“I—” Her voice caught, and the fork fell from her fingers. “I wish it worked like that. I made a stupid mistake, and now he’s got me. If I fuck up, or if I don’t do what he wants?—”
“He’ll tell the LeClair brothers that you helped him cheat? And you think they’ll punish you for that?”
I’d looked them up. The LeClair brothers were genuinely bad guys I wouldn’t want anything to do with…and it looked like they were going to be in the same game I’d been invited to in a few weeks.
“The LeClair brothers wouldn’t see any reason not to kill me for what I did,” Stevie whispered to her plate.
“Your father would be dead too, then.”
“Maybe, but that’s not going to makemefeel any better.”
I snorted and squeezed her shoulders slightly. When she groaned and leaned into my touch, I took that to mean it felt good, and did it again, this time pressing the pads of my thumbs into the tight muscles at the base of her neck.
“Sweetheart, your father can’t tell them that you helped him cheat without revealing that he was the one to cheat them.”
She gave a little shake of her head as she pushed her almost-empty plate away from her. “You don’t know my father that well. He’ll have a story—he always has a story. He’ll tell them it was my idea. Or that I did the cheating, but someone else was the beneficiary. He’s sneaky.”
He was abastardis what he was. But I kept my voice as steady as my movements. “He would do that to you? His own daughter?”
“I’m not really his daughter,” she whispered to her plate, and I sighed.
There was a lot more here that I didn’t understand. I allowed my claws to extend just slightly, and I dragged my touch up the back of her neck. She shuddered, and when I began to massage her scalp, she groaned in pleasure and slumped back against me.
“Tell mehowyou cheated, Stevie,” I ordered. “I can’t help you until I know everything.”
From this angle, I could see her eyes close as her head lolled back into my touch. “My mother died of a drug overdose when I was a baby. Her mother raised me. Grandma was…” Stevie sighed. “She didn’t see anything wrong with people using their talents to get ahead. Her older son was my uncle Trevor—Hendricks. When I was seven, she had him adopt me, so he could legally care for me after she was gone.”
Huh.
Thoughtfully, I continued my massage, my claws stimulating her sensitive scalp. “How did she use your talents?”
Stevie was quiet for a few moments. I smelled her hesitation, and I tightened my hold on her momentarily. “You don’t have to lie to me, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t an order, but I felt the way she relaxed under my fingers.
“I’ve…um. I’ve always been good with people. Understanding them, being empathetic, I guess. Ilikelearning about them and hearing their feelings.”
I thought about all the insights she’d shared with me, and all the ways she’d been right. “That makes a lot of sense. You’re good at it,dkaar.”
“Yeah, well, Grandma thought so. She and Dad sent me to college to study psychology. I was going to go to clinicals after, get my certification to do counseling and actually help people, you know?” She sighed and tipped her head forward. “After his mother died, Dad told me there wasn’t any more money for college, and I needed to come home andhelp with the family business.”
I saw her fingers twitch when she said that, and knew she was quoting her father. The male who was supposed to protect and care for her, even if he hadn’t sired her.
“And the family business is cheating?”
Stevie snorted slightly. “I’m good at reading people. I can’t do it right away, but if I play poker with them, or if I watch them play enough, I can guess at their intentions—well, I can guess if they’re bluffing, or are eager, or what.”
My hands had stilled. “That is…a valuable skill.”
An understatement.
And the secret to my success; humans didn’t realize how acute my sense of smell was, and I could scent their eagerness or desperation or excitement. This could usually tell me if they were bluffing or pushing with a good hand or what.
“I win more than I lose,” she admitted. “But Dad worked out a series of signals. I could sit across from one of his opponents and read them—ifI knew them well enough. One of the LeClair brothers has a particular tell that isn’t obvious to many people.”
My hands rested on her scalp. “So you watched that game, read him, and communicated it to your father?”
“And he won.” Stevie exhaled, then twisted in her seat to wince up at me. “See what I mean? He couldn’t have cheated without me.”
