Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3) Read online

  Neither. I’m gonna save all but twenty bucks or so, and spend it on my dream house someday.

  My dream girl – who may or may not be Lucy Kincaid – doesn’t need me to be comfortable and safe. She needs a home, she needs savings, she needs security. If I die before we’re ready, so long as the rest is set up, she’ll be fine. Eventually.

  Checkmate is sorted for now, the garage is closed, and the weather is too damn hot for me to go back to my shoebox apartment. If I’m going to sweat anyway, I figure I may as well make it count.

  I drive across town in my faded purple ‘Cuda, with an exhaust so holey, so rusted, that everyone knows where I am whenever I’m on the move. Just a few minutes later, I stop in the gym parking lot and yank on the handbrake.

  Lucy is in the city an hour from here, getting an education and doing things that’ll set her up for life. She’s going to be a nurse, and soon after that, probably a doctor or a brain surgeon. Because she’s that fucking smart. But for now, she’s not here, which means I can train without worrying she’ll walk in when I’m close to dying from lack of oxygen.

  I slide out of my car and swing my training bag over my shoulder. Walking through the gym’s front doors, I do my damnedest not to look up when I pass Jimmy Kincaid, Lucy’s overly protective father. I pass through as fast as I can manage, and make my way toward the octagon, where it’s almost guaranteed I’ll find Evie and Ben.

  Hours later, after a fuck ton of sweat, and only one stressful moment where I worried that I would never be able to catch my breath again, I walk into Rhino’s club in jeans, a black shirt, and the heavy combat boots I’m partial to when not barefoot in the gym. I slide my hands into my pockets, and make my way past the bouncers who stand at the doors.

  What was once a rundown joint where the seediest of drunks would come when they were supposed to be at work, has taken on a whole new life since 188 closed. The career drunks still take up the stools for the hours between nine and five, five days a week. But once the sun goes down, those dudes head home, only to be replaced by folks I once went to school with.

  We’re all old enough now, and most of us are doing well enough that we’re not bumming around. Some left for degrees at fancy schools, and others joined the ranks of their family businesses. Most everyone knows who I am – I’m the bastard child that was arrested for the first time before he even hit puberty, for trying to steal a car. Then I was the idiot that climbed a gantry crane to show off for a bunch of girls. I busted my skull open, and made it so I walk with a slight limp.

  But of course, that time of my life has been forgotten by everyone but my mom, because my heart gave out when I was fourteen, and decided to outdo the rest.

  I’m nothing if not an overachiever every time I visit the emergency room.

  I pass guys that, while I wouldn’t call them friends, I’m friendly with. I would never take their calls in the middle of the night the way I would run to Ben or the girls, but I still bump my fist to theirs as I pass, and offer bland greetings and excuses for needing to move along when they want to chat.

  The club has used some of their newfound income to do the place up. Dingy rooms that probably posed a risk of hepatitis are now fitted with fancy new tables and stools, and shiny new flooring. The ground I walk on is still concrete, but at least it’s clean and new. The bar has been moved away from the center of the room so it now lines the far wall, and where it used to be now sits a stage of sorts. It hosts a band sometimes, and dancing girls others.

  Rhino’s is not typically a titty bar, the dancing girls tend to wear enough to not get arrested, but the poles still stretch to the roof, and the one girl working it now draws the attention of every male in the room.

  I give her only a cursory glance while she climbs high on the pole, but when she drops down, my heart races faster because her face is hurtling straight toward the floor.

  I turn away and head toward the busy bar. She’s got it under control, she’s not actually falling, which means I need to move along before I create some kind of attachment that’ll make me pull her out so she doesn’t have to dance for men anymore.

  Five people work the bar – three girls in crop tops, and two muscled dudes in… well, crop tops. They pour fancy drinks, and dance while they move from one end to the other. They almost make a synchronized dance troupe as they pass bottles of liquor, and shake drinks before pouring them, to the delight of the customers.

  It’s refreshing that Rhino’s has changed hands. This place used to be disgusting, somewhere you’d visit only if you were planning to break the law, and needed a place to plan it where no one would snitch. But with a new generation of savvy owners – the children of those who owned it prior – they’ve created something that almost touches on elegant.

  “Heya, Mac.”

  I glance up to study one of the girls behind the bar. She’s tall, blonde, has massive ta-tas, and her smile says something that her words do not.

  “Can I get you a drink?” she asks.

  “Hey.” I forget her name. She was in the grade above me in high school, but I didn’t particularly go out of my way to befriend anyone once I was comfortably in with Ben, Evie, and the woman whose name we try not to speak, because it hurts my loaner-heart. “Can I get a soda?”

  I slide onto the stool and try to be discreet as I look along the bar and find my… “assignment” is the word Kane Bishop uses when we’re at the office. But that feels weird, so I’ll just say Nicole.

  The girl whose boyfriend is a douche works at the very opposite end of the bar to where I sit, but while her eyes flicker to the door every two and a half seconds, she still manages a smile when a customer says something funny.

  Looking back to the chick in front of me, who stares like we’re not done chatting, I lift a brow and begin playing with a coaster. “A Coke?”

  “Oh sure!” Flashing a playful grin, she whips a tall glass from the shelving between us, and drops it down on the bar a mere half a second before using the soda gun to fill it. “Haven’t seen you in here in…” She flips her hair back and makes her voluptuous chest bounce. “Well, forever.”

  “Club scene isn’t really my thing.”

  I accept my soda and stand as soon as the guy to my left lights a cigarette. I’m moving away before the flame glows in the dark, and I’m twenty feet away by the time he exhales the first plume of cancer.

  I didn’t take someone else’s heart just so I can fuck it up with bad choices, like smoking and slamming alcohol into my system every weekend. That would be ungrateful, in polite terms, and downright selfish and stupid if we’re not censoring ourselves.

  I need to move closer to Nicole anyway, so I carry my soda along the length of the bar and study each person I pass. The chances of there being any trouble tonight are probably slim. Douchebag isn’t likely to come to a bar where he knows there are bouncers on the door, to bother a girl that doesn’t want to be with him anymore, unless he’s looking to get his ass beat and arrested.

  But my job is literally to take stupidity into account. The guys at Checkmate train me to expect the unexpected. They train me to be fast and deliberate in my moves.

  The Rollers teach me how to incapacitate a guy with my fists.

  I’ve been trained to fight for years, and I’ve become good at it, falling from cranes notwithstanding. But the guys at Checkmate… they so rarely actually touch their enemies. They prefer to deal with their problems with words first, then with computers, and if that fails, finally the weaponry and explosives come out, and either a guy backs up, or they walk toward their death.

  The Roller world and the Checkmate world are opposite extremes. Somehow, over the years and through too many times where everyone has mixed and mingled, both families have managed to get along, but there’s a common agreement that what folks think they know about Checkmate, remains unsaid.

  It’s better that way.

  Lord knows, if Jimmy Kincaid knew just how closely involved with the Checkmate world I am, not o
nly would dating his daughter be swiftly swept off the table, but my invitation to come anywhere near the family or their properties would be rescinded.

  Better safe than sorry and all that.

  I pull up a stool at Nicole’s end of the bar, and though she can’t know I’m the one who was assigned to watch her, she’s still expecting someone, so I take a sip of my Coke and meet her eyes for a brief pause.

  Her gaze flickers to me, to the door, then to me again. With a nod, she goes back to pouring her drinks and pretending she doesn’t have a watchdog just six feet away.

  Nicole is a few years older than me, closer to Ben’s age than mine. She has hair similar to Lucy’s, dark chocolate and silky soft as it reflects the lights from above. I’ve seen Lucy’s sparkle under lights like that too, but on fight nights, rather than at clubs. Nicole’s jaw sports a yellowing bruise that sets my teeth on edge – another similarity to Lucy, though Lucy’s is because of training and competition, not because of a man.

  Never because of a man. He’d be dead, and no one would ever find the body.

  The music playing through the club is eclectic at best. Sometimes it’s the kind you find your feet tapping to. Other times, it’s impossible not to turn to the dancing girl just to see what she does with the slower beat. Sometimes the music is faster, something you’d ask a girl to dance with you to. It makes me think of high heels and sweaty laughter. Cute dresses with loose skirts that lift and fly when the girl spins.

  When Lucy spins.

  It makes me think of the way her eyes light up when she’s dancing around the house with her family, a light that doesn’t come to her eyes when she’s fighting. She’s good at fighting. She’s fucking amazing at it. But she holds a deep, burning passion for elongating her legs and dancing around a room.

  An hour passes by, and the stench of secondhand smoke makes me sick to my stomach, but my assignment remains safe and secure. Two hours, then three. I sit at the bar and slowly sip my second and third soda, and though the people around me turn messier as the night goes on, they remain fairly respectable. People bump into me as I keep my ass on my stool. Others come to the bar and demand drinks with something a little less than manners, but after a single moment of me staring into their eyes, they change their tune and add their please and thank you.

  I’m not Nicole’s man, and I don’t even know her so well that I’d say hey if I saw her in the street. But for tonight, she’s mine. From now until she loads up that U-Haul and pulls out of her driveway, she’s mine.

  Which means that at a little before one, when a six-foot-tall dude in an extra tight t-shirt and douche painted all over his face in the way of a sneer walks in, I sit taller.

  “Shit.” Nicole’s voice carries only to me. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “It’s okay.” I turn back to her for a beat and incline my chin. “Don’t panic, or you’ll make it messier. Just keep doing your thing, and I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Here.” She sets a brand-new soda by my arm, and swipes away the almost empty glass I was sipping from. “His name is Ryan, he thinks he’s some kind of prized quarterback worthy of adoration in the form of BJs from any girl he deems hot enough, and when he doesn’t get that, he–”

  “I got it.”

  I look back to my Coke for a second and wait for him to make his move. As long as Nicole stays on her side of the bar, she’ll be safe.

  The other staff, knowing her situation, I suppose, migrate closer to her. It’s not obvious to anyone else in the club, but I notice, and she notices, especially when, as Ryan approaches the bar and stops so close that his elbow brushes my arm, Nicole’s direct superior almost hip bumps the girl into the next state, slaps a dishrag onto the bar, and leans forward to be heard over the music.

  “Sorry, Ry, but you’re not welcome here. Please leave without making a scene.”

  Ry lifts a daring brow and remains completely oblivious to my presence.

  He’s arrogant, and that’s never smart.

  “I just want to speak to my girlfriend,” he shouts over the music. “Nicole?” he looks to her. “Baby, it doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “Yes, it does.” She pours a drink, no panic, just like I ordered. “I’m just…” She peeks at me to bolster her bravery, then she looks back to him. “I’m sorry, but I’m going home tomorrow. I’m staying gone.”

  “You can’t just leave!” he roars. “Fuck, Nic. I messed up, okay? I messed up, but I’m sorry. I already told you that I was sorry!”

  My hand wraps around my soda and squeezes so tight that I worry the glass will fracture.

  It boggles my mind that any man could hit a woman. It boggles more that he thinks telling her he’s sorry – with that bratty attitude dripping on the end of every word – would be enough to make her trust him again. A man hitting a woman even one time in anger, one single time, is one time too many. And the fact he dares ask for forgiveness makes my blood run hotter.

  “Fuck, Nic. At least have the common fucking decency to talk to me.” He looks to Nicole’s manager, and sneers, “In private. Five minutes, and I swear you’ll see I’m worth your time.”

  “No,” the manager declares in a slow drawl. “You’re bothering my staff, Ryan, and you’re gonna get her fired. With no job, she’s gonna have to head home so her folks can support her, so…” She grins. “Go on with your bad self.”

  Ryan’s eyes bulge after being shot down by a woman half his size, once again proving that bullies are nothing but scared, sniveling pricks. He looks to his ex-girlfriend and gives her the eyes where everyone knows he’s saying something in his head, something he’s too cowardly to say out loud. Maybe Nicole has cowered under that look in the past, but no way has the manager.

  “I’m gonna sit my ass here,” he finally declares, shoving the guy sitting to my right off his stool. Then he plops down and rests his elbows on the bar. “I’ll wait until the end of your shift, Nicole, and then we’ll fucking talk.”

  “Ryan, please just stop.” Nicole gently shuffles her manager aside and stops in front of the man. She reaches out to pat his hand or some such thing, but he grabs her and yanks her forward until her ribs crunch against the bar and her cry echoes even above the music.

  Ryan pulls her close enough that their noses are merely an inch apart. “I said I will wait—”

  The problem with being an arrogant son of a bitch is that he still didn’t notice me here.

  I stand in one single move, grab the back of his head, and slam it forward until blood explodes on the bar. I slam him down a second time, then a third, until his hand releases Nicole’s.

  With a surprised squeal, she jumps back and wraps herself around her manager, but I keep hold of Ryan’s hair and drag him up so I can see his eyes. I was expecting them to be full of fire, but mostly, they roll around inside his head.

  Everyone in the club stops dancing and drinking, and turns to us.

  “Guess I pushed harder than I thought.” I drop him onto the bar. “He’s out now. He won’t be back to bother you.”

  “Shit, man.” The manager releases herself from Nicole’s shaking arms and leans a little lower to glance into Ryan’s eyes. “You knocked him the hell out.”

  “You’re gonna need to Clorox the blood off this bar.” I grab the scruff off his collar and pull him upright. He’s not small by society’s standards, and though he’s definitely heavier than me, he’s shorter. I stand closer to six and a half feet, compared to his six, so it’s not so hard to keep him up. “Is he your only problem?” I ask Nicole.

  When she shakily nods, I pull him around.

  “Cool beans. He’s out, so you’re free to finish your shift. I won’t take my eyes off him until you’re tucked up at home.”

  “Thank you,” she calls out as I drag him through the parting crowd and toward the door.

  Instead of returning words, I simply lift a hand in a wave, cast a fast glance back to the shocked and staring dancing girl, then push through the doors. Once outsi
de, I drop Ryan in the gutter, sit down with a huff, since I’ll be right here for as long as he is, and take out my phone.

  I scroll my contacts list, from Ben, to Evie, only to stop in the Ls and roll my bottom lip between my teeth. I could scroll a little more and stop on Mom. She’d take my call; she’d even chat with me and not get mad that I’m calling in the middle of the night. But I can’t find it in my heart to move past the Ls.

  With a quick glance to the clock in the top right corner – 1:15am – then back to the picture of me and her on my screensaver – I was thirteen that Fourth of July weekend we spent by the lake – instead of hitting dial like I really want to, I go to my text screen.

  Hey, I send.

  I break my own rules about leaving her be, about not dirtying her up with my broke-ass life.

  Since I’ve come this far, I add, Wanna get ice cream tomorrow after the gym? I haven’t seen you all week. I miss you.

  Lucy

  If Wishes Were Horses

  Wanna get ice cream tomorrow after the gym? I haven’t seen you all week. I miss you.

  Fuck you, Mac Blair, and your ability to not text me all week, to leave me alone from Monday to Friday, only to send out the equivalent of a booty call at one in the damn morning merely an hour after I get back to town.

  Fuck him for making me wish this was an actual booty call, when I could simply drive myself to his home and tempt him into tasting the forbidden fruit.

  Fuck him for everything that sucks in my life, because we’re not children anymore, but he still won’t make a damn move.

  Instead of going to the gym, since that’s what he expects of me, I come to Sophia’s studio and put in my hours here. I’ve been working on my own thing, something that isn’t fight world related, but no one on this planet except Sophia knows, because no one cares enough to ask. My family knows I dance, of course. They’ve been paying for classes for years, but do they know dance can be a competitive sport, too? Do they realize I could have been competing and showcasing my skills for years?