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Lucky
1.
The buy in was twenty-five thousand dollars, the total pot was three million, and Jonas Elroy was waiting to sign in. He was a professional gambler, a card player but not one of the greats. He made enough to get by but things were a bit tight still. With this three million it would make life a lot easier. What did it matter if the game was not sponsored and everyone knew that meant it was mafia money. All that mattered was the chance. It was winner take all, no prize for second place, and it had taken Jonas two months to save up enough to make the buy in.
He was an average man, decent looking and some would say handsome. Jonas stood just under five foot nine with dark brown hair in a caesar cut and green eyes. He had wide shoulders and looked like he belonged on a hockey team than a poker table. His stare was unnerving to most, a glare that seemed to look through the person rather than at them.
"Good luck." A woman with black hair said raising her glass.
Jonas smiled at her and received a glare from the man standing next to her. The two were dressed very well but the woman had a mysterious quality about her. If not for the man standing next to her, actually he was standing behind her with his arm draped over her shoulder, Jonas would have approached and asked her name.
"Thank you." He said with a nod. "I will need it tonight."
The woman smiled and he found it almost impossible to turn from her. There she stood, just feet away from him in a crowded room and it was as though they were the only two there. It sounded silly and rather cliche but Jonas felt something looking at this woman. For a moment he thought he should forget about the poker game and just see who this woman was.
"You coming?" A rather gruff voice said.
Jonas turned to see the dealer looking at him. The table was filled already and only his seat was open. To make things worse all the other tables had already began.
"Sorry, guys." He sat down at the table and ran a hand through his hair. "I thank you for your patience."
With that his night started. Things went very well for Jonas. He won his table and was moved on to the next level of play and won that as well. From there he went to the final table and won that too. In a single night he went from scrounging twenty-five grand to have three million dollars waiting for him in the bullpen.
Jonas sat there looking at the chips in front of him, as did the dealer and the rather ticked off looking players he had just beat. More importantly, two men were watching Jonas gather his winnings from the table on a security screen.
"This wasn't supposed to happen." The larger of the two men said.
"You said it was fixed." The other said.
"It was."
"It doesn't look like we're walking away with two million."
"He cheated." The larger man said. "That is the only way."
"We were cheating." The other man said. "Charlie, we borrowed seventy-five thousand dollars from the mob to set this con up and they aren't going to accept an 'oops'."
"I know that, Eddie. He cheated us and that means he cheated them." Charlie said with a wolfish grin. "We could get the money from him with their help."
"We would have to give them more money." Eddie said with a slight whine in his voice.
"You can't spend the money if we are dead, idiot." Charlie looked at the security monitor to as Jonas cashed his chips in and received his money. "If we tell them he ran off with half of it, they'll take their cut from that and we'll get the rest."
The security screen panned a well dressed couple sitting at the bar.
"No backing out now." The man said fingering his four leaf clover pendant.
"When you lose, you had better pay up." the raven haired woman said as she watched Jonas leave.
***
This is the first thing I'm posting, work wise on the forum. I had plans for the story that were kind of interesting. The setting started out as a western, changed to a post-apocolyptic fantasy, and then to a modern setting. This is actually the second full first chapter of the story, the original being held on my laptop that died two weeks ago
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