She held her hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture. “Like I said, I’m in no immediate danger. Neither is Kevin, trust me. We may never be.”
I hope.
“How can you say that when you thought he was trying to kill you?”
"Let me start from the beginning, from the day after graduation." The words came out rougher than she intended. “The day you..."
Shane's jaw clenched, his eyes filling with an emotion that stripped her bare. "Go ahead and say it. The day I abandoned you."
She tried to smile. "Water under the bridge.” At least she could say the words lightly, even if they felt like stones weighing down her heart.
"Not for me. I looked for you, April."
"You did?" She hated how hopeful she sounded, like that eighteen-year-old girl calling him from Vegas.
"For years." Shane shook his head. "But that's not what matters right now. Tell me what happened."
April gripped the back of the chair harder. Anchor, anchor.
“I never made it to California. I stopped in Las Vegas. It was supposed to be temporary.” April gave a short, humorless laugh. “Remember how your parents hired me as your tutor because you were flunking math?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Of course. Hard to forget.” April felt her cheeks flush. Most of those lessons had ended in groping sessions.
“Remember how I taught you statistics?”
This time, Shane beamed. “Yup. Statistics didn’t click with me until you laid out the dice and showed me how the odds shifted with every roll. Card counting, too. You didn’t have my attention until you taught me how to win at poker.”
“And craps.” She shook her head, remembering. “You finally sat up straight, like I’d cracked the code to the universe.”
“You did. For the first time in my life, everything made sense.” His smile turned faint, bittersweet. She tried not to let it cut her.
“Well, when I got to Vegas, turns out those skills paid better than tutoring. I lived off the tables for years. I didn’t always count cards or win big—it attracted heat. I was careful, and worked out a rotating strategy that kept me from getting kicked out of too many places.”
Shane tilted his head. "But when you got there, you were?—"
"Underage, yeah. Remember that fake ID you gave me?" Guilt flashed across his face like lightning. "Came in handier than either of us planned. By twenty, I'd built a little nest egg left over from what I sent back home. Always from a different location and at random times of the year. I hoped to make up for leaving, and to let my family know I was safe and successful.” She carefully gauged Shane’s reaction, looking for his tell, confirming what she had suspected the minute she’d come home and looked over the accounting.
And there it was. That tick in his jaw. Now she knew for sure and her heart squeezed.
She went on smoothly, without pausing. “I had my own place, a nice one. My friend Bunni—” Her throat tightened onthe name, “kept me out of trouble, made sure I didn't piss off the wrong people."
Shane's eyes softened, but he didn't interrupt.
“And I was treated with respect." She squeezed the back of the chair harder. Anchor, anchor. April’s throat felt raw. “At twenty-four, one of the casino hosts at Aria said I’d caught someone’s eye and sent me to the new high-stakes Ivey Room. They renamed it Table One a few years ago.” She smirked. “Ironic that I met Vince there, considering Ivey and his partner were caught edge-sorting at baccarat. Cheating.”
“Your ex?”
April nodded. “Vince Romano. I thought I was being rewarded complimentary drinks and a chance at playing high-stakes poker. Turns out, I was being hunted.”
She could still smell that room after passing through the gold-and-glass doors—supple leather, a hint of polished wood, the faint bite of top-shelf bourbon poured neat into crystal. No smoke. No annoying slots. Just the quiet call and response of dealers and players, and the slide and click of high-value chips getting stacked into neat towers on the tables.
Shane’s intense gaze stayed steady on hers.
“He didn’t approach right away. He was already sitting at the low bar tucked against the wall, talking with the bartender like I wasn’t even the reason he was there. He ignored me as I slammed the bourbon to calm my nerves and sat down at a table.”
April felt her heart tick up, the old excitement of sitting down at the tables returning like she’d never left. “I was way out of my league. My buy-in was fifty thousand dollars. One guy was in for a million. The first player opens it up to two K in three hundred/six hundred with five hundred antes. I placed my first bet—eight thousand dollars. I had the button—the best position—and made a successful steal when the BB and SB both folded. So I won thebiggest pot I’d ever won. If I walked away at that moment”—she grinned wide as she rolled her eyes skyward—“I would have been set for the rest of the year. But I stayed and played for three hours. I still came away with my money doubled, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.” Her smile faded as her lips twisted bitterly. “Shows what I knew.”
Shane’s hands curled into loose fists against his thighs, then deliberately flattened again.
