Dark Sins (Dark Intentions #3) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,5

other options, Dante. You can borrow the money from Cedar, I guess. How long is it going to take you to pay off $350,000? That's a lifetime of money unless you do something to supercharge your income. And there's only one thing you're good at."

"I'm good at a lot of things," I say quickly.

"That may be true, but you are very, very good at this, and you don't want to lose it."

I swallow hard.

Marguerite calls his name and he walks away from me.

“I'm serious," he adds, walking to the threshold just as Jacqueline squeezes past. "Think about it."

The pressure starts to feel never-ending. This is what it was like when I was gambling.

I haven't been next to a card game in over a year, and not a day goes by that I don't think about the stale smell of cigarettes, the ugly, unreadable faces, tired eyes, pasty skin, and all of the money in the world that I could win.

Gambling was my way to cope with life since I was a kid. I went to my first poker game when I was thirteen and I won $1,000. It was my money. It was all mine. It wasn't borrowed from Mom. I made it off my winnings and my smarts, and I couldn't believe that I made so much.

I continued to gamble throughout college.

I'd win a lot, lose some. I was obsessed with making it work. I knew that I'd have to win, that all professional poker players lost a certain amount of money as a given. It's like a return on investment and I became a company. I paid taxes on everything. After college, I got a job in finance and I thought that if I stayed busy enough, I wouldn't have to play. But you'd be surprised how much the possibility of winning what you make in a month is alluring to someone with my personality.

After a little while, it wasn't even about the money. The money was nothing but a number that represented a win or loss and by how much.

Growing up, I was a pawn in my parents’ divorce; my father filed for custody claims and alimony, my mother filed counter claims, the numerous court proceedings, all of that crap. I hated money with every fiber of my being, and yet I wanted more of it in my bank account, and I wanted it all to belong to me.

Lincoln was the more irresponsible of the two of us. His swings of how much he made and how much he lost were notorious. Everyone who was anyone in our circle of friends and acquaintances thought of him as a God.

At one point, he lost half a million dollars, and the thing is that in the illegal poker games in those dark casino spots where the regulars go, losing half a million was almost the same as winning half million.

How do you get back from that?

What do you do?

But we had certain skills, Lincoln and I. We had secrets that we knew how to keep, and gambling was not even one of them.

What Lincoln wants me to do to give me the $350,000 would put me back into a life that I worked very hard to escape.

Yes, I wouldn't gamble again, but I don't even have enough of a bankroll to get started.

You can expect to win ten to twenty percent if you're good game after game, and so I need a certain amount to try to win $350,000. But he's not going to front that.

Besides, I have worked so hard to stop, to start my life again, to not do that, and I'm not willing to give it up.

The thing that he's offering, the one-time proposal, if he's willing to pay that much, the job must be huge with a high risk of getting caught.

But if he says that the research has been done and the game pieces are in place, I trust him.

He's not one to lie about something so important.

As I pace around the kitchen, my mother comes downstairs to grab some lunch, and I decide to give it one last shot.

4

Dante

Mom and I haven't talked for a while, not since the last time she threatened to call the police. But I wondered if she would be more amenable to the situation if she knew more about it. Perhaps it's worth the risk of sharing why I needed the money.

"Can I talk to you?" I ask, sitting down next to her as she opens a small