Busted (Stacked Deck Book 11)

by Emilia Finn

  “Emma?”

  I spin at Luke’s voice, and slam a finger to my lips to shut him up. Waving him over in silence, I grab his hand and yank him to my side so his ear is close to the door.

  “Shush,” I whisper and move in closer. “Listen.”

  “It’s my choice to make,” Grace shouts at her visitor. “Not yours. Not Rob’s. Not anyone else’s. This is my body, my baby.”

  “My baby too,” the guy shouts right back. “There were two people in that bed, Grace. And just because you can convince Fuckface that hopping into bed one time three months ago can result in a four-and-a-half-month-old fetus, that doesn’t mean I’m as much of a pushover. I’m here, Grace, and I’m demanding my place at this table!”

  The sound of a hand hitting skin makes my teeth ache. The slap reverberates through the wall, through the door, and echoes in my brain.

  “My. Body,” Grace snaps. “My choice.”

  “You bitch!”

  Whoever the guy is, he gets only a second to retaliate before Luke backs up and kicks the door wide open. Wood splinters and explodes around us, the metal lock literally unhinges itself from the door and falls to the tile floor with a clang, and Grace spins to us with a scream.

  Tears spill from her eyes, and her hand holds her jaw. Just two feet away, a guy stands with his fists held high in a stance I was raised to know. His feet are sloppy, and his cover is nonexistent, but his intent is there, and so is the bruise blossoming on Grace’s jaw.

  “He hit her.” I dash past Luke and into the messy kitchen, and though I aim for the guy with my teeth bared and my fists ready to rearrange his face, my feet leave the ground when Luke’s arm wraps around my waist and spins me around, tossing me in another direction.

  It’s like we choreographed this, planned the direction he’d throw me, because my feet touch down again, graceful and perfect, so that I stand right in front of the woman I hate most on this planet.

  I want to slam her. Belt her. Make her sorry for the lives she’s trying to ruin. But instinct means that I grab her and remove her from danger.

  Luke slams the guy against the heavy, old, white fridge so that his back crunches against the protruding handle. Wine glasses that were displayed in a rack on top rain down around them as they grapple for the upper hand, and glass hits the tile and sprays back up like shrapnel on a battlefield.

  Though I have jeans on that protect my legs, Grace wears tiny sleep shorts, so glass nicks her skin and draws blood, but I keep us moving anyway. Into the living room, past a massive crib that sits inside the packaging and has a delivery label on the side.

  It’s addressed to Robert Hart, but at this address, and that name being there – the knowledge that he bought and had delivered an expensive sleigh crib to this lying, two-timing bitch – makes it hard for me to be gentle as I move her out of the way.

  “Sit down!” I shove her onto her couch and turn back when Luke slams a heavy fist to his opponent’s jaw.

  Both men can fight, but only one has been trained his entire life.

  “You. Don’t. Hit. Women!” Luke hits again and again so that the guy’s nose explodes, and blood sprays onto the shiny white tile. Together, they drop to the floor, but Luke is faster, more skilled, and takes mount with lightning-fast moves. “Even if we don’t like them! You don’t hit.”

  He slams his fist on the guy’s jaw again, again, again, until eventually, his opponent turns limp.

  “Motherfucker!” Luke yells. “Wake up so I can hit you again!”

  “Luke, stop.” I spare a glance for Grace as she curls deep into the couch cushions and bawls her eyes out.

  No doubt her face hurts, but more, she’s just been caught in a massive lie.

  “Luke,” I repeat when he tries to rouse the guy from his sleep. “Leave it and come over here. I need you to check on Grace.”

  “You check on her!” He doesn’t take his eyes off of the man laying unconscious on the floor. “I’m busy schooling this little bitch.”

  “Yeah, except Grace is growing a shiner, and I can’t get close enough to check it without wanting to flog her.” My hands shake, and my brain thuds with a painful headache.

  Thoughts of Grace almost snagging my best friend into a relationship he doesn’t want, into a situation he never asked for, then threatening to take it all away again with a cold dismissal of this is my choice makes my blood boil.

  “I’m having rage issues right now, Luke. I need your help.”

  “Fuck.” Grunting and pushing to his feet, Luke snags a hand towel from beside the sink and wraps it around his hand. “I can’t say I much like her either.”

  But he comes anyway, moving slowly. He’s sore, even if he won the fight.

  He passes the crib just like I did, and snarls when he reads his brother’s name on the side. “Fucking hell.” He stops in front of a skittish Grace and kneels down when she looks genuinely terrified.

  Maybe she is, but my cynical side says she’s now in damage control mode.

  “You will tell him,” I stand back and glare until her eyes come to mine. Hers spill over with big fat crocodile tears. “You will tell him the fucking truth, and you will do it tonight.”

  “I don’t—” Grace hisses when Luke gently probes her jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We heard you,” I shout. “We heard that asshole in there claim that baby as his own.” I step closer, but stop again, like there’s an invisible line on the floor keeping me from getting too close.

  It might be an invisible line. But most likely, it’s my body’s natural disinclination to go to prison for murder.

  “That child is not Rob’s. You’re lying for a bunch of reasons, but two of them are money and trapping him into a relationship you don’t deserve.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She doubles down and firms her quivering lips. “In fact, you shouldn’t even be in my apartment.”

  “We just saved your fucking ass!” Luke snaps. “Shut your fucking troll mouth and give it up already. He was gonna flog you, Risotto! Where’s the appreciation?”

  “What the fuck?”

  I spin at Rob’s panicked roar. My heart races so fast that it feels like it might flutter right out of my chest, but it’s the rage in his eyes that brings me up short. The accusation as he races past the unconscious guy and skids into the living room.

  He sees Grace, crying and curled up on the couch.

  He sees Luke, shielding her, and tending to a bruised face.

  And he sees me, standing back with murder in my eyes and not a whole lot of sympathy for the lying bitch.

  “Are you fucking crazy? Emma!” Rob dashes forward, passing me by with too little space so that he basically shoves me to get through. He pushes Luke aside, and scoops Grace up with strength that makes it look easy. He cradles her to his broad chest, tucks her head against his shoulder, and finally, he turns back to me with disgust in his eyes. “You just had to go full fucking crazy, huh?”

  “She’s lying to you, Fart.” I say the words, but there’s no conviction in my tone. No fight. “She lied to you from the start.”

  “Get out, Emma!”

  “That’s not your baby! I heard her arguing with that guy,” I point back to the kitchen. “The baby is his. But she’s lying because you have the cash to make her situation more comfortable.”

  “Just stop!” He holds Grace closer; her protector and nurturer. Both roles I’ve enjoyed from infancy. But I’m back on the outside, in the cold and unloved. Our moratorium lasted only hours. “I can’t believe you’d stoop this—”

  “You don’t believe me?” I step forward instead of back. Challenge. Rage. “Are you calling me a liar, Robert?”

  “You hit her!” he roars. “You fucking hit her because she’s making a choice that you don’t like.”

  “No, you stupid fucking jerk. I want to hit her, but there’s no need, because he hit her first. Luke and I saved her ungrateful ass.”


  “Emma! Just stop! Jesus.”

  And there it is. His complete denial.

  My heart fractures and breaks away from the inside of my chest.

  “Rob,” Luke tries. “You need to take a fuckin’ breath and read the room. It’s not how it looks.”

  “Nope, it’s fine.” I take a step back. Then another. I back up until I bump into the sleigh crib, then I swallow and turn away.

  The last thing I see, the image burned into the backs of my eyelids, is Rob cradling Grace fucking Risotto in his arms, and her arrogant smirk, tucked up against his neck so he can’t see.

  She makes me think homicidal thoughts, and I’m woman enough to know I can’t be here, not even to discuss this and convince Rob to see outside of Grace’s asshole for a second so he can hear the truth.

  “You can call me when you’re ready to not be a fuckin’ idiot,” I tell Rob. Then I pause at the doorway, glance back to Luke, and lift a brow. “If you ever see her and I in the same room again, you’re in charge of removing one of us. I can’t be held responsible for the damage I’ll do, and I don’t wanna go to prison for a bitch I don’t even like.”

  And with that, I stomp through the kitchen and out of the apartment that is certain to have police presence within minutes.

  Luke’s gonna end up in more trouble with the court, his parents are going to punish him for fighting – again – and now that everyone knows I was never the innocent they all assumed I was, they’ll punish me too, for inciting this throwdown.

  “You would believe her. You’ve wanted her to be your own personal little cheerleader since high school. Now’s your chance.”

  “Wait.” Luke jumps forward and tries to grab me. “Em, stop—”

  I snap my wrist from his grasp, and looking away, swipe a hand over my cheek to rid myself of the tears of betrayal. “All of these years,” I try to speak past the hurt in my voice. “All of the love and friendship. All of the memories. All of the times you saved me. And this is where we end up?”

  I pass that crib again, the symbol for the end of my relationship with my soulmate. Swallowing, I meet Rob’s eyes. My best friend, cradling a lying bitch who possibly deserves so much more than a clip on the chin.

  “You’re at a crossroads again.” I cough away the lump in my throat. The tears that want to fall. The heartache that makes it impossible to breathe. “You’re being asked to choose who you’re siding with, to choose who you believe. And then, when you go to bed tonight, you have to live with that choice.”

  “You’re asking me to choose between my best friend and my baby!”

  “No,” I snarl. “But I already told you the truth about that. You’re choosing not to listen.”

  I look to Luke, to the pity in his eyes, and the truth that burns right there – he knows Grace’s secret, he knows Rob is choosing wrong. But he can’t change it any more than I can. Rob will believe Luke almost as readily as he’ll believe me. We’ve both made our feelings clear on Grace in the past, so unfortunately for us, we can’t be trusted to be unbiased when it comes to her.

  Finally, when I know there’s nothing for him to say, I look back to Rob and lower my eyes. “Yeah. I hear you, loud and clear. I’ll see you around, Fart. And, Grace,” I meet her eyes, “if I ever see you again, if you’re ever close enough and no longer pregnant, I’m gonna belt the snot out of you. No mercy, no bell to end the fight. Stay the fuck away from me, or you’ll find out what I really think of you.”

  Rob

  Drowning One’s Own Sorrows

  I walk through my apartment door the morning after last night – henceforth known as The Night My Whole Fucking World Exploded. I kicked Emma out – again – I kicked Luke out, I had him escort the newly-conscious fuckwit out, and slamming the door, I closed up Grace’s apartment…

  With her and I on the inside.

  Things were said last night, loud things, horrible things, confusing things, all of which coalesced in my brain until I focused in on one single thing in that moment: Emma, standing over Grace, and Grace with a bruised face and my baby in her stomach.

  Or, well… a baby in her stomach.

  “You fucked up.” The second I close my apartment door and step into the kitchen, Luke skids across the floorboards in socks, and points the TV remote in my direction. “You crazy motherfucker, do you have no ears, or what?”

  “Leave it alone.” I drop my keys and phone onto the counter by the door, and walking past my brother, I head into the hall. “I’m too tired to function, so don’t start. You’d have an unfair advantage.”

  “Well, I’m gonna start anyway!” He follows me into the hall with the remote still in his hand. “Grace Risotto is playing you, brother. Emma was completely in the right. Judge Abrams is gonna get word soon about me belting that prick. And now everyone is going to prison… except not Grace, because she’s slimier than a fucking worm, and just as spineless.”

  “Leave it alone.” I step into my room and slam the door. “I need to rest.”

  “I’m not gonna leave it!” He swings the door open until it bounces off the wall. “It ain’t your baby! It ain’t your problem. So now you get to scoot on outta that dysfunctional mess and go back to living your life the way you want to.”

  I drop down onto my bed, turn to my side so I’m facing away from Luke, then hugging my pillow, I close my eyes and will this all to go away. “I’m not talking about this right now.”

  “You sent Emma away, again!” he booms. “The first time was bad, but the second time was fucking wrong! Are you deaf? Did you not hear anything we’re trying to tell you? Grace is a lying slut!”

  “Grace is still pregnant!” I flop to my back to face him. “No matter what, she’s still having a baby, and for a month, I thought it was mine, okay? Give me a fucking second to process.”

  “And every time you take a second to catch up on your own shit, you toss your best friend out in the cold and snap a thread that can never be repaired. You dismiss your own fucking best friend, Rob! You cause damage because she’s the easy target.”

  “I’m not trying to hurt her! Jesus. I’m doing my best.”

  “Well, your best ain’t enough, because Emma is family, and you continue to kick her in the teeth. All because Grace has a pussy and lets you use it sometimes?”

  “Go away.” I roll over to my side and shut him out. “I’m taking a fucking minute right now. Come back later, and we’ll fight it out.”

  “I have to go to work,” he declares. “Someone has to turn up at the gym and let Mom and Dad know that you didn’t die overnight. I’ll hold the fort, I’ll smooth feathers, and I’ll even try to find Em today and let her know you’re sorry. I’ll save that fucking friendship for you, since I know you’re gonna regret this bullshit once you’ve had your moment.”

  “Leave Emma alone,” I bury my face in my pillow. “I’ll fix it, but I need to deal with Grace first. That shit isn’t over yet.”

  “Deal with Grace?” he asks. “What’s to deal with? She’s not your girlfriend! And as of last night, she ain’t your baby-momma either.”

  “She said I am,” I murmur, quiet and pained so that emotion threatens to choke me. “She said you guys were lying, and that you attacked her friend for no reason.”

  “And of course you’re just gonna believe her, huh? Over your own fucking brother and best friend, you’re taking Alfredo’s word for it?”

  “No,” I sigh. “I believe you. But I have to see it out. You know I do. Make sure, get actual tests and DNA results and shit.”

  “And then what?” he demands. “You’re gonna walk? Just like that?”

  I shake my head and pray for sleep. I pray for this ache in my stomach to go away. “I’m gonna mourn the baby that I’m ninety-nine percent sure ain’t mine, but still, I’ll mourn, because for a while, I thought I was gonna be a dad. Now I’m not.” I fix the pillow over my head and sigh. “Excuse me for taking a fucking second to process that.”

  Luke leaves at some point after
I attempt to smother myself with a pillow. But when that doesn’t work, and my lungs continue to feed my body life-sustaining oxygen, I go to sleep instead.

  I didn’t get any last night. None at all. Because maybe I told Emma to leave again, but I heard what she and Luke said. The words were penetrating my mind. The problem lay in the fact my actions were a little slow off the mark.

  I sleep until well after noon, wake to pee and eat, then I sleep for another hour on the couch in the living room while Schitt’s Creek plays and lulls me into a sense of ‘shit could always be worse’.

  I wake around two, drag my ass across the apartment and, finally collecting my phone, I scroll the dozens of messages that sit unread.

  Mom and Dad began with a calm stop Emma from killing Grace and quickly moved into OMG. Did Emma kill Grace? Messages went to Are you okay? somewhere around three this morning, then at seven, about the time I was crawling into bed, Mom declared war on me, and promised retribution for making her worry.

  At nine, the messages turned kinder; I guess Luke arrived at the gym around that point, and passed on the message that I was alive.

  Cowardly and stupid, yes, but alive.

  Grace has sent dozens of texts, most of which read as though last night never happened, or, and more likely, she thinks I’m gullible enough to take her word over that of my brother and Emma. Her texts are chatty and focus on the baby – naturally, she’s much more welcoming of my opinion, like she thinks that’ll help lure me in. She wanted to go shopping at noon; oops, missed that one. She sent screenshots of the different angles of the baby’s skull; marvel with me! She asked if she could drop by the gym to bring me lunch; the fact I have no texts about that from my family assures me she didn’t follow through. And now, my phone buzzes again:

  I’m gonna come to your apartment a little later. A homecooked meal sounds perfect, right? Anything you want me to grab from Jonah’s store while I’m there?

  It seems that the key to unlocking the human element inside Grace – as fake as it may be – is to have a massive secret about her that she’s hoping you’ll pretend doesn’t exist.