Chapter 3: The Poker Table
The back-room poker game was a world unto itself. It was an island of dim light and cigarette smoke in a sea of bustling pub noise. The single gas lamp hanging precariously over the table cast long, shifting shadows that danced with every flicker of the flame. The air was a potent brew of stale beer, cheap cigars, and the tense, humid scent of men who had been sitting in a room for far too long, their focus a sharp, predatory thing. The clink of chips, the rustle of cards, and the low, guttural curses of the losers were the only sounds that truly mattered.
Luca, with the System's Probability Grid active, stood in the doorway, a quiet observer. The players at the table, a mix of hardened, scar-faced gangsters and nervous, sweaty gamblers, were a study in character. He saw their tells, their micro-expressions, the subtle way a man's jaw would clench or his eyes would dart to a corner of the room when he was bluffing. The grid, his loyal, invisible companion, was overlaying a series of numbers over each man's head, calculating their odds, their tendencies, their vulnerabilities.
A burly man with a crooked nose, his face a map of old brawls, looked up and saw Luca. "Look what the cat dragged in," he said, his voice a low sneer. "Another fella thinks he's a card shark." The other players grunted, but none of them challenged him. They saw a quiet, well-dressed stranger and dismissed him.
Luca, his face a perfect mask of Gambler's Calm, simply nodded. "Just looking to have a bit of fun. And maybe win a bit of money." He confidently walked to an empty seat at the table and bought in with a small, conservative amount of his winnings from the horse races. The other players snorted, but they didn't object. They saw him as a lamb to the slaughter, a new, fresh-faced fool they could easily fleece.
"Just a data set, mate," Luca thought, his internal voice as detached and analytical as a machine. "And the odds are in my favor."
He felt the tension in the room like a physical weight, a pressure that was both exhilarating and suffocating. The air was thick with a mixture of fear and greed, two of the most powerful motivators he'd ever encountered. It was a stark, brutal reminder of the world he now inhabited. His old world had been one of abstract numbers and disembodied data. This world was a place of raw, physical consequence. A wrong move here wasn't a spreadsheet error; it was a broken jaw.
The stakes escalated as the night wore on. Luca, playing a conservative, low-risk game, slowly built his chip stack. He folded on bad hands, bet small on good ones, and always, always kept his face a blank, unreadable slate. The other players, used to the blustering bravado of their usual opponents, were unnerved by his calm. The gangster with the crooked nose, a man named Crowley, was growing agitated. He'd lost a few hands and was getting careless. The grid, his constant companion, flagged a series of tells that screamed "bluff." Crowley's hand trembled slightly as he held his cards, and a vein throbbed in his temple.
"I'm raising," Luca said, his voice even and calm. "Double."
Crowley looked at him, his eyes narrowed into slits. "You've got no cards, boy. You're a damn fool."
"Care to test that theory?" Luca asked, his voice a silken thread of a challenge. He pushed all of his chips into the center of the table. A risky, dramatic play he wouldn't have made without the System's absolute certainty.
Crowley, arrogant and overconfident, went all-in. "You're all bluff," he growled. "I've got three of a kind."
"The part of my mind that is still a modern man, a man who understands the difference between a calculated risk and a reckless gamble, is screaming at me to pull back. This is it. This is where I lose it all. The System could be wrong." But the Gambler's Calm held him steady. His heart rate, a steady drumbeat, didn't waver. His hands, though he felt a faint tremor beneath the surface, were perfectly still. He felt the System's silent support, a cold, hard logic overriding his human fear.
"Flip 'em," Luca said, his voice devoid of emotion.
Crowley, a sneer on his face, revealed his hand. Three kings. It was a good hand, a winning hand against most players. "Beat that, you Irish bastard."
Luca, with a small, practiced motion, flipped his cards over. A pair of aces, and a pair of eights. A full house. The silence in the room was absolute. Crowley's face, which had been contorted in a sneer of victory, went slack with shock. And then, as the full weight of his loss hit him, his tough-guy facade crumbled. He let out a frustrated, high-pitched squeal that sounded more like a little boy throwing a tantrum than a hardened gangster. It was a sound so out of place that a few of the other players had to suppress a chuckle.
The message flashed in Luca's vision, a silent, internal cheer. Leverage. A new word, a new mechanic. A currency for something more than just winning a poker game. He felt a small, triumphant thrill. He was no longer just a player in this game; he was a master of its rules.
The air outside the pub was a sharp shock to the senses. It was cold and damp, a stark contrast to the humid, smoky air of the poker room. Luca stepped out, his pockets heavy with cash, a newfound swagger in his step. The System, his silent accomplice, was already providing his next objective.
He wasn't a fool. He knew his luck was a problem for the Shelbys, an infection in their neat little world of power and control. They would come for him. He had to disappear. He had to find a place where he could build his own power, his own network, far from their reach.
The Shelby runner who had been monitoring the game, a man named Alfie, watched him go, a profound sense of unease washing over him. The calm of the Irish fella, the full house, the small, high-pitched squeal of the gangster… it was all wrong. He had to report it. He found Arthur Shelby at the Garrison, still drinking, still spoiling for a fight.
"He won, Arthur," Alfie said, his voice tight. "A big one. He took Crowley for all he had. The whole room saw it. He didn't even sweat."
Arthur slammed his fist on the table. The noise made the other patrons flinch. His face was a mask of furious disbelief. "Find out who he is. And make sure he understands there's only one family who gets to be lucky in this city." He was a man of action, of raw, unbridled violence, and he saw Luca's consistent wins not as a quirk of fate but as a deliberate challenge, a direct assault on his family's authority. He picked up a whiskey bottle and, in a sudden fit of rage, smashed it against the wall. The sound of the glass shattering was a testament to his fury, a new mechanic that introduced the Shelbys' violent nature to the story. He saw Luca not as a new player, but as an infection, a threat to be eradicated.
As the fragments of glass tinkled to the floor, Arthur's words hung in the air, a chilling promise of a hunt to come. Luca, unaware of the specific threat, received a new System message, directing him to find a more permanent base of operations, away from the immediate danger.
Luca, now with a new target on his back, felt the weight of his actions. He had won the battle, but the war, he knew, had just begun.
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