Morrison (Caldwell Brothers)

With his lips turned up in a half grin, I feel my chest tighten.

“Hailey ‘Hard Knocks’ Poe, are you ready for the hand that’s sure to change your life?” His whisper turns my veins to ice. He has me figured out.

I swallow hard. How the hell does he know my name? I used a fake ID to get in.

He taps his finger against his mouth menacingly, then pulls his glasses down, his deep, brown eyes cutting into me. I want to crawl under the table, but I hear my momma’s voice in my head, saying, “Show no fear. Never let them see you sweat, Hailey Sue.” Time to make my momma proud, no matter the cost.

“It’s a practice of mine to know my opponents. You almost had me, minx. Don’t worry, baby. Your secret stays in this room, because, after this hand, I assure you that everything you think you know is about to be changed.”

I should have folded, but my ego clouded my vision. Now my concentration is gone, the game thrown, and my sight clouded again, this time by the tears I refuse to let fall.

Five-card draw, Texas hold ’em, jokers wild—all is lost before I can blink.

Fighting to push back my emotions, I try to still my now trembling hands. He knows too much. When he finds out his payment isn’t real, what happens to me? To Momma? Will I even survive tonight?

A week later, Momma and I were instructed to pack our bags. Big Daddy Pimp was setting us up. Only, he wasn’t.

He “set us up” in an upscale condo just outside the Strip, then handed Momma a wad of bills before he turned and walked away. He never looked back, not that either of us expected him to. We weren’t in the place twenty-four hours before a courier service delivered a parcel addressed to Hailey “Hard Knocks” Poe.

My heart sank. Seeing that name, I should have packed Momma up right then and taken off with the little bit of money Big Daddy had left her. Did I do that? Nope.

How the hell did he find me?

Opening the envelope, my heart pounded, my breathing hitched, and my palms sweat.

Inside was a contract, one that sealed my fate against any future I had ever hoped for.

We weren’t released by Big Daddy Douchebag. We were bought and paid for. He gave Big Daddy enough to release Momma. He set us up.

Sean “Monte” Timmons owns me. He owns us. How the hell did this keep happening to me? The cycle of misery—wash, rinse, repeat. From one man’s property to another.

The glitz, the glam, the lights, and the action of Vegas are all a façade. It’s a black hole of manipulation. Life here is a game. Day in and day out, it’s all a gamble to survive and to thrive. The winner takes all.

Monte didn’t waste time in moving himself into the place with us. More so, with me. My age didn’t matter. He had me in a position where I couldn’t deny him. If word got around about my counterfeit bills at the table, my age would be nothing more than a number on my death certificate.

Monte used that to his advantage.

The situation didn’t seem bad to my mother, who had spent her entire life working the corners. To me, it was hell. Monte didn’t put me on a street or in a hotel bed to repay my debt. No, he made me his wife in a ceremony at a chapel on the Strip, which my mother stupidly signed her agreement to.

Over the last seven years, nothing has changed. Monte wheels and deals and lives for the next thrill. Lucky seven is a cruel bitch. I have accumulated seven years of debt to him.

Every meal I have eaten, every shower I have taken, everything I have ever had, done, or been forced to endure is a penny added to the red line. The black marks are for good behavior when I play my part.

I’m his trophy, his armpiece, and I’m also his whore. The balance gets renegotiated with every pound he gets inside my pussy, but the scales never tip in my favor, no matter how good I suck his dick.

Seven years and few things have changed, none of those for the better.

Funny how history repeats itself, even if you don’t want it to.

Momma is gone from a brain-stem stroke. It happened fast. One night she went to bed, and the next morning, she was unresponsive. One call to emergency services and an ambulance ride to the hospital later, she lay in a bed on life support with a prune for a brain. Decisions had to be made, and the chances of her waking up and ever being normal were slim; as a result, the plug was pulled, and my life crashed around me.