Cigarette smoke coiled around Caleb's head like a barbed wire halo. Luna's stocking snagged on roulette table legs as the portly man's sausage fingers dented her forearm. His Rolex bit into her wrist - a platinum shackle.
"Let the mouse play!" Xander's crowing scattered poker chips.
The felt table absorbed Luna's trembling palm print. Caleb's pinky ring caught dealer lights as he shuffled - cold precision in every bridge and riffle. His gaze remained fixed on the queen of spades sliding across baize, though Luna's reflection warped in his whiskey tumbler.
"Standard Texas Hold'em." The businessman's breath reeked of truffle oil and entitlement. "Three million buy-in. Your paltry wages cover... what? A fingernail's worth?"
Luna's stiletto found his instep. "My collateral." She produced Caleb's monogrammed lighter from her garter. "Solid gold. Eighteenth-century French."
Caleb's card shuffle stuttered. The dealer's cough covered his tell.
Xander whooped. "Brother's mistress pilfers his treasures!"
The game unfolded like a autopsy - methodical and bloody. Luna's first raise gutted a telecom mogul. Her river card flush drowned an oil heir. Xander's full house disintegrated beneath her straight flush, his howls shaking crystal chandeliers.
"Bitch cheats!" He overturned whisky bottles.
Caleb finally looked up. Moonlight through stained glass windows crucified his profile against leather banquettes. "Dealer," he rasped. "New deck."
The final hand trembled between them. Luna's hole cards - ace and king of hearts - pulsed like fresh wounds. Caleb's smoke tendrils framed twin queens smiling through gunpowder haze.
"All in." His chips avalanched across blood-red felt.
Luna's lighter clicked open. Flame tongues mirrored casino neon. "Call."
The river card flipped - two of clubs. Caleb's queens maintained their carnivorous smile.
Xander's triumph shook velvet drapes. "Settle your debt, mouse!"
The businessman's paw closed on her veil. Silk tear with a sound like childhood diaries burning.
Air raid sirens wailed. Fire alarms? No - slot machine jackpots. Luna's face emerged from falling chiffon - Medusa beauty petrifying the room.
Caleb's cigarette ash snowed onto exposed cards. Twin queens blistered beneath the ember's kiss.
Cigarette ash snowed onto the baize table as Caleb's cards slapped wood. The sound echoed like a duelist's pistol shot. Luna's veil fluttered in the sudden stillness, its chiffon layers whispering secrets against her rapid breaths.
The portly businessman's sausage fingers froze mid-reach, gold rings glinting with nervous sweat. "M-Mr. Thorn, we were merely—"
"Were." Caleb's correction slithered through cigar haze. His knuckle brushed a queen of hearts - crimson nail polish matching the lipstick smudge on his tumbler.
The VIP booth emptied like a theater during fire alarms. Xander's retreating cackle ("Five bucks says she stabs him!") dissolved into slot machine screams.
Luna's knuckles whitened around the Bordeaux glass. Merlot trembled at the rim, threatening sacrament. "Shall I genuflect while pouring, Mr. Thorn?"
His boot hooked her chair leg, dragging her into his orbit. "You'll kneel without prompting soon enough."
The wine found his lips through sheer spite. Luna's wrist ached from the angle, her pulse visible where his thumb pressed ancestral knowledge into her veins. He drank like a parched martyr at poisoned springs.
Xander's voice carried through mahogany panels: "Three million! She'll need to—"
"Hush." Caleb's interruption could've frozen hell. His palm mapped the geography of her ribcage through silk. "The mouse thinks herself clever, gnawing lion's gold."
The price list fluttered open between them - glossy photographs of women priced like cuts of Kobe beef. Luna's laughter cracked like vintage porcelain. "Shall I audition? Mistress? Courtesan?"
"Start with surviving this conversation." His signet ring caught her chin. "The veil. Now."
Moonlight through stained glass baptized their standoff. Luna's fingers found the silk ties, each undone knot resonating like a jailor's keys clattering to stone.
The veil fell.
Time fractured.
Caleb's world reduced to contradictions - a face carved from winter moonlight yet burning like forbidden scriptures. Her scar, silvered and serpentine along the jawline, mocked his earlier imaginings. Not doll-perfection, but lived-in divinity that made his throat constrict.
"Well?" Her whisper stirred dust motes dancing in amber light.
His thumb traced the scar's path. "Who gave you this?"
"Life." Her smile cut deeper than the wound. "Satisfied?"
"Never." The admission escaped like a trapped thing.
Outside, neon signs flickered to life - vulgar pinks and greens staining their silence. Caleb's lighter sparked, flame trembling between them. In its glow, Luna's face shifted from Renaissance portrait to avenging angel.
"Three million." He blew smoke rings around the sum. "Shall we discuss repayment plans?"
Her stole slipped, baring collarbones he'd imagined breaking teeth upon. "Will cash suffice?"
"Interest compounds hourly." His teeth found the scar's origin point. Somewhere beyond the soundproofing, slot machines wailed in mechanical ecstasy.