I stand behind Ayla’s chair instead, fingers resting lightly on the top of it, on her. From here, I can see her hand, the table, and every twitch in Olsen’s face.
“No,” I say. “I’m already invested.”
Ayla’s lips twitch like she heard more than I said.
The first hand is dealt. Two cards down to each player. Ayla doesn’t touch hers right away. She waits, eyes on the dealer’s hands, on the way the cards land. Then she picks them up with a casual, almost bored motion. No tell.
Interesting.
Olsen lowers his voice.
“Election’s heating up,” he says. “You know how it is. I could use a little…encouragement.A word from you to the right people, a few donations routed quietly—people listen when you speak, Maksim. They vote the way you point.”
The flop comes down: three cards faceup in the center. Ayla’s gaze skims them, just once. She doesn’t look back at her hole cards. She doesn’t need to.
She taps a chip with her index finger.
My thumb drifts, tracing a slow, deliberate line along the back of her chair, along the line of her shoulder. I feel the tiniest shift in her muscles. The hitch in her breath she swallows.
I let the silence stretch, let the sounds of the table fill it; chips clacking, a low curse from the guy in seat three, the dealer’s calm monotone. Ayla tosses in a raise that’s just a little too bold for a woman no one here has seen before.
Two men fold. One calls. Olsen hesitates, then calls too, ego pricked.
I finally answer. “I’m going a different way this time, Olsen.”
His face flickers. First surprise, then calculation. “Gutierrez?”
I don’t confirm. Don’t need to. The turn card hits the table; Ayla doesn’t flinch. She leans back in her chair, one elbow resting on the arm, fingers drumming once on the felt.
She likes this.
Olsen exhales. Forces the smile back. “That’s not exactly our deal.”
“Deal’s over.” I say it flat. Final. The same way I’d call time of death.
At the table, the man in seat three shoves the rest of his stack in. All in. He tries to stare Ayla down like she’shisprey.
She stares back. Steady. Unmoved. Then, slowly, she pushes her own stack in to match, a neat, precise motion that makes the dealer’s brows lift a fraction.
“All in,” she announces.
Confidence.
There’s a beat where the whole table holds its breath.
Olsen shifts, torn between the hand and the conversation, greed and self-preservation. It’s written all over him; he’s not used to choosing unless the choice is already safe.
He folds.Coward.
He stands, stepping closer to me.
“I’ve backed you for two terms,” he says under his breath, as the dealer burns a card and lays the river down. “My office has looked the other way. Licenses. Inspectors. Those raids that never quite made it to your doors.” His jaw ticks. “After everything that’s happened in this city… after what I’ve lost… you’re really going to walk away now?”
There it is. The crack in the mask. The thing he never names but bleeds for—his missing son and the ghosts he can’t admit exist.
I watch Ayla instead.
She turns her cards over calmly. A made hand. Strong. The man across from her curses, slams his cards down; garbage compared to hers. The pot slides her way in a satisfying avalanche of chips.
