Chapter 72

The next round of hands was meant to last two hours, or until all three tables had dropped to three players. The final table of nine would then be formed, following the winner-take-all format. Marc settled in, Sinead having walked him to his spot again, and she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek as her breasts rubbed against the back of his shoulders.

“Good luck,” she said quietly.

He smiled softly and turned to look at her, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips to kiss her fingers. “I don’t need luck,” he said. “I already have the prize in hand.”

She flushed, just a little, and gave him a little scowl at making such an open statement like that in front of other people. Susan just smirked knowingly from beside Marc, and he noticed a couple of the other players glance at Sinead as she walked away. Glances were fine, glances happened. Glances, in fact, simply made him proud to have her on his arm, as they always had with Felicity - and Felicity wore dresses that showed off way more to glance at.

The game got underway, and Marc lost track of time as the hands were dealt and played. He went up a little, then down a little, then down some more as Susan took a chunk out of his holdings. Then he came back up with a strong win that doubled his holdings and knocked the Native man out of the game. He looked frustrated, but took it like a gentleman and even came around to shake Marc’s hand.

That left four players at the table - Marc, Susan, the Jamaican gangster, and the swarthy Italian mobster.

One more player would need to get knocked off before they stopped for the final table. Around the room there was light conversation between the guests and the players that were still sticking around, and both other tables were still playing. Rachel, the thin blonde with the tits, was doing her rounds again and Victor was discussing something with the Natives, who seemed to be getting ready to leave. He was sure Sinead would have wanted to listen in on that conversation, but Victor had ushered them closer to the door and the presence of the two big guards would have made it awkward to try and sneak closer.

Three hands later, the first table had come to a conclusion - Gregory’s daughter Andrea seemed to have held her own as she, the member of the Hell’s Angels that Marc had spoken with before the game, and the baseball player from the Blue Jays were the ones left standing.

Two hands after that, Marc frowned. Not due to his cards, he was sitting on pocket Queens, but rather because the Irishman ‘Liam’ had approached Sinead again off to the side of the bar. Marc had been mildly keeping track of where the Detective was in the room between hands and he’d seen her speaking with various other guests, ‘pressing the flesh’ and ‘working the room’ so to speak. The Irishman had generally been keeping his distance from her since the earlier incident, but Marc noticed him crossing the room with a purpose as he was trying to read the Jamaican across from him. The man crossed to the bar, put in an order, and then stepped away from the bar to approach Sinead, lifting a finger and tugging on the inside of her blouse collar from behind. Sinead spun to face him, one of her hands clenched into a fist, and Marc couldn’t see her expression but could tell by her stance she was about ready to slap the man, if not worse.

Marc cleared his throat and looked across the table at the swarthy Italian he was still playing against. “Your guest is making unwanted advances towards my companion again,” he said. “Are you going to deal with it appropriately, or am I going to need to do that myself?”