Ben looked to the dealer who was looking at him. “Oh! It’s my turn to be the Small Blind? So that’s five-hundred-thousand?” The dealer nodded with a smile. Ben pushed a stack of ten fifty-thousand-dollar chips forward, and Kaan moved twenty chips next to them.
“The pot is pretty exciting already!” Ben said with a grin, and Avery rolled his eyes.
The dealer dealt them each two cards. Ben took a discrete peek at his and saw the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds. He already had a pair and high-value ones, too. But, not likely a winning hand just yet.
He saw Kaan’s impassive expression hadn’t changed after he looked at his cards. The man was likely hollow inside, so hiding his true emotions wasn’t much of a stretch for him. Lucky for his poker game!
Avery’s expression wasn’t so neutral. He wasn’t too pleased with his cards.
Now the betting could begin.
-=-
Avery wanted to wipe that dumb-ass smile from Shepherd’s face. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to do it physically, but he’d been taking down opponents bigger than him his entire life.
While Kaan was a tough egg to crack with his immobile mask of a face, Ben’s emotions were plain to see, but he was just a musclebound fool.
His eyes flicked over to Steph. She was exactly Avery’s type. Redhead, slim, athletic, hot as fuck, and dressed like a slut with a vacant look in her eyes. The injustice of her being with this big goon instead of him made his stomach twist.
The cards he’d been given were the eight of spades and the nine of diamonds. Not stellar cards, but it was early in the game.
It was time to take him down as only a champion could. He still had over four-and-a-quarter million, even after losing more than a million to Kaan earlier in the evening. He’d be getting that back in this game.
Avery pushed two million in chips next to the pot. “Raise.”
He immediately locked eyes with Ben and smirked.
Without delay, Ben added one point five million to the pot. Kaan added one million without hesitation.
The pot was now six million.
Doubt began to wiggle into Avery’s mind. Fuck, he hated that!
-=-
Kaan was really enjoying ganging up on the weakling with Ben. Frost was too easy to manipulate, and that was boring.
Ben, on the other hand, was an interesting mystery. He’d begun as just another basic poker loser, but when he turned his sights on tormenting Avery, the game changed, and Kaan’s interest spiked.
He was having trouble following Ben’s moves as the man continued losing, but there had to be a strategy. Kaan was still confident of victory tonight, but this was one of the most enjoyable evenings he’d had playing poker in months.
The dealer had given him a pair of sevens, diamonds and clubs, so that was a promising start. The pot hitting six million after just the first round of betting also captured Kaan’s interest.
He hoped Ben wouldn’t prove to be a poor loser.
-=-
After the giddy thrust of their two-million-dollar bets, the game moved to the next phase, the Flop.
Ben watched the dealer move the top card to the muck, then draw three more to flip them onto their backs.
The seven of hearts, the Queen of spades, and the six of diamonds.
With the two Queens he had, Ben was looking at three of a kind. He worried this might be too strong a hand as he needed to lose. He hoped Kaan or Avery were doing better. He picked up a sense of tension from the latter. The man had been getting more and more tense as Ben relaxed. Weird.
He knew it was time he should back down and let Kaan win. Russo suggested this would be their best chance at getting him to take them on his yacht.
However, Ben had been keeping a close watch on the man and picked up a disturbing impression from the puzzled expressions the man had thrown at him tonight. He might not understand some basic human behaviors. That said, the man was cunning. If he caught Ben throwing the game, he’d be instantly suspicious, and Ben was useless at faking anything. He was locked in the game, and now he was looking at losing millions of dollars in a matter of minutes. Shit.
The dealer looked to Ben.
“Check,” he said, as he didn’t want to add anything to the pot.
“Check.” Kaan also passed on raising the pot, so the dealer looked to Avery.
“Raise,” the man said, adding another two million dollars to the pot, but his cockiness wasn’t what it had been earlier. Kaan’s answering smile showed he smelled blood in the water.
Ben called the raise, and Kaan did as well.
The dealer moved the next top card to the muck and dealt the turn.
It was the four of clubs. Thankfully, not useful to Ben. From the brief twitch in the corner of Avery’s eye, Ben thought it wasn’t useful to him either. No hint of a tell from Kaan.
“Check,” Ben said.
Kaan’s eyes locked on Ben, and he played with his stack of chips before smiling. “Check.”
Ben and Kaan looked at Avery expectantly and saw his jaw muscles jumping as he stared at his dwindling stack of chips. For a moment, it looked like he might try to raise again. Ben’s impression was he was relying on the River to save him but gambling everything on the last draw seemed ridiculous.
“Check,” Avery finally said.
When the dealer flipped the final card, Ben wasn’t paying attention to it. Instead, he watched Avery’s face – which went rigid – and Ben knew he was done. He’d just lost four million dollars in a single hand.
Ben glanced at Kaan and couldn’t help but see the glee in his eyes as he was also watching Avery.
Sighing, Ben was done. “Check,” he said.
Kaan shook his head. “I’m all in.” His grin widened as he added an additional five-hundred-thousand to the pot. He looked at Avery. “Will you join me?”
Avery’s expression finally cracked. “Fuck you. I fold.” He pushed his cards to the dealer.
Kaan turned to look at Ben. “What about you, Ben? Do you have what it takes to challenge me?”
Ben knew he had to keep playing to keep him intrigued. He nodded and slid ten fifty-thousand-dollar chips into the pot.
Kaan clapped his hands together as he smiled in victory. “Ben, hopefully you are a better engineer than a poker player. Stick with your strengths.”
He flipped his hole cards, and Ben saw he had two sevens. Ben’s chest tightened as he thought of his own three Queens. “Full House, Ben. Three sevens and two Queens.” A wave of relief swept through Ben, then his chest tightened once more.
Kaan was chuckling as he reached for the pot but stopped as Ben lifted his hand. The man grinned curiously at him.
“You said two Queens?” Ben said softly as he finally looked at the dealer’s cards. He smiled crookedly and flipped his hole cards to expose them.
Kaan’s smile drained away.
“The thing is, Kaan, Queens always come to my rescue. If I’m not wrong, Four of a Kind beats a Full House,” Ben said and looked to the dealer for confirmation. The man nodded with a smile.
Ben hadn’t planned this at all, and he didn’t want it, but he wasn’t going to argue with four Queens. He wasn’t superstitious at all, but this felt like a sign.
Avery made a choking sound of throttled outrage, then his expression closed up. He stiffly collected his remaining chips into the pockets of his suit jacket. He’d gone from five and a half million to just three hundred-and-fifty thousand in one night. He stood up and marched away without looking back.
Ben turned his face back to Kaan as the man had regained his composure. “Thank you for the delightful evening, Ben. You play a very convincing amateur, but now I see the truth. Maybe we can do this again some day so I can win my money back,” Kaan said with a stiff smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He stood and quickly walked away.
Before Ben could apologize to a very stunned Russo, the General Manager stepped up next to Ben with a smile on his face. “Congratulations, Ben!” His clerk and her guards were standing ready.
“Thank you, Claudio! Uh, the pot is thirteen million. I believe the casino’s five percent share is six-hundred-and-fifty-thousand?” Ben calculated.
Claudio nodded. “That is correct, Ben.”
“Deducting the five-million, five-hundred-thousand-dollar casino credit leaves me with six-million, eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand in winnings.”
“Again, you are correct. How would you like the funds?” the General Manager asked.
Ben looked up at him. “Do you have a pen and some paper?”
Claudio reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and a small notepad.
Ben wrote down the names Renny and Dotty Dashing. “This lovely older couple are guests here, and they stopped me for a photo earlier. They told me it was her birthday and her husband brought her to Casablanca as she’s a big fan of the movie. Could you present them with the winnings as a check with the message Happy Birthday Dotty from your friend Ben?”
Claudio was stunned by this and accepted the notepad and pen back from Ben, then shook his hand. “Of course, Ben! I would be honored. This is a most generous thing you are doing for them!”
Ben smiled and shrugged. “They seemed really nice, and it was such a romantic gesture to bring his wife here. That deserves a reward.”
“It will be done as you asked!” Claudio gushed.
His clerk gathered up all the chips, but Ben pulled out two, handed the dealer a ten-thousand-dollar chip, and the General Manager a fifty-thousand-dollar chip. “Thanks for a fun evening!”
Before they could fuss over him anymore, Ben stood and collected Russo, who looked like she might cry.