Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  Sophia is not someone you would say no to if you truly knew who she was. Sure, she’s a dance teacher in her spare time, but when she’s not here, she may or may not control an army of assassins and who some in “the industry” call hitmen… not an exaggeration.

  Often, if you wish to live, you don’t tell Sophia no.

  “Fine.” She grabs Rudy again and pulls him against her. “Teach me. I wanna see your dance, and since you’re too chicken to show me, maybe you’ll teach me. That way, when I fall, it’s not you with the burning humiliation that makes you wanna quit.”

  “I don’t care if I fall.” I scowl. “I fall every single day, here, or at the gym. It’s literally the first thing we learn to do at the gym. We fall, we roll, we get up, and keep going.”

  “That’s part of your routine, isn’t it?” Wth a wicked grin, Soph shoves poor Rudy back to me and circles us. “Show me. Make me fall in love.”

  My hips move, unbidden. My ass sways, and my feet, somehow, end up on the balls, rather than the heels.

  “Shit,” I huff. “Fine. Rudy, here.” I drag my silent partner halfway across the room and place him in fifth position: his toes pointing to his left and right, his ankles crossed over, his hands near his hips while he waits. “Stay here for a moment, let me use you. Then I’ll lead you.”

  Rudy is a sweetheart. The most pliable man on earth – physically, and socially. He can do magical things with his body, and he’s strong as an ox, so I feel like a delicate dancer when he lifts me, rather than a heavy fighter, and he never complains about being saddled with the shy girl who can barely do more than speak above a whisper.

  It’s not that I can’t be assertive. It’s just that I learned long ago not to bother, because there’s always someone louder and more demanding who’s willing to work for it.

  “From the top,” Soph says. Grinning that way she does when she’s gotten her way – which is always – she restarts the song, steps back, and watches me leap.

  I head back to the gym after the studio, and find my daddy working with Ben in the main boxing ring. Instead of student and teacher, they’re equals.

  Perhaps it’s time to admit Ben is the better fighter now, and the original Rollers that created and run this place have moved beyond their prime. It’s not that they’re old, by traditional standards, especially not my mom, who fell pregnant with me when she was only nineteen years old – younger than I am now – but in the fight world, forty is old.

  The men in my life aren’t accepting that reality as well as one would hope, so they still turn up every single day, they work themselves until they sweat, they challenge the younger fighters – their kids, who are all twenty or so – and they pray we don’t make them look bad.

  On my way to the weights room, I veer left and stop by the ring as my daddy slams a lightning fast jab against Ben’s jaw. He was always fast – Jimmy Kincaid was once a title holder, and known for his light feet and sneaky hands – so though Ben is younger, and arguably stronger, he’s still heavier, and therefore has no chance of outracing my dad.

  “Left ribs, Daddy.” I rest my training bag on my shoulder, and reach out so my hands wrap around the ropes surrounding the two fighters. “He keeps dropping the left. Teach him a lesson.”

  “Got it.” And before the words fully pass his lips, Daddy sneaks under Ben’s guard and rearranges his ribs.

  Ben belts out an angry roar, but Daddy only skips back with a laugh, and bounces on his toes.

  Jimmy Kincaid is not biologically my father. In fact, Ben and I share a sperm donor, which makes him my half-brother and a full pain in my ass. But the man I call Daddy has been mine since the day I was born. Before that, even.

  Legend has it that he and Mom danced around each other for years before they finally summoned the courage to make something happen. She went on a date with the wrong man, I was created – oops! – and the day I was born, Jimmy was right there in the hospital, holding her hand while she cried, and then mine when I was shipped to the special care unit for a couple days. They stitched my mom up, brought her down to us, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  We’re a family, a unit, an impenetrable army that hasn’t fallen down once in the twenty years since. But in order for us not to trip, I always wonder if my quiet ways, my refusal to create waves, helped smooth the way.

  Either way, I still live a good life. My family makes me happy, and when Daddy skips around on light feet, on the balls of them, I wonder if we’re more alike than anyone knew. I like to be light too. I like to move fast.

  “You want a round?” Ben asks me with a scowling glare and a lisp, to speak past his mouthguard. “If you’re looking to jack me up, maybe you wanna step up and do it yourself.”

  “Nope.” Turning away, I flash a peace sign with my right hand, then head across the room and grin when my mom stops at the entrance.

  She peeks over my shoulder, takes in an angry Ben, his smiling opponent, and then my hand, and high-fives me when I pass.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Beanie. Have a good day today?” She falls into step beside me, and continues down the long, quiet hall toward the weights room. She knows where I’m going, so she’ll hitch a ride and hang out for a sec.

  “Day was fine.” Without meaning to, I open my mouth wide, and a yawn overtakes my body. My face stretches from its intensity, and my eyes water from how tight I squeeze them shut. I open them again, and give an embarrassed giggle when my mom does nothing but laugh. “I was dancing with Soph for a bit. I have finals coming up, so I’m working on those too.”

  “Busy, busy, busy,” she mocks as we approach the doorway and find exactly who we knew we would.

  It’s been a seven-year tradition – no matter our moods, no matter the weather, no matter that we probably had an argument the day before, and no matter what everyone else is doing – Mac and I meet in the weight room, and we work through a program I spend what little spare time I have creating just for him.

  I took a distinct interest in creating and helping Mac maintain a diet and exercise regime. It’s my way of helping him stay healthy, my way of making sure he won’t drop without warning again. It’s my way of controlling a situation I have little control over.

  Music plays from the speakers in each corner of the room, Mac’s playlist, and when Jay-Z comes on with Linkin Park hooting in the background, I drop my eyes and pretend that my unwrapped hands have all of my attention.

  “I’ll be home for dinner,” I tell my mom, then leaving her at the door, and ignoring the way Mac’s eyes beat against the side of my head as I enter, I dump my bag against the wall of mirrors and swallow when I have to force my body not to dance.

  Soph wants to know when I have time to create my own routine? Here, now, while I’m in this room. I choreograph in my head while Mac and I stand side by side and lift our heavy weights.

  It’s just too bad that my mental choreography absolutely does not star Rudy. Or Soph. Or Soph’s studio.

  “Hey,” is all Mac offers as he slows his run on the treadmill, bringing it down to a fast walk while sweat dribbles over his bare chest.

  I turn back to the door for a moment to make sure my mom is gone – I’m not sure why I do that. It’s not like Mac and I will be doing indecent things. But still, when we’re in here, when we’re training in the silence but for music, I consider it an almost religious moment. It deserves privacy for me, for Mac, for whatever the hell we have between us.

  “You’re running a little late.” He’s not accusing. More, inquisitive.

  “Mm.” I grab my half-empty water bottle from my bag, and tuck my ballet flats away when they demand I pay attention to them rather than the wraps I yank and begin winding around my hands. “I ran over time with Soph. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  The treadmill comes to a complete stop, and when I stand at the mirrors and finish wrapping my left hand, Mac comes over like he always does, takes the fabric from my hands, and begins working it aroun
d the right. He stands over me, so his chin almost touches his chest, his hair hangs a little in his eyes, and because he’s already been running, his panting breath hits my forehead.

  It’s both wonderful and infuriating. Nerve-wracking and frustrating.

  “Were you doing solo stuff today?” he asks in a quiet voice. “Working on the barre?”

  I shake my head and toss my ponytail back over my shoulder. “No, I was working on duet stuff.”

  “With the dude?” His teeth clamp close together. He draws in a heavy breath in an attempt to calm himself, and then lets it out again so it scorches down my throat. “He likes it, doesn’t he?”

  I let out an actual, genuine laugh. I was expecting to fake, fake, fake the whole time we’re in this room together, but his question startles a real laugh and makes my heart feel a little less heavy. “I’m certain he does. He wouldn’t work as hard as he does if he didn’t like to dance.”

  “I meant he likes to dance with you,” he argues. “He likes to have you pressed up against him while the music plays, and you can both pretend it’s not more than it’s supposed to be.”

  “More than… supposed to be?” I glance up when his hand roughly tugs the wrap around mine. “What do you mean? He’s my dance partner, just like you’re my sparring partner.”

  He glowers and somehow makes his green eyes darken. “Exactly. He have a girlfriend?”

  “A girlfriend?” I think of Ralph, Rudy’s sweet as pie, dessert-toting, always-smells-like-a-bakery boyfriend, and shake my head. “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Mm.” He tugs the wrap tighter again, which brings me forward a step until our thighs bounce together.

  I back up and look anywhere but at him, but I don’t pull my hand away as his touch sears my skin. Why can’t he touch me all over? Why can’t he admit that he’d like to spend time with me where we’re not studying, training, or bickering?

  “Somehow, I’m not surprised,” he continues. “Do you dance at a different studio when away at college?”

  “Sometimes.” I step back when he finally releases my hand, and looking up, I meet his dangerously glinting eyes. “I rent studio time at a place near campus, but I don’t go to classes. I just work on my own stuff.”

  “Alone?” He holds my eyes and doesn’t move a single inch away, despite the fact I’m stuck between him and the mirror. “Do you have a dance partner there too?”

  I shake my head. “It would be too hard to teach my routines twice and expect our rhythms to match. It’s easier to dance solo while away, then double down on the duet when I’m home.”

  “You double down.” A literal growl rumbles from his chest and sends shots of electricity racing in my blood. “Of course you do.”

  Without warning, he turns away with a swish of his hand that tends toward the dramatic, and snatches up a water bottle from his own bag. He chugs for a moment, tosses the bottle away so it bounces off the black rubber mats, then he turns back to me and demands, “Ready?”

  “Yeah.” I let my shoulders drop the way Soph is always hounding on me for, bring our new program up in my mind, and head toward the treadmill. “I’m going to take a couple minutes to warm up, so in the meantime, maybe you could set our bars up? I wanna work at around seventy percent of what we were doing last week. I don’t want it to hurt until the second to last lift.”

  “Yeah.” He walks to the wall of shelves and takes down an Olympic bar that, even before we add weight plates, weighs more than forty pounds. He brings it to a place in front of the mirrors and sets it down, then he goes back to the wall and grabs a second.

  The forty-four-pound bar is considered a “men’s” bar. As though the manufacturers assume women can’t lift the equivalent of a standard toddler. On our hips, perhaps, but not in a gym.

  Jerks.

  Mac takes down a second “men’s” bar and sets it down beside his, then he moves to the weight plates and begins setting us up while I run.

  By the time my run ends and sweat dribbles along my spine, Mac has set the bars up so we lift almost exactly the same. He lifts heavier, it’s natural, considering he has size and testosterone on his side, but I don’t lift so little that it’s embarrassing. Panting, I snatch up a towel that I left here yesterday and forgot to wash – gross – and wipe the sweat from my face and chest.

  Busy, Mac finishes loading his bar, and walks back to the corner to grab a bucket for the chalk.

  “All set.”

  “Awesome.”

  No matter the tone he or I bring in here, it doesn’t take much longer than a few minutes for us to shed that bullshit and simply exist within this room. Weights, sweat, pounding hearts, and empty water bottles. There’s no place for drama or bad attitudes.

  “We’re going to do five sets of twenty.” I laugh when his eyes widen. “It’ll be fun, and its only seventy percent.”

  “Times twenty!” he balks. “Fuck, woman. I thought we’d be doing sets of four. Five at the most. Lemme unload these bars a little–”

  “No.” I jump forward when he kneels toward the plates. “Leave them on. You’ve got this.”

  “I already feel like I can’t breathe.” Standing slowly, he stops so we’re a single foot apart and his heaving chest almost touches mine. “Feel this?” He grabs my hand and places it over his heart. “You’re worrying it.”

  I scoff, and pretend it doesn’t send me crazy when he places my hand on his racing heart. “You’ll be fine, I promise. And if you fall, I’ll be right here to save you.”

  “Exactly every fairytale that was ever told.” He rolls his eyes. “The princess was stronger, and had to continue to save the prince’s life.”

  “Wait… am I the princess? Or are you? Because your whining sounds awfully British.” I grin when he only flattens his lips. “Instead of comparing and saying someone is stronger than the other, how about we do the best we can with the equipment we have? You can lift more than me. You’ve literally always been able to lift more. So why don’t you focus on that, and I’ll focus on the fact I can do the splits and you can’t.”

  “Pretty sure I don’t wanna learn that skill.” Turning toward the mirror, he wraps his hands around his bar, only to step back again and begin rubbing chalk over his hand. He works the white block over his palm, slowly along his fingers, along the heel of his palms, then gently places the block of chalk back into the bucket without breaking edges off. “Pretty sure I shit my pants that time you did the splits. Aren’t you scared of tearing yourself in half?”

  He looks to my crotch for a moment. I know he doesn’t mean to be crude, but he still looks, then he shakes his head and turns back to the mirror.

  “No, I’m not scared.” I bend over my bar and wrap my hands around to test my grip. “It’s fun.”

  “You love dancing?”

  My face lights up against my will.

  I vowed forever ago – I don’t even remember exactly when or why – to shut my trap about dance. It’s for me. It’s private. So whenever anyone asks, I simply reply that class was fun, exhausting, busy… whichever answer is appropriate, then I move on. But this time, my eyes light up, and my smile stretches my face more than any yawn ever could.

  “Yes,” I answer quietly. “I love it a lot.” I glance up at the clock on the wall, and nod when the minute clicks over. “Start.”

  “Why don’t you ever talk about it?” Mac and I lift in tandem, but because we’re lifting lighter today, he can still talk without trouble. “You love it so much, but you treat it like it’s some sixth or seventh-string thing where you could take it or leave it, and not really give a damn.”

  I lower my bar, revel in the stretch in my hamstrings, then lift again. “It’s not sixth or seventh in my mind. I just don’t shout about it.”

  “Why not? Something makes a person smile the way you do, should be something you shout about. I should have been asking this years ago, but I didn’t know. Not until that day I walked in and Soph shoved us together.”

  “Wh
at didn’t you know?” I lower my bar, count to nine, and keep going. “That I danced?”

  “No, that you were so good at it. That it’s what you live and breathe.” His breath comes faster, as it always does when we train. “You danced that day, and your body…” He trails off. Shakes his head.

  I can’t let it go. I refuse to let it go.

  “My body what? Mac?” I meet his eyes in the mirror. “What about my body?”

  It’s sexy, I suggest in my mind. It’s beautiful. It’s something you’d like to taste every inch of while we’re naked in bed.

  “I dunno.” He lowers his bar on a grunt. “I guess I expected toddlers playing soccer, ya know? A little bum wiggle, running around in circles, maybe a ribbon being waved in the air as you flounced your tutu all over the place.”

  I scoff.

  “I didn’t expect for it to look like you’ve been performing your whole damn life. Or that you were born, not to be a fighter, but a fucking ballerina.” He pauses. “We’ve been friends a long time, yeah? But I feel like you kept this from me. Like it was your dirty little secret, and now that I know, I question what else you’ve kept quiet on.”

  “It wasn’t my dirty secret.” I lower my bar. “I just… I dunno. It’s special to me, so I’d rather tell no one, instead of tell the world and have it blown off as toddlers doing the bum wiggle.”

  “I won’t ever blow it off,” he declares. “I know your secret now. I thought you were an amazing fighter, Luce, I really thought you were the best. But compared to dancing…” he shakes his head. “One is a mere skill you’ve learned. The other is like a skin you wear. It’s…”

  Sexy. Seductive. Impossible to ignore.

  “I dunno.”

  Of course he doesn’t.

  “Why do you call me Lucy?” I drop my bar at the end of my twenty, and tilt my head while he finishes his last. “Not many others do. Apart from you, and Soph, and maybe the cops when they question me over Smalls’ crimes, nobody calls me Lucy.”

  He snags a towel with a quiet laugh and wipes it over his face. He drags the ratty fabric down over his chest, over the puckered scar that he’s so obsessed with it’s unhealthy, then down over his ridged stomach. “Smalls is gonna get us all sent to Leavenworth someday. She doesn’t know how not to be extra.”