LITMIR.BIZ

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fact, Jean was one big reason Damien was able to run the gaming room during this, its first year, with minimal suffering. Armand Dulac, Jean’s father—and a few key local law-enforcement officials, among others—took a percentage of Damien’s profit and made sure he was left alone to do business. Since Armand had mentored Damien from poverty to success, the good-old-boy network took care of Theroux, spreading the word that he wasn’t to be touched.

      Jean leaned on the railing. “I wish you would get out of this pattern, Damien. Me? I have no choice. I’m to take over for the old man one day. But you don’t need the money from gaming. Not with your other holdings.”

      “You know my other businesses don’t take care of O’Shea’s or Lamont’s ilk. Here, they get what they deserve.”

      Here, Damien took the money the CEOs had stolen from their companies. Here, he made certain the screwed employees got their cut.

      Jean’s pause was ripping at Damien. His judgment hurt.

      “All of this won’t bring your father back,” Jean said.

      “Nothing will.” Damien stuffed his twenty-one—ace of spades and queen of hearts—back into his jacket. “But watching O’Shea take a fall right now makes me feel a lot better.”

      As Jean sighed and said his good-nights, Damien dismissed his faint sense of guilt and felt the first stirrings of comfort. He’d set up O’Shea, to be sure, researching him, making certain one of his bartenders would present the man with a crystal invitation, then hoping he would be tempted to increase his ill-gotten savings by showing up tonight.

      At the moment, a few of Damien’s employees were loitering behind O’Shea at the poker table, signaling the dealer as to what cards he held. The other table players also worked for Damien, and a hostess was keeping him up-to-date on O’Shea’s incredible run of good luck.

      Incredible. Not really. Damien just wanted him to get cocky before the big fall.

      Before he gave the signal to start bleeding the ex-CEO, he took a minute to remember his papa.

      Damien’s boyhood hero lived on the back of his eyelids. At night, he’d only have to attempt sleep to see him again. Now, he pictured Papa—a kindly, sideburn-wearing man who’d taught him how to fish and play Hearts—standing on the opposite side of the table from O’Shea, dealing the cards that would ruin him.

      With the slight lift of Damien’s index finger, an employee caught the signal. O’Shea’s luck was about to change.

      Settling against the railing to watch, Damien’s jaw tightened, his hands fisted.

      Someone came to stand next to him, waiting patiently to be noticed.

      Damn it all. “Yes?”

      When Damien looked over, he saw it was Kumbar, his stocky, dusky-skinned security pro. Next to him stood another security expert—a new guy who looked quite nervous to be in the presence of the big boss. As usual, Kumbar allowed someone else to do all the talking.

      “Mr. Rollins is back,” the other man said. “Blackjack. He’s losing pretty big.”

      Rollins. A neighborhood antique-store owner who’d been having financial problems lately. An honest man.

      “How’d he get a marker?” Damien asked.

      “I’ll check it out, sir.”

      In order to emphasize his underling’s promise, Kumbar allowed himself the expansive luxury of a lethargic nod.

      Damien shook his head. “People like Rollins aren’t supposed to be in here.”

      But they always found their way somehow.

      Thudding a fist against the railing while glaring at O’Shea’s table, Damien saw tonight’s victim frown as he surrendered his first pile of chips.

      With a spark of satisfaction, Damien dismissed the security worker to check on Rollins. That left Kumbar.

      “It’s things like this that bring a business down,” Damien said.

      Kumbar gave a firm nod.

      “Last night’s mark—you recall Lamont?—threatened to go to the press.”

      Kumbar jerked a thumb toward Jean, who was saying his farewells to an attractive cocktail server on the floor. Damien knew what his right-hand man was asking: had he told his best friend—the mob boss’s son—about Lamont’s threat?

      “The last thing I want to do is get a bird killed, Kumbar. I hesitate to even tell you. I’m certain Lamont won’t say a word. When I left him, he looked scared as a rabbit. No, I think more about what could happen if someone braver did tell the media about how this place really works. Where the money goes.”

      Another Kumbar nod.

      Damien didn’t want to say it out loud. He cherished his dark reputation; it kept him from being touched, destroyed by the competition. It was the more critical dealings Lamont had referred to that would get Damien into trouble.

      It was what he did with most of the profits after the cash was shuttled out of the casino, taken to a counting house, then laundered through one of his souvenir shops.

      “My image is what protects me,” Damien said instead. “I’d like it to stay as poisonous as possible.”

      Kumbar glanced at the blackjack tables, and Damien’s gaze followed. There sat Mike Rollins, sweating, arms protecting a few scattered chips.

      He shouldn’t go soft on him. That wasn’t how to run a gaming operation. Still, the way the older man slumped in his seat….

      His father used to wear the same expression after he’d lost all his money, too.

      “Go to him,” Damien said. “Get him out of here and find a way to give him back what he lost. Quietly, without him suspecting. Maybe someone shows up in his store tomorrow and buys that expensive white elephant he can’t sell. Make sure he knows he’s not welcome back.”

      Kumbar took off to do his duty.

      God, Damien thought, I’m an easy sell.

      He couldn’t revive the interest in watching O’Shea get fleeced. Not now. But there’d be other crooked men, so the lack of entertainment didn’t bother Damien so much.

      Instead, he decided to go back to Cuffs, because now that he thought about it, there was a certain new waitress there who might be able to take his mind off his troubles.

      His body steamed up just picturing Gem James, with her pinned-up Brigitte Bardot hair, her wide blue eyes.

      If he couldn’t watch O’Shea fall on his back tonight, he’d settle for a woman instead.

      3

      GEMMA HADN’T FORGOTTEN how exhausting being a waitress was.

      Roxy had told her that the help wore high, strappy black pumps, short black skirts and the tightest tank tops in creation. No stranger to a nightlife wardrobe, Gemma had pieced together a decent serving ensemble, complete with a small apron and a black top decorated with silver studs and a skull and crossbones.

      So, she had a thing for pirates.

      Now, as Aerosmith played on a corner jukebox, she served drinks to a mellow crowd of cops, local blue-collar men and a contingent of hip, artsy types who sat in the corner booths. She was counting the minutes until her first break. Then she could rest her aching tootsies as well as her tray arm.

      Past midnight, Roxy finally caught Gemma after she’d delivered a round of Hurricanes to a table of slumming lawyers.

      “Those fellows aren’t our usual crowd,” Roxy said, sliding her words together lazily. It gave the older woman the air of a sophisticated nineteenth-century madame fanning herself in a fancy parlor.

      Or maybe that was just

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