Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck Book 8)

by Emilia Finn

  “He’s not gonna leave you! Fuck. Just sto—Stop!” He shoves me back until my head raps against the car frame, and my eyes snap to his. He’s sad, he’s angry, he’s sorry, and he’s commanding. “Just stop, Q. He’s not leaving you.”

  “He might have already left,” I cry. “He might have already packed and run. It’s what we do.”

  “He’s not going anywhere without you, Q. He will never truly leave you. All he’s doing is putting you somewhere safe so he can work without worrying about you.”

  “But now I can’t work,” I sob. “I can’t function, because now I’m worried about him.”

  “Just…” His eyes flicker between mine. “Just chill the fuck out for a second.”

  He releases one hand from around my arm, and slides it down into his pocket, but his eyes remain on mine. A warning. A promise that if I hit again, he might hit back.

  “He’s right here. In the fucking phone.” He unlocks his screen without looking, dials without looking, then he hits loudspeaker so the call rings loud enough for us both to hear.

  “Bubbles?”

  I drop my weight and collapse to the dirt with a fresh torrent of tears.

  “Bubbles?”

  “Hang on,” Jamie grumbles for Will. He lowers down in front of me, crouches down so one knee touches the dirt, then staring into my eyes, he holds the phone between us. “Speak, Q.”

  “Bubbles! Why are you crying?”

  “You left me,” I answer between hiccups, but my voice comes out in monotone. Unfeeling. Because if I let myself feel, I might fracture beyond repair. “You broke our promise.”

  “No,” Will counters with a snap. “No, I’m expanding our promise. I’m taking care of you, then I’m taking care of business.”

  “You left me,” I reply. Monotone. Lock my heart up tight, because the only two men on this planet who own a slice of it are working together to break me. “You removed me,” I rasp out. “You left me.”

  “I’m making sure you’re safe! You were dating Evan McGrady, Bubbles! That’s not just stupid, that’s suicidal.”

  “And by removing me, you signed our death warrants.” I lean my head back against the car and close my eyes. “You left me.”

  “I didn’t fucking leave you! Dammit, Bubbles. Listen to my words.”

  “You broke my heart.” Lock it up! “You did the one and only thing that would destroy me. And now…”

  “Don’t be like that, Bubbles.” Will’s voice turns softer, but panicked. Quieter, but serious. “Don’t take this so personally. This isn’t about me not wanting you around. This is me making sure you’re safe.”

  “Mom didn’t want me around either, did she, Will?”

  “Quinn!” he pleads.

  I open my eyes and meet Jamie’s. “You said Soph couldn’t find us. That’s because I was tossed into a dumpster. I was a toddler, in a plastic bag, and she tossed me into a dumpster.”

  “Quinn!” Will’s voice cracks and makes my heart bleed a little bit more. “This isn’t like that, so stop!”

  “She tied the bag closed,” I tell Jamie. “Made it so I couldn’t breathe. Then she got rid of me.”

  “Bubbles!”

  “She didn’t want me around. So she removed me.”

  “Quinn!” Will shouts. “I still want you around. I’m doing this to make sure you stay!”

  “You removed me.” My voice cracks, but my tears dry up as I whisper and repeat, “You removed me.”

  Jamie

  In the Dumpster!

  Quinn refuses to speak. She refuses to react. She refuses to look at me. She merely sits in the passenger seat and stares out into the night as we drive toward our first stop on this long-ass road trip back home.

  “He’s doing the right thing,” I murmur. My face stings, my shoulder burns, and my wrist is connected to Quinn’s again. But I know now not to underestimate her. She’s going to run again, but instead of running to save Will, she might be running to kill him herself. “He’s doing what needs to be done.”

  “He’s already dead,” she replies without feeling. “It’s already done.”

  “He’s not dead. He has Soph on his side now, which means he has unlimited access to technology and cash. I promise, he’s gonna be fine.”

  “Don’t make promises.” She turns and studies the trees whipping by outside her window. “Makes you sound stupid.”

  “Makes me sound stupid?” I glance to her for a brief second. “How does that make me sound stupid?”

  “Because promises are like hopes and dreams.” She lifts her knees and turns away from me.

  She’s shutting me out. She’s completely removing herself from this bubble we have.

  “Hopes,” she murmurs. “Dreams. Promises. They’re all stupid words that stupid people use to fool themselves into thinking the world doesn’t suck as bad as it does.” She folds her unbound hand across her stomach, and exhales. “Stop talking to me. I’m done.”

  “Quinn.” I spin my hand so instead of us being bound together, I try to intertwine our fingers. “Hey. Look at me.”

  “No.” She closes her hand into a fist and makes it impossible for me to hold on.

  Then she closes her eyes and shuts me out.

  Hours pass as we pass cars, small towns, gas stations, and fast food restaurants. I think to turn music on at some point about four hours east of the city we began in, but Quinn doesn’t react.

  Once upon a time, music was like a religion for her. She couldn’t help but wiggle, she had no choice but to smile, sing, dance.

  All she manages now is to meet my eyes for just a second, but hers are void, dead, flat.

  “Talk to me?” I stroke her leg. Not in a creepy way, but just to prove to us both that we’re really here. “It’s been a long time, and we have a long drive ahead of us.”

  “No.”

  “You got your own studio.” I peek in her direction, but my eyes inevitably have to go back to the road. “That made me happy.”

  “No.”

  “Why does your shoulder hurt? What happened to you?”

  She shakes her head, and turns further into the door.

  Maybe Will and I had good intentions when we got her out of that club and city. But is it worth it if, by doing so, she’s traumatized beyond comprehension? Is this just another tantrum, or did we cause damage that neither of us will be able to fix?

  “Quinn?”

  I wait in the darkness, in the silence, for a full minute, and hope she’ll answer.

  Though of course, she doesn’t.

  “Alright, well…” I draw a deep breath. “I guess I’ll talk anyway. I want you to know that we’re doing this for you. For your safety. And I’m sorry you think Will has abandoned you, but I swear, it’s the opposite. It broke his damn heart to let you go, but until he takes care of business, what you guys are doing, this life of hiding and running, that’s not a real life. That’s the same as imprisonment. And it’s not the life he wants for you.”

  “Stop speaking,” she rasps out.

  “He loves you more than his own life. He wants you to be safe, to be happy.”

  “Stop.”

  “He made the biggest sacrifice of his life tonight when he put you in this car. But he’s doing it for you, I—”

  “I said stop,” she growls. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  “He loves you.”

  “Sto—”

  “And I love you too,” I add. “Sometimes, we have to do things for those we love, and maybe those things won’t be popular. But it’s the responsibility we take on when we decide to love.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  She says it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that there isn’t a single cell in my body that thinks her threat isn’t real.

  “I’m going to kill you,” she continues. “I will escape this fucking car, then I’m going to find Will. I’ll kill him too.”

  “Quinn…”

  “Then I’ll go find my dumpster.” Her
eyes come to mine. Dead. Dark. Done. “Congratulations, Secretary. You asked me when I was seventeen what happened to make me the way I am. Now you know.”

  Checking my GPS sometime around midnight, I search ahead and find a suitable roadside motel. I make a call, book a room, and pay for it over the phone, then with instructions to leave the room unlocked and the key inside, I hang up and pull into the parking lot only thirty minutes later.

  I can’t walk into a reception area with a girl handcuffed to my arm. I can’t walk in with a blood-covered face, and expect no one to call the cops. And I can’t leave Quinn in the car and expect her to still be here when I get back.

  So I plan ahead, pull into the parking space outside our room, then I cut the engine and wait for Quinn to climb across the seats and follow me into the darkness.

  She’s quiet, angry… worse, she’s hurt. The spirit and fury she showed earlier, while painful for my face, meant she still had fight left in her. But now she simply follows. Head down, shoulders bowed, hand fisted between us so I can’t hold on.

  She walks with her head down so her hair curtains her face. And even when I go to the back of the SUV to grab our bags, she says nothing, gives no answer when I ask if she’d like her bag so she can shower and change into fresh clothes. Blood is matted in her hair, and more is dried on her skin. Some of it is hers; most of it is mine.

  I lead her into our room in silence, close our door with a quiet snick, and flipping the lights on, I swallow and study her long frame in the new light.

  She’s beautiful, lean, strong. But she’s tired, defeated, and – dare I think it? – broken.

  “It’ll be better soon,” I murmur. “I promise. This won’t hurt so bad once you realize that everyone is trying to help you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Can you undo my cuff?”

  I glance into her eyes, and lift a brow. “Why?”

  “I have to pee,” she answers quietly. “I’d rather do it in private.”

  The silver key burns a hole in my pocket. I could undo her. I could trust her. But my throbbing face says that would be a rookie move, so I lead her past the single queen-sized bed and toward the bathroom.

  Flicking the light on, I peer around the space, and study the shower cubicle. The toilet. The ugly orange counter, and the chipped sink built into the center. The taps are ancient, rusting, and the showerhead droops and leaks.

  “The cuffs?” She lifts our hands and waits. “I demand privacy.”

  I look to the window. It’s not large, and it’s kind of high up. It wouldn’t be impossible for her to pass through, but it would be difficult. Noisy.

  “Alright.” I draw a fortifying breath and prepare for another kick to the face. But she needs to pee, and call me a hopeless gentleman, but I was raised to let a chick have her privacy if she needs it. “I’m only giving you a minute,” I tell her and work on the cuff around my wrist. “One minute, then I’m coming looking for you.”

  “Yeah.” The second I release my cuff and it falls away from my wrist, she spins away and shoves through the bathroom door. “Twenty-three-year-old Jamie Kincaid has a pee kink now. I get it.”

  She slams the door with a loud crash that rattles the wall, so I remain standing, staring at the faded and stained door.

  I don’t have a watch anymore. It sits securely on Quinn’s wrist – the irony isn’t lost on me – so I count in my head instead. Liquid hits the toilet bowl around twenty seconds after the door closes, but it lasts too long, is too constant, too much, so I follow my gut and shove the door open to find Quinn half-in, half-out of the window.

  “Dammit!” I rush in after her, dodge her kicking feet, and yank her back through the window even when her foot slams against my busted shoulder and sends licks of pain radiating right down into my gut.

  “Let me go!” she screeches. “Dammit, Jamie. This is illegal!” She bashes her fists against my chest when I get her back into the tiled room. “You can’t keep me hostage, you freak!”

  “What are you gonna do?” I slam the cuff back onto my wrist, then reach out and shut the window until the metal frame cracks against the lock. “Call the cops? Tell them who you are? Tip them off? You ran with Will four years ago, so that makes you a felon too. If you call the cops on me, then you’re calling the cops on you too.”

  “I’m not staying here with you,” she hisses. “You will sleep, Secretary. You will close your eyes eventually, and that will be the end of your existence. I refuse to stay here with you.”

  “You have no money, no ID, no car, and you refused my offer of clothes. You’re stuck, Q, so stop the fuckin’ whining already.”

  I yank her out of the bathroom and back into the rest of our hotel room. A queen bed, a rickety table, a TV sitting on the counter, and a filthy old dish sponge sitting on the sink, in case we want to wash our dishes and catch a nasty infection while we’re at it.

  “This place is gross,” Quinn growls. “I thought you had money?”

  I scoff. “I thought you weren’t one of those high-maintenance chicks?”

  I cross the room to the TV with Quinn close behind me, snatch up the remote for the ancient box, then I circle back to the bed and start stripping.

  “Um, what the hell are you doing?”

  I stop with my jeans midway down my thighs, and glance back up. “Getting undressed. Why?”

  “Uh… I am a pris-on-er!” she enunciates. “Handcuffed to a dude I don’t even know. And you’re undressing!”

  “Well, I’m not sleeping in jeans. I suggest you get comfortable too, we’ll be here for a decent night’s sleep.”

  “The crimes just keep piling up! Not only are you kidnapping me, but now I can’t pee alone, and you’re undressing in front of me? That’s illegal!”

  “Give me a break.” I roll my eyes. “You’re not a minor anymore, Q.”

  “Stop calling me Q!” she snaps. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t sleep at all. You know I’m going to leave the second you do.”

  “I think I’ll run the risk.”

  I kick my boots off, peel my socks away, then slide my jeans the rest of the way off until they pool on the floor.

  “I could stab you while you sleep,” she hisses. “Put a blade in your heart and finish this.”

  “You could.”

  I can’t take my shirt off without removing the handcuffs, so I merely look down at my boxer shorts, and at my dirty shirt with my own blood sprayed across it, then I shrug and flop to the bed.

  “Stab me, Q. You can’t drag me anywhere.” I turn and meet her eyes. Our arms hang in the space between us, while she stands, and I lay. “You’re too weak,” I taunt her. “You wouldn’t be able to drag me even with your good arm, let alone that bag of meat caught in your cuff. So stab me in the heart, go for it, it’ll be a nice change of pace. But you still ain’t escaping.”

  “I could cut your arm off.” She’s stubborn, but she’s not stupid, so even with her chin held high and steam pouring from her ears, she unsnaps her jeans and goes to work kicking her shoes off. “It’ll hurt you,” she continues. “But I don’t much care. I’ll peel your skin back layer by layer, get to the bone, snap it over my knee.”’

  “Yeah yeah.”

  As soon as her jeans are off and she stands in front of me in tiny panties that make my mouth water, I wrap an arm around her stomach and drag her down to the bed.

  “You’re a badass. You’re a thug. Eazy-E was your roommate in college, he taught you shit. I hear you.”

  “I could smother you with your own pillow.” She rolls over my body to get to her side of the bed and get comfortable. “And I don’t think Eazy went to college. Some of us were raised in the streets. We don’t need fancy educations to get ahead in life.”

  “Q…” Shaking my head, I turn over and pull her into my little spoon. She fights me, she tries to flick my arm off, but I’m stronger than she is, and at least half of her wants my hug. “I didn’t go to college either.”

  “You co
uld have. Rich boy has privilege.”

  “Instead, I spent four years searching for you.”

  I bend my legs up and cup hers, and since I’ve already committed a bunch of felonies, I press a kiss to her shoulder blade and hate myself when her breath comes out on a whimper. Not a pleasured whimper, but the kind where her heart is in actual pain.

  “Now shut up and go the fuck to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say no,” she whimpers. “Don’t tell me no.”

  “Cam,” I groan. “I can’t… we can’t…” My heart shatters when a tear forms in the corner of her eye. “Dammit, Cam. Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t reject me,” she whispers. “Don’t tell me no.”

  “We’re not even in a bed.” My words may be saying one thing – no, no, no, and hell no – but my dick wants her. It swells and searches. It throbs so much that it becomes a physical ache. “Cam, you’re worth more than a quickie in a gym.”

  “I’m worth whatever it is we can have together.” She rests her feet on the back of my ass, and starts nudging me forward. “Please, Jamie.”

  “Cam, stop. Oh god!” I drop my forehead to her bare chest when the tip of my dick finds fiery heat between her legs. “I’m begging you for mercy.”

  “I’m begging you for you.” Her voice cracks, but the strength in her legs doesn’t falter. She drags me forward, slowly, carefully, until it’s not just radiating heat I feel. But skin on skin. Fire on fire. “Show me how it can be if we got to have forever,” she whispers.

  “Fuck.” I’m powerless to her every wish. Incapable of telling her no, especially when the thing she wants is the thing I would kill for. “Cam…”

  “Yes.”

  She brings me forward a little more until her breasts go forgotten. A wonderland a moment ago, the most amazing thing I had ever seen. But now they’re superseded by this impossible thing. This impossibly wrong, but amazingly right thing that I wish so desperately I could say yes to.