I glanced at Bennett, who, now that the men had joined the room, was sitting in his own chair looking as relaxed as he would be at the head of a boardroom table. He had one hand in his pocket, the other resting on his thigh, and was staring evenly up at the two men in front of us.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said, deciding someone needed to start the festivities. The guys were hulks, brutes, goons, getting their ideas for facial expressions from comic books or Tarantino films. It was almost too easy to want to have fun, just a little.

The first one to speak was the shorter of the two—though by no means short—and had a voice about as deep as a five-year-old girl’s. “I’m Hammer. This here is Kim.”

Beside me, Bennett Ryan was just drunk enough to say, “I appreciate the irony of that. On both counts.”

The man who introduced himself as Hammer stared at Bennett for a long pause before asking, “Any idea why we asked Leroy to bring the two of you back here?”

I answered, “Uh, no?” just as Bennett answered, “Well, it’s definitely not because we cleaned out the house.”

When he said that, and for the first time since we were brought back into the room, it occurred to me that we were more likely here for gambling-associated reasons than grand theft auto or public indecency. Instead of being booked and ultimately released, we were going to have our fingers broken one by one by a eunuch named Hammer and a brute named Kim. Brilliant.

Hammer smirked, saying, “Do you have any idea how many ass**les like you we see back here? Out for a weekend with their STD-infested douche-bag friends, thinking they’ll use their brand-new copy of Card Counting for Dummies to clean out the house so they can go back and bang their ugly-ass girlfriends and impress them with the five hundred dollars they won?”

Clearing his throat with authority, Bennett asked, “Do we really look to you like two men who would find thrill in winning five hundred dollars?”

Kim, who was somehow both much larger and less intimidating than Hammer because of the rubies in both of his ears, lurched forward, slamming his fists down on the table, making the entire f**king room shake. I couldn’t help but notice that Bennett barely flinched at all. I sure as hell jumped; I’d been convinced the metal table was going to collapse on our legs.

“You think this is your motherfucking mommy’s house?” Kim growled, his voice as low and gravelly as Hammer’s was girlish. “You think you’re playing Go Fish at a f**king linoleum table?”

Bennett sat motionless, his face impassive.

The man turned to me, eyebrows raised as if I was meant to speak for both of us.

“No,” I said, giving my best, relaxed smile. “If we were at my mum’s house we would have been offered chips and Guinness.”

Ignoring my wisecrack, Hammer stepped forward. “What do you think the house does when we get card counters in here?”

“Mate, I wouldn’t know how to count cards even if I was trained by f**king Rain Man. The repercussions are beyond me.”

“You think you’re funny?”

I sat back in my chair, exhaling heavily. This was pants. “I think I’m baffled. I lost all my chips. Even if we were counting cards, we’re not exactly good at it, so I can’t quite suss out what we’re doing here.”

“The best counters let themselves lose sometimes. You think by counting you’ll only ever win?”

I sighed, leaning forward, my elbows resting on my knees. This was going nowhere with the continued rhetorical questions. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Hammer looked surprised, straightening. “Go.”

“I’ve never played blackjack in my life before tonight. This one?” I said, nodding to Bennett. “He negotiates drink prices when we’re sitting at a table and they’re already free. He doesn’t f**king gamble.”

Snorting, Kim said, “And yet here you are, in a two-deck pitch, you stand on s-seventeen, double after split.”

Bennett leaned forward, genuinely curious. “Was that English?”

For the first time since we walked in here, I saw the corner of Kim’s lips twitch as if repressing a smile. Or a snarl. I couldn’t actually be sure.

“I’m going to give you two choices,” Hammer said. “One, I break your fingers. Or two, I break your face.”

I blinked, feeling a brief moment of pride that I had correctly predicted our punishment. But something felt off. Just because I hadn’t played blackjack in Vegas before didn’t mean I had been living under a rock. Finger-and face-breaking seemed a touch off-protocol for a couple of guys suspected of counting cards.