No way. He needs it more than they do

Rick had feared something like this. Gamblers have all of the normal human flaws plus an extraordinary greed and a hatred for the idea that they've been taken advantage of. He hadn't marked baldy as a stooge for the scrawny guy which meant either his senses weren't as tuned as he'd thought or maybe the scrawny guy was just taking advantage of baldy's natural stupidity.

"Nobody has to get hurt." He tried to make his voice reassuring. "Put down the knife and let's settle this like gentlemen."

"Put down the chips and we're all good," Baldy fired back.

That wasn't happening. Rick had been acting intentionally slow and clumsy all day. Now he let himself go.

Scrawny was still thinking about what to do with his knife when Rick reached him, popped him on the wrist with a rock he'd picked up outside the casino, then poked his carkey up against scrawny's eyeball.

Kat timed her arrival on the scene perfectly. Like a Viking warrior, she jumped from around the corner with a piercing scream, jumped high to kick baldy in the head, then whirled around and landed a roundhouse kick in scrawny's groin.

Rick had to react quickly to keep from gouging scrawny's eye out as the man let out a little whimper and collapsed.

"Here's the deal," Kat said. "We should report you but we'd end up having to fill out paperwork and talk to police and all that shit when we're on our honeymoon and don't want to be bothered. I suppose we could say we killed you in self-defense. That knife makes it pretty obvious we were fighting for our lives and it's got your fingerprints all over it. But again, there's the whole police angle. Still, like I said, we really should report you one way or the other. Either of you have anything to suggest."

"How about..." Scrawny's voice went squeaky so he cleared his throat and started again. "How about we forget this ever happened? Misunderstanding among friends, all that?"

"I think we should just kill 'em," she told Rick. "You know, self-defense, stand your ground, all that. We'd be heroes. I wonder how many other innocent people these jerks have held up after they've won a few dollars. Too bad you didn't just poke out his eye. That would have been enough and then I wouldn't have had to kill."

"Come on." Baldy sounded panicked. "Nobody was going to get hurt. We just wanted the money you stole from us."

"Stole?" Baldy was struggling to his feet so Kat swung a crescent kick and knocked him back down. "It looked to me like like baby here won fair and square. I don't like it when anyone accuses my darlin' of cheating. Makes me see red a little, want to see more red."

Rick was watching the two men more closely than he was watching Kat so he couldn't tell if she was putting on an act or if she was actually psyching herself up to kill. One thing was certain. Self-defense claim or not, he wasn't going to go along with killing these jerks even though they might deserve it. "I think if we could get a written apology, plus maybe they pay your entry into the tournament tomorrow, Kat, and we call it fair and square."

"Fair and square. They tried to rob you, pulled a knife on you. I say we kill them. That scrawny one looks like he's reaching for a weapon to me."

"Sure," scrawny said. "We'll write out an apology. Big mistake, completely our fault. And of course we'd love to buy your entry. Game needs more beautiful women, right Luke."

"This is bullshit. I--"

"I said, right Luke."

"Oh, hell. Yeah, whatever."