by Diana Gardin
G-Ring
Diana Gardin
Contents
Also By Diana Gardin
1. ACE
2. ACE
3. NAIMA
4. NAIMA
5. ACE
6. ACE
7. NAIMA
8. ACE
9. NAIMA
10. ACE
11. ACE
12. NAIMA
13. NAIMA
14. ACE
15. ACE
16. NAIMA
17. NAIMA
18. ACE
19. ACE
20. NAIMA
21. ACE
22. NAIMA
23. NAIMA
24. ACE
25. ACE
26. NAIMA
27. ACE
28. NAIMA
29. ACE
30. NAIMA
31. ACE
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 Diana Gardin.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover image by Avery Kingston.
Book Formatting by Kate L. Mary.
Printed by Amazon, Inc., in the United States of America.
First printing edition 2020.
Published by Diana Gardin
Gardin Grows Press
Also By Diana Gardin
THE ASHES SERIES
Out Of The Ashes
Settling Ashes
Ashes Adrift
THE NELSON ISLAND SERIES
Wanting Forever
Ever Always
Falling Deep
THE BATTLE SCARS SERIES
Last True Hero
Saved By The SEAL
Man Of Honor
THE RESCUE OPS SERIES
Sworn To Protect
Promise To Defend
Mine To Save
THE DELTA SQUAD SERIES
Lawson
Ryder
THE TROMA CHRONICLES
The Lilac Sky
THE BRING ME BACK SERIES
Just Like Breathing
Just Like Home
Just Like This
This one’s for me. It makes me happy.
One
ACE
“Buy-in’s two G’s.” I rake a hand through my hair as I stare down the yuppie-looking dude standing in the doorway.
He nods and pulls a black leather wallet out of his jacket’s breast pocket. Like two grand is nothing. A spoiled rich college kid just like the rest of ‘them.
Then he has the nerve to slide out a black credit card.
I glower at the card, and then snap my gaze back to him. “This ain’t Barney’s. Give me cash or get the hell out.”
The kid shrugs, putting the card back in his wallet. And then he counts out twenty crisp hundred-dollar bills. I grab them from his outstretched hand, and then my associate, Borg, moves aside to let the client inside.
Borg’s actual name is Brian, but we call him Borg because, well, he’s huge. Like a Cyborg.
I turn and scan the dark, smoky room we use for the games. I do a quick count. My limit is thirty players a night. I’m getting close.
Turning back to the door, Borg’s stocky frame is blocking the entrance of a face I’ve never seen before. Most of the guys who play here are regulars—them, and the girls they bring along.
They’re also almost always college-aged. The G-Ring’s clients are rich boys who want to play in the big leagues, but don’t want their daddy’s friends and business partners to catch them playing in the bigger rings. That’s my market, and I’ve studied it well.
But the dude standing at the door now doesn’t ring a single bell of familiarity. Tall, clean-cut, and tucked-in, he fits the description of a lot of guys in here. His hair is short and blonde, wavy across the top and falling over his forehead. But he’s not giving off college vibes. His appearance comes off as someone who’s worked in an office all day. There’s a desperate glint to his expression that screams trouble.
I don’t need trouble in my ring.
“We’re full.” My words are clipped, final.
The blond man’s mouth curves into a grin that’s supposed to set me at ease. “For real? You turning away cash at the door?”
He slides a stack of Benjamins out of the interior pocket of his blazer. Despite his shady expression, the dude is dressed nice. Not in the polos and khakis that most of my clientele wear, but in a dark suit.
My eyes narrow into slits. “You a cop?”
The question is pointless; I already know cops don’t wear shoes that expensive. The dude’s a suit. I’m just not sure if he’s the kind of suit who works in an office all day, or the kind who does his business at night in dark alleys. Either way, he’s too big league for my ring.
I glance at Borg and shake my head.
“Closed.” Borg’s deep, gravelly voice says he’s not playing around. The step he takes closer to our uninvited guest should shoot the point across in a way our words don’t.
I turn my back, ready to spread myself around the room.
“I’ll pay double your buy-in.”
Pausing mid-step, I turn around slowly, schooling my shocked features as I study him for the slightest sign of bullshit. I can’t find any.
Curious, I tilt my head to one side. “You want in on the game bets, or you want to play at the tables?”
He nods toward the row of TVs lining one wall of my basic warehouse space.
Rent is cheap in the warehouse, and the owner doesn’t ask any questions when I pay him in cash each week.
“Games.” His response is short, his eyes on the rows of leather chairs set up in front of the TVs.
Someone who bets on games is confident his knowledge of the sport is superior to the odds. They don’t feel there’s as much risk involved, contrary to the tables where the skills of the other players mix with the odds of the house.
I hold out my hand, and against every ounce of better judgment I have, I close my fist around his cash. “You’re in.”
Borg bolts the door behind us, and I enter the room, scanning to make sure my staff are all in palace. Every single one of us packs heat, but we’ve never had to use a weapon. The threat is there. Between Borg, my friend Kevin, an old buddy whose technology skills are unrivaled, and X, a man who doubles as a bouncer at my uncle’s bar, security at the G-Ring is covered.
Whoops and hollers break out in the seating area in front of the flat-screens, and I smile, knowing that bets have been waged and the football games are in full swing for the night. The air is heavy with anticipation. I’m not the one buying in, but my blood sings with the thrill, the adrenaline, that comes with betting. The element of danger sends a thrill racing through me. It always does, every single time the Ring opens for business.
But everyone doesn’t win at the G-Ring. That’s the nature of the beast.
They bet against the house…and that’s me. I almost always win, in the end. It’s the lack of desperation. I want to succeed, but most of my clients have their daddies’ money on the line. They need to win.
On the off chance that I do lose? I have the overhead to pay out
the winnings. Saved up from four years of running this ring. At twenty-four, I have more money to my name than most men my age can claim, especially for someone without a college degree.
Cash that I made myself, not money at the other end of my Daddy’s credit card.
Yeah, the Ring is my baby. I’ve loved it, nurtured it, raised it up right. Glancing around this room, I’m filled with a sense of pride that comes from something you’ve built on your own.
Borg catches my eye from his post against the wall beside the tables. It’s time for me to make my rounds.
I’ll check in on the poker tables, set my sights on the games for a while. Borg strolls through the room with me as I observe my ring in action. As we walk toward the table, something catches my eye, an expression on one of the player’s faces that sends warning bells to my brain.
“Borg— ”
One of the jade-green poker tables upends as the player stands with a roar, scattering the contents of the game table like ashes in a gust of wind.
“You fucking cheater!” His voice is a loud bellow, his face a deep purple. The man’s chest heaves with fury as his hands ball into fists.
In a second, every eye in the room is laser-focused on the scuffle. Throwing himself over the fallen table, the aggressor lunges for another player, grabbing him around the throat.
They both go crashing to the floor. A clumsy cluster of thrashing arms and legs.
Every muscle in my body tightens; my fingers flex as I ready my hands. The only thing I want to do right now is launch myself into the fray.
Fighting comes naturally to me. It’s how I grew up, the way I was raised. When I was in school, I fought all the time until I found another outlet to channel my aggression. Once I figured out that I had a head for math and economy, I turned all my attention toward my classes. I could excel academically, something I’d never realized before.
I used to be pissed at the world for the cards I’d been dealt. Until I figured out that I could change them.
With a hand pressed hard against my chest, X blows past me toward the fight.
“Stay put,” he mutters, pushing me backward.
Yeah. It’s a part of the deal. If I’m gonna run a profitable business, I can’t exactly engage with the Neanderthals who occupy my games. I clench my hands into fists, rolling my head around to release some of the tension building there.
“Break it up, assholes.” X’s voice is calm as he takes on the aggressor. Borg already has his hands on the other fighter. The victim wheezes, clutching at his neck with wide eyes.
“He…came at me...for...nothing!” Each word out of the poor guy’s mouth is a dusty wheeze.
I step over to the table, my feet crunching over scattered poker chips as I approach. I don’t stop until my nose is right in the face of the wheezing player.
I poke a finger in his chest. “Were you cheating?”
His eyes flick to the left before meeting mine again. His mouth sets in a line, but his pupils dilate slightly in his light blue eyes before he answers. “No.”
Liar.
I lift my chin toward Borg. “He’s out.”
With a grunt, Borg drags the cheater, probably a card-counter, toward the door of the warehouse.
“That’s not fair!” The cheater’s yell is hoarse as he’s dragged out of my ring. “I didn’t do anything!”
I scan the eyes of the players now watching me. “My ring: my rules. I don’t tolerate cheaters. And—” I nod toward X, who hefts the attacker up by his collar— “I don’t tolerate fights. Not in my ring.”
There’s a young woman standing beside the attacker; I hadn’t noticed her until then. She’s pulling at both sides of her long auburn hair, her skin pale under a sprinkling of freckles. I scan her body: long legs, creamy skin, a designer dress and shoes taking up residence on her slight frame. I flick my eyes back toward the attacker.
“You’re out.” Borg drags him toward the door.
“But you, love…” I stop the woman from following her date with a hand on her wrist. “Don’t have to go with him. The seat beside me is open tonight.” I shoot her a smirk. The dirty kind that lets her know I’m not a nice guy. A night with me won’t be dinner and roses.
Her eyes flicker with interest, but then her gaze darts toward the door as the Neanderthal yells, “Aubrey! We’re outta here. Now!”
With one more heated gaze in my direction, she scurries after her meal ticket.
Not my type, anyway. I need a woman with a backbone.
I survey the room. Everyone is still shooting furtive glances my way, wary apprehension on their faces. I gesture toward the door.
“If you’re a cheater, might as well give up your two G’s and follow them out. If you wanna stay and play fair, stop eyeballing me and start watching where your money’s going.”
That’s all it takes to force everyone’s eyes back to their games. With a deep sigh, I head for the bar. I might have ice water flowing through my veins, but right now, a cold beer is calling my name.
X throws me a smirk as I saunter past him on my way to the small bar area on the other side of the couches.
Just another night at the G-Ring.
Two
ACE
I never had any illusions that I’d go to college, but I was the first person in my family to ever graduate from high school. No one before me had ever done it before, and I always tried to take a path as different from my parents as possible.
The uncle that I borrowed X from got his GED in his twenties when he got out of prison. He had enough sense to use the money he’d made illegally before he went in to take business classes and open his bar.
The goal was to be more like him. Without the stint in a federal pen.
The Monday after the fight at the Ring, I’m sitting outside a coffee shop near my condominium building in uptown Charlotte. My laptop open in front of me, my eyes are glued to my screen. When I’m not helping my uncle at his bar and restaurant, I’m spending my days working on my plan for my future.
Because I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life running an illegal gambling ring. That’s what’s giving me the capital to move me into position to do something really big and incredible…open Charlotte’s first hotel and casino right here in Uptown.
I tear my eyes away from the numbers on the screen when the other chair at my table scrapes across the sidewalk and someone sits down.
“Ace!” His drawl is long and pronounced, and by his greeting you’d never guess that this man was the smartest kid back in our high school. By leaps and bounds.
I sip my coffee, noting the suit that my best friend wears. He’s on his lunch break from his office right down the street. “What’s up, Counts?”
“Counts” is his last name, but it fits him better than his first, which is Sanders. Because the guy knows numbers and math like no other. It’s like they live inside his head, and he’s doing quadratic equations in his sleep at night. He never even had to study that stuff back in school.
“Just grabbing some lunch.”
Nodding, I close my laptop. “That’s what I thought. Busy morning at the office?”
Counts rolls his eyes. “It never ceases to amaze me how little these rich fuckers actually understand their money. If they didn’t have an accountant, they’d be up shit’s creek.”
Chuckling, I scratch my eye behind my shades. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks, buddy.”
He smiles. “You’re damn right. Stopping in at your mom’s today?”
My expression darkens. It’s a question he asks me regularly, and it always brings down my damn mood. We grew up in the same trailer park not too far from here and going back to check on my mom isn’t something I’d planned on doing today.
“Why? ‘Cuz she took such good care of me growing up?”
Counts’ brows climb higher as he runs the palm of one hand over his close-shaved, chocolate-brown head. “Man…she’s shacked up again. And the dude is bad news.”
A tremor of foreboding rolls through me, but it’s just habit. “When is she not shacked up? You find that tidbit out from your dad?”
Counts’ dad is a real asshole. Drinks too much. Doesn’t have a clue that his son is a fucking genius. Basically failed out of parent school the same way my mom did.
“Dad might be a useless piece of shit, but he’s a knowledgeable piece of shit. I trust his intel.”
I don’t know how many times I told Counts when we were teenagers that his ticket out of that trailer park would be his brains. A full-ride academic scholarship would save him. I don’t think he ever really believed me until it happened.
Since I didn’t have anything like that to save me, I had to dig myself out my own way. I never would have made it at a fancy university, but I had brains. After I got out, I never wanted to go back again.
“Check on your mom, dude. Just do it.”
Sighing heavily, I contemplate. Counts will always have a soft spot for family, especially my mom. It’s because he doesn’t have one. His mother left he and his dad to fend for themselves when he was like, two. But I grew up with mine, and I know for a fact that I would have been better off without her.
There’s a heavy, oily feeling snaking into my gut, though, that tells me I should at least check in.