All In: A Vegas Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  “Xander said it was one of his spare guitars he didn’t use.”

  Bryce frowned. “I was with him when he bought it from the store. He was…” He trailed off. “Uhh, nevermind.”

  Xander bought the guitar especially for me, then tried to downplay it by claiming it was one he had laying around? I felt very overwhelmed by all of this.

  “My gift is the most important one,” he said, taking the necklace out of the box and going around behind me. “You need to look the part in the tournament. Show some bling to intimidate the other losers, right?”

  I pulled my hair up for him so he could place the necklace around my neck. It nestled perfectly between my cleavage, a cool weight against my skin.

  “I love it,” I said.

  He came around to my front and grinned. “So do I. Everyone’s going to be too busy admiring you to focus on their cards.” He lifted my chin up. “They’ll never know what hit them.”

  He kissed me, but only for a brief second.

  “Oh! I forgot. I have one more thing for you…”

  “No!” I said. “Absolutely not. I can’t accept any more gifts today. My brain is going to blow a circuit.”

  He held up a ticket. “It’s your entry to the poker tournament.”

  “Oh. Right.” It was made of thick card stock, rectangular like a concert ticket but with a gold rim around the outside, raised above the rest of the ticket. A hologram of the Volga building facade covered one part of the ticket, and the other said, VOLGA DIAMOND POKER CLASSIC, in big Soviet font.

  “Okay, no more gifts,” he promised. He caressed my cheek. “Good luck. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He hopped into his big UHaul truck and rumbled away.

  33

  Sage

  The Volga was bustling for 11:30 on a Saturday morning. All of the excitement was obviously for the tournament: lines of people waited outside, and there was a car line for valet parking. I felt extra fancy as I flashed my tournament ticket to the valet, who held the door open for me and called me ma’am. I felt bad that I didn’t have anything in my purse to tip him; I knew more than anyone how important tips were.

  Inside the casino was another long line of people waiting to be let inside the viewing area of the poker room. Several camera crews were set up outside, and at a glance I saw at least two reporters talking into microphones for the news. And the security was more intense than I had ever seen it at the Volga, a combination of the normal floor security and the special suited guards like Eddie. It was all so intimidating.

  I felt like I didn’t belong as I approached the security checkpoint for players and staff. The guard took my ticket, pausing to examine it. “Welcome to the tournament, ma’am,” he said. Then he waved a security wand over me, down one leg and up the other, before sifting through my purse.

  He gave it back and gestured for me to enter.

  The poker room was a thousand times busier than when I’d sneaked a peek of Bryce playing last week. Dozens of card tables dotted the room, the dealers standing at attention like soldiers in crisp white shirts underneath silk vests. An audience gallery circled the room, raised a little higher in the air so people could look down at the tables. An enormous big screen filled the far wall, currently showing an announcer with a microphone listing all the sponsors for the tournament.

  And underneath the big screen was the final table. It was on a raised section three feet higher than the rest of the room, with extra lights on it to make it stand out.

  That’s the goal, I told myself. Get there.

  I wondered how many poker players spent their entire lives trying to get to the final table at a big tournament like this. And here I was trying to do it after one day of practice.

  Super easy. No sweat at all.

  “Welcome!” said a tournament handler in a Volga badge. “May I see your ticket?”

  I showed it to him. He nodded.

  “Entry 152. What’s your name, for the video feeds?”

  “Sage Parker,” I said, wondering if I was on a black list for being fired. But the handler didn’t seem to care.”

  “Sage. I love that name. You’re at table 14, over there. You’ve still got some time before we get started so feel free to grab a drink or use the little girls room. Breaks are scheduled every two hours, and in between rounds, but otherwise you will not be allowed to leave the tables for any reason.”

  Unless you’re Vladimir Yegorovich, I thought. I wondered where he was right now.

  I zig-zagged through the room toward my table, taking everything in. I didn’t see Yegorovich anywhere. Was he waiting for the start in one of his private rooms, or was he not playing in the tournament after all? I felt a pang of panic that my purpose here was all for nothing. That our plan was doomed before it even started.

  I reached my table, which had a little placard in front of a chair with my ticket number on it. The dealer smiled and verified my ticket with the table number. Up close I saw that the dealer vests were embroidered with a custom logo for the Volga Diamond Poker Classic. Fancy.

  “Hey there hot stuff.”

  I almost jumped at the sound in my ear. I’d forgotten all about it.

  “The online feeds are already live. I see you at table 14. By the way, your cleavage looks fantastic from this angle.”

  I let out a giggle and glanced up at the ceiling far above, which was a jungle of cameras, lights, and other equipment. I started to think of something witty to say back but stopped myself. We’d established that I should never use my ring communicator during the tournament. The risk of being noticed was too high.

  “That’s no way to speak to a lady,” Xander cut in.

  “Just giving her a compliment. She looks bangin’ in that dress.”

  “Or you could tell her she looks nice. Sage? I think you look very nice.”

  “But she doesn’t look nice,” Bryce said. “She looks bangin’.”

  “How about we keep the channel free of chatter?” Eddie snapped. “We can make jokes when we’re done.”

  I had been enjoying the friendly banter as a way to calm my nerves, but Eddie was right. Now was the time to focus.

  I wandered away to the refreshment stand set up for the players. It was a fully stocked bar with liquor, beer, wine, and soft drinks, plus every imaginable number of snack items. I would have loved a few shots of gin to calm my nerves but Bryce had warned me to avoid alcohol. It was best to have a cool head. He’d also recommended that I avoid soft drinks since the caffeine might make me jittery.

  “Bottle of water,” I said.

  The other players were at the table when I returned. There was a white woman who looked like she could have been Xander’s sister: messy dirty blonde hair down her back underneath a straw cowboy hat with purple sequins glued around the rim. Next to her were two “bros” who looked like they had come straight from the gym without changing. Then at the end was a bald man in a low key, but expensive, suit. The others all had drinks—the bros had bottles of beer, the woman a martini—but the bald guy had a bottle of water.

  He looked me up and down, eyes lingering on my own bottle of water. He nodded almost imperceptibly. I wondered if it was respect, or contempt.

  “Baldy is who we have to watch out for,” Bryce said as if I couldn’t tell myself.

  The music volume rose throughout the room and the lights dimmed. I took my seat at the table as the announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen! It is my great honor to welcome you to the inaugural Volga Diamond Poker Classic!”

  The applause that followed was as surprising as it was loud. I peered around the room: a huge crowd was crammed into the gallery above. It made me feel like I was an animal at the zoo on display.

  Don’t be nervous, I told myself, but trying not to do something like that was impossible. Like telling yourself not to imagine a big pink gorilla. Acknowledging it only made it worse.

  “And let’s keep that r
ound of applause going for our gracious host, the owner of this fantastic casino and resort, Mr. Vladimir Yegorovich!”

  Spotlights ignited across the room near the final table. Yegorovich came striding out of the curtain to louder applause. He wore the same suit I usually saw him in: ivory with silver lining. The cufflinks on his wrist glistened as he waved to the room and descended the three steps down into the main poker area. He took his spot at the first table there. The other players instantly went pale—clearly they hadn’t known they’d be playing against a Russian billionaire. The five bodyguards forming a ring around the table didn’t help.

  “Shady intimidation bullshit,” Bryce grumbled in my ear. “That won’t work on us when we get there.”

  I hoped he was right. I was intimidated by it right now and I wasn’t even at his table!

  Men in identical vests as the dealers filled into the room. They carried plastic boxes in front of them, placing one on each table. When they reached my table I saw that the plastic boxes held poker chips inside, already divided up into five trays. The man placed one tray of chips in front of each of us.

  “$10,000 in chips for each of you,” he said when he was done. “Good luck, everyone.”

  The lights came back on in the room and the music ceased. A soft murmur went up from the crowd as things got started. The big screen on the wall was showing Yegorovich’s table.

  Our dealer began shuffling the deck.

  Let’s do this, I thought.

  34

  Bryce

  Let’s do this, I thought as the tournament began.

  I was parked in the lot two blocks east of the casino, my seat reclined and my laptop open on my legs. Out the window I had a perfectly framed view of the Volga towering over everything, ominous and foreboding.

  And brimming with potential.

  I thought about the question Sage asked me last night. Why I wanted to steal all this money if I could make a living being a poker player.

  The thing about being a gambler was that it was never enough. Back when I was in college I used to have a goal in mind: $100 a day. $100 profit per day playing poker was a salary, over $36,000 per year before taxes. That was on the low end, sure, but it was enough to live off.

  I was so fixed on this goal that I took the first $100 I ever won playing online poker, withdrew it in a crisp $100 bill, and thumb-tacked it to the wall above my computer where I would always see it. A constant reminder of what I needed. The goal wasn’t to become rich, or world famous. The goal was that $100, consistently. Just enough to get by.

  It took me a year of playing to reach that goal. I flunked out of college and let friends—and girlfriends—fall by the wayside. I gained some weight, because a constant diet of pizza pockets and caffeinated pop wasn’t exactly good for you. But I did reach that goal. $100 per day consistently. As soon as I made $100 profit in a day I withdrew it to a bank account so I couldn’t lose it. Sometimes that happened by 10:00am, and other times it wasn’t until late into the night. But however it happened, I reached my goal.

  When I’d gone 90 straight days making $100, I felt victorious. I was over the moon. In college, making $100 per day seemed an unreachable goal. Yet there I was.

  But then I wasn’t just reaching my goal: I was exceeding it. Every few weeks I hit $200 profit. Then it was once or twice a week. Compared to that, $100 seemed a pauper’s take. Yeah, I could live off it bare-bones, but $200 a day was over $70,000 per year. That was a comfortable living.

  So I tacked a second $100 bill onto the wall, and my goal shifted to $200.

  The better at poker I got, the higher the goal went. Up and up and up. $300 per day felt like luxury… But with $400 per day I could live in one of the most expensive apartments in town. $500 a day was a sports car and a retirement fund. $750 per day was a quarter of a million per year.

  You see, that’s the thing about gambling. It’s not just the rush of whatever act you’re doing, whether it’s playing cards or yanking on a slot machine lever. It’s the ever-shifted goalposts of addiction. Just like a drug, one hit might get you high the first time but the 700th hit? Or the 7,000th? You needed more to get that same high as the first time. You built up a tolerance.

  That was why I wanted to rip off the Volga. Not because I needed the money. Not because Yegorovich was a bad guy who deserved it, although that was a fine secondary benefit. I wanted to steal the money because I was an addict, and I was chasing the next big rush.

  What happens after the $16 million payday?

  I was terrified of the answer.

  My laptop screen showed a top-down view of table 14. Sage was looking gorgeous, which wasn’t just idle teasing on the radio. She stole the show. If she got to the final table she would certainly attract Yegorovich’s attention.

  I eyed the other four people at her table. Three of them I barely acknowledged, but I was worried about the bald guy. He had the look of someone who was serious. Who had been in tournaments like this before and knew what he was doing.

  And right now, he looked like he intended to win this table without much competition.

  “We’ll see about that,” I muttered to myself as the dealer shuffled the deck.

  The tournament worked in three rounds. The first round was this one (obviously), 150 players spread out among 30 tables. Players had to win their table to advance to the next round. Round two would be split among six tables. The only other difference between it and the first round would be higher antes and larger minimum bets.

  Finally the six winners of those tables would advance to the final table. Because of that, Sage didn’t just have to do well. She had to win her table. I wasn’t worried about the first round originally… But now that I saw Baldy I was a little concerned.

  “Here we go,” I whispered into my ring as the cards were dealt. “You’ve got this.”

  35

  Sage

  “You’ve got this,” said the comforting voice in my ear.

  It honestly made me feel like Bryce was just over my shoulder, guiding me along as if we were sitting at his computer. I wasn’t alone: I had a team working with me. Eddie and Xander were out in the crowd somewhere as well.

  I’m not alone, I thought as the cards were dealt.

  Baldy came out swinging, raising $500 before the flop. I didn’t have anything strong so I folded. So did everyone else. Baldy took the pot and muttered, “That’s what I thought,” under his breath.

  Is this dude serious?

  One of the bros glared at him.

  “Yep. This guy is going to throw his weight around as much as he can. That’s alright, I know how to handle someone like this. Wait for your first strong hand and then re-raise him.”

  The next hand I was dealt an Ace of hearts and a Ten of Diamonds. Everyone checked except Baldy, who raised $500 again without hesitation.

  “Raise $1,000,” I said, wincing at how much money that was. A tenth of my chip stack. I really disliked putting so much on the line so quickly before I’d gotten into a rhythm.

  Everyone folded except Baldy, who stared at the table. After an annoyingly long time he tossed his cards away.

  “Bingo,” Bryce said.

  I pulled the winnings over to me and added them to my stack and smiled to myself.

  Baldy backed off after that and allowed the table to play a little more naturally. For the next hour everyone played conservatively, feeling each other out. Nobody tried any big bluffs, only raising when they had something reasonably strong. Studying each other and learning.

  When Baldy did get aggressive again, Bryce immediately said, “I think I spotted his tell. Call him. Don’t raise.”

  I called his raise even though I had a Four and Nine, unsuited. The flop came out:

  3h - 6d - 10s

  Three of Hearts, Six of Diamonds, Ten of Spades. Nothing for me.

  “Raise him big,” Bryce said. “It doesn’t matter if you have anything. He’ll fold. I promise.”

  “Raise $1,500,” I said,
setting a stack of chips out in front of me. Baldy never looked anyone in the eye. He only stared out at the table with a dead, vacant stare. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, so I guessed it was designed that way.

  “Fold,” he whispered, tossing his cards away.

  “Jackpot,” Bryce said. “His tell is that he picks his fingernail with his thumb. Look at his left hand.”

  Sure enough, the thumb and forefinger on Baldy’s left hand were folded against each other like a pincer, scratching together softly. Then he stopped and crossed his arms while waiting for the next hand.

  The game went back and forth for a while. Baldy and I were essentially taking turns winning chips from the other three players, who were all as amateurish as they looked. Baldy and I rarely engaged each other directly, usually folding whenever the other person made a move.

  “It’s like the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union,” Bryce grumbled. “You guys have proxy wars against Vietnam and Afghanistan, but you’re avoiding each other.”

  But I knew that would change soon. The antes kept increasing, and the other three players were slowly falling behind.

  I went through my bottle of water, ordered another from one of the waiters walking around, and then didn’t touch it because I was afraid of making myself have to pee. Another hour passed. One of the bros went all in with an Ace high, but didn’t catch a pair. “That’s what I thought,” Baldy said when the cards came out. He took the kid’s money and didn’t even offer to shake his hand as he was escorted from the room.

  The white woman went out soon after, giggling and saying that this whole thing was a lot of fun and that she would have to try again sometime. I made sure to stand and shake her hand when she left—I didn’t want to be like Baldy.

  The last college bro was death by a thousand cuts. He kept paying his ante and folding when either of us raised, too afraid to go deeper with whatever weak hand he had. Soon he was down to his last $500, and by then the ante was $250, so he went all in one a pair of Fives, which lost to Baldy’s pair of Jacks.