Player: Stone Cold MC

by Carmen Faye

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

  Player copyright @ 2016 by Carmen Faye. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  OTHER WORKS BY CARMEN FAYE

  DARE

  SEAL

  OWNED BY THE BAD BOY

  BRUTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The damn key wouldn’t go into the lock and I was running out of time. I fiddled only for a couple of seconds before I lost my cool. I looked over my shoulder. Still no sign of them, but they wouldn’t be long. If this key didn’t go in now, I was kicking the door open, motel policy to hell. It wasn’t as if I was going to be around long enough for them to slap some kind of fine on my ass, and I’d been careful with my identity, paying for the room in cash. That was how I always did it. In my line of work, you could never be too careful.

  No one was going to find the intimidating-looking guy with the leather clothes and steel-toed, shitkicker boots unless they had the guts to follow me. And I’d made sure that the few people who had noticed me had wanted to steer clear of me. I didn’t have to be a badass biker to instill fear.

  The door finally complied, and I pushed into the room. The door slammed against the cheap wall, probably leaving a dent in the plaster. I didn’t give a shit.

  I found the gun under my pillow, checked the clip, and shoved it in the back of my pants. Sweat trickled down my temples, and I rubbed it away with the sleeve of my t-shirt. My shirt stuck to my body where I was sweating in other places. Between my shoulder blades. Around my hips where the belt hugged my pants to my body. I went through the drawers and pulled out everything I owned. Next time I was living out of my bag instead of making myself at home.

  I only had a handful of clothes in the drawers, and I shoved them into the knapsack I’d been using as a bag like a vagrant. It didn’t do much for my image in casinos, but the clothes inside it were enough to make me look legit.

  Neat pants and collared shirts. I also had jeans, t-shirts, and a nice pair of shoes. The leather-studded jacket wouldn’t fit, so I shrugged into it instead. The heat pressed down on me almost immediately. The weather here in Nevada just wasn’t the kind of weather that allowed for leather jackets during the day. But there was no time.

  I could just imagine what my tombstone would look like. R.I.P Rip Peterson. RIP Rip. If they even gave me a tombstone. Maybe thugs like me deserved to end up in a ditch.

  I pulled the black duffel bag from underneath the bed, zipped it open, and took out two wads of cash that I stuffed into my pockets. Always good to have money on hand in case I needed it for something like food. Or a bribe. The bag was almost overflowing with wads and stacks of money, as arranged or messy as whichever night I’d won it.

  The sight of all that cash made me giddy. My stomach rolled with the familiar mix of urgency and stone-cold greed. That amount of money was enough to buy me the kind of lifestyle any guy like me dreamed of.

  I just wasn’t going to use it for that. Not yet. Casinos were my playing field for now—until I could cash out.

  Still, the money was damn inviting, begging me to spend it. Cold hard cash. The green sheen of the notes against the black material of the bag was a sight to behold. I ran my fingers over the money, momentarily lost in the power under my fingers, the riches, the wealth. And I’d done all of this by myself. No help from the Stone Cold Club.

  All they’d ever done for me was cause me pain and misery. Assholes. And they were on their way to do it again. Stone Cold because they were heartless killers who didn’t care about the destruction they left behind.

  If Emmett were here, he would be cheering, urging me to pack faster. The sight of all this money would make him just as manic as it was making me. But that would never happen, would it? The club had made sure of that.

  Fuck, I missed that kid. His goofy smile, the way he always looked so damn innocent, even when he was swiping your shit right in front of your eyes. He could scale a fence like no one I’d ever met in my life. Quickest fingers with a lock, too.

  He’d been a gem when it came to burglary.

  Even when we’d gotten caught and we’d ended up in jail, he’d gotten everything he wanted. They’d all liked him from the start; they saw the same potential and easy-going vibe he had about him that I did the first time I saw him. Criminals go for that kind of thing. And they all loved him as much as I did.

  Gunshots interrupted my train of thought. It was still a ways off, but if they were shooting they knew I was close, and they were taking out anyone in the way. Shit. I zipped up the duffel, ran out of the room, and got into my Mustang. I dumped the bag with the money in the foothold, knapsack on the seat, and turned the ignition.

  The car coughed and sputtered before it started, but then it roared to life and I threw it in reverse, flooring it.

  My tires squealed on the blacktop as I pulled out, gravel spitting to the sides, and then squealed again when I shifted gear and shot forward. My Mustang was old, but it was a good getaway car. It had been my baby from the start. Some things just couldn’t be replaced by something better, more expensive. No matter what kind of high life I ended up living, my Mustang was coming with me.

  I headed for the entrance to the interstate just as the white Merc pulled into the parking lot.

  I was getting sick of the sight of that car. No doubt Diego was driving it—Stone Cold’s hitman. He was out to get me, take what I owed out of my flesh. He aimed a gun at me. I saw that black metal mouth point at me, Diego’s arm hanging out of the open window. I watched him in the rearview mirror and pulled onto the interstate just as the first bullet spit out of the business end of the gun and whistled past me. A near miss was still a miss.

  A truck honked its horn behind me. I’d cut right in front of it.

  “Don’t twist your panties,” I said, looking at the truck in the rearview mirror. The cabin was too high for me to see the driver’s face through the back window. When I checked my side mirror, I noticed the trail of cars that drove behind Mr. Slow. The Merc pulled up and couldn’t get i
nto the traffic. Diego would have to wait for the queue to pass before he pulled in after me. Jumping onto the shoulder was a no-go. Too much broken glass to accommodate his fancy tires.

  I pushed down on the pedal and flew down the interstate. The oncoming cars whizzed past me, and I left it all behind, the motel, the stupid Merc with Diego in it, the casinos I’d saturated.

  And soon Nevada.

  Diego was shooting to kill. I had no illusions about that. And I really didn’t want to die. There was too much money out there to be had—too much to steal, to cheat.

  Emmett would have laughed at the close call. He always thought it was funny. I was willing to bet he kept laughing until he died.

  The thought of him dead sobered me up. The manic chaos with which I’d left the motel bled into quiet rage. He’d been too young to die. Too young to rot in jail, too. They should have let him go, instead of me. But he wasn’t as good as I was at all this. At cat burglary, maybe, but that never made anyone rich. His innocence wasn’t just skin deep, and that got him in trouble from time to time.

  And a while ago that had gotten him dead.

  I slammed my fists down on the steering wheel so hard I heard a crack. I didn’t know if it was my knuckles cracking or the steering wheel, but I stopped. I didn’t want anything broken; I had money, but I couldn’t spend too much of it for a while. And hospitals were out, so no shooting and fighting and beating myself up. Avoid suspicion. All that.

  I fished in the knapsack with one hand, looking for my phone, and found it. I pulled it out and dropped it on my lap, keeping my eyes on the road. I glanced down at the screen. No messages or calls. Hardly anyone had this number. I’d changed numbers a while ago to get off the radar, so Stone Cold couldn’t get a hold of me. Nothing like running from the people who’d saved you.

  Nothing like people thinking they’d saved you when they’d really just done you in.

  I took a deep breath and craved beer. A cold one would go down nicely right about now. Or something stronger. I glanced in my rearview mirror again. That truck was far behind now, just a speck on the horizon, and no doubt Diego was still stuck behind him, if he’d tried to pursue. With all the oncoming traffic, he wouldn’t have been able to overtake me. Roads were dangerous these days. All I knew was that my ass was safe for now.

  Still, I wasn’t going to risk pulling over, even if it was just for a beer. I wouldn’t stop until I crossed a state line.

  When I was nice and straight with the next car, I picked up my phone again and swiped my thumb over the screen and found the “maps” icon, opening up the application. I wanted to get to California. I hadn’t been there in a while, which made it a new playing field. Casinos popped up and disappeared again like mushrooms, and good ole Cali was going to be a nice one.

  Besides, maybe I could find me a woman to take my mind off of things for a night; I could get some while I was at it. Money could buy a lot of things, and women were in ample supply. Every time. They weren’t even that expensive.

  Yeah, as soon as I got to California was getting myself a cold beer, some good sex, and a night’s rest before I hit the tables again. It would take the club a while to track me down again. I had the whole anonymity thing down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The green felt was familiar under my fingertips. Casino tables always looked the same. Why couldn’t they use something else, rather than their signature deep green color that never went with the décor? I tapped my fingers rhythmically, eyes on the cards Tommy was dealing. Crowds milled around me, some of them stopping to watch the game for a few minutes before moving on, and one or two onlookers thinking of taking seats once they were vacated.

  A tune blared in the background from invisible speakers, music that I didn’t know the words to, and a couple next to me was talking more than really playing. Something about a mortgage and not being able to afford to lose. I wanted to get involved and ask them why the hell they were playing if money was a problem, but that would be hypocritical of me.

  Besides, I had to concentrate.

  Tommy smiled at me when he flipped a seven. Dammit. He wore the characteristic dealer uniform. White shirt, black waistcoat, and those black straps around his biceps that held the shirt up so it wouldn’t fall over his hands. His hair was getting long, curling over the ears, making him look like he was barely out of school. For all I knew that was true.

  I’d been counting his cards all night, sure I knew what the deck held, and still I wasn’t having any luck. I hated it when a table ran dry. I didn’t want to admit that maybe it was me that was the problem. My counting was fine, nothing wrong.

  “Maybe next time, Alexandra,” he said and grinned.

  I groaned. “Please, Tommy. Alex. You know I hate being called that.”

  “It’s your name, isn’t it?” he asked and pushed his tongue between his teeth, biting down on it. Pulling tongue in a manly way. I smiled back cheekily. Tommy was a good kid. A bit too fresh for me, not seasoned enough to fit into the dark side of the world. My world. Still, it was good to have someone on my side.

  It hadn’t been hard to get into Tommy’s pants. I’d spotted him the second time I’d come to Calico. It had been a slow night and he’d looked lonely, dealing to a lonely drinker, not knowing anyone. He’d been new then. I’d needed someone on the tables who would know me well enough to let my counting slide when he spotted it. He’d been innocent and a few flirt lines were all it had taken.

  And he hadn’t been that bad a lay, all things considered. I think he was younger than me, but we didn’t ask those kinds of questions. He’d tried to get my number out of me a couple of times afterwards, and I’d damn near broke his heart telling him I wasn’t interested in anything serious despite having sex with him. But like a big boy he’d gotten over it.

  “Giving up so early?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Not giving up, just a change of scenery.” This table just wasn’t doing it for me, and I was getting a bad case of the itch. I needed to find a table that I was going to win at, and Calico wasn’t working. None of the tables here were doing it for me, and I didn’t like to hang around in one place long enough for more people to know my face.

  “I’ll see you around, baby,” I said and blew a kiss over the table to him. He chuckled, shook his head, and dealt a new hand for the couple who had now started arguing. Someone else took my seat the moment I was up, eyes all shining and eager. I hoped he had better luck than I did—although his losing would have made me happier.

  Tommy waved at me.

  He wasn’t my type. I stayed friendly with him because it was good for business. I stayed on top of things so that I could pull in the big bucks. That was what it was all about. I couldn’t walk away from the tables unless I had a couple of grand, and if I didn’t get that I was crabby until my next win.

  Some people called it an obsession. My sister called it an addiction. I called it a living.

  “Where you headed?” Maia, the cleaning lady, asked me.

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll find someone to paint the town with.”

  Maia shook her head. I knew her well enough to know she pulled double shifts to feed her two children. So busy keeping them alive she forgot about living herself. I didn’t want to end up in that mess. I’d been there before, no chance in hell I was going back to that.

  “You be careful, chiquita,” she said. “You get in trouble, the casino boys aren’t going to play nice because you’re a lady.”

  I pouted and made big eyes.

  “Trouble? Me?”

  She laughed and I patted her on the shoulder before walking away.

  The night was hot and humid, wrapping around me like an unwelcome blanket. I tugged at the collar of the red blouse I was wearing to look classy. Casinos tended to be less suspicious when I dressed the part. I wished I could have worn shorts and a tank top…that was how I spent my days here in California. But the night scene just needed something else. That was a fact.

  I walked d
own the street. Someone whistled at me, and I ignored him. I didn’t have very high standards, I had to admit, but I wasn’t just going to sleep with anyone. I only slept with the guys who were going to give me something in return. Not money, that was dirty. But something like a seat on a hot poker table, or silence when my secrets slipped into the open by accident.

  What can I say? I was a businesswoman.

  The bright signs in the distance caught my eye. Harlan Gold knew how to attract customers. They were like moths to a flame with that place. There was just something magical about the place, something that let you forget about real life for a while and get lost in the splendor and the promise of maybe winning some money. Hell, I worked the casinos all the time, I was immune to the charm that hung in the air, and still Harlan Gold drew me.

  I straightened my back and lengthened my stride, my goal in sight. My thin heels clicked on the pavement as I closed the distance between the place I was going to spend the rest of my night and me.

  I walked past two other casinos without batting an eyelash and walked in through the doors of Harlan Gold. I didn’t nod at the security guards even though I knew exactly who they were and when they had their shifts. I didn’t want to attract attention to myself and be labelled as a regular.