“Get word to her. Tell her to be ready for me in the penthouse at 5:00 p.m. I’m going to my office now. I’m behind on paperwork. I’ll trust you to handle the arrangements for tonight’s game.”
“Consider it done.”
That’s all I need to hear. I know Terry will handle things. Without another word, I head to my private office. I’m determined not to leave the peaceful seclusion of that room until I’ve caught up on work. I need to focus on business. Even having Lilly in the room tonight is with an eye on business. Today, that’s all I care about. That’s all I can afford to care about… Managing a casino means managing risk and one of the riskiest things on this goddamned planet is emotions. Emotions result in people making illogical choices and bad decisions. Emotions are not good for business.
***
Eight hours later, I’m headed back to the penthouse.
“Lilly?” I call for her the second I’m in the door.
“Upstairs!”
I mount the stairs two at a time to find her—just bathed and brushing out her freshly blow-dried hair. She’s sitting at a small vanity table, looking at herself in the mirror as she works. She’s only wearing lingerie. It’s a peach color and made out of some kind of satin-like material, gleaming gently in the early-evening light. She looks gorgeous sitting there…there’s a weird kind of intimacy about seeing her like this…getting ready. I have to remind myself that there’s work to be done.
“Terry called and said I should be ready for you around five?”
“There’s a high-stakes poker game tonight in the backroom. I’m going to be playing and I want you there.”
“A game like the one with Deanna?”
“Kind of. Maurice and Jeremy and I will be playing. The other two guys are a couple of goons from Chicago.”
“Goons?”
“Mafia guys, Lilly.” I hold myself back from rolling my eyes. “They’re linked to a guy in Chicago, Mickey. Big deal. Big, big deal. But the thing is, they’re cheaters.”
Lilly’s eyes widen. She’d questioned me previously about whether I’d bamboozled Deanna during our game and I nearly lost my temper.
“You’re aware how I feel about cheating,” I go on. “I believe in people who play clean and stick to their word, whether it’s in poker or in life. So I can’t have that kind of behavior under my roof.”
“What are you going to do?” Lilly’s complete attention is on me now. She’s totally forgotten about the hairbrush.
“I’m going to catch these two buffoons in the act,” I tell her. “And you’re going to help me.”
Her mouth drops open in that “O” of surprise that I’ve seen a few times already since I met her. “Me?” She squeaks out the word. “What am I going to do? I can barely play poker.”
“You’re not going to be playing. You’re going to distract them. By wearing this.” I hold up the garment bag I’ve had in my hand this whole time. She watches in the mirror as I unzip it to reveal a stunner of a gown. I stopped by one of our boutiques to pick it up on my way up here.
“That’s gorgeous,” she breathes the words out and there’s a flicker of worry on her face. “But pretty racy.”
“That’s the point. I want you to turn heads, literally.” I toss the dress down on the bed. It’s a floor-length satin number, in emerald green. It's backless, cut out all the way down to the butt. The front is similarly risqué, with a deep-cut front that will leave Lilly's tits barely contained. That’s exactly what I want. “These two guys, Tony and Bobby, they’re probably colluding. Working together. We've noticed that they always play at the same table, in the same positions, wherever they are, Fortuna, Destino, elsewhere. In fact, it's rare to see one without the other. They also always enter the pot together. And they've been flagged for chip dumping as well.”
“What's that?”
“One of them will call off his stack on the river with Q-high. His buddy gets the chips.”
Her eyes blink at me in confusion and I realize she doesn't understand a word I’ve just said.
“He wants to lose the pot to his buddy,” I explain in irritation. “It's basically a bullshit way of money laundering.”
“Okay.” She hesitates, clearly still clueless as to her role in this.
“When you’re colluding with someone, you have to pay attention to them. You have to be able to read their signals,” I explain. “If you get distracted, you blow the scam—and you may well