He curled his lip.
I gulped, not overjoyed to share this next part. “I had to go back to the firm a couple days ago.”
“Ouch,” Heidi murmured from the front room.
I frowned and called through the swinging doors to her. “You just want to come in here?”
“Nah!” she called back, her voice slightly muffled. “I’m working.”
Will snorted. “And eavesdropping, apparently.” He heaved a sigh and sat back down on his stool. He lifted his chopsticks and twirled a lone noodle around the bottom of the bowl. “How’d it go?”
I scooted a little closer to the table, heart heavy. I’d been doing my best to not process this. “I had a run-in with Eve, real heart-to-heart, and then Emerson recognized me and called Peter out for not following protocol—because I didn’t disclose my past.”
“Jolene!” Will shook his head at me. “How many times have I told you? You can’t keep all of this compartmentalized. Your worlds—Ludolf, your past, Peter—they’re going to collide! They are colliding, in fact.”
“I know, okay?” I heaved a great sigh and dropped my head into my hands, elbows on the table. “I know. But I’m in the thick of it now, and I have to make it right… for Peter at least. Please.” I looked up at him through my fingers. “Will… I’m begging you.”
My mouth went dry. In all my years of trials and losses and hardships… I’d never once begged anyone for anything, until now. I guessed it was because I felt like I was doing this for Peter. For myself, I’d muddle through somehow, who cared. But for him… I suddenly realized I’d do just about anything.
Will bit the inside of his cheek and stared down at the nearly empty ramen bowl, slowly twirling the noodle around and around with his chopsticks. His nostrils flared, and his throat bobbed. I could tell he was thinking about it, seriously considering it at least. He didn’t look up. “Jolene?”
“Yeah?”
“If you lose my life’s savings, I will never speak to you again.”
I grinned. Again with the gruff exterior—but my friend was such a teddy bear of a guy. “Thanks, buddy.”
He jerked his head up and pointed the chopsticks at me, a menacing glint in his eyes. “I’m serious this time! That took me seven years to save—seven!”
I beamed at him. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m your only friend, Jolene.” He leveled me a hard stare, though there was a hint of vulnerability in the slant of his brows. “Remember that… please.”
I jumped to my feet and threw my arms around his wide shoulders, gently bonking my head against his. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Heidi, get her the money,” Will called up to her in the front room.
I gave him one more squeeze, then skipped to the swinging doors. I shot one last look back at my friend, who sat with his shoulders hunched, expression grave. “I’ll be back soon.” I lifted a finger. “With your money.”
As I pushed through to the waiting room, my stomach turned on itself, and my confident smile faltered. This had better work… or I’d have lost Peter and Will. I’d lost a lot of things over the last few years—my career, my fiancé, my money, my ability to shift, and my magic. No biggie. I’d survived it all.
Dread tightened my chest. I wasn’t sure I’d survive losing Will and Peter, though. This had to work. And it all hinged on me calling in a favor from a dog I’d met in an alley. No risk there.
28
A GAMBLE
Heidi’s friend, the bouncer, recognized me and let me back into the Golden Tide. First step, easy. I hugged Will’s leather pouch of gold merkles to my side, a death grip around the little bundle, until I’d made my way across the smoky, garishly dilapidated casino floor to the curtain.
The bouncer there narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t even think about it.”
Guess he remembered me, too.
I took out the pouch and shook it so he could hear the coins jingling inside. “I’ve got a buy-in this time.” I flashed him a bright smile, though my heart pounded in my chest. “Five thousand big ones.”
He reached for the pouch, but I tucked it back into the inside breast pocket of my jacket. “I’ll hold on to it.”
His nostrils flared, but he pulled the gold curtain aside and stepped into the back room first.
“New player.”
The middle-aged woman, Bora Kang, who ran the place looked up. A flush of relief ran over me as her fluffy white dog, Fifi, jerked her head up and blinked her round black eyes at me. So far, everything was going according to plan. My stomach twisted. Which almost made me more nervous.
Four other men set at the round table, their sides to me. The woman gestured to the seat directly across from her. “Please, sit.”
I nodded my thanks and passed the bouncer as he returned to his station outside the curtain. I glanced around the room as I took shaky strides toward my chair at the bottom of the table. Four—no, five—beefy dudes in black, wands drawn, stood silently in the shadows around the edges of the room. Not intimidating at all.
I pulled the wooden chair out from the table and dropped down into it. The only light in the entire room was a single hanging fixture over the center of the table. It cast everyone’s features in deep shadow.
The guy to my left wore sunglasses, no doubt to hide his expressions, and was dressed in head-to-toe black. He shot me a side-eyed glance, then hunched over his cards.
Between him and Bora Kang sat an older gentleman with wispy white hair and a glittering eye, the other one missing, replaced with a vacant, concave spot. He chuckled at me and nodded in greeting. I returned the nod.
To my right, a large man with a long,
