“You’re not even old enough to legally gamble, so how would you have acquired that skill? Was there some kind of backroom poker game on the Millsaps campus?” She kept drilling me with questions too fast for me to answer. “Even if you’re a college-level expert, what on earth makes you think you have enough experience to win serious money in Las Vegas? Isn’t this where all the experts come to play? Like, professionalgamblers?”
I took her hand, and she finally stopped talking. “Yes. And I’m good, but I’m not delusional. I’ll be playing against tourists, notprofessionals.”
She rolled her eyes. “And they’re going to be wearing name tags that tell you they’re ready lose their life savings to a guy who could buy and sell them a hundred times over? How convenient foryou.”
“They won’t have name tags.” Though the thought made me smile. “But tourists will look and act like tourists. And I didn’t learn to play at school, Kaci.” I intertwined my fingers with hers, because touching her seemed to make everything better. I learned to play overseas. In most of Europe, the legal gambling age iseighteen.”
“Oh.” She looked a little chagrined as she stood and headed for the dresser. “I didn’t knowthat.”
“Remember all those airline miles? Titus and I used to travel together a lot, but a couple of years ago, he stopped coming with me. As it turned out, he couldn’t go to any place where there was a local Alpha with an anti-stray policy.” I shrugged. “If hehadcome, I probably would have spent my time in museums and restaurants—which is where I told him I was going—instead of casinos. As it is, I can’t tell a Monet from a Renoir, but I know when to fold and when toraise.”
Kaci grabbed a bottle of water from a tray of snacks and cracked it open. “So, you’re just going to go downstairs with your fake ID and turn forty-nine thousand dollars into, what? Half a million?” She took a sip from her bottle. “How much do you need, in order to live the rest of your life on therun?”
“I only have to tide myself over until I’m twenty-five and I get the first lump sum from my trust fund. It was set up in Switzerland, and Titus can’t stop me from getting it. And he’s not legally entitled to know anything about its release—including when or where it willhappen.”
“So, you want to win enough cash here to get you through the next fiveyears—”
“Four years and tenmonths.”
“—at which point you’ll inherit enough money to let you tell the whole world to fuckoff?”
“Yes. I’ll retire to an island nation where there are no other shifters—turns out that’s most of them—and…I don’t know. Carve things out of driftwood for neighborhood children until I die a happy old man. Leaving all my money to local orphans, ofcourse.”
“Of course.” She actually smiled as she screwed the lid on her water. “Funnyandgenerous. How much money are we talkingabout?”
“Um…about two hundred million in liquid assets. And a stake in my dad’s company that’s worth several times that, but I won’t be able to collect on the shares without contacting Titus. So, it’s basically just thecash.”
“Basically just the…” Kaci sank onto the tile on her knees, as if her legs would no longer hold her up. Her water bottle hit the floor and fell onto its side. “Basically just thetwo hundred million incash?”
“Well, a third of that when I’m twenty-five. Another third when I turn thirty. And the last of it when I turn thirty-five.” I reached down and tugged her up onto the couch withme.
“Okay, I know that’s a lot of money. It’sso muchmoney,” she said. “But is it worth giving up all your family and friendsover?”
“They’re going to lose me whether I run or I’mexecuted.”
“Justus, you heard a rumor, not a fact. You don’tknowthat they’ll vote to convict,” Kaciinsisted.
“I know what the enforcers overheard from their alphas, and I know I’d be stupid to show up for the trial on the odd chance that they misunderstood whatever they heard. And as for giving up my family, Titus is the only family I have, and I’m doing this in part to protect him. My friends…” I shrugged. “We drifted apart after high school. Different colleges andeverything.”
“College friends?” sheasked.
“There were a few. But none who truly questioned me dropping out in the middle of the semester. Or who even tried to come see me out in Texas. I had a girlfriend,but…”
“That’s right. She died.” Kaci covered her mouth with both hands. “I’m sosorry.”
“Yeah.That’swhat I feel really bad about.” Drew deserved what he got, but I hadn’t meant to hurt Ivy. I hadn’t even fully understood that I was a shifter at the time, much less that scratching her would infect her with the shifter virus. Or that women almost never survive theinfection.
“I heard she was—” Kaci’s mouth snappedshut.
“Cheating on me?” My snort sounded more bitter than I meant for it to. “Actually, she was cheating on this other guy with me, though I didn’t know it at the time. His name was LelandBlum.”
I’d followed Ivy and Leland into the woods to confront them, not to hurt them, but stress and anger got the better of me in the terrifying, vulnerable period right after I was infected, and my body had shifted into cat form without permission from the rest ofme.
I’d only scratched Ivy and Leland in self defense. Because they were understandably terrified of the huge black cat I’d become. Still, her death and his infection were my fault, and they were among the things the tribunal had already decided to make me pay for with mylife.
“It turns out Ivy and Leland had been together since high school. But I didn’t know that until after it all went down. Until after Drew…was dead, and Titus and Robyn explained everything tome.”
“Damn.”
