Morrison (Caldwell Brothers)

I stop in front of the cemetery to say “See ya” to Momma before heading to the airport. It doesn’t seem right not to.

Then I hop back in the Escalade and hit the playlist: Kid Ink, “Carry On.” Mmm, can’t wait to carry on.

Chapter Two

At seventeen, I was trying to escape my mother’s world. At twenty-four, I am trying to escape my own.

Monte let me leave the room the night I lost it all. He allowed me to believe I got away with my hustle. I left the table with my pulse racing, my head pounding, and my silent prayers being answered, or so I thought. The memories hit me hard.

Fuck! This is not how it was supposed to happen. How did he hustle the hustler? I was a sure thing to win that hand. How did it all go wrong?

The smoke in the room makes me dizzy, or maybe it’s the fear running through my veins. I never lose. Truly, I am not prepared. This isn’t a backroom game with a pimp. The stakes are too high, and then I go bust.

Born to a hooker, raised under the lights, the glam, and the life of the Vegas Strip, I survive. One hand at a time, I get by. For me and for my momma, I do what needs to be done. Tonight was for her.

She had me at sixteen. As a runaway, she saw the illusion of fame as a showgirl quickly fade and reality kick in. She worked the streets. She survived. Her pimp took her virginity, knocked her up with me, and kept her under his thumb all these years. It could be worse. He doesn’t beat on us, and he keeps a roof over our heads. I have clothes. I have food. First and foremost, I have to remember he let her keep me. Sometimes, though, I wonder if Momma wishes he would have asked her for an abortion, because keeping me has forced her to stay with him and in this life.

As a child, I wasn’t permitted to call him “Dad.” Truth be told, that was fine by me. He wasn’t a father; he was a sperm donor. Fuck that—he was a rapist. Momma calls life with him her penance for poor choices, one that she had to endure until her time was served. “Atonement,” she would say. He mind-fucked her as much as he actually fucked her, which was a lot, so he had the power even when I begged her to leave. He held all the cards.

Warped. Fucking warped.

What does a woman do when she is dealt a shitty hand?

Play the fucking cards she’s dealt until she can find a way out.

I may be what tied Momma down, but on the flip side of that chip, I am her way out. Me and Momma, a Bonnie and Clyde of our own damn making. After years of watching, years of waiting, my patience is finally paying off.

Momma worked to get the connection. Then we hustled for the two-thousand-dollar buy-in, and here I sit, at the underground table with the ballers in the back room of a stuffy hotel. The smoke fills my lungs, the window curtains are drawn, and the door is locked until the final hand is played.

Ante up. Call the bluff. Everyone folds but me and him.

Sean “Monte” Timmons.

Some call him dangerous; others say he is sex walking. He is the youngest man to rake it in from the house in New Jersey twice over. His reputation precedes him, and oftentimes, cowards fold before the stakes climb so high.

I should have tossed my cards. I should have given up the pot. I should have walked the fuck away. Hell, I shouldn’t even have allowed myself to be talked into this in the first place. I know Momma wants off the corner, but at seventeen, I have no business in the big leagues. This is beyond a table game with her pimp and his buddies.

Only, I don’t fold. I don’t give up. Instead, I raise the pot and go all in on something I don’t have to begin with. I got to the table on a hustle. A flash of a smile, a grab of the right cock, and an innuendo of more to come got me past security. Then, with a stack of counterfeit bills tossed on the dimly lit table while bending over and letting my cleavage hang out, I had these fellas eating out of the palm of my hand.

That is, until the cards are dealt. Business is all business the minute the first two-and-a-half-by-three-and-a-half-inch paper hit the felt.

Hand after hand, I manage to survive until the final match.

Monte smirks at me from behind his aviators after looking over to his phone, which was handed to him by the dealer. All electronic devices have to be silenced and turned over to the dealer so there are no distractions. Why was his given back? Could I be lucky enough to win by default? I have never wished for someone to have a family emergency as hard as I do right now.