Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  Laughing, Gloria runs a comb through her hair and studies me in her mirror. “She’s too scared to tell him what she feels, but she’ll fight her own kin if they show interest.” She shakes her head. “Totally logical.”

  “Shut up. I’m going home.”

  “How are you getting there?” Celeste turns in her seat. “You can’t walk alone.”

  “No, I drove here. I’m fine. I… uh…” I frown at the longing that tugs at my heart. “I’m not totally sure if I’ll be back.”

  “What?” Gloria spins. “What do you mean?”

  I shrug. “I’m not sure. But if you see me around, I’d love for you to say hey. Don’t be strangers.”

  Gloria’s eyes sparkle, surprising me when she dives from her stool and pulls me in for a crushing hug. “Be safe, sweetpea. Come visit sometime. I’ll let you tuck a fifty into my thong if you ask nicely.”

  I laugh. And cry. And hold on extra tight. “I’ll be twenty-one soon. Maybe I’ll come back here for that. You can watch me get messy.”

  “Get you drunk enough,” Celeste tugs me from Gloria’s arms and pulls me in close, “we’ll get you back on the stage for a set. Drunk is usually messy and, ya know, frowned upon. But I might like to see the cool and controlled Kincaid dance while blind drunk.”

  “Terrible friends.” I laugh.

  “Go.” Celeste releases me, turns me, then slaps my ass so hard that I skip forward. “And tell that boy what you feel. He might surprise you.”

  “Sometimes the surprises are good. Sometimes…” Gloria shakes her head. “Sometimes they’re not. You gotta train ‘em, is all. He’ll only put his balls on your face one time.”

  “Oh my god.” I cup my heated cheeks and walk away. “I can’t even. I can’t discuss this.”

  I walk back through the tunnel toward the main room, but just before emerging at the end of the hall, I take a sharp left and push through the double emergency doors and step into the street. I look to the right, to where Mac would have been sitting all night, checking IDs. I lean as far around as I can, stretch my neck in search of him or any other guy milling around, and still see no one.

  I bring my bag around to my front so I can rest my hands over the flap. If someone wants to roll me for my thirteen hundred dollars, then I’m going to be pissed.

  Threading my keys between my fingers, I begin walking at a fast clip around the building and in the direction of the parking lot out back.

  The further away from the front doors I go, the more people I find hiding in the shadows. Couples making out. Singles puffing on cigarettes. Dudes whose brows lift as I move by – is it the dancer? they ask themselves – and ladies who stand guard while other ladies pee.

  I move into a wide, cobblestone alleyway, since the parking lot is at the back of the building, and move fast since I’m wearing sneakers and am able. Lifting my phone, I wait for the screen to illuminate and show the time.

  03:45

  The sun will be rising in a short couple of hours. If this was any other day, my alarm would be going off in just an hour, so I’d have time to get up and go for a run to start my day. But not today, not when I’ve been awake all night.

  The screensaver behind the clock makes me smile. It makes my stomach cramp, and my heart race, because it’s us. Our group. The Fearsome Foursome: me, Mac, Ben, and Smalls. It’s from last year, just an hour or so before my final fight. At that point, all four of us were winning in our respective divisions. We were heading to the finals of the tournament we’d worked so hard to create, and to memorialize that moment, Smalls’ mom, our resident photographer, walked upon us all laughing and joking. She told us to stop, to smile, to stand still for the photo.

  So we did what we do: Ben grabbed his Smalls, he pressed his lips to her temple and tickled her ribs to make her laugh. Beside them, I smiled for the camera. Mac’s arm was thrown over my shoulders, his chest was pressed to my shoulder as he stood leaning into me. I thought he was smiling for the camera too, but when Aunt Tina showed us the picture, I found he was looking at me. He was looking down at the side of my face.

  Smiling.

  He was shirtless, and even with that scar that makes him so bitter, he was riding his winning streak, and for just a moment, he allowed himself his happiness.

  I kept that photo, asked Aunt Tina for the digital copy, then saved us on my screen so I could come back and study our happiness not long before it all went to shit again.

  I don’t even care that I lost money and a bet that night. Not really. Money isn’t important to me the way it is to most others, and maybe that’s my privileged upbringing making me complacent, but I’d rather be poor with the people I love, than rich but alone.

  That’s my own small slice of bitterness, I suppose. I don’t care about money and things, but to Mac, those are the only things worth working for.

  I care less about money and more about the fact that Mac doesn’t smile like he did in the photo anymore. I care that once he lost his fight, his bitterness was back and worse than ever. I don’t want to be in love with a bitter man, but I guess the universe doesn’t much care about what I want.

  Walking in the dark, the silence seems to grow heavier, louder the further into the alleyway I move. My fingers tighten around my keys, and my other hand grips my bag like it’s full of dangerous bricks that I can hit someone with, rather than money. My heart pulses against my throat as the end of the alleyway stretches more than fifty feet from where I stand.

  Forty-nine. Forty-eight.

  But then footsteps echo from behind me. Boots on the stone ground. Accompanied by carefully quieted breath as the person who owns those footsteps tries to silence his movements.

  The man in the suit, I think to myself. That’s whose face pops into my mind as I begin to walk a little faster. The thirty-something that wanted my attention and time in exchange for what would have certainly been enough to pay off my annoying debt.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I expand my chest the way we’ve learned in my gym, I oxygenate my body, then I move a little faster. Not so fast that it’s apparent I’m a little spooked. But fast enough that I’ll emerge from the alley and back into the spotlights that illuminate the back of the club.

  But the faster I go, the faster the feet behind me come.

  The faster his feet come, the faster my heart races.

  I can fight. I can take care of myself, so if that’s what needs to be done, then that’s what I’ll do, but I’d rather get to my car and go home without any sort of confrontation. Maybe I’ll reply to Mac’s text. Agree to breakfast. Hell, maybe I’ll call him now, go to breakfast now. Maybe making the call will scare my admirer away.

  “Shit,” I whisper to myself. “Shit, shit, shit.” My breath hitches and clogs my throat as my walk turns to a run, and when the feet behind me come faster, my run turns to a sprint.

  I’ve trained my whole life to fight. To stand my ground and stand up to bullies, and hell if that’s not what my heart is telling me to do. But my brain reminds me it’s three in the damn morning, and I’m in an alleyway I really shouldn’t be in. If I fight, a police report will be made. If the police are involved, then I have to explain to my mom and dad why the hell I’m outside a strip club at the three in the morning with wads of cash in my bag.

  “Dammit.” I drop my head, lift my shoulders, and prepare to kick my feet into the next gear to get myself out of here and back into my bedroom, but then a strong arm wraps around my stomach.

  My breath comes out on a squeal, followed by a gasped grunt when I slam against the outside wall of the club. Mac’s face flashes through my mind as my chest is pressed to the brick exterior, my cheek against the scratchy bricks. He’s so near. Somewhere inside that club. If only I could scream, to call him to me…

  Instead of speaking, instead of pleading my case to this prick or asking for mercy, I mentally prepare to snap his neck. I recount two decades of training, the self-defense classes I’ve taken, all of the women I’ve taught to escap
e a situation just like this. I ball my fists, lift my arm, and prepare to throw my elbow back, but then my captor’s lips feather along my cheek. His hair tickles my ear. His hands pin my hips.

  “Late night stroll?” My captor’s gravelly voice penetrates my panicked fog. His hands squeeze my hips so hard that I want to weep. Then his feet kick mine apart. He presses his body to mine. “It’s dangerous being in an alleyway at the end of a club night.”

  Surprised, I spin against the brick, slam my back against the façade, then I stare into glinting green eyes. “Mac?” It’s him, my best friend, my closest confidant, but he’s also someone else. Someone far more dangerous. Someone less like a Roller, and more like a Checkmate. “What the hell are you–” Then I think back to being in the club. To my dancing. To his eyes locking onto mine. “Oh god.”

  “Do you often dance at Rhino’s… Holly?” His voice is gritty, disgustingly alluring. “Is this something new that you forgot to mention, or…”

  “Oh my god, Mac! Why the hell would you chase me down a dark alleyway, you asshole?” I shove him back, and ignore the panic that claws at my throat when he stumbles back a step and flashes those dimples beneath a smug grin. “What the hell is your problem? Do you often scare the girls half to death?”

  “Just you.” He moves in again. Checkmate, rather than Roller. His thighs press to mine, his chest rests against mine. Pathetically, I whimper when his nose barely, oh-so-lightly brushes over my temple. “You dance for money?” he grits out. “Please,” he begs on a whisper, his breath playing over my sensitized skin, “please tell me you don’t let anyone touch you.”

  I shake my head. That’s all I have for him, a jerky shake, because if I open my lips to speak, I might break down into tears.

  “No, they don’t touch, or no, you can’t say what I need you to say?”

  “How did you know?” I turn away, press my cheek to the bricks and stare along the alley back in the direction we came. “How did you know it was me?”

  He scoffs. “A blind man would know.” Whether by accident or by design, he runs the tips of his fingers along my ribs. High. High on my ribs, as in, right next to my boobs, and sends my heart into a tailspin. “You can wear a wig, Lucy. You can do something weird to your eyes. You can shake your ass and hope it distracts me, but your legs…” He grunts and sends my pulse straight to the apex between my thighs. From fear to something else entirely, my blood roars, but for a reason that has nothing to do with the fear of being chased in an alleyway. “I’ve been looking at those a long time,” he continues. “Since I was a child.”

  “Are you…” I swallow. Lubricate my throat. “Um…”

  “I knew you were learning to dance in a way that was…” he chuckles. “For more than tutus and pageants. I fuckin’ knew it.”

  “You… what?”

  “At Sophia’s. She’s teaching her girls how to slide along a pole.” He pulls back just a little to catch my eyes. But I deny him. I stare to the mouth of the alley and ignore the heat on the side of my face.

  “Is she taking a cut of what you earn? Is that her angle?”

  “No.” Frowning, I slowly bring my gaze back to his. “Soph doesn’t… she doesn’t know about this.”

  He lifts a daring brow that says liar, without having to say the word out loud. “She doesn’t know? She didn’t teach you those things?”

  “She doesn’t know. Nobody knows.”

  “She didn’t teach you to slide on a pole like that?”

  I shake my head and almost groan when he leans heavier against me. “I taught myself. A friend inside taught me what she could, then I took that and taught myself the rest. Why are you…” I struggle beneath his weight. Attempt to push him off. “Why are you here?” Talking about this, I add in my head. Why are you so calm? “Are you going to tell my mom and dad?”

  His chest crushes mine when it bounces with muted laughter. “Are we six? Think about who we are. Of the two of us, which one of us is the snitch?”

  “You’re an ass.” I try to push him off, but my breath comes to a deathly stillness when my movement only brings him closer. His leg comes between mine. His muscular thigh presses against my crotch. “Oh my–”

  “Why are you here?” he whispers right by my ear. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I like to dance.” Lie. Lie. Lie. “This is a hobby for me.”

  “You do like to dance.” His heated breath feathers over my skin. “But not for men. Not for money. Not so you have red eyes from crying.” He slides a finger beneath my chin and lifts my eyes to his. Dangerously – amazingly? – his lips are barely an inch from mine. “Why were you crying?”

  “Wasn’t. I don’t cry.”

  He grins. “Agreed. You don’t cry.” He shifts his leg, draws a response from the center of my chest and up, until the air from my groan rests on his lips.

  Something grows between us, something that makes my eyes widen and his jaw tighten.

  “Tell me why you were crying,” he grits out. “I can’t fix it until I know.”

  “You can’t fix this.” It’s not dancing that rolls through my mind. Not the men. And not even the caller that demands I work for his money. It’s Mac. It’s always been Mac. “This isn’t something you can fix.”

  “I can fix anything,” he promises. “For you? Absolutely anything. You just have to tell me.”

  He still can’t take a hint. His cock presses against my stomach, my breasts are pressed to his chest, and my breath comes short… for him. And still, he doesn’t get it.

  “Let me go.” I push him back and, because he wasn’t expecting it, send him stumbling away two feet. “I’m going home. I need to get to bed.”

  I step away and swallow down the tears that want to come again, but then he snags my hand, yanks me back, and slams me against the wall until the breath explodes from my chest.

  “Not done,” he growls. His teeth glisten, and the parking lot lights at the end of the alley sparkle against his eyes. They’re normally such a pretty green, but here, at this hour, they could almost be mistaken for black. “Why were you dancing for money? Answer me with the truth, and I’ll let you leave. Lie, and we stay here until you stop with the bullshit.”

  “Or…” I counter with an exaggerated drawl. “I kick your ass, lay you out, then step over your body on the way home.”

  “Try it,” he taunts with a wicked smirk. “Try it, Lucy Kincaid. It’s been a while since we’ve sparred.”

  “Because you stopped,” I spit at him with more venom than I realized I was holding. “We used to spar, but then you stopped. Like you think I’m not good enough anymore.”

  “Not ‘not good enough,’” he says. “I just…” He swallows. Studies my eyes. “I couldn’t. It was dangerous.”

  “Your heart?” I roll my eyes and huff. “Get over your fucking heart, Mac. It’s all better now.”

  “Not my heart,” he growls. “I wasn’t talking about my heart, but it’s not something I need to ‘get over’ either. What happened was kind of a big fucking deal.”

  “Yeah, seven years ago. It was a big deal when it happened. But you need to get off that pity train now.” I shove him away and slip out from between his body and the unforgiving wall. “Jesus, Mac. I swear, not even the most dramatic person holds onto this stuff for as long as you do.”

  “Dramatic?”

  Instead of me being on the defensive, we’ve switched roles. Because I’m sick to death of him using his heart as an excuse not to do the right thing.

  “You’re saying I’m dramatic?” he snaps. He grabs my shoulder, yanks me back, and slams me against the wall for the third time tonight. Fourth? I’ve lost count. “When a dude dies, Lucy, he reserves the right not to get over it.”

  “It was forever ago!” I shout. “A lifetime ago. Getting a new heart is supposed to be a new lease on life. It’s supposed to make you happy for what you have, instead of obsessed over what you don’t.”

  “Well, the things I don’t h
ave are pretty fucking huge.” He loses his temper. He doesn’t shout, but his voice rises all the same. “The things I don’t have are life-altering.”

  “And yet, you have life. You’re here, you’re alive, you’ve been given this gift, and you’ve had it for seven years already, but do you live? Do you celebrate the things you’ve been given? Or do you walk around and whine about money every time someone is within listening distance?”

  “I guess that’s easy for you to say, rich girl. It’s easy to not have empathy for my situation when you’ve never lived poor before.”

  “Aaaand we’re back.” I refuse to meet his eyes as I shake my head. “We’re back on the pity me train. Mac Blair has had such a tough fucking life, so let’s all listen to him whine about it and get his pats on the head.” I reach up, tap the crown of his head. “Feel better?”

  He grabs my hand and slams it against the wall so hard that the brick bites into my skin. Then he reaches down and grabs the other, brings it up, pins it with the first. “Don’t pat me like I’m a fucking dog.”

  “Don’t grab me in an alleyway like you think I’m for sale.” I buck my hips forward. “Get off me.”

  “Why are you dancing for money?” His eyes narrow. “Why, Lucy? Why did you slide over that stage and run around collecting the cash when you thought I wasn’t watching?”

  “Maybe I truly am a whore.” I stare into his eyes and dare him to… I don’t even know. Make a move? Call me a slut? Deny my words? “Maybe I can be bought. Maybe I’m as obsessed with money as you are.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah.” I jut my proud chin forward in defiance. “Maybe listening to you whine about money for so long has prompted me to be annoyingly obsessed about it too. Or maybe being called a rich girl one time too many has encouraged me to make my own way.”

  “No,” he growls again.

  “Yeah, I have a college education to pay for. Dance lessons to fund, a two-hundred-pound puppy I want to buy soon, and a best friend that won’t shut the fuck up about money. Maybe selling myself to businessmen is my entrepreneurial spirit kicking into high gear. How could I not? Dudes wanna pay a lot of money for me.” I grin. “Supply and demand, right? It makes my ego purr.”