Luck of the Devil (The Forge Trilogy #2)(60)

He’s my husband. So what if he ate my pussy and then sent me off to shower so I could get back to work?

Still, I can’t stop thinking about the way he put me first, refusing to get himself off. The way he’s put me first since the moment he made the vow to prove to me that I made the right choice by not leaving with Ruccio.

Forge rises from his steak to answer the door. When he pulls it open, Goliath hands him something.

“As you requested, sir.”

“Thank you.”

When he returns to the table, I stare at the tablet in his hands. “Did you forget something?”

He shakes his head as he sits down. “No, but I was hoping it would come sooner.”

“What is it?”

Forge taps the screen a few times, and then hands the tablet across the table to me. “Video footage of every player here who’s ever been filmed. There’s also a list of all their known tells, plus the tells that my people have spotted while gathering the footage.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

My heart slams into my chest as I stare at him in shock.





63





Forge





Indy’s silverware clatters against the plate when it falls from her frozen fingers. Barefaced, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, and wearing a hotel robe, she looks about twenty years old.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Of course.” I point at the iPad in her hands. “It’s all there.”

She glances down and scans the screen before looking up at me again. “How . . . when . . . why?”

“Because you came to win, and I had the resources to gather the information you needed.” I reach for the sparkling water between us and fill her glass.

“But . . . how?”

“I pay a lot of people very well to do what I ask them to do.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. In fact, you have a hell of a lot of homework to catch up on before you need to get to sleep so you’re rested for the morning.” I pick up my fork as she continues to stare at me.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this.”

“No thanks necessary. I told you I’d make you shine, and that’s what I’m doing.”





64





India





I don’t know what to say or what to think. He completely blew me away. It’s also the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me in my life.

“Well, thank you anyway. This is incredible. Truly incredible.”

I rise from the table, the food no longer holding any interest at all, and drop onto one of the four sofas in the penthouse suite.

Forge’s silverware clicks as I tap on the first file, labeled Martin Krause. He’s one of the top favorites to win the whole tournament. That’s when I realize the players’ information isn’t sorted alphabetically, but is in numerical order by their record and skill level.

Holy shit. Forge’s people are good.

I delve into the information, reading Krause’s only known tell, one that I’ve never heard anyone speak of. He stops moving his toothpick and lets it settle in the right side of his mouth when he’s bluffing.

With my lip clamped between my teeth, I watch the first video clip. Well, shit, I would never have guessed that. The man constantly shifts his toothpick around, making it impossible to follow. The pause is nearly imperceptible, but it’s there.

I file it away in my memory. Tomorrow morning, we all start out at ground zero. Players are seated randomly at the tables in such a way that it’s totally possible, although highly unlikely, that every single heavy hitter could play at the same table in the very first round.

Closing the file, I open the next one.

Chen Yang. I played him once years ago when I was still in the underground circuit. He slaughtered the entire table, and I barely made it through the night holding on to my buy-in. I was never able to spot a single tell.

But there they fucking are, highlighted in yellow on the page in front of me. He touches the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue for a moment before he bluffs. When he has a particularly good hand, he avoids looking at his cards for as long as possible, before checking one last time before he bets.

It’s a goddamned revelation.

Forge rises, and I look up. “Let me help.”

“You’ve done plenty. I don’t know how much you paid your people, but this is a gold mine. I just wish I had more time to study it all.”

He looks down at his watch. “You should be asleep by two, no later. I had the files sent to me too. We’ll divide and conquer. Tomorrow, before you sit every game, I’ll give you a kiss for good luck, and tell you everything I’ve learned that you haven’t.”

My face hurts from the sheer magnitude of my grin. “It sounds like you’re a goddamned genius.”

“Not quite. It’s teamwork. Together, we’re unbeatable.”





Hours later, my head droops, and I lose my grip on the tablet. When it flops over in my lap, Forge scoops it up.

“That’s enough for tonight. You need your sleep.”

“Just a few more minutes,” I say, fighting to open my eyes as I yawn.