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But of course that’s not how it works.

My back stiffens as West walks us past a table where two men are locked in a stare-off so tense I feel it in my chest. One flicks his chip forward with a single finger, and the dealer doesn’t even blink.

I only have to look at his cards to know he’s going to lose.

He’s holding suited connectors. They’re pretty, but weak, and the guy across from him has stopped tapping his left thumb.

I bet the guy in the suit folds within thirty seconds. Thirty-five, max, if he’s trying to save face.

It’s another weird thing about me.

I don’t just see the cards. I see the patterns. The pulse of the table. The way a player’s eyes flick when the stakes rise. The micro-shifts in posture that tell you everything you need to know.

It’s like a puzzle I already know the answer to.

Dad used to call it my superpower. Said I could read the table like it was lit up with neon lights.

Just thinking about that makes my heart ache. All the things that happened. All the things I don’t want to think about. I push them back down, where they belong, and let West march me forward like we’re on a drill.

We’re walking past a private room – the kind only the richest are allowed in – when his phone starts to ring in his pocket. He pulls it out and mutters a low oath.

“I have to take this,” he tells me. It’s probably one of his Hollywood starlets, wanting a booty call. Or to be saved from a mess.

Whatever. I shrug and rub my wrist where he’d been holding me.

“Do. Not. Move,” he says, his voice low but firm, his eyes piercing mine.

“Yes, sir.”

He rolls his eyes at me.

Still, the moment he walks away, it feels like the air shifts. I pull his jacket tighter around me, and lean against the wall right outside the open doorway, letting my eyes drift over to the high roller’s room.

It’s so serious I can taste it. There are no gawkers, no tourists, just a handful of unsmiling players, silent as statues, their chips stacked in precise, menacing towers.

And then I seeher.And she’s so unexpected.

She’s young, maybe my age. Blonde hair down, dressed in a black jersey number she could’ve grabbed off a Banana Republic clearance rack.

She’s not rich. Not yet. But she wants to be, and she’s determined to make it happen. You can see it in the way she sits up straight, like she belongs here. She’s making her own money, not here to snag a rich guy. She wants to be one of them, not with them.

I’m impressed by her. She’s holding her own.

But something tugs at me. A flicker of recognition. Maybe it’s because I know exactly what it’s like to fake your way into a room you were never invited into.

The only other player left in the game is a slick thirty-something with a tie pin and a jawline that screams generational wealth.

He’s lounging back like the win’s already in the bank, twirling a chip like this is all beneath him.

That’s the thing about poker. It’s like watching a Broadway play. There’s a story, a rhythm, sometimes there’s even a happy ending.

Although most end in tears.

Maybe that’s why the dealer’s hands get my attention. The movement is barely perceptible. Just a twitch before he places the next card.

But it’s a tell. A big one. My stomach turns cold.

This is a setup.I can feel it.