Matryo-ress (Volume 2)

Chapter 4 - Place Your Bets

I walked her back to my table and sat her down across from my usual seat. I called over Lulu to get us both a glass of wine, which she prepared quickly but efficiently and set a glass down in front of each of us. Marshall and Dom sat on each side of the table as observers of our game.

Enticing her with a devilish grin, I said, "Since you're our very special guest, how about you pick the game?"

She looked back at me with excitement, she put her hands together and replied, "How about we play a simple game of roulette? It would be a great test of our luck and either of us could win."

"Sounds lovely, my dear."

Once again, I called for Lulu to bring us a roulette wheel and some chips to deal with. Normally, Lulu would be my dealer, but I didn't want to arouse suspicion since she must have heard the allegations in the past about me.

I called Marshall to be my dealer, to which he was confused at first, but after explaining my reasoning, he agreed. Even though he wasn't in the best of attire, it was good enough for us.

"Miss Rime, I have a question for you."

"Oh? What is it?"

"How much money do you have on you? You must have a lot after beating those men at the table over there."

"I don't have much, but I have enough."

She put her purse on the table, which looked to be from an expensive designer brand, and opened it up to reveal stacks of cash inside. Impressive, but how could she carelessly walk around with all of that money in this part of the city? If she wasn't looking, she could easily be robbed. I looked at each stack, they were stacks of $100,000. With all of them together, she had 1 million on her.

"Ah, I see. You have a hefty allowance, hm?"

"This is all I have on me, I hope that this will be enough for an exciting game."

"Don't worry, it will be more than enough. I'm surprised you carry so much with you."

"This is mainly my winnings."

"I see, quite impressive, I'm looking forward to our gamble."

Marshall took her money and I gave my share of a million to make it even. Rime was given red chips and I had green chips.

Changing my glance from my stack of matte green chips to her beautiful face, I said, "Each chip will be $20,000, which would be 50 chips for us both, how does that sound?"

"Sounds perfect!"

Her excitement gave me hope that she would make this interesting and not waste my time with a pointless game. Since we were playing against each other, the rules are a bit different than a normal game of roulette.

Marshall proceeded to explain the rules, saying, "Tonight, we will be playing ten rounds of roulette, with our special competitive ruleset titled 'Greed's Game.' Before each bet is placed, a player will decide on how many chips will be bet during that round. The player who will decide the amount for them to bet is decided by who won the last round. The player who is decided to pick the amount to bet at the start of the game is decided by a coin flip. They both must have the same amount of chips in order to place their bet. If a player places their bet on a number or a group that doesn't get chosen, their chips will be transferred to the other player if they placed their bets on a number that did win. The winner is determined on whether or not they get a hit. Even if they only get one number, they will keep their money and still receive the others bets. If neither of the players get a hit, they keep their chips. If both of the players get a hit, they are both given double the amount of the bet that they placed. The player who loses all their chips is the loser, and the player with chips still remaining is the winner and receives the bets placed by the loser. If a player loses all of their chips before ten rounds are played, the game will end."

"I'm so excited! I hope I can quickly get the gist of these rules." Rime exclaimed.

"I'm sure you'll do great, dear. Good luck."

After explaining the rules, Marshall took a black chip, separate from our stacks of red and green chips. Since I'm the boss, I chose tails and Rime chose heads. Thankfully, luck was on my side tonight and I chose for us to each bet with 3 chips, which collectively was $60,000 from the both of us.

I was suspicious of this woman, so I wanted to play it safe and place a chip on 3, 6, and 12. These numbers are all in the third column of the table, which I have a high chance of hitting at least one of them. I watched Rime place her bets from across the table, she placed one of her bright red chips on 31, 32, and 33 each. A street bet, hm? Doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

After a while, Marshall announced, "No more bets."

Now, for the moment of truth. Who has the heart of luck tonight? Marshall spun the wheel that would decide our fate for the first round and placed the ball into the wheel. We all observed the ball zoom past all of the 38 black and red numbers, anticipatedly waiting for the results of our first round. After spinning and spinning around the wheel, the ball began to lose momentum.

After the ball finished spinning, Marshall said, "3 is our winner."

I placed a chip on 3. Rime had no hits, so I was the winner of the first round. Maybe she isn't as lucky as she seems. I grinned with delight at the sight of the ball in the slot of the 3 on the roulette wheel. I looked over to Rime, who seemed a little disappointed, but was still enjoying the game so far.

"Oh my, how lucky. Congratulations, darling!"

"Thank you, miss."

Darling? A strange nickname, in my opinion. Do I look like a 'darling' to her? I could feel my face flush a bit from her simple compliment, but I didn't understand why. That doesn't matter though, because I won the round and was the lucky winner, which meant I had the ability to control how many chips were placed. Because of my win in the first round, I was going to go a bit bigger this time.

"How about we bet 5 chips, my dear?"

"A bit higher, hm? That's fine with me." Rime answered.

"Place your bets."

With Marshall's announcement, I grabbed 5 of my chips and contemplated where to place them. Since I raised the bet by two chips, equaling to $100,000, I need to be careful about my bet. I decided to place an outside bet and placed one of my five chips on black, which increases my chance of winning significantly since I would just need to hope that a black number is chosen. I also decided to place two inside split bets, placing a chip on 3 and 6 then 18 and 21.

After placing all five of my chips on the table, I looked up at Rime, who was still deciding where to place her chips. She had already taken a similar approach and placed one of her chips on red. Then, after observing the table, she made another street bet along 31, 32, and 33, placing one of her red chips on each number. Placing your bet on the same numbers you lost the last round betting on is absurd, I have no clue how she could have won against the guys that have come close to beating me multiple times in the past despite the fact that I have been undefeated for years. Then, to dispose of her last remaining chip, she placed a single inside bet on 5.

Finally, when all of the bets were placed, Marshall made the announcement that no more bets were allowed to be placed. Then he proceeded to spin the wheel and place the ball in, which spun against the black and red numbers. After the ball had lost momentum, the winner had been decided.

To my disappointment, Marshall announced, "5 is our winner."

What? Wait, how did the number Rime randomly chose to get rid of her last chip get chosen? Is she that lucky? 5 was also a red number, so she got 2 hits as well since she took a similar approach to me because the bet this round was high. I can't believe I didn't win.

"Oh my, I won! What a surprise." Rime exclaimed with glee.

"Congratulations, dear. How lucky you are."

I was a bit envious of her win, but I acted as if I wasn't on the outside. But this only made me more curious about her. A complete stranger to me who apparently gambles at my casino often beats me in a round of roulette using my ruleset on a random number that she picked just to get rid of her last chip, this was unbelievable but made me want to know more about her. I wanted to uncover all of her secrets and explore her anyway I could. I needed to know more about Rime Kakebami.