right now?”
Grey forced herself not to roll her eyes.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “They’re not the FBI, they’re—”
“Show me,” Shovel said.
Grey felt like her stomach dropped out of her body, and her furious reply died on her lips.
“Show you what?” she asked, after a long moment.
“Lift up