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I’m eager to find a new distraction, finishing up my food quickly and dabbing my lips on the black napkin beside my plate. I look up at Viktor, my eyes moving to his mouth again. “I’m finished.”
“So I see,” he says, his voice deep and calm. “Time for a little game of roulette, perhaps.”
I nod, even though I’ve never played before. “That sounds great.”
Viktor rises, and I follow him, hiding in his large shadow as he drifts through the crowded casino. There’s twice as many peoplehere as when we first arrived, and it only seems to be getting busier.
There aren’t any clocks anywhere, so I don’t have a clue what time it is, but it can’t be very late. If this is what it’s like in the early evening, I can only imagine how it gets later into the night.
I settle into a chair beside Viktor at the roulette table, watching a small ball spin around a circular disk in the middle. It’s marked with red and black alternating colors, and each one has a white number on it. Eventually, the ball lands on a red 32, and everyone at the table lets out a groan except for one man in a pinstripe suit. He just smiles as chips are pushed toward him by the roulette croupier.
“Take some of these and place them on your lucky number,” Viktor whispers to me, reaching into his suit jacket and retrieving a stack of plastic chips. “Any number, or if you have several, put a chip on a few of them. Whatever you like. You can also just put them on red or black. That’s close to a fifty-fifty chance.”
I take the chips from him, feeling their weight in my hand. Several people have already placed chips on the table, different colors than ours, and the croupier appears to be waiting for us.
I have no clue what to do, so I just dump all chips on black and look to Viktor for approval.
“Daring,” he says with a note of amusement.
I reach for the chips to take them off the table, but he catches my arm, pulling it away as the ball rolls loose on the wheel. It jumps over a few numbers, clattering along until it finally lands on a black number 6.
“You won,” Viktor says with a smile, putting his hand on my shoulder and squeezing it.
Sure, I’ve won, but what have I won? I have no clue how this works.
A stack of chips is pushed toward me, and I take them, feeling the weight in my hand. There are nearly twice as many as when I started.
“How much is this?” I ask Viktor.
“Well, you bet a hundred thousand dollars, so that would be double. Two-hundred thousand dollars.”
I blink a few times as I try to figure out if he’s joking. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m not,” he says, taking the chips from my hand and putting them on the table again. “How about double or nothing?”
“That’s crazy!” I exclaim, but the ball is already rolling again. I watch the roulette wheel with wide eyes, taking in every millisecond as it passes by, focusing so hard on the wheel that I nearly fall over onto the table.
The ball bounces in on the number 7.
I look to see where Viktor put his chips.
Number 7.
“How much is that?” I ask, excitement building in my voice. “How much did you win? Was that double?”
“Thirty-five times two-hundred thousand, actually. I guess that’s seven million,” he replies calmly, taking the large pile of chips and moving it toward me. “You can play with these. Have fun.”
I can hardly believe it, but other people are smiling and clapping. He must’ve won a lot of money, but how can he take such an insane risk like that? Doesn’t he know that the odds are stacked against him?
But it is his casino, after all. Does it even matter if he loses?
“Do you play like this often?” I ask, sitting out the next round as the ball rolls again. I’m more interested in learning more about how Viktor functions than gambling. If I really am holding seven-million dollars’ worth of chips in my hands, why bother gambling ever again? This is more money than most people even see in their life.
Viktor’s hand finds its way to my knee, his touch light, but possessive. “I come here every now and again, but the real joy isn’t in making money. I enjoy the thrill, the possibility of losing.” He squeezes my knee, then moves his hand up my dress, touching my thigh much higher than I expected him to.
My entire body stiffens, my heart hammering in my chest so loud I can barely hear myself speak. “Do you ever really lose if you own the place?”
He shrugs, moving his hand an inch higher. His fingers burn hot against my skin, and I feel self-conscious that he’ll discover the moister building near my panties.
