"Daniel."
The moment Linus got back to base, he could not hold it in any longer and snapped at Danny Ocean.
"What the hell was that?"
"Why did you answer for me?"
"That is a family skill. Why should I teach it to him?"
Westerners were big on inheritance too. In fact, it was common there for several generations of a family to stay in the same line of work.
Politicians raised politicians, bankers raised financiers, merchants raised merchants. It was all very normal.
Linus was still young, so he did not have the kind of miserly hoarding mentality that came with age.
But he still remembered his father's advice. The theft techniques he had learned were his father's livelihood, refined through decades of study and practice. It was a real craft, one that could keep a man fed.
And on top of that, he was still in his rebellious phase. He hated that Danny and Rusty had agreed for him without even asking.
"Hold on, Linus."
Danny gave him a smile and then looked at his old friend Rusty.
"Do you think that guy is for real?"
Danny had serious doubts about Hunter. A man who had asked for only three skills in exchange, and no money at all, was hard to trust.
Rusty shrugged.
"There are all kinds of weirdos in the world."
"He does not want money, which means we do not have to carve out a share from the others' cut either."
"That means everyone gets an extra one and a bit million dollars. What is the problem with that?"
He was talking to Danny, but also trying to calm Linus down.
Rusty was young, but he was genuinely sharp and had excellent emotional intelligence.
After hearing him out, Linus, who had been angry a moment ago, began to think it over.
As for Danny, his distrust came mostly from the fact that Hunter was the first person he had ever met who could not be tempted by money.
If money did not work on him, then Danny had even less reason to believe the rest of what Hunter had said.
Whatever they said to one another after returning, the next morning Hunter still showed up at the address they had given him.
From a distance, he could see it was a warehouse.
There were men stationed outside, and one of them stepped forward to stop him.
Before they could drive him off, Hunter said, "Two men named Danny and Rusty told me to come here."
The two bodyguards exchanged a glance.
One of them said, "Wait here."
He went into the warehouse. A short while later, Rusty came out with him.
"Hey, man."
Hunter nodded. "I am here."
Rusty greeted the guard, then brought Hunter inside.
The warehouse was large, several hundred square meters across.
Once inside, Hunter immediately saw that the center had been divided into several differently sized sections with alloy panels.
One of those sections faced him directly, with only three sides enclosed.
At a glance, it looked a lot like the interior security layout of a vault.
Early that morning, a slim young Asian man was already training inside that space.
When Danny Ocean saw Hunter arrive, he immediately put on a smile and walked over.
"Glad you made it, Hunter."
Standing beside him was an older man with a cigar and a heavy air of authority.
When he saw Hunter, the old man's face showed obvious contempt.
"A textbook American old white guy."
Hunter had seen plenty of men like that in the last six months.
So he only let his eyes rest on him for a moment before turning back to Danny.
He had already guessed that the man's attitude carried a mix of arrogance and hostility.
Without much surprise, that had to be Ruben, the casino owner financing the operation.
Hunter nodded at Danny and said bluntly, "I do not know what you want my gambling skill for."
"But I want my payment first."
"You are awfully confident, are you not, yellow boy?"
Ruben looked down at Hunter with open arrogance. After hearing what Danny had told him about Hunter's background, and being a casino owner himself, he naturally had no affection at all for a gambler who could walk into a casino and leave with other people's money.
Hunter looked back at him calmly.
"I do not know why you are hostile toward me. I do not even know you."
"Are you a racist? If so, I am out."
Those two sentences nearly made Ruben choke on his cigar.
He sucked in a mouthful of smoke and immediately started coughing hard.
"Ruben."
Danny shot him a disapproving look, but he was also a little surprised by Hunter's sharpness.
After they had told Ruben about the gambling expert they had invited to join the heist team, Ruben's hostility toward Hunter had been obvious from the start.
The good news was that Hunter had already said he did not want a cut of the possible 15 million dollars in cash.
Only then had Ruben, grudgingly, agreed.
Danny had not expected that when Hunter actually showed up, Ruben would still be this openly hostile, and that Hunter would catch it so quickly and throw it back in his face.
After a fit of coughing, Ruben finally recovered.
In his younger years, he had once been one of Las Vegas's most famous casino magnates.
But then his gambling addiction got the better of him, and Terry Benedict had set him up with a rigged game. Not only had Ruben lost hundreds of millions, he had also lost the Bellagio, one of the Strip's top casinos.
Even so, Ruben still had a fortune worth hundreds of millions.
Being shut down by Hunter in front of everyone made him feel humiliated.
His face darkened even more.
"Kid, I am the one financing this operation."
"I do not care how you convinced Danny and the others to let you join this crew."
"They say your gambling skill is good, so I need to see it for myself first."
"Ruben!"
Danny had not expected Ruben to be this disrespectful and to challenge the Asian expert he had specifically recruited.
But Ruben was the sponsor. He had already put nearly two million dollars into the operation.
Danny and the others could not simply ignore him.
Hunter still showed no emotion at all.
With his acting skill now at Level 5, he still could not switch his expressions on and off at will, but he only needed a moment to shape them.
Controlling his face was easy enough.
Rusty stood nearby, ready to jump in if things got ugly.
Instead, Hunter replied evenly, "Fine. But if you are inviting me here and you are the one issuing the challenge, then I am not playing without stakes."
Ruben immediately frowned at his casual attitude.
Then he snapped, "Fine. I hear you do not care about money. Danny already offered you more than one million dollars and you turned it down."
"So let us make it six million."
"You win, I pay you six million dollars."
"You lose, you pay me six million dollars. Deal?"
He did not believe Hunter was really as incredible as Danny and Rusty had claimed, and he certainly had not considered the possibility of losing.
In that instant, he remembered he had over sixty million sitting in the bank.
Ruben did not think this Asian kid could possibly put up six million.
He wanted to crush Hunter and show him who was boss.
So after speaking, he looked at Hunter with open contempt, expecting fear or hesitation.
Instead, Hunter gave him a calm, measured look.
"Are you sure?"
"You should know, nobody gets away with owing me money."
Ruben did not get the reaction he wanted, and his temper flared even more.
"Big talk. Maybe worry about whether you can really cover your losses first."
"Fair enough."
Hunter sighed.
No use trying to reason with a man determined to dig his own grave.
He had not expected to run into a racist old white man with a grudge against gamblers here.
After a glance at Danny and Rusty, and seeing that neither of them intended to step in, Hunter mentally tagged all of them as people not worth deep trust.
Then he stopped being polite.
"I am good at Sic Bo, pai gow, mahjong, and card games."
"I am not going to take advantage of you."
"Let us play cards. You choose the rules. Five rounds total. Pick any opponent you want."
"If I lose one round, I lose."
"You can cheat all you like. Just do not get caught by me."
"Alright. Let us begin."
"Or do you need to verify my assets first?"
Read ahead with 100+ chapters now with daily updates!
@patreon.com/Authorizz