Kings of Hearts
An M/M/M Romance
By CANDICE BLAKE
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by CANDICE BLAKE
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Message from the Author
Other Works by Candice Blake
Join the Mailing List
Chapter One
Dominic
“Get the fuck out of my house,” I said, in a calm and steady voice.
I had no more time for bullshit, and after an awful day, I didn’t want to have to deal with Adrian ever again.
“What?” Adrian asked, looking up at me from his computer screen.
“You heard me, I’m not going to repeat myself again,” I said, holding his bedroom door open, and waiting for him to leave.
The rest of the boys were in the living room, and they pretended that they weren’t witnessing what was happening. But I had planned to do it when everyone was home so they’d see that it was indeed my house, under my rules.
“Can we talk about it, at least?” Adrian asked.
“Talk about what? We’ve talked so many times before, and it just goes through one ear and out the other with you.”
I could feel my racing heartbeat in my neck and it took everything for me to not want to grab him and toss him out myself.
“Where…am I going to go?” He asked, trying to give me puppy dog eyes as if it’d work with me.
I’ve taken in so many boys over the years that his tricks weren’t going to get him very far. It was the oldest one in the book.
“Figure it out,” I said, followed by a scoff. “Seems like you have a mind of your own anyway.”
His green eyes were starting to cloud with tears. He was starting to understand the consequences of his actions. If he didn’t think I’d actually kick him out, he was wrong, and he finally started to realize that I wasn’t playing around.
He stood up from his desk. Adrian walked up to me and grabbed my wrist, trying to pull me into his room. He saw that all the other boys were in my living room right outside his door, and his face turned red.
“Close the door, let’s talk about this,” he whispered.
I shook his hand off me. This guy just didn’t get how angry I was with him. He really had no idea how much he pissed me the fuck off.
“No, I’m not going to ask you again,” I said. “Now, if you want me to drag you the fuck out, I’ll do it. Don’t think I’m joking with you. You broke the rules and that’s that.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear. I’ll try harder, I promise,” he pleaded.
I could tell that his pretty boy charm had worked on others in the past. But my mind was already made up. “That time passed a long time ago. You think you’re different from the others. You think the rules can bend for you. But not in my fucking house. Now get out.”
“Can you give me some time to get my things at least?” He asked, trying to buy more time.
“No, they’re my things. All the clothes in your closet were bought by me. The laptop, the bed, your phone. Everything is mine, and if you disrespect me, then you get nothing.”
His light blonde brows were furrowed as he cast his eyes down to the ground.
Adrian looked like the boy next door, which was the reason why I trusted him enough to take him in. But beneath his pretty boy charm, he was a troublemaker.
The last thing I wanted was for him to corrupt the other boys who lived with me.
I knew better than to have him stay and risk the possibility of a revolution against me. This was a serious business that I was running and I wasn’t going to let a nineteen-year-old boy fuck it up for me.
“I want to leave you with a bit of dignity to walk out of the front door now, on your own terms, before I force you out,” I said.
At six-foot-five, I towered over him.
I was intimidating to most people and I wasn’t afraid to show it. Somehow, Adrian’s balls were so big that even I didn’t scare him. Nothing scared him, which was the reason why he couldn’t stay here.
I took in long and deep breaths, to show my composure and assert my dominance. He wasn’t so slick now that he realized there were repercussions to his actions.
“You really want to do this?” He asked one more time, so quietly that it was barely audible.
I didn’t say a word, and I waited for his eyes to meet mine to see how serious I looked. Then, he dragged his feet out of his room.
Adrian glanced over at the boys on the couch. They didn’t make eye contact with him, knowing that it could be them if they disobeyed my rules.
Adrian inched his way to the front door as if I’d magically change my mind if he wasted even more time.
I never changed my mind. I was firm in every single decision I made as a leader.
I opened the front door of my loft, and Adrian stepped out. I grabbed his jacket off the hanger and tossed it at him in the hallway with so much force that he almost fell back. He caught it in his arms. “You’ll need this, it’s cold out,” I said.
Then reached for my wallet in my back pocket and pulled out both one hundred dollar bills and tossed them at him.
I slammed the door closed, not wanting to see his face ever again.
Good luck, and good riddance.
I hated what I just did.
I had never kicked anyone out of my house before. I knew that the boys I took in had troubled pasts which made them act the way they did.
But Adrian was different.
I knew his potential, and I just couldn’t stand seeing him fuck it up day after day. I felt like he was egging me on, seeing how far he could get with me. Pushing my buttons and acting like he ran the house.
The other boys there respected him too, and they had a reason to. Adrian had potential in this club, and potential in this world, but he wasted every opportunity he was given.
There was no time for losers here.
I rest my forehead on the door, putting pressure on the pounding headache that had been bothering me all day.
It was a fucking stressful day, to say the least.
Today, my company lost thirty percent in stocks after a huge scandal. One of our self-driving cars malfunctioned and nearly killed the man inside.
Fuck, I hated losing.
I hated losing money, I hated losing to other people. Losing fucking sucked, and people w
ho didn’t think so were losers themselves.
What’s the point of life without winning?
I walked back into the living room where the four boys were. I had called for an evening meeting to discuss where this club was heading. We weren’t doing so hot, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
My steps echoed in my loft condo right in the heart of downtown. I was in the penthouse of an eighty-five-floor residential skyscraper.
The sky looked moody after it had just rained. Looking out through my panoramic windows onto the city below was like a movie. The concrete buildings were wet and saturated. The headlights from the cars below made the wet asphalt shine. There was nothing around me that was higher than I was, and I was proud to be where I was.
I made my way back to my living room where the boys were sitting on my light-brown leather sectional.
These boys were lucky to live here. They weren’t just random young men that I took in. I only brought in those who had potential.
I turned off the television where a poker game was playing and I leaned up against the television stand.
“I want to re-establish some rules in this house,” I said, looking at each of the four boys on the couch. “It seems like some people have been getting way too comfortable here. I want to make it clear to you that we aren’t family here. There’s no loyalty in this house. It’s strictly business, and if you don’t like that, you are welcome to leave. But maybe I’m not being as clear as I thought I was. Let’s go over some of the principles of this house. Who can tell me what you guys are doing here?”
One of the boys, Riley, who wore circular glasses, raised his hand, and I nodded my head in his direction. “We’re here to win, sir.”
“Win what?” I asked.
“Poker games,” Harold, another one of the boys, answered.
“Poker games. That’s right,” I said. “You win games, and you get to stay here in this club. You lose games or break rules, and you leave. It seems like a pretty fair deal to me. Don’t you think?”
The four of them nodded eagerly.
“Speak up if I’m wrong,” I said. “But this is not a bad set-up for you guys. Every single one of you had a rough life growing up and came from broken homes. I am here to give you structure. For most of you, shitty things have happened in the past, things that are outside your control. But I’m here to show you that with hard work and persistence, you can achieve anything. No one is forcing you to stay here. You can come and go as you please. You can do whatever you want, just as long as you continue to respect the rules of this house. It’s that simple. Who can tell me what the four rules are?”
“No drugs or alcohol,” Greg, another of the boys said.
I nodded and put my index finger up.
“This club is to be kept secret,” Logan answered.
I put two fingers in the air.
“Get better at poker every single day,” Harold said.
That was the third rule.
“And the fourth rule?” I asked.
“Win,” Riley said.
The most important rule was to win.
“Right,” I said, nodding my head. “It’s a pretty simple set up. You win poker games online, and in turn, I collect ten percent of all your winnings. I’ve taught you guys everything I know about this game, and I’ve shown you that anyone can be a winner with enough hard work. What I will not tolerate are people who think there’s a shortcut to this. There are no shortcuts in life. Do I make myself clear?”
Three of the guys nodded, but there seemed to be something on Harold’s mind.
“Do you have something you want to say, Harold?” I asked.
He snapped out of his daze. “Is…Adrian ever going to come back?” He asked.
“No,” I said. “My decision is firm and he’s broken the rules, sneaking weed into my house. It’s final. He knew the rules applied to him just like they do to all of you, and he decided to break them. So let it be a lesson for you guys. I am not your dad, or your boss, or your teacher. I am strictly your coach, and so you will treat this arrangement like it’s a team sport. If you decide to leave, go ahead. But if you break the rules, that’s it, you’re out. Any questions?”
The four boys were silent.
“Good,” I said. “That’s all I want to say. Now, go and be winners.”
I turned the television back on and left the living area to go upstairs. I closed the door to my bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed.
I thought about Adrian.
My heart felt so fucking heavy from kicking him out. But it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t afford to have him there, taking up an extra spot in my home from someone who wouldn’t take it for granted.
Over the years, I’ve helped many young men off the streets who were now thriving in this world. Some of them had even started families with the money that they earned.
I showed them that nothing in this world was free.
So I collected a small percentage of their winnings and let them keep the rest. Until this day, I had kept in contact with all the young men who had once joined the club. There had never been a time before that evening where I had to let someone go like I had to do with Adrian.
Poker.
It was a powerful game, and it was more than just luck. It was control, power, dominance, and I had been a master of the game for a long time.
I had been playing for twenty years, since I started college.
I was thirty-nine now, and the game had changed a lot with new strategies and techniques. Still, I’ve adapted to keep up in this world that I still love to this day.
It wasn’t just fun and games, it was more than that. It was determining the winners in life. It took only one hand in poker to change a life forever.
After running my poker club for ten years, I’d never been as captivated by a young man as I was by Adrian Porter.
Adrian wasn’t like the other guys who I’d invited into my private club. Adrian was a math prodigy, and he reminded me of my younger self.
The amount of time it took Adrian to learn the game was astonishing. In the first week he arrived, he was able to play as well as some of the boys who had been there for months.
He just got it. I felt so torn kicking him out, because I saw so much potential in him.
That was the absolute worst thing to happen--to see something in someone and have them let me down. But without rules and structure, there’d be chaos.
That’s what poker was to me. A game with limits and rules and everyone had to abide by them for a common goal, which was to win.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my company’s stocks to see if things were getting any better. My palms were sweaty from my nerves, which was rare. I had always been able to control my emotions.
Fuck, the line on the graph continued to plummet downwards.
It was a day of losses, but I knew that I could learn from it.
Chapter Two
Adrian
It took me no more than five minutes of being out in the cold to realize that I fucked up.
How’d I manage to screw up so badly to get kicked out of the club? I went from living in a multi-million dollar condo to being back on the streets.
To be honest, it was where I belonged. It wasn’t the first time I was out here fending for myself. I didn’t think it would be my last.
The first thing I needed to do was go to the nearest bank machine to withdraw as much money as I could. So I went into a convenience store.
The clerk behind the counter, an elderly lady, smiled at me, and I returned a tight one of my own.
I headed to the ATM in the back of the fluorescent-lit store, next to the crate of two-liter Coca-Cola bottles. My hands were numb from the cold as I inserted my card in, and put in my pin.
I waited for the machine to process the card, then I checked to see the amount in my savings account.
Zero. Goose-egg. Nothing.
Fuck, Dominic had beat me to it.
&nbs
p; I should have known that he’d take everything out. It was a joint account with him.
The rule was that if I broke the contract, then I wouldn’t get to collect any of my winnings over the time I stayed there.
Since I joined, maybe about six months ago, I had made over a hundred grand playing poker online. That was after paying him the ten-percent tax that Dominic collected every month to stay in the club. I hadn’t even counted the winnings from casino tournaments.
Suddenly, everything got more real. I was really out on the streets with only two hundred bucks in my pocket. I left the convenience store and went back out onto the streets. It felt colder since I walked in there. The sharp cold air felt like razor blades to my face.
Dominic had generously tossed me two hundred dollars as I was leaving the door and a winter jacket. He could have left me out in the cold with absolutely nothing, but I guess he wasn’t as heartless as I thought.
Two hundred bucks, what could I do with that?
I could spend it on a hotel for a night. That’d buy me one day.
I could stay in a cheap motel at the edge of the city. That’d maybe buy me three nights if I was lucky.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I tried to remain calm as I walked aimlessly on the streets.
I didn’t have any friends who weren’t in the club. Those four guys were pretty much my only friends in the city. They were the only people who shared the same interest in poker. The only family I had were my parents who lived on the other coast. I guess I wasn’t completely fucked. But I wasn’t going to ask for help from my family and give them the opportunity to judge the poor decisions that I’d made. I hadn’t even told them that I had dropped out of school to play poker.
Being in that house had consumed my whole life.
Eat, sleep, poker, repeat. Eat, sleep, poker, repeat.
I needed a lucky break.
The idea popped into my head to go to the Falls to test my luck in a game of poker. Maybe play a two hundred dollar buy-in, which could net me ten grand if I came in first place. My odds were good, and I had been pretty focused for the most part playing online every day.
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