Chapter 3 - The Blood on the Green Felt
The private salon was drenched in a thick, drifting haze of aromatic blue tobacco smoke.
The room was circular, lined with thousands of leather-bound volumes resting on floor-to-ceiling shelves of polished walnut.
Above the center of the space hung a massive chandelier composed of brutalist brass rods and warm Edison bulbs, casting an amber cone of illumination downward.
Directly beneath that pool of light sat a heavy octagonal poker table covered in forest-green baize.
Five men were seated around the felt, surrounded by towering stacks of ceramic chips colored black, gold, and blood-red.
At the far head of the table sat Roman Gallow.
He had shed his ruined suit from the restaurant.
Tonight, he wore a pristine, fitted white dress shirt with the top button undone, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms in crisp, deliberate folds.
His exposed forearms were cords of dense muscle, marked by a few pale, surgical scars and a faded geometric tattoo wrapped around his left wrist.
He looked relaxed, yet his eyes possessed the terrifying stillness of a panther watching its prey wander into a dead-end ravine.
When Paige entered the room behind Luca, Roman did not jump or call out.
He merely shifted his slate-gray gaze toward her for a fraction of a second, gave an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment, and returned his attention to his cards.
The other four men at the table were distinctly different portraits of wealth and power.
To Roman’s right sat an elderly man with thinning silver hair and the aristocratic bearing of an appellate court judge.
Opposite him was a lean, twitchy man in his forties with grease-slicked hair and rings on every finger, tapping a gold lighter against the table edge.
Directly opposite Roman, however, sat the largest man in the room.
He was a mountain of florid flesh named Richard Donovan.
Donovan was a powerful city councilman and the chairman of the port authority, a man who possessed enough political influence to buy judges and destroy municipal contracts with a single phone call.
His thick neck spilled over the stiff white collar of his silk shirt, which was already damp with patches of greasy sweat.
His face was ruddy, veins tracing red webs across his bulbous nose, and his eyes were bloodshot from heavy drinking and spiraling losses.
Before Donovan lay a pathetic, diminishing cluster of red chips, while the towering fortress of black and gold stakes sat squarely before Roman.
Luca directed Paige toward a recessed wet bar set into the far wall.
The marble counter held rows of crystal decanters filled with spirits that Paige had only ever seen locked inside glass display cases at boutique liquor stores.
“Bottle of twenty-five-year Macallan,” Luca instructed her quietly from the edge of the bar.
“Two fingers in the heavy crystal tumbler.”
“Neat.”
“Take it to Donovan.”
“He’s down half a million tonight and his temper is hair-trigger.”
“Keep your head down and set it on his right coaster.”
Paige picked up the heavy, square-cut crystal decanter with her left hand, steadying the lip with her injured right fingers.
The weight made the torn tendon flare with sudden fire, but she swallowed the pain, pouring the rich amber liquor with mechanical precision.
She set the decanter down, rested the tumbler on a silver serving tray, and stepped out onto the Persian rug.
The carpet muffled her footsteps entirely as she glided toward the octagonal table.
The air around the green felt was suffocatingly tense, heavy with the stench of sweat, unwashed pride, and impending ruin.
Roman flicked two gold chips forward into the center of the table.
The ceramic clink sounded like a hammer striking an anvil.
“That is one hundred thousand to you, Donovan,” Roman said smoothly, his voice cool and indifferent.
“Call, raise, or fold your hand and save whatever pride you have left for the morning press conference.”
Donovan’s heavy jaw trembled with suppressed rage.
He glared at the three cards resting face-down before him, his thick fingers drumming an erratic, furious beat against the felt.
“Don't lecture me about pride, Gallow,” Donovan growled, his voice thick with bourbon and bile.
“You think you own this city because you blew up half the docks five years ago?”
“You’re still a punk sitting in your dead daddy’s chair.”
None of the other players at the table breathed.
The elderly man to Roman’s right carefully lowered his cards and stared fixedly at his water glass.
Roman did not blink.
He did not even shift his posture.
He simply leaned back against the high leather spine of his chair, watching Donovan with eyes as hollow and cold as an arctic crevasse.
Paige approached Donovan’s right shoulder, keeping her eyes fixed strictly on the leather coaster beside his elbow.
She lowered the silver tray smoothly, keeping the crystal tumbler steady.
“Your drink, Mister Donovan,” Paige said quietly, keeping her tone completely neutral.
Donovan did not look up at her.
He reached blindly to his right, his sweaty palm smacking the side of the crystal tumbler before he could grip it properly.
The heavy glass tipped on the tray, amber scotch sloshing over the silver rim and splashing across Donovan’s French-cuffed sleeve.
Donovan roared in anger, shoving his chair back with a violent scraping screech across the hardwood flooring.
“You clumsy little bitch!” he snarled, spinning around in his leather seat.
“Are you completely blind, or do they hire brain-dead garbage off the street to pour drinks in this house?”
Paige instinctively took half a step backward, raising the tray to her chest.
“I apologize, sir,” she said, her voice taut as a wire.
“The glass was unstable.”
“You apologize?” Donovan sneered, his florid face turning a deep, dangerous shade of purple.
He lunged forward before Paige could step entirely out of his reach.
His thick, meaty hand shot out like an iron clamp, seizing Paige’s right forearm to drag her toward him.
His blunt thumb landed directly, forcefully, over the inflamed, torn tendon beneath the bandage.
The pain was catastrophic.
It was not merely a throb; it felt as though someone had driven an electrified railroad spike directly through the center of her wrist and twisted it.
A sharp, ragged scream tore from Paige’s throat before she could bite her lip.
Her vision went completely white at the edges.
Her knees buckled beneath her, the silver tray slipping from her left hand and crashing to the floor with a ringing metallic clatter.
Donovan did not let go.
Smelling of stale cigar smoke, sweat, and alcohol, he jerked her arm upward, twisting the wounded joint to force her down onto her knees beside his chair.
“You look at me when you spill liquor on my shirt, you little gutter rat,” Donovan spat, his bloodshot eyes bulging with sadistic pleasure.
“Donovan.”
The single word sliced through the room with the lethal velocity of a guillotine blade dropping down its wooden groove.
It was not loud.
It was barely above a whisper.
Yet the entire room seemed to freeze into solid ice.
Donovan’s fingers remained clamped around Paige’s wrist, but his arrogant smirk faltered as he slowly turned his head toward the head of the table.
Roman Gallow had stood up.
He did not rush.
He did not knock his chair over in cinematic rage.
He stepped around the green felt table with the slow, terrifying grace of an executioner ascending the scaffold steps.
Luca had already drawn his black semi-automatic pistol from beneath his arm, stepping into the space behind Donovan’s chair with cold, mechanical efficiency.
Roman stopped three inches from Donovan’s shoulder, looking down at the councilman’s meaty hand crushing Paige’s bandaged arm.
“Take your hand off her,” Roman said.
His voice was devoid of inflection, so utterly flat that it caused the hairs on the back of Paige’s neck to stand straight up despite the agony blinding her eyes.
Donovan attempted to muster a sneering laugh, but the sound died in his throat as he looked into Roman’s hollow, slate-gray eyes.
“What do you care, Roman?” Donovan muttered, though his fingers loosened slightly.
“She’s a clumsy hired maid.”
“I’m paying five hundred grand to sit at this table, and I don't need some street tramp ruining my—”
Roman moved.
His movement was so blindingly fast that Paige’s tear-filled eyes could not track the mechanics of it.
Roman’s left hand struck like an iron vice, seizing Donovan’s thick wrist.
His right hand drove downward with sickening precision, slamming the palm directly against the inside crook of Donovan’s elbow while yanking the forearm backward against the joint.
A sharp, grotesque crack echoed through the silent library.
Donovan shrieked in agony, a wet, pig-like squeal that tore from his throat as his grip on Paige was instantly broken.
Donovan collapsed backward into his leather chair, clutching his hyper-extended, dislocated elbow against his chest, tears of shock streaming down his crimson cheeks.
Paige fell to her knees on the Persian rug, clutching her throbbing, ruined wrist against her stomach, gasping for oxygen through clenched teeth.
Roman did not look down at the groveling politician.
He reached out with a clean linen handkerchief, methodically wiping a stray drop of scotch from the knuckles of his left hand.
Then, he dropped the cloth onto Donovan’s lap.
“You are sitting in my house,” Roman murmured, looking down at Donovan with the absolute disgust one might reserve for a crushed insect.
“You are drinking my liquor.”
“And you have just laid hands upon a woman who carries a personal debt owed directly to me.”
“Which means, Donovan, you have just laid hands upon my property.”
Roman leaned down until his lips were inches from the councilman’s sweating ear.
“The cards are folded,” Roman whispered.
“Your chips are forfeit.”
“Luca, escort Councilman Donovan to his vehicle before I decide to remove the other arm and feed it to the gulls beneath the cliff.”
Luca stepped forward, jamming the cold steel muzzle of his pistol directly behind Donovan’s ear, hauling the weeping, broken politician out of his chair like a sack of wet laundry.
The other three players at the table stood up simultaneously, their faces pale as salt, muttering hurried, terrified excuses as they backed toward the double doors.
Within ninety seconds, the grand library was completely empty of guests.
The heavy oak doors clicked shut, locking from the inside with a heavy mechanical thud.
Only the scent of stale smoke and spilt scotch remained.
Paige stayed on her knees on the rug, her chest heaving, fighting with every shred of her remaining willpower not to vomit from the blinding waves of pain coursing through her arm.
Soft, measured footsteps crossed the hardwood floor, halting directly in front of her.
May you like
A pair of pristine black leather shoes appeared in her blurred field of vision.
Roman Gallow slowly lowered himself onto one knee, descending into the amber light until his face was level with her own.
