High Stakes: A Texas Heat Romance

by Camilla Stevens

  Chance had heard that Peter had become a powerful player, now taking over the business that Sokolov had controlled, even expanding far beyond what his former boss had held. But what did Peter Antonov have to do with Chip’s current condition?

  Chip nodded to the table beside him at a manila envelope that Chance just now noticed. His mother was still reeling, settling down in the chair beside the bed, so he walked over to retrieve it.

  When he saw what was inside he almost needed to take a seat himself. He stared up at Chip with blazing eyes and was met with that same fiery look Chip had given him just a moment ago.

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “It was Leo Petrov,” Chip began, confirming the person Chance had suspected was involved in all of this. “I got the 411 that he was interested in a little game of poker with me. Originally, I wasn’t gonna bite, but then I figured what the hell? Dmitri is gone. Maybe Leo doesn’t give a shit about what happened to Dmitri’s nephew. Maybe this is his way of saying all was forgiven.”

  Which made no sense to Chance, but he didn’t interrupt his brother to say so.

  “In retrospect, it was dumb of me. So, we’re sittin’ there playin’ a game of cards all nice and friendly like, and I’m thinkin’, okay I guess we’re good. Like, maybe I can go back and tell Chance his poker playin’ days are back on again.” Like Chance, Chip’s Texas accent got heavier the more animated he was. Right now, the sad sack that he’d seen upon entering this room was replaced by someone full of vim and vigor. “Then, he starts talking about the night Daddy died, and how it was so coincidental that the man who killed him was also killed. Then he starts hintin’ that maybe it was to cover up the real reason behind Daddy gettin’ killed.”

  Chance could feel his temperature rising with every word. He would never lie and say that this very thought hadn’t crossed his mind on more than one occasion.

  “Then he goes and pulls that shit on me,” Chip said, nodding toward the envelope that Chance still had in his hands. “As casually as anything, he pulls that outta his pocket and lays it down on the table, sayin’ he bought it off some guy who knows the guy who actually did the deed…on behalf of one Peter Antonov. Apparently the guy had held on to all that as leverage.”

  “How does Leo know it was Peter?” Katherine said, finally speaking up. Chance could hear slight traces of her Russian roots sneak into her accent, which happened when she was upset.

  Chip’s eyes looked past Chance toward their mother. “Look at the timin’ Ma. Daddy was killed right around the time when Boris Sokolov died and Peter took over up there. He could do whatever he wanted, and what did he want more than anything?”

  “But it had been over fifteen years by then,” she said, almost to herself.

  “Some grudges just don’t die.”

  “Why would Leo tell you all of this now?” Chance asked. “How long has he been holding onto this? What’s he hoping to achieve?”

  “Too many people battling him for Dmitri’s seat. Peter is his biggest threat, expanding out of New York. Pretty sure we can all guess why he’s taking advantage of Houston. I think Leo wants us to start a war. So he used his trump card on me…so to speak,” Chip added with a wry grin.

  “The McCoys? Against Peter Antonov?” Chance said with an incredulous laugh.

  “The Vasilievs against Peter Antonov,” Chip corrected, giving his mother a direct look.

  Chance heard her suck in a breath.

  “I left,” she said. “I gave my word to stay away. My father…he’d never go back on that. Leo should know this.”

  “You’re not the Vasiliev he was thinkin’ about,” Chip replied.

  Katherine, now over her shock, stood up from the bed and walked over to confront her son. “You and Chance are not Vasilievs. You are McCoys. I am a McCoy. What was Leo thinking, involving—?”

  “Ma, Ma. Let him finish,” Chance said, pulling her in before she could continue her rant. Already he could see Chip succumbing to exhaustion, and he still needed answers.

  Katherine was momentarily subdued.

  Chip sighed and sank back into his pillows. “Leo’s using every card in his hand. If there’s any chance that he can get rid of the competition, especially Peter, he’ll use it.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”

  “He picked the wrong McCoy,” Chip said with a dry chuckle that ended in a wince of pain. “You at least would have kept your cool. I attacked him, calling bullshit. Mostly, I was just in a rage over seeing what’s in that envelope.”

  Chance exhaled a short laugh. Of course Chip would lash out. Chance would have played it cool, eventually figuring out what Leo’s bag was. On the other hand, Chance wouldn’t have been dumb enough to fall prey to this “friendly” game of poker in the first place. He thought about Alexi’s final words to him a few weeks ago, that Leo would have a message for him. Chance wondered if that unfortunate interaction was when Leo had decided to move on to the other McCoy brother. The McCoy brother who also happened to be descended from the Vasiliev family.

  “I don’t remember anything after he shot me,” Chip continued. “woke up here.”

  “I think they tried to make it look like a robbery. Either that or you were in fact robbed. All you had was this envelop.”

  Chip just shrugged and fell back on the bed with a sour look on his face.

  “Did he say anything about my…” Chance wondered how to refer to Juliet. In the end he picked the most fitting term, “…about my girlfriend Juliet? This morning she had a big pink bear delivered to her.”

  His mother pulled away and looked up at him. “The woman in the hallway?”

  Chance nodded, then turned back to Chip hoping an answer could be found there.

  Chip just shrugged. “What I know is what you now know. Peter Antonov had our dad killed and now Leo, for some reason, wants him dead. I for one am more than happy to oblige based on what’s in that envelope.”

  Chance’s mother grabbed the envelope from his hand and looked inside. A sharp cry of something that was half pain, half outrage escaped her lips. With trembling hands she pulled out the contents: his dad’s lucky ring and the photo of the four McCoys at Coney Island, complete with that damn bear.

  22

  Juliet had been waiting patiently outside the hospital room. It had given her time to think, which wasn’t a good thing.

  Sunday had ended on a bittersweet note, with Chance taking off for two weeks to work on the rig. Oh, how she longed to return to that moment when the worst thing in her life was that she wouldn’t see him for fourteen days.

  Now, she was a “messenger,” for some threat even Chance couldn’t explain.

  Now, his brother was in the hospital with gunshot wounds.

  Now, she was entangled in a world she couldn’t make heads or tails of.

  She was leaning against the wall of the hallway outside Chip’s room. The door opened and she pulled herself away with a start. She tried to read his face for answers and found none. His face was grim as he came over to her, same as it was when he entered the room.

  “How is he?” she asked, even though a million other far more selfish questions were running through her head.

  “He’s fine,” he said, taking her arm and leading her further down the corridor to a more secluded location. When they had a spot to themselves where they were unlikely to be interrupted or overheard he stopped and turned to her.

  “You have a right to know everything, seeing as someone saw fit to involve you. Now I think I have a pretty good idea who.”

  She could see that he was still working it all out in his head.

  “Chance,” she said, placing her hands on his arms that were crossed over his chest. “Just start at the beginning.”

  He looked at her and his eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them. He nodded, gave a deep exhale, then began. “I told you about the loan that my brother and I owe. The person we owe it to is dead and it looks like Leo Petrov is in
fact in charge now.” Chance continued from there, telling her everything his brother had told him in the room, ending with the idea that Leo might be using his father’s murder to get rid of Peter Antonov.

  “Chance, I’m so sorry,” she said, squeezing his arms. She couldn’t imagine finding out news like that about her father the same day one of her own sisters was in the hospital. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m more concerned about figuring this out,” his eyes focused on her. “And keeping you safe.”

  “The bear?” she said, suddenly realizing that everything he’d just said now applied to her.

  “The bear,” Chance said, reaching out to place an arm around her. “Let’s find a place for you to sit.”

  “I-I’m fine,” she said, not wanting to be an additional burden on him right now.

  “No, you aren’t, and you have every right to be upset,” he said guiding her back down the hall. They went into the visitor’s room, which was mostly empty, and found a corner to sit in.

  He was right, it was exactly what she needed. Once she was settled in the chair, her mind was able to focus.

  “So we know what happened with Chip,” she began, then looked up at him. “But why me? Why would Leo send me the bear?”

  “Maybe Leo was sending an additional message, trying to get us to remember the good times, so we’d be that much more likely to want vengeance. But that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. He’d have to know that all it would do is direct my anger toward him.”

  “Or he was letting me know that he knows about you. Some sort of threat to keep me in line.”

  Juliet exhaled a long slow breath, feeling overwhelmed.

  “Jesus Juliet,” Chance said, leaning back in his chair and running a hand through his hair. “I never meant—”

  “I know.” She leaned in toward him and put her hand against his face. “I know you would never do anything to hurt me or put me in danger. But I’m here now. Let me help you work this out.”

  His eyes grew wide with alarm. “No. You need to be safely away from all of this. I think it might be a good idea to maybe go up to San Antonio and stay with your family a while.”

  Now Juliet’s eyes were filled with alarm. “I am not bringing this to my family, Chance.”

  The guilty flinch he gave in response to that made her feel a dagger of guilt, but it was the truth. The McCoy’s were being used as pawns simply by virtue of being tied to the Vasilievs. Juliet was being used as a pawn simply by virtue of being tied to Chance. She wasn’t about to expand that circle to include any more innocent parties, especially her own family.

  “Even if I’m just a messenger, I’m still in this, which means my place is here with you. So let me help you. Use me, use this brain of mine. That’s what it’s for. I’m not some wilting violet that needs to be hidden away sheltered for my own good.”

  Chance looked at her with half a grin as though seeing her in a new light.

  Juliet came in close, placing her hands on his strong thighs. She leaned in toward his face. “If there’s even a one percent chance something might happen to you then I’m in, one hundred percent, whether you like it or not.”

  He brought a hand up and pulled her the rest of the way in to kiss her. She fell into his lap and brought her arms around him.

  “I knew there was a reason I picked you that night at the museum,” he said when they had finally broken the kiss.

  “Random acts of nature,” she said smiling down at him.

  He chuckled, then his face became serious again. “All the same, you can’t stay in that apartment by yourself. You’re staying with me until we can figure this out.”

  “Chance—”

  “No arguments. If you work it all out in that genius head of yours you’ll realize I’m right.”

  “I hope you are a bourbon girl,” Katherine McCoy said looking at Juliet

  “Today I’m a whatever-you-have-on-hand girl,” Juliet said gratefully. After the whirlwind of a day it had been, she needed a drink, the stronger the better.

  Juliet had a moment to admire the gorgeous house that Chance’s father had supposedly won in a poker game. He was right. It was a beauty.

  They were seated around the dining room table and Katherine rose to go to the liquor cabinet and get the bottle and a few glasses.

  “I’m going to shake a few trees and find out exactly what’s going on before I do anything.”

  Juliet had been wondering about this since she first heard the story. She looked back and forth worriedly between Chance and his mother. “What are you going to do if it all turns out to be true?”

  “Kill the bastards. Both of them. Leo and Peter.” Katherine said without hesitation as she brought the glasses back to the table and poured.

  “And start a war with two families?” Chance said in a dry tone that indicated he didn’t take his mother’s words seriously, much to Juliet’s relief.

  Katherine gave him a defiant look.

  “I’m just as upset as you are, Ma, but we’ll put a target on all our backs going down that road. Including…” he looked over toward Juliet.

  Katherine’s eyes darted toward her and she fell back in her chair taking a long sip, sagging in resignation.

  “Besides, we want to make damn sure it’s the truth before we do anything rash.”

  “How are you going to find out?” Juliet asked, then took a sip, wincing slightly as the burn went down her throat.

  Chance looked over at Katherine. She put her glass down and nodded. “Jacob.”

  23

  Jacob Weinstein lived in a modestly inconspicuous, but nice house in Sugarland. He was a tall man with a massive gut that comically looked like a beach ball attached to his front. He was now in his sixties with a graying bald head and a close-shaved beard.

  According to the IRS he was a “consultant.” His real occupation was a bit more complicated. There were quite a few endeavors he was involved in, which meant he knew anything there was to know about everything that went down anywhere. It helped that he made a point of staying perfectly neutral, never picking one side over the other or betraying anyone’s trust. He often played the role of mediator when two parties were in conflict.

  Which meant he was the perfect person to go to before war started.

  “Chance McCoy,” he said looking him over with a rueful expression. “I’m sorry. I heard about Chip. Come. Come,” he said bringing a hand around to guide Chance into his house.

  “I suppose that’s why you’re here,” Jacob sighed, closing the door behind them. “I was just enjoying my paper on the patio.”

  He led Chance through the house to the backyard by the pool. Chance took the seat opposite where Jacob had been sitting with his New York Times and coffee. They were underneath an awning that extended from the house.

  “So a lot has been going on since you and Chip took up residence on the rig. How are you liking that by the way?”

  Chance just raised his eyebrows as if to say: it is what it is.

  Jacob gave a hearty chuckle. “I know. You miss poker. Which gets us back to the point of your visit, no?”

  “What’s Leo up to?” Chance asked, getting to the point.

  “Dmitri’s death shook things up a bit. No one has any real faith in Leo; they think maybe he’s too green to take over. It gives his enemies a lot of ammunition to maybe step in. Hell, even the Italians are trying to reclaim the territory.”

  Chance’s eyebrows went up. That one was a surprise. The Italians hadn’t run things for at least as long as he’d been alive.

  “What about Peter Antonov?”

  “He’s one of the players in the game,” Jacob conceded.

  “All the way from New York?”

  Jacob gave him a reproachful look. “Don’t tell me you have no idea why he might make this personal.”

  “Mom.”

  “Like Helen of Troy. I can say first hand, those legs of hers could still to this day launch a thousand ships.”

&n
bsp; “You mean the legs that are attached to my mother,” Chance said with a slight warning tone in his voice.

  Jacob just laughed and shrugged. “As it is, she’s just started a mini turf war. One that was already in the making, grant you.”

  “What about the Vasilievs?” Chance asked and watched Jacob with a sharp eye to see what his reaction would be.

  Chance had never had to use his ability to read people on Jacob before. The man was very upfront with what he would and wouldn’t reveal, and was an expert at keeping that which he wouldn’t reveal very well hidden.

  Jacob gave him a wry look. “Don’t tell me you boys are thinking of getting involved in this. Keep in mind, to them you are McCoys, not Vasilievs.”

  Chance gave a vague tilt of the head, noting that Jacob was now looking at him with a sharp eye.

  Jacob sighed. “Viktor had to cut her off for the sake of peace. But it’s true, he has a soft spot for his daughter, even to this day. Is that what you wanted to know?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

  That was exactly what Chance wanted to know, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to confirm that with Jacob of all people. Who knew whose ear it might end up in. “I just wanted to know if the Vasilievs are involved at all.”

  “Not yet,” Jacob said, reading right through him.

  “Did Peter have my father killed?”

  Jacob was too slow to catch himself at the sudden change in topic. He stared at Chance for a moment then shrugged. “It’s already out there so you might as well know. Yes, he did.”

  “Did you know?”

  Jacob leaned in with a sympathetic smile. “If I did why on earth would I tell you of all people?”

  Chance gave him a hard look.

  “And if I did know, would it matter? Your father would still be dead.”

  Chance felt his anger rising. What right did this man have deciding what the McCoys should and shouldn’t have known?

  “You want my advice?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Jacob just laughed. “I’ll give it to you anyway. Stay out of this. I’ll tell Leo that you have no intention of bringing the Vasilievs in to fight his battles for him. You forget what you know about Peter Antonov and get on with your life. By the time you’re finished paying off Leo—”