Player: Stone Cold MC by Carmen Faye Read Free Book Online

I was starting to think it wasn’t just for the customer’s sake. The guy I’d seen standing behind the pool tables lurked in the corner, looking like he was ready to take orders. He wasn’t a big show after all.
     
    A man sat in one of the armchairs, smoking a cigarette so thin it would have looked better on a lady.
     
    “Come in, please,” he said when he saw me. He held out his hand and I shook it. “Bernard Tucci, but you can call me Barney.”
     
    Right. The big purple dinosaur in the flesh.
     
    “Harry over there tells me that you’re new in town, looking for a good time.”
     
    I nodded and sat down without being invited to do so. When you were in the shark tank, either you acted like a shark, or you risked being eaten.
     
    “Well, what is it that you’re looking for, exactly?”
     
    “Investments,” I said. “I have money, and I hear there are some good deals around town.”
     
    We both knew what I meant when I said investments. I’d been playing this game long enough to talk the talk, and Barney understood he language.
     
    “I was just itching for some new business,” he said. “What do you have to offer?”
     
    “I couldn’t help but notice the strip of casinos on the seafront,” I said. “Very attractive.”
     
    “It’s a family business,” Barney said.
     
    Bingo. “Well, now that is interesting. I’m quite a player, myself. I love the atmosphere in a casino.”
     
    Barney nodded. Harry in the corner glared at me as if I was going to whip out a gun any moment, and he was prepared to take the bullet. Cherry Frizz sat next to him on a wooden chair, looking like she was ordered just for the room.
     
    “What are you prepared to offer?” he asked.
     
    “Twenty.”
     
    Which meant twenty percent of all my winnings. Barney leaned back.
     
    “Now, you know twenty is not going to get you into any of the games that matter. Twenty is just enough to show your face without getting a makeover.”
     
    I nodded. I knew that he’d say that. But I’d started low so that I could bargain up. I didn’t want to start high and then be forced even higher.
     
    “How about forty,” I said. Barney chuckled as if it was funny and leaned forward to kill the cigarette that had mostly just burned to the butt by itself.
     
    “I’m prepared to do seventy with you, Mr.—?”
     
    Here we go with the identity thing again. “Reeker. Ben Reeker.”
     
    “Mr. Reeker.” He said the name as if he was trying it out, tasting it, deciding if it was legit. I wasn’t going to tell him my real name, though. Ted was the only one who knew, and if Jerrill was really in the Crucifix Six’s back pocket, this name would come out and it would be fine.
     
    “Fifty,” I said. “Seems fair, considering that it’s my money and my skill, after all.”
     
    “But it’s my casino, my name, and my game, Ben,” he said. I wasn’t happy with the first name basis, but he’d offered the same to me, and it wasn’t my real name anyway.
     
    “Sixty, but no more,” I said. Alex was going to slaughter me for this. Barney looked at me long and hard and finally nodded.
     
    “You’ve got yourself a deal, Ben. I look forward to seeing you in my casinos. Just drop my name and you’ll be treated with the highest respect.”
     
    I nodded, extended my hand and Barney took it. He shook it and then let go. His hand had been sweaty, and it felt like it had stayed behind on my skin. I fought the urge to wipe it until I’d left the private section and I was back at the bar, ordering another drink and a shot of Patrón.
     
    I was in. The doors were open. All we had to do now was some serious winning to make up for the fact that I’d promised sixty percent of everything we made to Barney Tucci.
     
    Yeah, Alex was definitely going to have my head for this.
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    When I answered the phone on the last ring before it rolled over to voicemail it was Cass. My sister and I had been close once upon a