Free Aces Wild by Taylor Lee

Gabe. Kai is learning my business and it’s time he sees it through the eyes of the smartest man I know. I’ve told Kai that he can learn more about sharks and rat bellies in an hour with you than he could in a lifetime with me.”
    Gabe shook his head and quirked a brow at Chao’s assumed modesty. He knew that underneath Chao’s gracious exterior burned a desire for money as rapacious as his own and a willingness to do what it took to take down anyone who stood in his way. Like Chao, it wasn’t the money that drove Gabe, it was the game. The game in which only the winners stood at the end; a game that neither one of them had ever lost. Some lucky angel or more likely a devil had brought the two men together in an unholy alliance that served both their purposes. In the process, they created a friendship built on trust and admiration. While Gabe never said it out loud, Chao was the father he wished he had. Chao was as constrained as Rory McKenna was rowdy. Both were cunning, worthy adversaries, but Rory’s excesses with women, money, and power made him vulnerable to his enemies in a way that Chao and Gabe never were.
    Glancing at the stormy young man bristling with anger, Gabe was struck by the stark differences between the father and son. Both were strikingly handsome. But Kai was a big man: large, muscular, taller by a foot than his father. He carried himself with the certain power of a warrior. Gabe saw that years of kung fu had strengthened this young man’s body, though it clearly hadn’t calmed his spirit. Chao caught Gabe’s eye and they shared a knowing gaze. Gabe was also a warrior, an accomplished killer. But his first love, poker, in combination with the meditative side of kung fu, instilled in him a honed detachment that made him ten times the adversary of the common killers he encountered. Without asking, Gabe understood that Chao hoped Gabe would teach Kai that physical power grew exponentially when married to the power of constraint.
    Gabe puffed on his cigar, then leaned forward to refill his glass and Chao’s. In a proprietary gesture, he stood and walked over to the liquor cabinet and retrieved another glass. He filled it and handed it to Kai. The assumptive move was intended to taunt Kai, underscore the relationship Gabe and Chao shared and anger the young man further—all to bring Kai’s useless anger to a boiling point, making him more receptive to the hard lesson Gabe planned to teach him.
    Chao’s expression hardened, the lines on his face deepened, revealing stress that he rarely showed. Without prologue, he spoke to the reason he had called for Gabe.
    “ As far as I can tell, Gabe, Dominic is our adversary.”
    Gabe smiled. “He always is, isn’t he? That asshole will never learn. You’d think the money that is flowing through that brothel of his would not only keep him happy, but also busy.”
    “ You would think so,” Chao agreed. “But I have it on good authority that the ‘supplies’ we’ve been missing are turning up in Dominic’s hands.”
    Gabe quirked a brow at Chao’s innocent description of the “supplies” that he knew included prostitutes, alcohol, and a hell of a lot of opium. Gabe never questioned the sources of his clients’ money, just ensured that they would have enough left over to pay his astronomical fees. Chao not only paid him what he asked, but often added a bonus.
    “ You can get inside that operation like no one can, Gabe. I’m still not sure how you manage to stay on the good side of some very disreputable men.” Chao smiled broadly, “Like myself, for example.”
    “ I do what it takes, Chao. You’d be amazed the doors that poker opens. Seems that the richer the guy is the more convinced he is that he should win at everything, including poker. When I take ‘em down, they just come back for more. I guess they think the last ten times or so that I beat them were aberrations. And hell, you’d be amazed how men spill their guts when they are