breeze. Only when she truly believed she could feel the heat of the sun on her face did she reclaim her stick. Leaning over the table, she took the shot. The thirteen-ball floated into the side pocket.
“Eight-ball, left corner pocket,” she announced and sank it with a perfectly aimed and definitive strike. The crowd gathered around the table burst into applause.
Smiling, Cooper gave Edward a celebratory embrace. Jorge and his partner were markedly aggrieved over their loss and began to insult Cooper and Edward using a stream of English profanity punctuated with angry words in Spanish. Fortunately, the giant in the lime-green tracksuit quickly intervened, pushing the foul-mouthed pool players away with one shove of his massive paw.
“Boss wants to congratulate you,” he informed Edward and then leered at Cooper. “Especially you.”
“Who is the boss?” Cooper asked before Edward could stop her.
“He’s at his table in the corner. Call him Mr. Albion.” His mouth twitched into a twisted smile. “That’s all you girls need to know.”
The crowd parted for the man in green and Cooper and Edward followed him to the back of the club. The dancers onstage had been replaced by a batch of fresh, fully clothed girls, and while Cooper pretended to observe their risqué cowgirl and squaw costumes, she spotted Nathan and Jake. The men were eating hot wings and laughing with their waitress, who was displaying a large amount of cleavage as she leaned over the bar and wiped a spot of blue cheese dressing from Nathan’s chin.
Suppressing a surge of jealousy, Cooper looked ahead and focused on the figure of the man in white. Seated at a large table with a view of the entire club, he was obviously Albion. The big fish. The boss. He was dressed in a translucent white shirt and cream-colored linen trousers. Like Jorge, his shirt was unbuttoned at least three buttons in order to show off gold necklaces bearing diamond-encrusted pendants, one of which was a cross. He had a neatly trimmed dark beard, ice-blue eyes that protruded rather eerily from their sockets, and very pale skin. As the giant in green introduced Cooper and Edward, Albion smiled, revealing a mouthful of nicotine-stained, jagged teeth.
He looks like a vampire, Cooper thought and did her best to conceal her fear.
“Congratulations, my friends.” To Cooper’s untraveled ears, Albion spoke in what sounded like an subtle, Eastern European accent. He openly assessed Cooper and pointedly ignored Edward. “You are pretty and talented, my sweet. How do you want your prize money? I assume cash is good, yes?”
“Thank you, Mr. Albion,” she replied and dipped her head in a slight bow. This act of subservience seemed to please Albion and put him at ease as well.
“Some champagne.” He snapped his fingers at the man in the tracksuit and then turned to the brunette seated beside him. “Go powder your nose,” he ordered. “I wish to talk to the pool sharks.” His toothy smile, pale skin, and cold eyes recalled the underwater predator precisely.
The girl sent Cooper a hostile glare but obeyed without comment.
“If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” Edward told Albion. “I see an old Army buddy of mine by the bar.”
“Please. Take your time.” Again, the tone was unmistakably commanding.
“Where are you from?” Cooper asked him once they were alone. “Your accent is so attractive.”
“Russia,” Albion answered as his gaze traveled from Cooper’s breasts to the edge of her short skirt. “And I enjoy your accent, too. You Southern girls. You sound so innocent, but can be quite wild in private, is that not so?”
Luckily, the arrival of the champagne precluded Cooper from answering. Albion poured and raised his glass to toast her victory. After a single sip, she removed the Advil from her skirt pocket and placed them on her tongue, turning her back slightly away from Albion as though attempting to hide the action.
“What are you taking there?” he asked curiously.
Cooper decided to go on the offensive. “That’s my business.” Now she studied him. “After all, you could be an undercover cop or something.”
This made Albion laugh for several seconds. He wiped his eyes with a napkin and exhaled in contentment. “That’s a good one! You truly do not know who I am, do you?”
“I live out in the country. In Louisa County,” she said by way of explanation.
Albion digested this information and continued to gaze at Cooper with his icy eyes. “If you want to have some fun, you should come to me. I’m a famous man in