Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3) Read online

  GAME OF HEARTS

  STACKED DECK BOOK THREE

  EMILIA FINN

  GAME OF HEARTS

  By: Emilia Finn

  Copyright © 2020. Emilia Finn

  Publisher: Beelieve Publishing, Pty Ltd.

  Cover Design: Amy Queue

  Editing: Bird’s Eye Books

  Cover Photography: Regina Wamba

  ISBN: 9798645772918

  This Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy.

  To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of Emilia Finn’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  www.emiliafinn.com

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  Contents

  Also by EMILIA FINN

  Looking To Connect?

  GAME OF HEARTS

  Prologue

  1. Mac

  2. Lucy

  3. Mac

  4. Lucy

  5. Mac

  6. Lucy

  7. Mac

  8. Lucy

  9. Mac

  10. Lucy

  11. Mac

  12. Lucy

  13. Lucy

  14. Lucy

  15. Mac

  16. Lucy

  17. Mac

  18. Lucy

  19. Mac

  20. Lucy

  21. Mac

  22. Lucy

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by EMILIA FINN

  Looking To Connect?

  Are we still in lockdown?

  Also by EMILIA FINN

  (in reading order)

  The Rollin On Series

  Finding Home

  Finding Victory

  Finding Forever

  Finding Peace

  Finding Redemption

  Finding Hope

  The Survivor Series

  Because of You

  Surviving You

  Without You

  Rewriting You

  Always You

  Take A Chance On Me

  The Checkmate Series

  Pawns In The Bishop’s Game

  Till The Sun Dies

  Castling The Rook

  Playing For Keeps

  Rise Of The King

  Sacrifice The Knight

  Winner Takes All

  Checkmate

  Stacked Deck - Rollin On Next Gen

  Wildcard

  Reshuffle

  Game of Hearts

  Full House

  No Limits

  Bluff

  Rollin On Novellas

  (Do not read before finishing the Rollin On Series)

  Begin Again – A Short Story

  Written in the Stars – A Short Story

  Full Circle – A Short Story

  Worth Fighting For – A Bobby & Kit Novella

  Looking To Connect?

  Website: www.emiliafinn.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmiliaBFinn/

  Newsletter: https://bit.ly/2YB5Gmw

  Email: [email protected]

  The Crew: https://www.facebook.com/groups/therollincrew/

  Did you know you can get a FREE book? Click here for Bry and Nelly’s story: BookHip.com/DPMMQM

  GAME OF HEARTS

  STACKED DECK BOOK THREE

  EMILIA FINN

  Prologue

  Being the daughter and niece of fighter champions makes my future seem so… decided. My daddy is a fighter. My mom is a fighter. My uncles and an aunt and most of my cousins, all fighters.

  I look so much like my mom that it’s not uncommon to be called Isabelle thirty times a day, before whoever is speaking to me shuffles through a dozen other names to finally settle on mine. And by mine, I mean Bean, the nickname I’ve worn like a cloak since before I was born, and not my actual birth name.

  I don’t begrudge my family for the sport they’ve spent their lives dedicated to. And it’s not like I dislike my nickname. It’s said with love every single time. It’s a term of endearment, a badge of honor, in some ways.

  I guess sometimes I just wish I wasn’t quite so invisible to everyone that speaks that name.

  Being Lucy “Bean” Kincaid means being the second child born into what was already a massive family. It means coming second to the wild and cute-as-a-button Evie Kincaid, which means I’ve lived my life in the shadows of greatness. We all fight, we all compete, we all have shelves of trophies. But where my cousins spout off at the mouth and garner their laughs from the crowd and our family, I do my thing in silence.

  I can’t compete with what the others are offering. I can’t keep up with the trash talk and craziness, so I go to my family’s gym, I train, I win, and I provide my family with the daughter that wasn’t voted by her senior class as “most likely to end up in prison.”

  I’m just me. Lucy Kincaid. Quiet, dependable… invisible.

  And most of the time, I’m fine with that.

  But here… inside the Ellie Solomon Dance Academy, I’m anything but invisible.

  “Yes, good.” Sophia Solomon – my dance teacher – walks semicircles in the space in front of me while I stand at the barre and work on my feet.

  Ironic, I suppose, since we do the same in my gym. Whether you’re a fighter or a dancer, we all have ‘Fix your feet!’ shouted in our face a thousand times a day.

  I wear a midnight black unitard, the skintight fabric stretching all the way to my ankles, a baby pink skirt that flutters as I move, and ballet shoes made of pink leather that matches the color of my skirt. This is my daily uniform when I’m not at school or the gym, and since I’m here, the gym, and school in equal parts, I have to carry all three sets of clothes in my training bag and hurry through outfit changes.

  And people wonder why I’m always running. Running to. Running away. Running around.

  “Good, Lucy.”

  Sophia is one of very few people on this planet who uses my real name, and that alone might be why I’m drawn to her. She’s exotic and beautiful, she’s smart and witty, and though she teaches me how to dance, she never treats me like a child the way everyone else does. I’m turning twenty-one later this year, and graduating from nursing school soon after that. I’m a champion fighter, and the reigning champion from last year’s – the first ever – Stacked Deck tournament.

  There’s no reason for people to treat me like I’m still eleven, but I guess long-had habits are hard to break. Fortunately, Sophia didn’t know me when I was eleven, so when I walk through the doors of the dance academy Soph built to honor her deceased sister, I’m just Lucy – a dancer who wants to push herself.

  “Stand taller,” Soph coaches. She sucks on her bott
om lip as though it helps her think, but her dark eyes follow the long line of my legs, only to stop on my feet as I lift. “Our bodies change, Lucy. Even while in class, our bodies change. Our ribs lift, they move away from our hips, our waists turn thinner, and because of that, it makes it easier for us to breathe. Take a breath.”

  I smile, because dancing in front of Soph might be my favorite way to spend my time.

  I pull in a long breath and let my smile turn goofy. Anyone else would ask if there are illegal substances being pumped through the air conditioning. But Soph knows the utopia that fills my body right now.

  “The longer we work,” she continues, “the wider our hips open.” She runs a hand over her trim hipbone and continues her short laps.

  Sophia is taller than me by several inches, and has been training her whole life to dance the way I’ve been trained to fight. She can stand on pointe, which is something I struggle with. But then again, I can bench press my cousin’s body weight, and knock someone the hell out with a single, well-timed jab.

  Soph can’t do that.

  “Can you feel your glutes warm?” she questions in her relaxing tone. “Your hamstrings are stretching, and because of that, your hip flexors are able to release.”

  She’s not looking for verbal answers, so I give her none. I merely continue to dance in place.

  “Your fighter shoulders,” she grins, “while you dance, they need to come down. You’re so used to having them high just in case someone decides to punch you for no reason.”

  She smirks when I lose composure and laugh.

  “Your family trains you like the world is about to turn into a WWE tournament, which is fine, I suppose,” she sniffs, “but in here, we want your shoulders down. Your neck is lengthened–”

  I lift my head, raise my chin, elongate my neck.

  “And because of that, your back opens. Can’t you feel how your body is different now, an hour into this session, compared to when you walked in?”

  I lift one arm, slowly, elegantly, and bring it higher until I stand in third position.

  “Lucy?”

  “Yes.” I draw in a heady breath and let it out on a sigh. “Yes, I feel more relaxed now.”

  “Because you’re always carting your books around, dragging your body out of alignment. You come in here every single day, you say you’re here for class, but what you’re really here for is realignment. You wear that mask of worry, like you have a to-do list longer than your legs, and no time to get it all done.”

  “That’s because I do,” I answer gently. “Have a to-do list, that is. I have exams to study for, a tournament to train for, friends that I need to make time for, and parents that like to see me at the dinner table every night.”

  Sophia looks directly into my eyes, tilts her head to the side, and smirks. “You must be exhausted.”

  “Shut up.” Laughing, I drop my arm and earn a scowl from my strict instructor. “I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you what’s on my list.”

  “But how’s that list now?” She steps forward and turns me toward the bar. Placing my hands on the timber rail, she gently kicks my foot into place, then with a hand on the small of my back, pulls my other leg up so I stand in an almost perfect penché – my foot is almost pointing at the ceiling. “What’s your brain doing to you right now?”

  “It’s empty,” I murmur. My glutes sting and demand I lower my leg, but Soph supports it, pushes me higher, and ignores my grunt as my body fights against her hands. “I’m not thinking about my list.”

  “Exactly.” I hear the smile in her voice. “We dance because we must, because without it, we would go insane. We dance because the thoughts that race through our minds and try to hurt us, those thoughts will grow in power until we snap.” She slowly removes her hands from my leg and studies my posture. “We dance, because without it, no one is safe.”

  Two hours after walking into Soph’s school, ten minutes after showering and changing into my gym clothes, I walk past her office and give nothing more than a wave when I find her on the phone.

  When I come here to learn from her, Soph must wear appropriate dance clothes too – leotard, tights, shoes – so she can dance with me. To show me, to teach me, she must be in the correct attire, but now she wears jeans and combat boots.

  She sits at a utilitarian desk with piles and piles of paperwork haphazardly stacked on the corners, but the precarious masses go ignored as she sits back in a creaky chair, with her feet up on the desk, and a phone pressed to her ear while she works.

  Soph has many jobs, and a large part of me wonders if she tutors me just for fun, and not as part of her business plan.

  I continue along the hall and past the unmanned front desk, and as I push the studio doors open, I grin when I find a dark SUV parked beside my car, and a large, military-type dude hauling a diaper bag and a toddler from the backseat.

  Sophia’s husband is… the kind of guy women would let ruin their lives. He’s impossibly handsome, and dangerously untouchable by all but Sophia. He’s a doting husband, and a hopeless father to the requests his daughters put forth. Whatever they want, they get.

  “Afternoon.” I tap my knuckles on the hood of his SUV, and grin when he pulls out of the door to stand taller.

  His eyes are almost black, which is terrifying in a way, but he’s almost always smiling, and even the scariest, most devilish gaze stops being so startling once you’ve seen the man smile a million times.

  “Hey there, Lucy. How was your session?”

  I slow at my beat-up four-door hatchback and toss my training bag onto the hood. “I think she broke my leg, to be honest. She’s mean.”

  “That’s my girl,” he laughs. “Hopefully she used up all of her mean on you, so she won’t kill me when she finds out I gave the baby a sucker.” He pulls the dark-haired toddler from the car, and drops her on his hip.

  This man is more than six and a half feet of muscle and guns and overwhelming tattoos, but then he sets a cherubic toddler on his hip, and suddenly…

  No, Jay Bishop is still a thug. The baby doesn’t detract from that. If anything, she makes him more dangerous.

  “Soph’s gonna kill you.” I snatch up my bag and toss it into the back seat of my car. “I get the feeling I got mellow Soph. But now you’re bringing her baby back full of sugar…” I shake my head. “It was nice knowing you.”

  Throwing his head back, he barks out a laugh, and slams the car door. “Mommy doesn’t scare me.” He tickles the child’s belly. “No, she doesn’t. Mommy is a pussycat.”

  The toddler winds her chubby arm back and smacks her dad on the top of the head with the sticky sucker.

  He looks to me, pleading with his eyes. “Help me.”

  Laughing, I slide into my car and switch on the engine. “I have my own problems, and she terrifies me. So… no,” I hedge with an exaggerated drawl, “but thanks. Catch you on the other side, Bishop.”

  Music comes through my speakers automatically, and when I don’t even have to change the song to something better, I consider it a good omen that my afternoon is going to go well.

  I back out of the parking lot and head across town toward my family’s gym, where I pull into a new parking lot and cut the engine.

  My life is a constant game of musical chairs. From classes at my college an hour from here, to the gym, to the dance studio, to the estate my entire family lives on, to one of the half dozen dinner tables where we eat and switch chairs some more.

  I’m always moving, always on. I don’t remember the last time I sat and watched a movie with my friends. I don’t remember the last time we played cards, and the game lasted more than two minutes before we started talking business instead.

  I don’t remember the last time my world was quiet… and that, I miss.

  On legs that feel like rubber, I climb out of my car and grunt at the summer heat pushing off the gravel beneath me. It’s July, it’s humid, and though Sophia’s studio comes equipped with air-conditioning
, my family’s gym does not.

  The Rollin On Gym is merely a shed. On the outside, at least, it looks as unremarkable as the dozen other sheds beside it. But inside, it’s equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. Boxing ring, regulation-sized octagon, weights, ellipticals and all that that implies. There was no money spared to fit this place out, and everything inside is maintained and replaced as required, but did they install air-conditioning? No. They refused.

  “Hey, Bean.” Uncle Jack – arguably our favorite uncle, because of his habit of buying our love with ice cream – stands behind the reception desk at the very front of the gym, grinning when I walk in. A single dimple flashes on his left cheek, and pearly white teeth demand my smile in return, rather than the annoying mood that’s been sitting on my head for… I don’t even know how long.

  It’s been so long that it’s become a way of life.

  “I missed you this morning, baby. I thought we had a coffee date?”

  “A coffee date?” I catch a glimpse of my ballet shoes peeking through the zipper of my training bag. Tucking them away and closing the zipper, I mentally run through my to-do list and shake my head. “When did you ask for a date?”

  “Ask?” he says incredulously. “I have to ask now?” He tosses his pen down, and throws his hands into the air – because he was always the most dramatic. “Since when do I have to get in on your appointment book? Fuck, Bean. How times change, huh?”