Hustler Read Online Free Page B

stand up to catch the waitress before she falls face first onto the marble tile of the control room.
    “Careful,” I say, examining her facial features up close. She’s even more stunning in person.
    She grips onto my forearms and straightens herself, standing tall, one leg longer than the other. Her imbalance peaks my curiosity, so I venture my gaze down her petite body, past her beautifully toned legs, to her scuffed up high heels, where one is shorter than the other. Looking past her feet, I see the heel of the shoe that once was attached. Being the gentleman I am, I bend down and pick it up.
    At a closer look, I examine the heel and notice a distinct glob of glue in the center. I quirk an eyebrow at her and hold the heel up in front of her face, “I believe this belongs to you?”
    She swipes it out of my hand without a word and puts her hands behind her back, hiding the treacherous heel while trying to stand on her tippy toe to balance her stance. Embarrassment washes over her as her cheeks redden to a deeper hue. “Yeah, that’s mine. Thank you.”
    She doesn’t look me in the eyes; instead, her gaze lands on the floor between us. She’s a different woman than the one I watched on screen, the one who singlehandedly brought Ramos down to the ground with a simple thrust of her knee.
    Now, she’s reserved, calm, almost submissive in a way. I’m more than fucking intrigued.
    “Brian, please open up the B room and escort Miss Prescott into it. I need to look over her file before I join her.”
    “Sure thing,” Brian says in a thick Brooklyn accent.
    Brian is a beast of a man, his chest the width of a basketball court, and his cue ball head shinier than the fucking sun. He’s intimidating on the outside, but softer than shit on the inside. Want to know his Achilles heel? Watch his three-year-old daughter walk in the room, calling out for him. The man crumbles faster than a hooker on Freemont Street presented with a hundred-dollar bill.
    Once they’re gone, I sift through the file that’s marked Penelope Prescott. Thankfully Graham trusts me enough to root through his employee files and not give a fuck what I do with them.
    Taking a sip from my tumbler, I read up on the fireball waiting for me in the B room.
    Penelope Louise Prescott, age 21, lives in North Las Vegas.
    Shit.
    I pause. North Las Vegas? What was a gorgeous girl like her doing living in North Las Vegas? I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve become accustomed to the good and bad parts of town. North Las Vegas is no place for a young, beautiful woman like Penelope to live.
    Trying to wrap my head around her living location, I continue reading.
    Has worked for Hotel Paragon for the past year waitressing on the main floor, moved from Tennessee.
    A southern girl, I like that. There’s something about women from the south that always intrigues me. They’re polite, but have a blaze of fire under them, waiting to be set off. That could explain her recent snap of logic in the high roller room.
    Which reminds me, I will be having a conversation with Ramos sometime in the near future. I don’t care how rich he is, or how much he believes his dick doesn’t possess a terrible case of gonorrhea, he has no right slapping a waitress’s ass. A graze here and there, I will let go. They tip high and the girls expect it, but slapping bare skin? That’s not going to fly with me. Graham would have my back on that decision.
    I take one more glance at her file, skimming for anything I might need to know.
    She received one warning back when she first started at Hotel Paragon for cussing out a customer on the floor. Yup, she definitely has a temper. Other than that, her birthday is in a few weeks, and her emergency contact is Page Blakely.
    Why did that name sound familiar? Pulling out my phone, I search her name on the Internet and I’m immediately awarded with a match.
    Page Blakely, highly regarded personal chef in Las Vegas. There is a picture next to her