Page 5 of Forged

She checks; he fires out a stack of chips again.

She calls, slowly sliding her chips toward the center of the table. She leans back in her chair and smiles at him.

The turn gives them the Jack of Spades.

The kid grins—big, showy, idiotic. He looks at his cards like he wants to make sure he has what he remembers.

She checks again, tapping a single finger on the felt. He shoves a quarter of his stack toward the pot.

She pauses. Not for long, but enough to let the tension coil.

She looks at the dealer and points to the stack the kid pushed in. “Can you count that for me please?” While the dealer counts, she watches him. She’s reading him, seeing how he reacts to his money laid out across the felt in front of him. The dealer speaks, letting her know it’s forty-eight thousand. She places a chip on top of her cards and thinks for a moment before counting out a stack, eyes darting from the pot to her stack.

“Call.”

The kid’s face goes flat as she pushes her chips forward. “You’re kidding.”

She says nothing. Just lifts one eyebrow.

The dealer pulls the chips to the pot, burns a card and lays down the river: King of Hearts.

She barely glances at the card before pushing the rest of her stack in.

The kid looks like he’s about to break. “All of it? What the fuck did you hit with that King?”

She shrugs. “Maybe I was chasing something, but I also could’ve hit a piece of that flop. If you want to know, then, yes, all of it,” she says, voice controlled.

He glances at the pot, then back to his stack, tilting his head indecisively. His neck is turning a shade of pink, revealing he’s angry and embarrassed.

Then he folds.

The hand is over, she won the pot, so there’s no need for her to reveal her cards. But a slow smirk creeps upon her lips as she holds eye contact with him. Making sure he looks at her hand, she flips her cards. A six and seven of clubs.

A bluff. A beautifully constructed, ruthless bluff.

The kid shoots up from his chair. “You’re fucking insane!”

Her smile is radiant and merciless. “Don’t bring daddy’s money to an adult table if you don’t have the balls to call with pot odds like that.”

The table laughs. The kid storms off, his crippled stack left waiting at his seat.

I don’t join in the laughter, I’m too busy looking at her. I know she feels it when her eyes flick to mine. And then that pretty smile widens.

Heat coils low and tight in my spine. Because I’ve hunted men across continents, I’ve killed without hesitation, I’ve stared down monsters and become one—but this woman?

She just stole the room with a bluff and a smile. And I can already tell, she’s going to be a problem.

The young man’schips are still being pushed toward me when my attention shifts—drawn like a magnet to the man in seat six.

I clocked him the second he sat down.

Dark brown hair, tight on the sides, long and thick on the top. Blue eyes that don’t give anything away. His jaw is sharp, and clean-shaven. His shirt is black, perfectly fitted, sleeves rolled to show forearms that flex deliciously. But it’s his hands that keep stealing my attention.

Big hands with short, immaculate nails that are painted a deep maroon that glints under the table lights when he moves his chips. On him, it’s a contrast—a hot fucking contrast.

Most men at these tables show their tells in the first ten minutes. Not him, though. He plays tight and disciplined. Watching, learning everyone’s rhythms before he risks a real move.

Which tells me three things: he’s not here just for fun, he knows how to play, and he should be considered a threat.