Stacking the Deck (Redemption Club Book 1)

by Anne Marie Becker

  They stopped beside his chair. A moment later, Ryan whipped his expensive sunglasses off his face and sent them a glare. “What the hell, man? You’re blocking my rays.”

  Skye didn’t move. “The great Ryan Stone, I presume.”

  Jared made himself comfortable on the empty chair beside him.

  Ryan sneered. “Who are you two, the new cabana boys? We don’t need any towels, but you could fetch us some drinks.” He shoved his glasses back in place but didn’t sit up.

  “I have some questions for you about the Hunting Grounds.”

  Ryan’s body tightened for a split second, before he could control his reaction. Skye circled his chair to talk to the redhead on his other side. “You might want to take a break from the sun. You’ve been baking your brain a bit too much if you’re hanging out with this guy.” The redhead scooped up her towel and, after a huff of irritation, hurried away.

  “Hey!” This time, Ryan sat up. “Stop scaring my girls away.”

  “You do remember me.” Jared grinned a humorless smile. “I’m touched. Frustrating when someone messes up your plans, isn’t it? Is that what happened with Erica Dubois? I scared her away, so you got mad. You and your friend hunted her down and killed her?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Skye took a deep breath to rein in her anger. These guys tossed women aside as if they were yesterday’s trash. “The girl from the Malibu party. Erica. She was found dead. And there was a little note for me about how the killer was coming for me, that my redemption awaits at the Hunting Grounds. Blah, blah, blah. Intrepidus vive ferociter ludeque and all that nonsense.” She caught the way he stiffened again when she spoke the Latin phrase.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s Latin,” Skye said, stepping closer. “And I know you know what it means. As for the threat…” She held her arms out to her sides. “You and Finn want me, take me. Take me to Chelsea and Loretta and whatever other girls you’re hurting.” They had to be so fucking scared. Forget hanging this guy’s balls from the ranch gate, she’d shove them down his throat.

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Chelsea Wright,” Jared said, eyeing him with cold anger. “She’s my sister. She danced regularly in Legacy Lounge, and, more recently, for a little private party here a few weeks ago. She hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Maybe she just took off, man. Or maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you. You seem the overbearing sort.”

  “And my friend, Loretta?” Skye smiled sweetly but shot daggers with her eyes. “She was promised a part in a Stone Studios movie. Are you going to try to tell me you had nothing to do with that?”

  Ryan glared at her. “Hell, no, I had nothing to do with that.”

  “With what?” Stone asked, stepping up behind Jared and frowning down at him. “I thought I made it clear yesterday never to come back.”

  Inside, Skye seethed. “Daddy to the rescue.”

  “When it’s necessary,” Stone returned. His frown turned to Ryan. “Don’t say a word to these people. We’ll contact a lawyer if we need to.”

  “Good idea,” Skye said. “And we’ll talk to the police. They haven’t had a lead to suggest Chelsea’s disappearance was due to foul play, but maybe a nudge in your direction would rejuvenate their efforts. Unless you want to explain to us what the Hunting Grounds are.” Stone’s intense gaze wavered, but he didn’t look away. “I’m guessing it’s some kind of game, but the price is human sacrifice? Somewhere not too far away from here. Maybe if we search your other properties, we’ll find your son’s gruesome theme park?” Judging by the way Ryan was growing more and more rigid with anxiety, Skye figured she was on the right track. “Either your son or his friend Finn killed a woman, left her body for us to find, with a message for me about my redemption.”

  “Shouldn’t you be looking for Finn?” Stone’s words could cut glass. “My son has been here for days. He has nothing to do with your missing girls.”

  “Oh, we are looking for Finn. He’s been hiding out. Probably wise, considering the kind of trouble he’s going to be in. We were hoping Ryan would be willing to help find him.” Ryan simply glared back at her. “Right. Well, it was a long shot, but soon you’ll have to choose. Your friendship or your freedom. Because I have a feeling Erica’s murder is going to come back on you, buddy. Let’s see your father pull you out of that mess.”

  A moment later, a sneer crept across Ryan’s handsome face. “Go fuck yourself.”

  They were drawing attention from sunbathers around the pool. Good. Let everyone know the filth that lurked beneath the glamorous facade of this hotel.

  Stone laid a hand on Ryan’s arm and spoke in a low voice to Jared. “Get a leash on her and get out before I call security.”

  Skye stepped closer to Stone. “Your son is a liability. I suggest you get a leash on that.”

  Jared’s eyes met hers and she nodded. Time to go.

  “Enjoy the beautiful day while you’re still free to do so,” she called back over her shoulder. “And if you talk to Finn, tell him I’m coming after him, too. If either of you harms another person, I’ll make sure you die a slow and painful death.”

  Let Ryan Stone and Finn Tucker feel like the hunted for a change.

  Chelsea bit back a startled scream as the cabin door flew open. She’d been dozing in the afternoon sun that streamed through the single barred window, dreaming about the life she’d had, the life she’d taken for granted.

  The man in the doorway had on his usual bear mask. As an intimidation tactic, it was effective—or it had been the first few times. After weeks of seeing him like this, it seemed ridiculous. Still, it turned his eyes into beads of black and disguised the humanness in his features. If he was human at all. He had the soul of a demon, but at least he’d been training them in the art of survival for the past couple weeks. Even as her brain worked out why he’d do such a thing, she’d soaked up all the information he shared.

  He turned his head from her to Loretta. Recently, she’d been more reluctant to partake in the training. In fact, she’d shut down in many ways over the past few days. Chelsea was worried, especially since Erica had done something similar, and she’d been taken into the wild yesterday and hadn’t returned.

  “What did you do to Erica?” Chelsea scrambled to her feet. If fight was what these men admired, fight was what they’d get.

  She eyed the door behind Bear, gauging their different sizes and strengths. She nearly slumped with defeat as she realized her chance of getting by him, especially with that gun in his hand, was nil. If it had been a knife, she might have risked it. But that would leave Loretta here, alone, young and scared.

  “We each hold our own fates, and the power to redeem ourselves, but she was a poor keeper of hers.” Bear sounded disappointed.

  Erica hadn’t survived, then. Despair filled Chelsea, squashing out the tiny light of hope she’d nurtured for weeks. “I’m hoping the two of you will provide better sport.”

  Sport. Her stomach twisted with nausea, but she lifted her chin into the air. “I’m sure we will. Just give us a shot.” It was better than waiting here to die.

  A flash of white indicated Bear was grinning beneath his mask. “It won’t be much longer now, and we’ll see how strong you are.”

  We. There would be more than just him hunting them, then. Would Finn join him or were there others? She’d like to know her odds of survival.

  She cursed the night she’d walked into that private suite at Legacy and chosen to dance to pay off a debt incurred when Finn had lent her several months’ worth of rent. With college tuition, a prior credit card debt and moving into an apartment with friends, she’d taken on too many financial obligations too fast. Rather than give her brother more fuel with which to argue his point that she wasn’t as independent as she believed, she’d gone elsewhere for a loan. But Finn and his friends didn’t fight fair. They’d
drugged the soda they’d offered her when she’d told them she didn’t drink on the job. She’d woken up here.

  “I’ll go first.” Loretta shocked them with her brave words. She limped forward, having strained her ankle during yesterday’s training exercise, before they’d taken Erica. Finn, wearing a fox mask, had chased them in the yard, keeping a rope around them as if he were breaking wild horses.

  Bear smiled. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

  Chained to an anchor in the wall, Chelsea watched from the shade of the cabin as Bear taunted and chased Loretta, always letting her go, but preparing her for something. For whatever came next.

  “When’s the hunt?” Chelsea dared to ask when they took a water break.

  “Eager for us to chase you?” He leered at her from behind his mask.

  “Eager to see you all die,” she shot back. She only hoped they didn’t force drugs on her as they had Erica before they’d dragged her out of the cabin. The girl had been out of her mind with fear. Chelsea wanted her wits about her. “Just give me a fair shot.”

  “I can’t promise that. That’s not for me to decide.” His teeth flashed. “But I can promise you it’ll all be over soon.”

  From the corner of his eye, Jared watched Skye pace his living room as he spoke on the phone with Sheriff Anderson, his liaison in Coconino County, Arizona, where Skye’s ranch was located. With the way Skye had been brought up, she was nervous when it came to involving outsiders, but she’d agreed that it was important to have the authorities on their side if they wanted to find the missing women. Jared was just glad she now considered him an insider.

  “I appreciate you telling me what you know,” Anderson said. “I take these threats personally, especially when they fall within my jurisdiction.”

  “And I appreciate you contacting me when you found Erica’s body.” It had been an anonymous tip that had led the authorities to the ranch. “We’re almost certain my sister and Skye’s friend are somewhere in your area. I’ll be driving down tomorrow to start a thorough search of the area.” Since Tristan Floyd was a part of this, and had connections to the ranch, it seemed a good place to start. In the meantime, he and Skye were reviewing the list of properties that were in Robert Stone’s personal possession, as well as any beneath the Stone Corporation umbrella.

  “I can begin organizing the search,” Anderson offered.

  “I’d appreciate it. And I’ll email you what I have.”

  After discussing a few more details, Jared hung up and forwarded the picture of Finn and information he had on Tristan to the sheriff. He turned to Skye, who seemed jittery with unspent adrenaline.

  “Dev sent a file that could be helpful,” he said. “Want to look it over with me?”

  “Sure.” She sat next to him on the couch and he took the opportunity to take her hand in his and lift it to his lips. He watched the heat and surprise flare in her gaze. “What was that for?”

  “Just a reminder that we’re in this together. You don’t have to keep all those thoughts and concerns in your head.”

  She sank against him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “How do you know what’s in my head?”

  Because it was in his, too. They were getting closer to finding Chelsea and Loretta. He could feel it, but the answers were still painfully far away. As were the answers to whatever was developing between him and Skye. He hadn’t been looking for another complicated relationship, but somehow he’d found one. He’d never wanted another woman to look after—not after what he’d been through with his mother and sisters—but neither did he want a woman who would leave him again, as his mother had, in her own way.

  He was surprised to find he wanted to understand what made Skye tick, what had made her strong. “I think part of you has been distracted ever since Haley asked whether you’d killed anyone.”

  Skye stiffened. “I have. Killed. And it started with my parents.”

  He went still. “You didn’t kill your parents. You couldn’t have. You were six.”

  “I know I didn’t actually kill my parents, but to a young child, it all gets mixed up, you know?”

  “Tell me about it,” he prodded gently. “I want to understand.”

  Could she recount that night her parents had died? Did she have the guts to explain the jobs she’d done? She supposed she’d know exactly where she stood with him when the dust settled.

  He draped an arm over the back of the couch. His fingertips were inches from her neck, and the skin there prickled with awareness. His quiet gaze encouraged her.

  “The night of the fire, I was misbehaving,” she said. “Again. I was something of a wild child.” With twenty years of distance from the event, Skye could see how she’d just been a rambunctious kid, but her mother had called her selfish, her father had called her uncontrollable—when they’d paid any attention to her at all. They’d tried to control her with their fists, or with drugs. While it went against her current nature, Skye had once been their rag doll, malleable and often tossed aside.

  “It was my birthday.” She felt his attention on her but couldn’t meet his gaze, instead staring at the flat-screen television adorning the wall opposite them. She swallowed. “At the ranch, the occasion was noted, but in my childhood home they were grudgingly celebrated, if at all. My birthdays were never love and laughter like what you shared with Haley.”

  “What we shared,” he reminded her.

  She nodded. “But they had promised me pizza and I had a special cupcake my teacher had given me at school that day. I think Miss Abernathy knew I wouldn’t get cake at home. I was mad that the pizza we ordered for my special dinner wasn’t my favorite.” She grimaced. “To this day, I can’t eat olives on pizza. My father accused me of being spoiled and sent me out of the house. Said he had company coming over anyway. Company meant a customer, but I was too young to understand what that meant at the time, only that it was business. As I walked by, I stuck out my tongue. He saw. With one sweep of his arm, he knocked my beautiful cupcake from the counter into the trash can.”

  In her head, she could still hear the soft splat, followed by a profound silence. The smell of chocolate icing had tickled her nose and made her mouth water. The beautiful little pink candy rose that had decorated the center now clung to the liner of the trashcan.

  “I started crying,” she continued. “My father roared at me to get out. My mother told me it was my fault for making him angry. I ran. I hid in my normal spot, in the tree near the end of the dirt driveway.” That tree still held the best memories of her youth. “That was my happy place. I must have been out there about a half hour. It felt like forever. I remember it had gotten dark, and I was getting cold. My legs and arms were stiff. But I didn’t want to climb down and go back inside.”

  “And nobody came for you?” Jared finally spoke, his outrage evident in the V of his eyebrows.

  “They preferred it when I was gone. I often was off, playing by myself for hours.”

  “You were six and it was after dark.”

  “Disappearing while they cooled off and conducted business was the smarter choice. Otherwise, they dealt with me in other ways. I’d learned to avoid eating or drinking if they talked about a customer coming by. If they drugged me, I’d wake up so groggy the next morning. And angry. A little kid shouldn’t be that angry, right?”

  He stiffened and she looked at him, worried she’d see judgment in his eyes, and relieved when she saw only anger. Anger, she could deal with. “I’m sorry, but I’d like to kill them with my bare hands.”

  His outrage soothed her hardened soul, smoothing out the tough skin she’d cultivated. She squeezed his hand, surprised to realize he’d interlaced his fingers with hers while she’d been talking. “They had company a little while later. From my perch above them, I saw the two men drive up, go inside and leave again a little while later. Customers, I guess. Anyway, by then I’d decided to stay in the tree. I didn’t want to get yelled at again, especially on
my birthday, and I guess I thought I was teaching them a lesson, too. I was pretty stubborn back then. Not a good quality.”

  “It saved your life,” Jared pointed out.

  “I spent a lot of time up in that tree, hating them, wishing I belonged to a different family. The explosion came just after I had a thought like that. I’d actually envisioned them, gone from my life forever and… Boom.” She picked up her water glass and took a swallow, trying to wash the bitter taste of regret from her tongue. As if it were that easy.

  “That’s why you blamed yourself. But you must realize now it wouldn’t have ended any differently if you hadn’t been stubborn.”

  “Or if I had just apologized and picked the olives off the damn pizza, I might have retreated to my room with the cupcake before the guys showed up.”

  “You would have died, too.”

  “Maybe I should have.” She scrubbed her hands over her eyes.

  “Skye.”

  The concern in his voice nearly undid her, and she kept her eyes tightly closed. “I take on dangerous jobs because I can’t do any better. Who would want to hire me for a legit career? I barely have a high school education. I figured I didn’t deserve any better unless I was working to rebalance the scales of justice.”

  “You deserve a future as much as any person does. Guilt has a way of messing with our minds.”

  She huffed out a laugh. “It wasn’t just guilt. Uncle Tom hammered it into me for years to avoid the outside world, that I couldn’t trust anyone. Hell, I no longer existed in the real world’s eyes. I had no identity. Whenever I questioned him about why I had to hide, he shut me down.”

  “But you eventually decided to go against his wishes, to find your own path.”

  “When one of the men—a real nasty sort—who came to train at the ranch bragged about how he liked to set fires, especially if it created chaos and death, I did some research next time I went to the Flagstaff Public Library. Found out he was an arsonist who’d killed a firefighter and the child the firefighter was trying to save. According to the article I found, the police didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest and the parents were left homeless and grief-stricken.”