We both went with our turns. In this round, my cards weren’t that good, but I kept betting, hoping that might change in the final draw. When the last community card was placed on the table, I checked mine and raised the anty. Zachary did exactly the same, watching me like a hawk.
He seemed confident that he had won, throwing a few lousy compliments. I knew it was all a game to him.
“So I’m safe to assume that you’re not seeing anyone at the moment?” he asked.
“Why? Because I spend most of my time in the pub, drinking and playing cards?”
“No, I think you’re still hung up on Prince Charming,” he pointed out.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know nothing about me. And what happened between me and the prince is none of your business,” I snapped, angry that Arthur couldn’t keep his mouth shut when we were standing in a room full of people.
Zach checked his cards again, but I couldn’t read anything from his expression.
“How about we add something more to this deal? If I win, then you agree to go out with me?”
That was it. We needed to reveal our cards, and I was certain that he was a sore loser, bluffing all the way ‘til the end. He also had some nerve asking me out.
“No, I don’t date. My work is my life. Besides, a deal is a deal. I don’t recall there being any extras included,” I said, suddenly wondering what he would look like naked, pressed against my body in my tiny flat. I hadn’t gotten laid in a very long time, and the waves of energy reminded me this was my first real opportunity to change that.
“We could have some fun, Flower, and I could help you stop thinking about Prince Charming for a night,” he whispered, leaning toward me. In the dim lighting, he seemed even hotter, and a violent bolt of warmth ripped through my system. My addiction was supposed to calm me down tonight, not push me into the arms of a human who wasn’t looking for anything other than a night of fun.
My demonic side was completely shut down, but on the other hand, sex without expectations could help me forget about a crappy day like today.
“All right, fine. Let’s play this game,” I muttered, smiling flirtatiously. “But what will I get if I win?”
He looked down at his cards, then back to me, lowering his eyes to my cleavage. I wasn’t very developed in that department, but Zach seemed hung up on that spot, more so than other men. Maybe he liked a woman with small tits.
“I’ll tell you something about me, something that no one knows,” he said—and then revealed his cards.
He had a full house, and I was kind of shocked staring down at his card sequence. I bit my lip, wondering if he liked playing poker on a regular basis, or if it was just a one off. He was obviously experienced, but right at that moment, I wanted him to think that I had been bluffing, that he had me.
“Deal,” I blurted out and then revealed my cards, presenting him a flush. His face dropped, his anger whisked through the air. He stared at my cards for several moments, like he couldn’t believe that I had won, that I had better cards.
“Well, cowboy, you better get ready to work with me, because I can tell you, I ain’t going anywhere. And you’ll be telling me all your dirty secrets.” I chuckled, happy with the results.
Zachary muttered something under his breath, got up, and went to the bar. I bet he needed to have a very strong drink to numb the fact that a girl had just kicked his arse for the second time tonight. I started sweeping all the money to my side, feeling awesome. There was still half a bottle of tequila left, and I was considering finishing it when someone sat in Zach’s chair.
“Hey, Maxine. Fancy teaming up with the old crew? I see you have some money. Wanna double it?” Devlin asked, grinning at me. He was one of the regulars, the guy who lost me half of the down payment for a shabby loft apartment in London, if I ever considered getting on the property ladder. Behind him was Lea, a mongrel, and twins who were part of Mammon’s faction. They must have sensed that I was in the mood for more.
“Yeah, why not? Let’s do this,” I said, not even considering going home. When the four of us were seated around the table, Zachary came and sat behind me, looking much calmer than before. He didn’t say anything, just sat behind and kept watching the game.
I thought that I was in control, that this was finally my night, but around two o’clock in the morning, the magical bottle of tequila was empty, and I was down at least a grand or more. I kind of lost count after the first couple of hundred. Nothing went how I planned; my good cards from my game with Zachary didn’t follow through. The alcohol clouded my head, and the strong vibrations of lust in my system became distracting.
The twins had won again, costing me my rent. Zachary hadn’t moved. He kept going to the bar and drinking slowly, not taking his eyes off me.
Soon, the whole place was empty; the last customer had settled the bill with Paul, and I was sitting in the same spot, completely wasted and pissed off with my own luck tonight.
“Max, that’s it. I’m closing, and you should go home,” Paul said, taking the empty bottle of tequila.
He helped me get up and walked me to the door. I had no idea what happened to Zachary. He must have left, too, pissed off that things didn’t go to plan tonight. The world around me started spinning, and I needed to get to my bed. I was walking home slowly, alone, and once again, I thought that someone was following me. The streets of Brixton were quiet, and when I turned around a few times, I saw Zach keeping a fair amount of distance from me. I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed to be rescued, but he kept following me all the way back to my street. Maybe he was worried that I wouldn’t get home safely.
“Now, now, Flower, let’s put you to bed. You won, so we’re stuck together anyway,” he whispered, helping me open the door when I failed miserably trying to remain in a standing position. When I nearly passed out in the corridor, he lifted me and carried me upstairs.
That night, even in my kind of state, I knew I was going to share my secrets with him.
Chapter 10
“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“Cosy. I had no idea you lived in such a shithole, Maxine. I thought being the prince’s mistress came with some advantages,” Zachary mocked me, looking around my crappy flat. I lifted my hand, tapping my finger onto my head as a reminder for tomorrow. I needed to call my landlady and ask her to fix the damn lights. Also, the glass in the window was cracked. Some teenager from the council estate had thrown a stone when I told him to shut his dirty human mouth. Yes, my flat was a real rathole.
My head was spinning, and I hated myself for not being able to tell Paul to stop pouring me more magical tequila. All my rent money was gone. I was broke, again.
“What the hell do you want? I’m fine now. You can leave. I don’t … need a babysitter, mister,” I slurred, stumbling on my feet and falling down on the sofa. My eyes wouldn’t stay open. Zach sat beside me a moment later. He took my hand and touched my cheek with his cold finger.
“You do that often? Lose all your money in an obscure bar in a poker game?” he asked, forcing my chin up so I couldn’t look away. He was composed, and very calm, almost not the same man I’d met in the palace. I had a tendency of oversharing details of my life with strangers when I was drunk. That night when he was sitting next to me, I wanted to tell him all about the bad things that had happened in my life, about Arthur, too. Tonight, was one of those times when I needed a shoulder to cry on.
“I never used to do that, but getting wasted seems like a good idea lately,” I told him. “Have you got a cigarette?”
He nodded, pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from his jacket pocket, and gave me one. I had a lighter somewhere in the flat, but he used matches to light one for me. At this rate, I was going to kill myself; even the magic wouldn’t save me.
“What’s on your mind, beautiful?” he asked, lighting one fo
r himself.
“I want to tell you about that one night when everything changed,” I said, wondering if this was really such a good idea. Zach didn’t care, but he was still in the flat, sitting next to me. He obviously wanted to listen.
“Tell me.”
“I had a close call a couple of years ago. I nearly died, so I decided to change everything. First it was the job and the fact that I had to rely on others to survive,” I mumbled, sounding like one pathetic mongrel. I spent too many years keeping the truth away from everyone around me. My mother used to say that it was better to let all the worries out in the open. Now I had a man next to me who wanted to get to know me, so I needed to keep going. “I used to work as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in the city. That one night, I was the last one out, closing the back doors, when some stranger attacked me. He came out of nowhere, took all the money and left me there to bleed to death.”
Zachary was silent, staring down at me with a wary, slightly stunned expression on his face. I arched my head back, resting for a few long moments. The magic was rummaging through my system urging me to keep talking about my crappy past. The voices in my head were loud and nagging. Sometimes I had problems with shutting them down.
“I woke up in the hospital several days later, not remembering anything at all. I had a cracked skull, broken wrists, my kidneys were punctured. It took me weeks to recover, to actually want to keep on living. The police closed the investigation pretty quickly. They didn’t have any leads or witnesses from that night. After that, I didn’t go back to that old life. I started hanging around in bars and nightclubs, playing cards for money. Some nice people taught me how to survive on the streets on my own. It was easier to act like I had nothing to lose. Soon I was making more money than I could ever imagine, so I took some self-defence classes, trained in martial arts, too. People started to respect me, and I began getting some contract work in security. My life was suddenly good. I had friends, cash in my pocket, and I was finally free. Every day, I was making progress, making connections with the people in the business, and pushing myself during training. I started protecting wealthy clients, looking after rich kids, managing clubs and restaurants. Things were good and then the opportunity in Buckingham Palace came around. Nothing was ever the same after that.
I closed my eyes, dragging the nicotine from the cigarette deep into my lungs. I had never liked smoking. It was a nasty habit. Zach lifted himself off the sofa and went to the kitchen. I heard him pacing around the room for a bit. The night wasn’t meant to end like this. He wasn’t supposed to see me in such a state, telling him all about my shitty life.
“That’s why you were brought in to this case, because of your previous connection to royal family?” he asked, staring at me from the other side of the room. The royals—that word was cut out of my vocabulary when I got fired and had to hide in a rabbit hole.
“Yes, mainly, but the truth is, that a demon took Prince Georgie. You’re a human, so you won’t understand any of it,” I said, forgetting who I was talking to. Zachary needed to hear the harsh truth. “Besides, I needed the cash to pay my overdue rent. I thought that tonight I would be responsible, that I could stay away from cards, but then you showed up.”
He shook his head and drew on the cigarette for longer than he was supposed to. We were sitting in the darkness, but his eyes were focused on my face. I was too wasted to connect with his emotions, although I still wanted to know if he was ready to screw me.
“Are you blaming me for getting drunk, Flower, and losing your rent money?” he asked with that hard, accusing tone of voice. And that nickname—he knew it drove me mad, but he still kept using it.
“I’ll blame you when I get evicted.” I laughed. “Either way, I lost all the money tonight. Don’t worry, it’s not the first time and most certainly not the last.”
It was time for me to go to sleep, to drift away from the problems of this fucked up world. Detective Zachary Quinton was a dream. All this time, I was talking to myself, telling the other Maxine the real story.
“Sleep, Flower, because tomorrow is going to be a new day, and I’ll be there to mess with you all over again,” a voice whispered in my ear, and I smiled, falling asleep.
My eyes were stuck together when I woke up in the late morning the next day. I lifted my second pillow and pressed it over my face, hoping not to hear the emergency services just outside my window. I lived next to the busy street and it sounded like there was an accident outside. People were shouting, and horns were going off. I felt like someone was hitting me with a hammer, as the blurry memories from last night slowly came back to me. After a few moments, I realised that someone was banging on my door, loudly, too bloody loudly for such an early hour.
When I scrambled off my bed, I was naked. My clothes were folded on the floor next to the chair, and the clock on the wall was showing eleven o’clock in the morning. I didn’t remember undressing. What the hell happened here?
“Crap, I’m late again. Ricky is gonna kill me,” I muttered to myself, throwing a T-shirt on and putting on clean underwear. I was surprised to find that I had any. I hadn’t done the laundry for over a decade.
“I’m coming,” I shouted as the person outside started banging harder. When I finally unlocked it, I saw that it was my landlady, Mrs. Patel. For a split second, I wished that I had woken up somewhere else this morning, maybe even in someone else’s body. She was here for the overdue rent, and as far as I could remember, I had lost all my available cash last night.
“Maxine, sorry to knock on your door this morning, but you’re three days late with your rent,” she said, eyeing my naked thighs and most likely smelling the stale alcohol on my breath. I could mess with her head, make her forget that I actually owed her any money, but that was against my own rules. I hated tampering with human minds. Besides, I couldn’t get away with not paying my rent. It was morally wrong. “I can’t wait any longer, and you should set up a standing order so I don’t have to come to your door every month.”
Mrs. Patel was a thirty-something Indian-born woman who was married to a property developer, Mr. Patel. Apparently, they both started investing money in the housing market in the nineties, and these days, they had quite a portfolio. I was forced to move in to this shitty flat a year ago, and Mrs. Patel was kind enough to wait for her security deposit.
“Mrs. Patel, can you give me a minute? I’ve had a horrendous night,” I said, rubbing my eyes and stepping into the morning light outside, as it was dark in my hallway. I felt terrible, worse than normally, and my head was hurting badly.
“My God, what happened to your face? Are you all right?” she asked, probably assuming that I was ill. I lifted my hand and touched my cheek. It bloody hurt, so I turned swiftly around and ran back to my apartment. I put the light on in the hallway, and I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My left cheek was swollen, and I had a freaking black eye. Memories flooded my mind. I remembered fighting with Zach, and it looked like the bastard had hit me.
Then, something else caught my attention: a white envelope that was placed on the dresser, next to my hairbrush. When I opened it, I thought that I was dreaming. The envelope was full of cash.
I took eight hundred from the stash when you went to the toilet. You said that you were late with rent.
Now, who should be your Prince Charming?
Z.
I re-read that damn note a few times, suddenly remembering everything from the night before. I was the last customer in The Broken Shoe, and Paul had sent me on my way. Zachary must have followed me back to my flat. I was completely wasted, and I couldn’t remember why I let him inside in the first place.
“Maxine, are you all right?” I heard Mrs. Patel on the threshold. It was the exact amount that I needed for rent. Zachary must have taken some cash out that I had won and kept it away, most likely predicting that I wasn’t done blowing it all off after I outplayed him.
He couldn’t have known I would be that stupid, that I’d lose a
ll my money and get so wasted I couldn’t get home on my own. Well, it looked like I had misjudged him. I brushed my hair away from my face and headed back to Mrs. Patel, partly relieved and partly worried that I owed him a favour.
“Here you go. Everything should be inside,” I said, handing her the cash. There was no one else I could have asked for a loan, so technically Zachary had saved my skin. That meant that I could stay in my shitty flat for another month.
Mrs. Patel counted the money, and after convincing herself that everything was okay, she smiled with relief. I couldn’t remember when I told Zach that I hadn’t paid my rent. I didn’t know anything about him, but it seemed that from today onwards, we were going to spend some time together.
“Good, I’m glad, but please, set up a standing order as soon as possible. It will save us both a lot of hassle in the future,” she told me. “And take care of yourself, Maxine. Maybe speak to someone. This shouldn’t be happening to you, dear.”
I forced out a smile. She needed to know that I wasn’t a victim of domestic violence, that last night, I simply had a playful fight with a hot cop.
“Thanks, Mrs. Patel, but this was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. I’m really fine,” I mumbled, deciding to spare her that story. She gave me a faint smile, muttered something else, and then she was on her way. I shut the door and locked it, hoping to get back to sleep.
On the other hand, it would be a good idea to show up in the office on time for once and act like a responsible adult. Ricky must have extracted the potion from George’s blood by now, possibly linking someone within a demonic faction to this whole kidnapping.
There was no point dwelling on last night. I got drunk, Zach saved my skin, and I had to thank him—end of story.
Within a half hour, I put some clothes on, brushed my messy hair and left the flat, feeling tired, achy, and very pissed off with myself. People were staring at me when I was in the tube station, possibly because I looked like someone had beat me up. On top of that, I was very much hungover.
Doomed Cases Box Set: The Complete Collection Books 1- 4 & Prequel Page 12
