The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Blackout

The dark was total.

For one second two hundred people held their breath, and then the room broke into noise.

Chairs scraped.

A glass smashed.

Someone screamed that it was a robbery.

"Nobody move!" Bea roared from the bar, and her smoker's voice cut through all of it. "Phones up! Use the lights!"

Little white lights bloomed in the dark.

I stood still with my hand on the back of Cade's chair, which was suddenly empty.

"Cade?"

"Right here."

His voice came from my left, low and close.

Then someone grabbed me from behind.

An arm went across my collarbone and a gloved hand clamped over my mouth.

I smelled leather and cigarettes.

"Quiet, Miss Guffey," a man whispered, right against my ear. "Nobody wants to hurt you."

He dragged me backward, toward the dim red glow of the exit sign.

My heels scraped the carpet.

I bit down on his glove as hard as I could, and he swore and cuffed the side of my head.

My ears rang.

"Friday the twentieth," he said. "Or next time it isn't a breaker. Mr. Kray says you should know that."

I tried to scream.

Nothing came out around the glove.

I kicked, and my boot hit a table, and a stack of chips crashed to the floor.

And then the man stopped.

He went rigid, and I felt a different pressure behind him.

"Let her go," Cade said.

His voice was very quiet and very near.

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