CHAPTER X - Lords and Ladies

A few hands had been played by now and the poker tournament was well and truly underway. Not many risky moves had been pulled by any player yet, as if they were studying one another to try and guess their tells and what made each one of them tick. Not that Hannah was worried by anything, though, or rather, Lady Winter von Zluten.

Ashley sighed, she was sitting to Lisa’s right side on the chairs positioned behind Zack, while Madison was on the Latina’s other side. “There she goes again.”

Madison observed with wide eyes. “Damn, she’s almost flashing the poor guy,” she noticed how the plunging neckline on the older blonde’s dress threatened to reveal her large breasts basically every time she moved.

“That’s how she distracts people she’s playing against, it’s the same way she sweeps pool tables,” Ashley explained.

Lisa raised a surprised eyebrow. “Does it work every time?”

Ashley gave the other girl a rueful smile. “Men are the same everywhere, so yeah, I guess.”

That made Madison chuckle. “Thinking we should distract the other players for Zack?”

“No, but you shouldn’t make too much of a ruckus, remember your parents are roaming the premises,” Lisa recommended, and Madison begrudgingly nodded. It seemed that, even if she gave her old friend the cold shoulder since she began dating Zack, Lisa still looked out for her, and that made the tall brunette feel a little guilty.

“Zack’s doing well, though,” she chose to say instead. “His stack of chips rose a little bit.”

“Zack never bets too much in the first few hands, he prefers studying the others before going all out,” Ashley grinned.

“And when he does…,” Lisa trailed with a smile of her own.

“It’s beautiful.” Ashley finished the sentence.

At the table, Zachary had just won a small stack of chips, neatly piling them up over the ones he already had. Mick Fisher let out an amused chuckle at it.

“Looks like someone’s hogging all the women tonight,” he remarked. “Got even Lady Luck in his little harem.”

“Well, if she’s willing to lend me her powers, Mick, then who am I to deny such a gorgeous lady?” Zack smirked before shifting his gaze to Hannah down the table. “Speaking of gorgeous ladies, Lady von Zluten has quite a stack of her own.”

Hannah returned the smirk, amused at how her bestie’s little brother was playing his father’s persona so well. “Lady Luck is quite fond of me too, I admit we spent many pleasant nights together in the past,” she drawled, the corner of her lips curling up. “Unless you mean… another kind of stack, Mr. Harper?”

She subtly used an arm to push her already huge breasts up, the fabric covering her nipples folding a little bit and almost exposing the hard peaks to everyone’s eyes. Quite a few gasps of arousal were heard around the table, and even Zack’s eyes widened at the blatant flirting from his old crush, but it was only for a second. He had a cover to maintain, after all.

“Well, Lady von Zluten, we’ll just have to see which one of us Lady Luck likes more, but perhaps we can share her later if you’re amenable,” Zack drawled, just as smoothly as he heard his father acting many times. “I’m sure my dates wouldn’t mind the extra company.”

Hannah just threw him a predatory grin and Mick Fisher belted out a laugh, clearly amused by the turn of events. The dealer quickly began handing out more cards, eager to make everyone remember what they were there for.

Robert watched his son from afar, deciding not to get too close to the game, in case someone did the math and realized they were related. From what he was seeing, the Ravers man could deduce Zack was having a lot of fun playing pretend.

Perhaps Zack might be able to use that for his life going forward, the man mused. Not that he needs it anyway, with that girlfriend and those friends of his.

“Mr. Ravers?” A man dressed in a rather normal suit cleared his throat, bringing Robert’s attention to him. “Excuse my interruption, sir, but my boss noticed you’re here. Mr. Fisher wants to extend his warmest regards and offer you a very nice courtesy, a VIP experience of sorts, completely on the house.”

Robert briefly raised a surprised eyebrow. “Well, I’ve got to thank Mr. Fisher for hosting this lovely evening, anyway,” he cautiously replied while standing up. “And I’m very interested in this courtesy while the main event doesn’t start.”

“Right, sir,” the man nodded with a smile. “If you follow me, Mr. Ravers, we can see about getting you to the VIP room.”

Intrigued, Robert followed what was clearly a henchman of Cassius Fisher. He doubted the man wanted to do something direct against him, but he had **** but to go along with whatever scheme they were planning. His presence was a clear sign that he knew something about the most prized item at the later auction, but Robert didn’t want to antagonize anyone, far from it. No, it was way better to just buy the damn tape and be done with it.

With a last look toward his son and daughter, and wondering where the hell his other daughter was, Robert allowed the man to lead him out of the ballroom. Unbeknownst to him, the henchman was receiving another instruction from his boss at that very same moment.

”Good, when you drop Mr. Ravers at Room 108, come back and fetch his… entertainment for the night. You know which one.”

“I think I’ll get them to tell me where to find one of those bunny suits,” Donna teasingly said, winking at Logan across the van. “It’d look so good on me, don’t you think?”

The Ravers boy casually smiled back at her. “Oh, I have no doubt.”

Grace stifled the urge to let out a very annoyed sigh. It was getting increasingly hard to listen to them flirting with each other in front of her, or behind her to be more technical about it. The worst thing was that Logan was seemingly pretending not to be interested and just verbally responding to every one of Donna’s moves. Was he playing the long game in order to make himself more interesting to the cheerleader? Did she even want him to flirt back with Donna for real and make the van even more unbearable for her?

“Mmm, which color, though?” Donna mused, tapping her chin with a finger. “I think it needs to be different from theirs.”

Grace gritted her teeth, suddenly envisioning her hands around the black-haired girl’s throat. I wonder how much dirt I can find on her.

“I don’t know, which one is your favorite color?” Logan replied with a chuckle.

Letting out a silent sigh, Grace had no idea what possessed her to do what she did next. In a fit of frustration, she closed her eyes and reached to the hem of her trusted hoodie, slowly pulling it up.

“‘Cause you probably need to go with your fav…”

“Logan?” Donna frowned at the way he just stopped talking mid-sentence and then followed his line of sight to where Grace was just shrugging off the hoodie she had been wearing, the slightly wavy golden hair falling down her upper back. The fuck?

Grace immediately felt a little more refreshed, the hoodie was definitely too warm for the current weather and she knew it. The white tanktop she borrowed from her older sister was a bit snugger than she would have preferred, but it was her only option in the rush to leave the house. Logan almost swallowed hard at the sight, the blonde’s arms were the most he had seen of her at school or when she visited Paris at the Manor, her normal outfits usually consisting of t-shirts and hoodies. It gave him a clear view of the way her fine butt stretched the fabric of her yoga pants, and it was awesome.

“Logan!” A suddenly irritated Donna snapped, making the boy turn to her as if he had been woken up from a trance.

“Uhn… sorry?” He replied, shaking his head with a frown. “You were saying?”

Grace couldn’t help how one of the corners of her lips curled up, but then an image in one of her screens made her stand up from the chair. “Oh, frack! They got her!”

“Who?” Logan interrupted whatever Donna was saying and was at the blonde’s side almost instantly.

“Miller! See here?” Grace pointed at a screen in the corner.

In the camera feed, Sharon seemed to have been discovered by one of the mobsters in an IT room of sorts, and was being led out of it. Judging by a blinking green light on one of her devices, Grace knew that the redhead had been successful in connecting the flash drive she gave her, and they now had access to more feeds in the hotel, but she knew it wasn’t the time to mention it.

Fear for his best friend’s life gripped Logan and he turned to the blonde with a serious look in his usually carefree face. “Alright, I’ll go after her. If someone contacts us and asks, I’m at the hotel,” he explained, setting off for the van’s back door.

“Are you fracking insane?!” Grace yelled after him. “It’s too dangerous!”

Logan turned back just in time to flash her a grin. “It’s not really a good reason not to go.”

Donna, who had been just watching the exchange, made a quick decision as well. “Oh, dammit! Wait for me!”

Grace just watched the two leaving and remained in the same position for a few moments. Did he just charge into a den full of mobsters just to try and save his friend, knowing the odds he can do anything are next to none? She asked herself, not really knowing how that made her feel other than the fluttering sensation in her stomach. Letting out another sigh, she swivelled her chair toward the screens once more and started browsing through the feeds Sharon had given her access to. She needed something to distract her troubled mind.

“Useless, useless…,” she repeatedly muttered, until her eyes landed on a couple fucking extremely hard on a bed. Those green orbs of hers almost shot out of her skull as her entire body heated up at the sight. “Shit, that’s… weirdly hot.”

Sometime before…

Taylor Ravers did her best not to get deathly afraid as she followed someone who was either a hotel employee or a henchman of Cassius Fisher up to the apartment's floor. When the girls made the decision to agree to Hannah’s suggestion of using the entertainment company as a cover for their presence around the ballroom, each and every one of them knew that the possibility of having to dance for men or even getting groped by them was real. She had almost forgotten about that when the man approached her and asked for her to follow him, claiming she had been requested to do her job.

She had no idea this involved private dealings and that was what chilled her to the bone, wondering if the man waiting for her was expecting her to have sex with him.

Shit, what do I do?! The tall brunette asked herself, her heartbeat quickening a little as they rode up the elevator. The way that the guy kept openly ogling her through the mirror was sickening, but she wordlessly braved on, displaying all the class that her family had taught her.

Not that the guy knew any of that.

They arrived at the first floor and the man motioned for her to walk in front of him, no doubt wanting to get a good look at her butt in the black corset and her long, shapely legs before dropping her off at the room. She walked along the corridor as if she was heading to her own execution, when the guy’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Here we are, sweetie,” he boldly smacked her ass once they stopped in front of a door, causing Taylor to yelp before he opened. “Go in, you’re expected.”

The eldest of Robert and Monica Ravers’ daughters stared at the gap in the doorway for a moment and swallowed hard before she took a step into the room, the door closing behind her.