The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Offer

By eight o'clock on Friday night the Roost was so full that people stood on the bar stools.

Word had gone around Reno the way it does, from the video to the blackout to Kray's folder.

The regulars had come to see what a ruined man would do.

I stood at the end of the bar with Bea.

My father was upstairs, and I had told him to stay there.

Kray came in last, through the middle of everyone, with the tour director a step behind him.

A dealer in a Meridian Club vest walked behind them with a fresh deck in a box.

Kray set a small round table in the open space between the bar and the jukebox.

He put out two chairs facing each other, and a single glass of water.

"Mr. Merrick," he called. "Sit with me."

The kitchen door swung open.

Cade came out in his black waiter's vest with a dish towel over his shoulder.

He had not slept either, and he looked like a man who had decided something.

The room made a path for him.

He stopped a few feet from the table and looked at the chairs.

"I'll stand," he said.

"As you like." Kray smiled. "Everyone here knows what I'm about to say. I want them to hear it from me."

He opened his hand toward the tour director, who passed him the cream envelope.

"The Kray Open has banned you for three years," Kray said. "I did that. I'll be honest about it."

Somebody near the jukebox muttered.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Poker King Returns from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.