Stronger Together chapter 127 (Patreon)

We woke up the the ringing of bells. Despite having been expecting  that before we fell asleep it was pretty fucking jarring to experience  and I sat bolt upright and fell out of bed. Luckily my reflexes were  godsteel enhanced so I was able to catch myself pretty easily. Still the  stifled giggles of the girls as I landed splayed legged and caught  myself looking like some kind of weird crab. I popped too my feet  smoothly, making sure to keep a dignified expression on my face.

Barb's  giggling gave way to clapping as she hooted in appreciation. "Very  nice, full score! What do you say Rae?" Raven kept her face adorable  blank and held up nine fingers. Barb nodded solemnly "Good point, the  dismount was sloppy, we should deduct a point for that." I rolled my  eyes at their back and forth but internally I felt my heart warm, that  was pretty much the cutest thing they had ever done. Barb stood up and  tugged her dress straight, shaking out her hair. Raven did the same  though her tugging was much more distracting.

I  laughed at my girlfriends and their antics. "Well at least I didn't  break my nose and get blood all over my good suit. Does this look  wrinkled to you?" I glanced down, doing my own tugging and shifting to  smooth out the wrinkles in my suit, but then I paused. "Second thought, I  dropped ten mil in gems to buy in tonight, I give zero fucks if my  clothes are wrinkled." This drew another laugh from Barb and a smirk  from Raven, and as I opened the door into the hall I held out both arms  so they could take my elbows.

The  door to our room swung shut with a creak and a thump more ominous than i  would have expected and we headed for the stairs. The hallways seemed  longer on the way back, the carpet muffling our footsteps and the  paintings following us with their eyes. I think Raven's warning had  gotten to me a bit because I was noticing every horror movie cliche we  passed (who the fuck uses candles in wall sconces?) but once I noticed  the anxiety I was able to take a deep breath and pretty much dismiss it.  My new super brain was much more efficient and easy to control than my  old one, though that was bad as well as good.

At  the bottom of the stairs we found a maid. Not a normal maid either, a  busty blonde french maid in a full porno style maid outfit. Thigh highs  and short skirts included. It surprised exactly no one when she spoke  with a french accent. "Good evening monsieur  et madames, I am  Claudette, and i will be your personal attendant for your stay. Should  you need anything at all simply ring the bell in your room and I will  come. I can bring food or drinks, fresh towels or...warm your cold  sheets." The large amount of cleavage she was showing when leaning  forward made it pretty clear what she meant by that.

Honestly  I'd known Dalton for less than an hour in total and this was somehow  completely within my expectations. It was classic Dalton, which made me  immediately suspect it actually wasn't and he was playing a part to make  us all take him less seriously. No way the rougish airheaded smuggler  party boy persona he put on would have survived this long being a mover  and a shaker in a nexus like Chicago. He was playing it well though,  with the exception of going overboard with this one stunt. Claudette  smiled enticingly as she led us to the dining room to join the others.

The  dining room, like the rest of the house, was fucking huge. The table  was easily fifty feet long and ten feet wide covered end to end with a  brilliant white table cloth. Along the length of the thing were  candelabras made of burnished gold and set with long tapered candles.  Between the candelabras sat the guests, each one seated about ten feet  from the next on either side, with two on the far end and one on the  closest to the door. Each guest had their people seated with them, but  the place settings were only in front of the participants.

Thirteen  people participating then. The one person seated closest was of course  Dalton, who looked over his shoulder and grinned at us as we came in "My  friends! Welcome, welcome, please sit down." He gestured to the closest  seat to himself, still ten feet away. There were extra chairs on either  side but the place setting was obviously for me as a guest. "I took the  liberty of setting out chairs for your ladies, their plates will be  brought out with the food when it's served, I'm afraid I wasn't sure how  many guests each invitee was bringing so I was forced to wing it a  bit."

His  expression and voice were jovial, and even my enhanced senses couldn't  find any deception, but there was no way someone with this much power  was such a straightforward guy, unless he was scary powerful. Hell I  didn't even know what Dalton was, he might not be human. Still we took  our seats and once we were sitting Dalton rang the bell then turned back  to us as the servants began to cart out the food. " Since you're the  only new faces here I'll do a quick round of introductions. By the way,  you'll each find a box under your chairs with you chips in it, you can  check them now or after dinner, whichever you prefer."

Without  waiting he launched into introductions. " Now as you may have noticed,  there are thirteen place settings including yours and mine." He pointed  to a small  beautiful asian woman in a shimmering gold dress sitting  closest to him on the other side "This is Die Su, her father Ren is a  business associate of mine over in China." He moved on to a striking  dark skinned woman sitting casually a bit further down the table "This  is Kaya, she's a world traveler and food enthusiast. She actually  sourced the manticore meat for tonight's dinner. A rarity that requires a  skilled chef to remove the venom glands in a manner not dissimilar to  the fugu fish."

Kaya  was wearing a dark blue satin dress with dark blue and silver beads  hanging from her long hair and she smiled placidly at the introduction.  Next was a hulking asian man with a long scar through one eye. He was  wearing a well fitted but bulging blue suit straining over obvious  muscle. Dalton nodded to him "This is Han, we met during one of my trips  to Seoul, his sister Sera" he nodded to the next setting where a drop  dead gorgeous asian girl about our age sat in a stunning silver dress "  is also one of the the invitee's, but no worries about collusion,  they're highly competitive."

His  wink was ignored by Han but drew a giggle from Sera. He gestured to the  next two people, the last one in line on the side opposite us and the  two people seated at the other end of the table. "Carlos is a friend of  mine from my frequent trips to Rio and Nadia and Sergei are a couple I  met in St. Petersberg. Carlos is an expert in international trade  relations and knows all the movers and shakers at customs in most major  trade nations, and Sergei and Nadia have connections in Russia that can  get you damn near anything."

He  got to our side of the table, gesturing to the gorgeous south american  woman on the far end in a midnight blue cocktail dress that set off her  amber eyes and silky black hair. "Valentina here is from Columbia, we  got to know each other when I was visiting Cartegena for a business deal  and I discovered her talent for games of chance. Watch out for her  Cameron, she's one of the most skilled poker players I've had the  pleasure to beat, though to be fair her staggering beauty on top of her  extreme competence makes her so distracting it's almost unfair."

The  woman smiled, but not at Dalton, her gorgeous smirk was aimed at me and  the girls. Dalton continued with his introductions, down to only three  participants, two of which I recognized surprisingly "You remember  Vikram and Hana of course, I heard Hana even worked with you on a recent  job, last up we have Ranier, he's an associate from Paris in town on  business, we were lucky he decided to join us, he staked as much as you  did Cameron." The absolutely massive dark skinned man shot me a charming  smile, which I returned as the servants finally finished setting out  the plates.

Dalton  clapped his hands "Now that we all know each other we can dig in. As I  mentioned earlier these are manticore steaks. The creature's are  frighteningly difficult to bother catch and prepare. When Kaya brought  me this one I spared no expense to hire the best chef available to  prepare it for my guests safely. Alongside it we have garlic lobster  mashed potatoes and asparagus. Once we finish there's homemade ice cream  and tiramisu for dessert. Please, enjoy and let me know how you like  it." He gestured grandly at the steaming plates revealed by the  servants.

I  had to admit it smelled absolutely amazing. I smiled at Raven and Barb  and cut a piece off the very dark red steak to pop it in my mouth. It  was...amazing. It tasted like a good ribeye but with a slight buzz behind  the taste, like there was electricity running up my tongue and along my  jaw. With each bite though the flavor seemed to compound on itself,  like each piece was a brick building a tower of deliciousness in my  mouth. No one was speaking, we were all enjoying the manticore far too  much to interrupt.

I  was hesitant to even eat anything else but I wanted to try to potatoes,  when I took a bit I was shocked that the garlic and lobster seemed to  emphasize the manticore on my palate and when I tried the asparagus I  found the red wine sauce used made that zing of electric flavor even  stronger. The chef who made this made the whole meal to synergize not  just additively but multiplicatively. I could see Raven and Barb both  enjoying their own meal out of the corner of my eye but I couldn't stop  eating until I was done, leaning back with a satisfied groan.

That  had been intense, the flavor building so much it was almost painful  towards the end, but not in a bad way. Everyone else seemed to be  basking in the food as well and no one was speaking, some of them still  finishing their food and some just leaning back to revel in the  delicious fare. Finally Dalton finished up and gestured for the servants  to take away the empty plates and bring out the vanilla ice cream and  the tiramisu. The dessert was every bit as amazing as dinner had been  and we all enjoyed it immensely.

Finally  we finished the last of the meal and retired to the library where the  poker game would be held. Each of us made sure to grab our box of chips  from under our chairs and as we sat down we each put at least a hundred  thousand in chips on the table in front of us. The poker table only had  thirteen places of course so Raven and Barb chose to sit on one of the  many reading couches in the huge library. Once we were seated Dalton had  each of us poured a glass of brandy to enjoy before finally speaking  up. "Alright, dinner was wonderful as I'm sure you all agree, but now  it's time for the main event." And with that, he began to deal.