High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) by May Ellis Daniels
Authors: May Ellis Daniels
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don’t bother remembering. I arrived with a suitcase, and that’s still all I have here that’s mine. I don’t have to look to know there’s no food in the massive stainless steel fridge. When I eat here, which isn’t often, I order room service from one of my restaurants.
Cole’s door is open. He painted his room pitch black for some reason. Keeps the blinds closed and the AC running full blast. I step inside, blinking against the darkness. It’s almost cave-like.
“You know, brother,” I say into the humming computers. “Keep this up and people will start thinking you’re a vampire.”
“I have bigger teeth,” Cole says from somewhere in the darkness.
“Oh yeah? Last I remember you were the runt.”
I’m teasing, but only partly. There’s something off about Cole’s den. I try and remember the last time I saw him outside the penthouse, then realize I can’t.
“It’s like a meat freezer in here,” I say as I step further into the room.
The air’s so cold my breath nearly shows.
“Heat’s bad for computers,” Cole says in his quiet voice. “Fries their insides.” He’s sitting in an office chair that’s been modified to suit his tastes: he’s taken off the backrest so he can sit on it cross-legged.
Like a guru waiting for a divine vision.
“Maybe,” I say, moving into the glowing blue light emanating from the six screens surrounding Cole in a half-circle. “But it’s good for us . You look like shit.”
Cole gives me a thin smile. “You look only slightly less invincible than normal. Big opening getting to you?”
“Lots of things are getting to me.”
“Like this pretty girl who tried to rob us?”
“Girls? Yeah. You remember what those are, right? We should go out sometime.”
Cole sighs. “Why? So I can play wingman?”
“No. So you can get laid.”
Cole nods at a picture on the screen directly in front of him. It’s Summer, although the girl in the photo looks so different from the one I met in the alley it takes me a few moments to recognize her. First, she’s a bit younger. The photo was taken maybe three years ago. She’s sitting in the back seat of a beater black mid-eighties Porsche convertible. The car’s parked in front of a dumpy-looking lime green motel. Summer’s wearing a white dress, the lightly-patterned, frilly kind women wear when it’s hot outside. The dress’s thin straps run down her shoulders. My eyes linger over her skin, trace down to the shadows formed by her breasts. Her hair is long, whipped wild from riding in the convertible. The dirty-blonde color she had in the casino tonight is gone in the photo, replaced by a lovely coppery brown. She must’ve dyed it tonight, or been wearing a wig. Her long legs are tossed with casual abandon over the Porsche’s red leather passenger seat. She’s wearing spiked black boots.
Everything about her turns me on. Her careless slouch. Her leg up in the air like that. The dress’s thin fabric. The saucy, not-taking-shit expression on her face—
Summer’s also sighting down a handgun, something mean and semi-automatic from the look of it. The gun has a gleaming chrome barrel and a bright pink handle. The look in her eye as she pretends to gun down the photographer is playful. But it’s not a stretch to imagine her aiming with real intent to kill.
“She’s a fucking basket-case,” Cole says.
“That’s saying something, coming from a guy who never leaves this room.”
Cole gestures at the computers. “World’s right here at my fingertips.”
I decide to ignore him. It’s an old argument, doomed to go nowhere. “What’s her story?”
“Her father, Dave Mason, died in the military when Summer was three. Fluke accident on the firing range during basic. She was raised here in Vegas. Her mother, Carrie Mason, made ends meet working the casinos in…just about every capacity they asked her to. Money was tight, given Carrie’s predilection for the slots. ”
“Mom
Cole’s door is open. He painted his room pitch black for some reason. Keeps the blinds closed and the AC running full blast. I step inside, blinking against the darkness. It’s almost cave-like.
“You know, brother,” I say into the humming computers. “Keep this up and people will start thinking you’re a vampire.”
“I have bigger teeth,” Cole says from somewhere in the darkness.
“Oh yeah? Last I remember you were the runt.”
I’m teasing, but only partly. There’s something off about Cole’s den. I try and remember the last time I saw him outside the penthouse, then realize I can’t.
“It’s like a meat freezer in here,” I say as I step further into the room.
The air’s so cold my breath nearly shows.
“Heat’s bad for computers,” Cole says in his quiet voice. “Fries their insides.” He’s sitting in an office chair that’s been modified to suit his tastes: he’s taken off the backrest so he can sit on it cross-legged.
Like a guru waiting for a divine vision.
“Maybe,” I say, moving into the glowing blue light emanating from the six screens surrounding Cole in a half-circle. “But it’s good for us . You look like shit.”
Cole gives me a thin smile. “You look only slightly less invincible than normal. Big opening getting to you?”
“Lots of things are getting to me.”
“Like this pretty girl who tried to rob us?”
“Girls? Yeah. You remember what those are, right? We should go out sometime.”
Cole sighs. “Why? So I can play wingman?”
“No. So you can get laid.”
Cole nods at a picture on the screen directly in front of him. It’s Summer, although the girl in the photo looks so different from the one I met in the alley it takes me a few moments to recognize her. First, she’s a bit younger. The photo was taken maybe three years ago. She’s sitting in the back seat of a beater black mid-eighties Porsche convertible. The car’s parked in front of a dumpy-looking lime green motel. Summer’s wearing a white dress, the lightly-patterned, frilly kind women wear when it’s hot outside. The dress’s thin straps run down her shoulders. My eyes linger over her skin, trace down to the shadows formed by her breasts. Her hair is long, whipped wild from riding in the convertible. The dirty-blonde color she had in the casino tonight is gone in the photo, replaced by a lovely coppery brown. She must’ve dyed it tonight, or been wearing a wig. Her long legs are tossed with casual abandon over the Porsche’s red leather passenger seat. She’s wearing spiked black boots.
Everything about her turns me on. Her careless slouch. Her leg up in the air like that. The dress’s thin fabric. The saucy, not-taking-shit expression on her face—
Summer’s also sighting down a handgun, something mean and semi-automatic from the look of it. The gun has a gleaming chrome barrel and a bright pink handle. The look in her eye as she pretends to gun down the photographer is playful. But it’s not a stretch to imagine her aiming with real intent to kill.
“She’s a fucking basket-case,” Cole says.
“That’s saying something, coming from a guy who never leaves this room.”
Cole gestures at the computers. “World’s right here at my fingertips.”
I decide to ignore him. It’s an old argument, doomed to go nowhere. “What’s her story?”
“Her father, Dave Mason, died in the military when Summer was three. Fluke accident on the firing range during basic. She was raised here in Vegas. Her mother, Carrie Mason, made ends meet working the casinos in…just about every capacity they asked her to. Money was tight, given Carrie’s predilection for the slots. ”
“Mom
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