“For example, I was far more ambitious in a way he’d never be. I was the one to go for class president, editor of the law review, senior associate on a new case. Theo is happy to sit back and simply do what others tell him to.”
She looks off to the side in thought. “It seems so…pointless now in the scheme of things. I mean, when you’re abducted and sent halfway around the world to basically participate in corporate espionage, losing the class president election by five votes doesn’t seem all that devastating.”
“In less than forty days, it will all be over. You can return to your old life,” I say, reading her to gauge her reaction to that thought.
She brings her gaze back to me, and there’s the briefest moment of something…
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and we both blink, breaking the moment. I pull it out, knowing what it’s regarding. Sure enough, it’s from Franco:
He’s begun borrowing money.
A smile that only the devil himself could muster plays across my lips. Tonight is yet another one of my infamous kills, metaphorically speaking. This one is special, having no relation to what happened to my mother and father.
“It’s time to go to the casino,” I announce.
“What is it?” She looks down at the phone in my hand.
“Zach is playing,” I say, which, based on her expression, provides very little by way of explanation. “Trust me, it will be a treat to watch.”
For me, at least.
My grandfather, Aloin LaCour, was once both a celebrated and notorious poker player. No table was too exclusive or too meager for his tastes. He married his long-time love, my grandmother, a native Monégasque, to make Monte Carlo his home; he himself maintained nothing more than residency, keeping his original French citizenship to get around the laws forbidding citizens of Monaco from gambling.
Players from around the world would travel to Monte Carlo, like a personal pilgrimage, in hopes of sitting across from him at a game.
The unspoken rule among professional gamblers is, you take your losses and move on with grace. And Aloin was the cause of many a loss for other players—some of whom weren’t so happy to bow out graciously.
The most noteworthy being Edwan Holt, who, at the time, was set to eventually inherit a British textile company.
After a fairly devastating loss at the hands of my grandfather, one that had his parents paying off an amount that had reached well into the six-figures, there was some serious question as to whether or not Edwan would inherit his legacy or not.
It wasn’t long after that particular game that a theft occurred at one of the four hotels in Monte Carlo that housed casinos. No one was stupid enough to target the casino itself, which would have been nearly impossible. But one of the shops had been taken for both merchandise and money, both of which somehow found their way to the LaCour residence. A tearful shop girl, no doubt paid for her effort, pointed the finger at my grandfather. The coincidence was too much, even for me at the time. I was one of the only people to believe my grandfather when he laid the blame on Edwan Holt, the man who never got over almost losing everything at Aloin’s hands.
After a few years in the very prison I pointed out to Sloane during our boat ride, my grandfather was banned from all hotels owned by the Société des Bains de Mer. For a professional poker player who lived in Monaco, it might as well have been the kiss of death.
Gamblers are a superstitious bunch, and his bad luck radiated throughout the professional playing community. After a while, even those meager tables wouldn’t have him.
I was eleven years old when my grandfather had a lethal stroke, only nine months after his release. The man who had always seemed larger than life had finally given up on it.
And I blamed one man. Edwan Holt.
“So no dessert, I presume,” Sloane says.
“After tonight, I’ll buy you a whole damn bakery.”
Chapter Forty Sloane
I wasn’t lying when I told Magnus I don’t gamble. I’ve been to Atlantic City a few times, once on a girl trip where we took over the spa at a resort and another for some show my mother got tickets to. On both occasions, I’ve only visited the casino as I passed through to other destinations.
But neither was as grand as the one in La Mer.
It has the same over-stimulation that draws the eye and excites the senses, but here it’s somehow more elegant.
This time of night, everyone is as dressed to the nines as I am. I’m glad Magnus specified formal because even as spectacular as this dress is—specifically with me in it, if I do toot my own horn—I’m still not as glamorous as many of the women here, some playing the tables with the same intensity as their male counterparts. In the movies, they’re always some arm trinket, playing eye candy in the background as the men play high-risk games with one another.
“I don’t see Zach,” I say, looking around.
“He’s in the high-stakes games section,” Magnus says, taking my hand and leading me toward a stairway.
The area he takes me to—after passing by two men who look like the personification of Do Not Fuck With Me—is far more subdued, and even more sophisticated than what I saw downstairs. The tables are more widely spaced, and most of the action seems to be happening at one in particular, or at least as much action as there can be in this exclusive space.
I feel like Moneypenny—hell, maybe even a damn Bond girl—to Magnus’s 007. All the more so because I’m absolutely certain we aren’t just here to watch Zach play a game of poker. I have no idea what dastardly deed Magnus has planned, but at the very least, it couldn’t be murder.
I hope.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that he is indeed
