Lucky (10 page)

The men inhaled as one, and then held their breaths in collective fear as they watched
El Gato’s
eyes go from blue to white with rage.

Dieter’s cheeks paled, then suffused with red. Without missing a beat, he lifted a small handgun from his pocket and took absent aim at the winning rooster. As they watched, the bullet hit the target and the feathers spewed, and
Rojo
dropped at his owner’s feet with little ado. Each man there said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that it was the bird, and not them, that lay dead in the dirt.

“Filthy game,” Dieter said softly, and then pocketed the gun as he walked away.

Seconds later, there was nothing left to tell the story of what had transpired but two dark puddles of blood being absorbed in the dust.

Lucky made a dash through Club 52 with one eye on the clock and the other on the dressing room where she still had to change. Her bus had been caught in traffic, making her late for work. Her shift was about to start, and she had yet to dress.

Taking none of her usual care with her hair, Lucky tore off one set of clothes and jumped into another, all the while praying that buttons stayed on and zippers didn’t get stuck.

“Hi, Lucky,” Maizie said.

“Hi,” she said, and kept on dressing.

Maizie was a cocktail waitress whom Lucky barely knew, and was always going off shift when she was coming on. She wished just once that they could work the same shift. Given half a chance, she thought that they could have been friends. But Maizie had young children, and needed off at three o’clock in the afternoon when Lucky’s day was just beginning.

“You’d better hurry,” Maizie warned. “I saw two of your regulars out there, watching the clock.”

Lucky rolled her eyes. “Why me?” she moaned, and knew exactly who Maizie meant.

Of the thousands of gamblers who came through Club 52 on a daily basis, two of the more persistent ones had attached themselves to her. They were convinced that be
cause of her name, she was their lucky charm, and they refused, on a daily basis, to wager a cent until she came on duty.

Finally the last button was in place and her tie neatly beneath her chin. Her face was composed, her expression solemn, but there was nothing she could do about her hair. She had no time to put it up in its usual thick crown. Today, it would have to hang. Tying it back with a thin, black ribbon was the best that she could do. She bolted for the door.

Unaware of the attention her beauty drew, as always, she made her way across the floor to her table with mere seconds to spare.

Manny saw her flight through the crowd and grinned to himself. The panic on her face was unnecessary. In the weeks since she’d started work, she was the most reliable employee he had. Then he saw that silky swath of black hair swaying from side to side as she walked.

Madre de Dios
, he groaned.
She is too young…but I am not too old to appreciate…just too old for her.

He saw her roll her eyes and mask disgust at the two veteran gamblers who’d already claimed their regular seats at her table, waiting while she went through the process of setting up shop.
It is odd
, he thought,
that she has such disdain for people who like to wager, when she works in a casino
.

He shrugged and turned his attention to more pressing things. Lucky Houston was
bella
. Beautiful women were allowed their idiosyncrasies.

Her voice was quiet and controlled as she entered the world of chance. “Gentlemen, place your bets.”

She deftly traded the players’ cash for “checks,” another name for the colored chips used to play the games, and then one by one, dealt the cards. With a covert peek at her own pair, she was ready to play. She lifted her head and waited for the players to make their moves.

The first player scratched the felt with the tip of his card, an indication that he wanted a hit. Lucky dealt the man his third card and then calmly raked in his lost bet while he threw in his hand in disgust and stomped off to another table. He’d gone bust, gambling that the third card would not take him over the count of twenty-one. He’d lost the bet with himself and the house had won.

The second man stayed pat, and the third grinned and quickly turned both cards up when he realized that he’d hit twenty-one on the first deal.

With slow but sure movements, Lucky paid out the win, and waited for the last man to make a move. Twice she saw him look at his hole card and then up at her, trying to gauge her expression, trying to outguess the dealer as to what hand she held.

“Sir?” she asked, indicating for him to make a decision.

He shook his head. He too would stay pat. He wanted no more cards.

And when the cards were revealed, once again the house had won, and Lucky’s long, slender fingers quickly stacked the chips into the dealer’s pot, readying for the next round of bets.

As the evening grew old, and the players continued to come and go, Lucky’s tips grew. By the end of the shift, she figured that she’d collected more than seventy-five dollars. It was free money in the bank.

Nick leaned over the mezzanine and watched the action below, trying not to focus his entire attention on the blackjack tables. But it was no use and it was all Lucky’s fault.

For some reason, she’d left that damned hair of hers hanging loose, and it was all he could do not to drag her off that floor and into his arms. Memories of holding her half-dressed body and feeling that hair tangling in his hands still left him weak. He’d had dreams of stripping her naked, laying her on a bed of white with her hair fanned out beneath her like devil’s wings, and then driving himself into her body until he was used up and weak, and she was clinging to him in quiet satisfaction.

Below a familiar swarming began to emerge, and Nick realized that it was after eleven
P. M.
and that the last shift was taking place. Suddenly Lucky was no longer in sight and Nick had a moment’s regret that he hadn’t seen her leave the floor.

“What’s the matter with you, Chenault?” he asked himself. “You’ve got feet. Go down and say hello…or good-bye. Whichever she’ll accept.”

Before he gave himself time to reconsider, he was on his way down the stairs with a lilt to his step he hadn’t had in weeks.

Steve Lucas was off duty. He should have been somewhere else, minding his own business and staying out of Lucky’s. But he was still fuming over her rejection…and her threats. Steve Lucas was a man with a need for revenge. He’d show her she couldn’t talk to him like that and get away with it.

Lucky put on her street clothes a lot more slowly than she’d taken them off, and as a result was the last woman to leave the dressing room. The jeans she was wearing were new and stretched from stem to stern along the long, slender length of her legs. Her brown leather half-boots added inches to her height that she didn’t need, but they matched the braided belt at her waist that kept her white, long-sleeved shirt in place.

She could have passed for a model. Yet style was the last thing on her mind. The last two hours of her shift had moved with the speed of a dirge, and Lucky could think of nothing but a good soak in the tub and at least nine solid hours of sleep.

It was with relief that she stepped out of the women’s dressing room. Because she was so weary, she was caught off guard by Steve’s attack.

Before she could scream, he had her held fast, slapping one hand over her mouth and the other under her breasts. While she struggled futilely, he yanked her into the storage area one door down.

The room was dark and smelled of cleaning solvents and collected dust. His knee was between her legs as he pushed her roughly against the wall. He hadn’t spoken a word, but Lucky knew, as surely as she knew her name, that it was Steve Lucas who’d crossed the line of decency.

Well aware that she’d scream bloody murder given half a chance, he kept one hand clapped roughly across her mouth, while he used his greater weight to pin her between him and the wall, leaving his other hand free to roam her reluctant body at will.

Lucky fought and scratched, and once or twice thought
she’d connected with enough flesh to cause serious pain. But he wouldn’t let go and she couldn’t get loose. As he began to fumble with her belt and jeans, terror replaced the fury that had been her first reaction. If something didn’t stop him, Lucky was in serious danger of being raped, and she knew it.

And then fate and an empty bucket changed the course of Steve Lucas’s life.

It was when he staggered sideways to dodge the constant but restricted swing of her knees toward his turgid manhood that he stepped into the bucket. Instinctively, he released Lucky to keep from falling. It was all the chance she needed.

She pushed at him with every ounce of strength that she had, and then started to run. Realizing that she was about to escape, Steve lashed out in desperation. His fist caught the side of her mouth, and Lucky swallowed a cry as pain shot up the side of her face. But years of learning how to survive had taught her never to give up, and so she kept moving toward the faint light showing at the edges of the door.

Just as the knob turned beneath her fingers, his hands closed around the back of her neck, then slipped and tangled in her hair instead.

So certain was he that he’d regained the upper hand that he cursed with shock as he realized that he only had hold of her hair instead. He was nowhere near her mouth, and he feared what she might do. She proved him right.

Lucky screamed. The echo inside the small, dark room was startling. Steve was so desperate to silence her that he let go of her hair with full intention of shutting her
mouth instead…maybe permanently if the situation warranted.

She sensed rather than felt her freedom, and pivoted, kicking upward with deadly force. The pointed toe of her boot did the most damage. Halfway up his body, it hit soft flesh. His agonized groan and the thump he made when he hit the floor told her that she’d finally hurt something that mattered. In seconds she was out the door and running down the hall.

Steve Lucas rolled on the floor in agony with his hands between his legs, praying that if he was ever able to get up that his dick didn’t fall off in his hands.

The woman’s screams ripped above the noise level on the floor with the power of jet wash. And it was an eerie silence that followed as shock gripped the crowd and everyone stopped to look around, searching for the woman who had cried out in terror.

Nick forgot to breathe. He had already begun to wonder why Lucky was taking so long to emerge from the dressing room when he heard the scream. Seconds later he was running through the crowd with a host of managers at his heels.

He caught her as she burst out of the hallway and onto the crowded floor. Blinding rage came swiftly as he absorbed the condition of her face and her clothes. Someone had hurt her!

Half the buttons on her shirt were missing, and the swell of her breasts was blatantly obvious through the gap in the front. But it was the dark, spreading bruise next to
her chin and the drops of blood seeping from the cut on her lip that made him almost lose control.

Instinctively, he turned her away from the curious crowd on the floor and guided her back into the hallway where she’d come from. Security arrived and swiftly moved the curious onlookers back.

Manny was only seconds behind Nick, and when he saw Lucky’s battered face, and the condition of her clothing, the first words out of his mouth nearly sent Nick to his knees.

“Where is he,
querida?
” Manny asked.

“He who? Are you telling me you know who the hell did this to her?” Nick asked.

Manny frowned. Nick’s question was barely above a whisper, an indication of terrible rage.

“Oh, God, Oh, God,” Lucky groaned, and tried to cover herself with her hands. “Manny…Manny…I didn’t see him coming.”

“Jesus Christ!” Nick yelled. “If someone doesn’t start talking, I’m going to—”

The door to the storage room opened. The last thing Steve Lucas expected to see was an audience. And when he realized that Lucky Houston was in the boss’s arms, he started to talk.

“She asked for it,” Steve said. “Hell, she was even enjoying it until—”

Nick’s fist caught him halfway between ear and chin. He heard, rather than felt, the snap as his jawbone broke. What he felt was relief as security guards led him away. He’d rather be in jail than alone with “The Man.”

“Get an ambulance,” Nick ordered, fearing for injuries that Lucky had yet to reveal. She cringed at the order and turned away in shame, unable to face the onlookers’ sympathy.

“I’m not hurt,” she said, and started to shake. “He just scared me.”

But before Nick could argue, she went limp in his arms. He looked down. She hadn’t fainted, but was so near unconscious that it mattered little.

“Help me get her to my office,” Nick ordered.

Minutes later, Lucky was stretched out on the couch in Nick’s office while one waitress was sent for ice, and another for a first-aid kit.

And then finally they were alone. Nick didn’t know where to start. Desperate to hold her, he still restrained the urge, fearing that after what she’d just endured, she would run screaming from his office as well. So he knelt instead, and when they were eye-to-eye, gently swept the hair from her face and watched for signs of subsiding shock.

A little embarrassed and in misery, Lucky started to turn away, when pain stopped the action.

“Oooh…ouch,” she mumbled, and carefully felt along the side of her jaw and then traced the path of blood to her lips. Her eyes widened with surprise when her fingers came away red-stained and shaking.

“I will kill him with my bare hands,” Nick said softly, and wished with all his heart he could take away the look of horror in her eyes.

She covered her face with shaking fingers, unable to look at what she was sure would be condemnation on his face.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t lead him on…I swear it,” she mumbled and waited for him to say the words that would terminate her job.