WIN THE GAME

by Allison, Ketley

  “I’m going to grab a shower.”

  “There’ve been points in the past where you—wait, what?”

  “You heard me.” I peeled off my shirt on the way to the exposed industrial shower in the far-right corner, separated by the rest of the apartment with a single fogged-over glass panel.

  “You’re ignoring what I’m saying. That never bodes well. For either of us,” Kai said.

  “Your thinking cap is to carve paths in your floorboards. Mine is to take a hot shower and go over my options.”

  I didn’t have to look back to know Kai crossed his arms before saying, “You’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?”

  My only answer was the creak of the pipes as I turned on the water.

  “I’ll call Chenko the instant you put your head under that spray,” he warned.

  “No you won’t.” I stepped out of my shorts, then underwear, and got in the shower, massaging my neck as the stream melted against my face.

  “Yes, I—oh, come on, Scar.”

  Eyes closed, I smiled.

  “Since when did you become a fucking pick-pocket?”

  I spun so the water cascaded down the back of my head. “You learn a lot in the underground.”

  “Where is it? Where’s my phone, you asshole?”

  Kai came around the glass panel, hands on his hips, while I squirted shampoo into my palm.

  “Where did you—oh, come on, Scar.”

  He spotted his phone in the toilet.

  “This is my last chance,” I told him. “It’s a bitch move to destroy your phone, I know, and I promise I’ll get you a new one. But if I don’t find out what Gordon wants with me, if I don’t get to see Theo ever again...”

  “Do not Romeo and Juliet my ass while you’re naked.”

  I stepped forward just enough for the spray to hit my lower back, keeping my expression free and clear. “My world stopped spinning when my sister died. It restarted again when I found Theo. Then ran into another wall when he left. My life’s trajectory has been fucked up ever since I was seventeen years old, and for once, a clear path has been laid out in front of me. I need to get him out, Kai.”

  “Even at the expense of your friends? Verily? Your family?”

  “If I don’t do this,” I said, tipping up to wash the suds out of my hair. “There will be nothing left of me to give.”

  Kai grew serious. “You’ve sold so much of your soul to the Saxon dynasty already, Scarlet.”

  “Yeah?” I turned the tap off, wrung out my hair. “Then what’s a few threads more?”

  * * *

  It was with great reluctance that Kai said good-bye to me at his door. I wasn’t escaping entirely, as Kai made me agree to wear his necklace as he monitored me on his computer, ready to call in the cavalry at my barest touch.

  He was a true friend. While Kai didn’t agree with my actions, he also knew that I’d jump through the fire escape if I had to, and it was with the path of least resistance in mind that he shook on a plan.

  It was inescapable destiny. Once I had eyes on both Trace and Theo, I was to press the necklace and bring the FBI in. It was the only way Kai would let me go without following, as well as the only reason why Chenko wasn’t standing in the doorway blocking my way out.

  I wasn’t going in alone. Technically. I had the necklace, an item that wouldn’t be confiscated by Gordon Saxon’s security team due to its innocuous appearance. I didn’t take Kai’s gun, as I barely knew how to shoot, and my confrontation with Bo remained on traumatic repeat in my mind.

  You killed someone.

  There wasn’t time to dwell. I rubbed at my eyes, essentially pressing the memory out of existence until it would pop up again, likely at night, during the moments between awake and rest, those crucial seconds where all regrets changed to vivid flashbacks that wouldn’t recede, no matter how many sheep were counted.

  Well, I wasn’t going to sleep, anyway.

  This time, there was no formal gown adorning my body, no diamonds, or pearls. It was simply my denim shorts, which I washed in Kai’s sink then blew dry with a hair dryer, and one of Kai’s obscure rock band t-shirts. My hair was tied back and I wore minimal make-up.

  As I took one last look in the entryway mirror, I thought this was a person I hadn’t seen in a very long time. The maintenance, primping, and couture I’d become accustomed to were long discarded, and I was back to myself, a girl from upstate who moved to the city with little to no dreams, but nowhere else to go. I’d been lucky to find Verily, and through her a waitress job which ultimately led to an uncanny talent of playing with cards. Everything I’d been through culminated to this point.

  There was nothing left to lose. I’d been labeled a fugitive, or at the very least a person of interest, in the United States, along with Theo. I was too pragmatic to believe we’d be sipping Mai Tais in a country without extradition, living out our lives under different names, never to be seen again by the Saxon family or the FBI. In order to get us out, I had to bring the FBI in. Complicated, fool-headed, but true.

  “You’ll be careful,” Kai said as I entered the floor’s hallway. It wasn’t a question.

  “Always.”

  To his credit, Kai didn’t roll his eyes. “I won’t take my attention off my computer screen. Not for a minute.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you, Scar.”

  At the emotion in his voice, I went into his arms and said close to his ear, “I love you, too.”

  “I’ll see you again.” There wasn’t as much inflection in his words this time.

  “Of course.”

  Without looking back, I descended the stairs.

  It wasn’t necessary to reply to Gordon Saxon’s text asking for an address. His townhouse was well-known and ultimately impenetrable by any one layman. One had to receive an invitation in order to pass through the iron gate, and that included police, dirty and clean alike. No one crossed into Saxon territory without extreme vetting and specific intentions. It was a feat similar to an FBI agent’s wet dream to see the interior of the home, never mind Papa Saxon himself. He kept himself carefully apart from any crimes, questionable deliveries and inflated payrolls. In the words of Chenko himself, Gordon Saxon was a slippery son-of-a-bitch who the government had spent a decade trying to collar.

  As I walked toward the subway, conscious of any eyes on me, I hoped I’d have the chance to talk to Theo before I pressed the necklace’s button and fucked him over a second time. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. I could look Theo in the eye and say, thanks for risking everything in an attempt to save my life, but I’m having you arrested. Enjoy your foreseeable future behind bars. Oh, by the way, I’m still in love with you.

  The mere thought of it had me missing a few steps. If I could get a chance to explain before the walls come crashing down, if he’d be able to look at me…

  The only way. It’s the only way, Letty.

  And maybe it was. I traversed the lingering crowds poking around Chinatown, the cacophony of voices and cars rising into a cloud of white noise. Once I reached the subway entrance, I descended into the ultimate underground.

  When a rat scuttled across the platform and down onto the tracks, it was too close an analogy to my journey to Gordon Saxon and I focused on the incoming lights of the subway train instead.

  25 Crime Scene Clean-Up

  The Saxons’ main townhouse was located in Williamsburg, an area one wouldn’t think a crime lord would move into, but with the growing gentrification and the draw of trendy storefronts, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think Gordon Saxon and his fourth wife converted a piano factory into a brick-lined, industrial-styled, four-story mansion.

  I stood in front of its black farm-sized double doors, which I was pretty sure once belonged to a horse stable but was probably sold for ten times as much, I couldn’t deny Gordon his style sense. Or, perhaps his new wife. Either way, to walk up the modest poured concrete walkway sanded to appear years older than it was, one w
ould never believe such a property belonged to an infamous crime king. A rock star perhaps, or an A-list celebrity wanting prime location but few paparazzi.

  I was delaying. It was obvious, since my finger hovered near the doorbell but wouldn’t press, my mind instead providing real estate critique that I probably siphoned from reruns of Million Dollar Listing that Verily loved watching.

  It was better than what waited inside.

  I would have loved to case the property, peek through windows and figure out where Theo was being held and Trace and their father held court. But cameras had already spied me, and it was no wonder, since such a fashionable home would be outfitted like a fortress.

  After a breath, I pressed the bell.

  No echoing ring was heard or annoying ding-dong. These walls, doors, and windows were soundproofed. Unconsciously, I squeezed the necklace. My only hope, the last weapon to bring the Saxons down. All of them.

  No one would hear my screams.

  The door swayed open, and a butler of sorts appeared. He was dressed in slacks and a polo and resembled more of a professional wrestler than a server. He held no tray, smiled no greeting, but made sure his holstered gun stuck in his belt was on full display.

  He said nothing, merely waiting for me to step inside. Once I did, he thunked the door shut behind me. The bustling city outside disappeared. Emergency sirens couldn’t break through the screen of silence engulfing this home.

  “Stand still,” he said.

  Arms out, I allowed the frisk, front teeth clutching my lower lip as his calloused hands grazed the exposed skin of my forearms, my thighs. He paused at the denim between my legs, lingering much too long, but moved right when I was going to break his face with my knee.

  When he untucked my shirt, I shoved away. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Oh, I dare, honey. You’re in Saxon territory now. Shirt up, or I’ll tear it off you.”

  I tasted blood from my teeth cutting into the vulnerable tissue of my lip, the metal fear scoring across my tongue. “No.”

  “No?”

  His hand snaked around my neck too quickly and I gulped air, fingernails scratching at the girth of his tattooed forearm.

  “Then we’re doing it the hard way.” He said it with such ease, like he lifted weights with girls half his size on a daily basis. Using his other hand to lift up my shirt, he felt around, met my bulging stare, and squeezed a breast with a half-smile. If I’d had enough saliva, I would have spit in his eye.

  I gasped when he suddenly dropped me and opened my windpipes. I doubled over, gagging.

  “You’re clean,” he said, off-hand. “Follow me.”

  I steadied my gait as I followed him down the wide hallway with exposed ceiling beams and industrial lights. It wasn’t the mansion I imagined. I pictured Gordon Saxon encased in velvet and antiques, a cigar dangling from his lips as he remained comfortably seated on a tufted red chair bordered by intricate wooden carvings. Maybe a Doberman on either side, ears pricked for the muttering of their master’s “attack.”

  The butler/wrestler stepped aside to allow me entry into a main room, the dark paneled wood underneath my feet unchanging from the hallway to the room. Cream couches—the types with very stiff cushions and not much comfortability—were the focus, and on one, sat Gordon Saxon.

  I hadn’t seen him since one brief night at a charity event two years ago. Heard talk of him during my first days as a cocktail waitress, and certainly understood the threat of him years after. Gordon Saxon was a forewarning that greeted me before I entered other houses, sat at other tables. There wasn’t a poker room that he didn’t know and didn’t know him. The Saxons ruled the underground, and ensuring I stayed away from his rooms wasn’t enough. Standing here, I wondered when I ever thought it would be.

  Gordon was incredibly good-looking. Not sallow or pot-bellied like I’d envisioned most mafia bosses to be. For someone who stayed out of the spotlight and relied on the murmuring of his name as enough threat, I’d pictured a goblinesque, short, chain-smoking old man with streaked white hair. A navy suit costing more than five years of cocktail waitressing narrowly disguised a soft gut, but otherwise, his frame was trim. Muscled. Tailored to a multi-millionaire.

  “Scarlet Rhodes,” Gordon said through carved, pale pink lips rimmed with salt-and-pepper stubble. Gordon’s sandy hair, tinted with gray, was swept back in a singular wave, long enough to curl at the edges and give me the impression that this was how Theo would look if he grew out his hair. His cheekbones jutted out under addictive blue eyes, an exact match to Theo.

  I hovered in the archway, unable to speak. My lungs had bunched up and settled behind my collarbone, shriveling the instant I locked stares with this man.

  “I’m surprised you came,” he said.

  I rubbed at my throat. Images of Lauren’s torture—Theo’s previous girlfriend—centered themselves directly in front of my pupils. I hadn’t been witness to it, but I’d heard enough.

  “Please, take a seat. Would you like a drink?”

  I shook my head.

  He chuckled. “Of all the ways I pictured your arrival, I did not predict this. I’d heard your quips made even the most seasoned players speechless, that you could read a man through a glance and predict his cards in one sweep. Yet you stand before me a tired, scared young girl with nothing to say.”

  “Where’s Theo?”

  “Ah.” He threw an arm across the top of the couch and crossed a leg at the ankle. “I’ll add predictable to the list.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Patience. Sit down and talk a while.”

  “You got what you wanted. Trace is here,” I said through the cogs in my throat. My lungs offered very little breathing room. “Theo did as you asked.”

  “Yes, he certainly did.”

  “Why do you want to kill me?”

  He cocked his head, his eyes just as startling on an angle as they were head-on. “You aren’t so vacuous as to fail to understand why I want you out of the way.”

  “Theo and I aren’t together anymore.”

  Tony tilted his head the other way. “No?”

  “We’re not,” I said, firmer. “He needed me to…”

  To what? Theo didn’t require my services to locate his older brother. He was only using it as a pretense.

  “He needed me to play in a few games.” I made sure to sound strong. “To infiltrate ones Trace was known to put horses into or play himself.”

  “I assure you, Theodore has told me the same thing.”

  My relief was short-lived. Gordon smiled. “Your stories match, but I haven’t enjoyed stories since I was a babe in my mother’s arms.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “You made a mistake the instant you stepped through the doors of my House a few years ago.”

  “Then I’ll leave,” I said. “Show me Theo, that he’s all right, and you’ll never have to see me again. I’ll stop playing poker. I’ll move out of the city.”

  Gordon rose, walked toward me with the ease of a predator. When he was close enough, he raised his hand to stroke the forming bruises on my neck. I swallowed, the action pressing his fingers deeper for a mere second, but it was enough to have me reeling back. I didn’t break eye contact.

  “You’re responsible for Theodore’s demise,” he said, hand still raised in mid-air. “I want you to know that. It’s because of you he’s shirked his duties, discarded the Saxon name, and stayed away from my city for so long. In truth, you took Trace with you in the same action.”

  Gordon’s handsome features morphed, a vulgar mask warping what was a misleadingly kind face. It was like searching for an angel during a storm.

  “You’ve ruined two of my sons. I have one who hates you and one who would do anything for you. In both situations, you are a distraction. Tracey must focus on what’s important—this empire, this city—and Theodore needs to fall in line. Oh, and he will.” Gordon’s veneers glimmered in the industrial lighting. It was
in that moment I realized why this house lacked plushness, fabric, carpeting. It was due to calculation. Crime scene clean-up was so much easier this way.

  “I want to thank you,” he said, the mask falling to the ground. Gordon came back, his lips, though deeply lined, mellowing into a relaxed downward curve.

  “For what?” Shockingly, my tone remained steady.

  “For bringing with you the realization that I should never have initiated a contract against you.”

  “If you want to be the one to personally kill me, then do it.”

  Gordon’s brows jumped, deepening the lines on his forehead, but he slammed them down just as fast. “I’ll be glad to.”

  When he’d raised his arm to touch me, I caught the holster under his arm, the gun nestled inside. I’d felt a gunshot before, and at the time, that pain was supposed to end me. By some luck of the draw, it didn’t. I’d endure it again, but for one reason only.

  “Shoot me,” I said, chin up, teeth clenched. Trembles cascaded from my shoulders to my heels. “Go on. Do it.”

  I almost missed it. A flicker of respect. “You want the suffering to end that quickly, do you?”

  He stepped forward, and this time, I didn’t have the space to back away.

  “You poor doe,” he said, tutting as he ran one finger down my cheek. I refused to flinch. “First losing your sister, your twin no less. And your attempts to find solace in darkness, I admire that. Danger causes grief to all but disappear, doesn’t it? Adrenaline. Power. Nothing else matters. But here’s the problem.” He let his hand drop once he completed the path down my face. “I don’t want suffering to ever end.”

  “Show me Theo,” I all but whispered. “Let me see him, and you can do what you want.”

  Cool air hit my flushed cheeks when he backed up. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  When he turned, he sent a look to the doorway, one that caught the butler/wrestler’s eye. The man who groped me came at me again, and this time I snarled. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You asked to see Sax. Well, you’re gonna.” He latched onto my arm, dragging me out of the room.