by Lauren Esker
All the things she was holding back gathered behind her lips. I could tell him. About me. About the SCB. He would be an amazing asset to the Bureau, as an informant or maybe even as an agent ...
For a minute she let herself entertain that fantasy. Working side by side with Lucky, solving cases together ...
But the incongruity of it shook her back to reality. Lucky might be dealing with a brand-new attack of conscience, but that didn't mean he would enjoy working for the federal government. She couldn't see him chaining himself down to a government job.
But he might be willing to consult. Maybe I could talk him into it ...
Or maybe she'd spook him and he would deduce, not without justification, that she'd come here to arrest him. And then what? He'd literally have her life in his hands; being exposed as a fed on a ship full of mafia would be fatal. She ruthlessly pushed down the part of herself that wanted to believe she could trust him with it. This was one secret she didn't dare share with him while she was still trapped in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by enemies, with no backup in sight.
"You okay?" Lucky's voice broke into her thoughts. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get deep there. It's been a really long day."
"For me too." She kissed him lightly. "You should sleep."
Lucky smiled. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to sleep alone."
A faint, guilty shiver went through her. "Tonight you won't," she said. "Though sleep's all I'm good for right now, I'm afraid."
Lucky chuckled. "I think we damaged enough furniture for one day."
Jen poked the overturned coffee table with her toe. "True."
With Lucky's arm over her and his warm weight pressed against her back, she fell asleep thinking about possibilities—for tomorrow, and beyond.
Chapter Twelve
They slept for a few hours, and woke up by making love lazily in bed—with a minimum of furniture destruction this time; the only casualty was the bedside lamp, a victim of Jen's outflung foot. Lucky emerged from the shower to find their clean laundry folded and placed neatly just inside the door. The main room of the suite had also been discreetly cleaned and the furniture put to rights. They ordered breakfast from room service and ate together.
It was the first time on the entire trip that it had felt like an actual vacation. Jen seemed tense and jittery, though.
"What's wrong?"
"What do you mean, what's wrong? Today's the big game. Why aren't you nervous?"
"Because I literally can't lose," he reminded her.
"Oh. Point. I ... forgot. That's going to take some getting used to."
"It's also not entirely true," Lucky admitted. "I could still wipe out on a stupid play. But I'd have to be careless."
Jen glanced at the clock. "You ought to be getting up to the lounge. I'm surprised Roxy isn't dragging you out by your ear."
"She's probably giving a pep talk to her new champion instead. Want to be my lucky gecko today? You didn't get to watch the other game."
She shook her head. "No. I'd just distract you. I'll entertain myself here."
"In other words, you've got something planned." Lucky touched her lips lightly with his finger, brushed it across her cheek. "I told you all my secrets. When are you going to tell me why you're really on this ship?"
He wasn't expecting her smile to be so sad. "After the game," she said. "After the tournament's all over, after you've won—I'll tell you everything. Deal?"
"Deal," he said, and kissed her, long and lingering. Her arms came up to wrap around his back.
There was a brisk, hard knock on the door.
They fell apart, laughing. "Okay, that's Roxy," Jen said.
"Stay out of trouble, gecko girl."
"You too, dragon boy." Her eyes were troubled. "I mean it."
He kissed her again, just a swift peck on the lips, and went to open the door. It was indeed Roxy. "You're knocking now, instead of barging in," he remarked, brushing past her into the hall.
"I wasn't sure what sort of in flagrante display I might be interrupting." She glanced inside, at Jen standing by the couch. "Is your girlfriend coming to the lounge?"
"We already said goodbye."
He was expecting the lounge to be nearly empty; instead, most of the tables were occupied and clusters of people stood around with cups of coffee, trying to look nonchalant and failing. No one was outside on the deck today, for more reasons than just nosiness about the game. Yesterday's sunshine had been replaced with flat gray clouds, and occasional spatters of rain dusted the windows. He'd almost managed to stop noticing the slight movement of the ship; now he suddenly became aware of it again, and his stomach lurched in what he hoped was psychosomatic seasickness. Oh good. Rough weather. That's just the kind of distraction I need today.
Marius was leaning against a wall by one of the potted palms. When he saw Lucky, he smiled and nodded. Lucky fetched himself a cup of coffee, mostly to give himself something to do with his hands, and went to join the Valeria agent.
"These people can't all be players," Lucky said quietly. He recognized a number of them from the game yesterday.
"No, just curious onlookers. You may have noticed there's not much to do on this ship once you've gone bust in the game. Knowing they aren't going to win themselves, they're curious to get a look at who's still in the running. Probably placing bets even as we speak."
Lucky scanned the crowd. He recognized a number of faces from earlier, and a couple of people who'd gone bust at the table where he was playing yesterday, but had no idea who the other winners were.
"Keep in mind," he murmured to Marius, "somebody tried to poison me yesterday. The guy who did it isn't in a position to do it again, but these people are playing for keeps. Be careful."
"You too. And good luck."
Lucky glanced at him. Marius's gray eyes were steady and serious. "You mean that?"
"Yeah," Marius said. "I do. If I don't win, I hope you and your girlfriend do."
They had no more time for small talk. Gray Hair the alpha redcap had stepped in front of the elevators, hands clasped behind his back, and the crowd's chatter hushed. "There should be four people in this room with Anubis tokens," he announced. "Stand forward and show them, please."
Lucky set down his coffee cup on the nearest table and approached, taking out his token. He was aware of Marius, at his shoulder, doing likewise.
Two other people came forward. One was an East Asian woman in a stylish business suit, her hair swept in a tight updo and secured with a clasp. The other was a heavyset white man in his fifties, in a maroon shirt with a bolo tie. He was probably the most stereotypical-looking gambler Lucky had ever seen. The only thing he was missing was a cowboy hat.
The four of them entered the elevator. Looking back, Lucky saw Roxy watching them from beside the door of the lounge, her piercing gaze sweeping back and forth between her two "champions". Then the door cut off the sight of her.
If Marius is planning to double-cross her, I hope he's got a good exit strategy.
Yesterday there had been a small crowd on Deck A. Today it was just the four of them, and all the doors in the quiet, carpeted hallway were shut except the Anubis door. A handful of people were already inside. As the door closed, Lucky did a quick head count. There were twelve players, and two tables waiting for them, each with six seats and a dealer's chair.
One of the people in the room startled him with a spark of shifter recognition. She was a dark-skinned woman with a colorful head wrap. The African player Jen had met, perhaps? She recognized it in him too; her gaze met his, and she gave him a slight nod before looking away.
"This game will proceed differently from the previous elimination rounds," Gray Hair told them. "Right now there are twelve of you. Today's game will continue until half of you have been eliminated. Tomorrow, the final six will meet in a single game, winner take all. Please check the color of your tokens and your seat number."
Marius held up his Anubis token between his fingers, displaying
the black flip side. Lucky held up his as well: red.
"Looks like we aren't playing against each other yet," Marius said, smiling slightly.
"Not yet. Remember what I said. Watch your back."
"You too."
The players took their seats. The African woman was at Lucky's table; Marius had Bolo Tie from upstairs. There was one other woman at Lucky's table, a middle-aged woman with delicate features and a flowered silk headscarf covering her hair. Indian? he wondered; Indonesian maybe? There were two East Asian men—a heavyset thirty-something player with a scar under his eye, and a thin, older man with glasses and gray hair neatly combed back. The sixth person in their party had a generally Eastern European look to him, to Lucky's eyes, and was wearing glasses with heavily tinted lenses, probably to keep people from reading his gaze, although the result was hilariously affected; all Lucky could think of was the "sunglasses at night" scene from Blues Brothers.
As the game began, Lucky's thoughts kept turning to Jen. He hoped she was staying out of trouble. Jen being Jen, though, the odds weren't great.
They'd gone through a few hands, chips shuffling back and forth across the table but no one going bust yet, when the door opened. Lucky turned his head just far enough to see, out of the corner of his eye, Angel walk into the room.
Angel caught Lucky's eye for a moment, and flashed a quick, smug-looking smile at him. Then he locked the door, and strolled over to the bar as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Lucky's trouble sense went on high alert. He tried to remind himself that if Angel was here, at least he wasn't threatening Jen.
Angel got a drink and came over to Lucky's table. He grabbed a chair, dragged it over beside Lucky, and sat down. Everyone at the table continued to play, ignoring him as if he wasn't there.
"Cousin," Angel said quietly. "Have you considered my offer?"
"I don't remember you making an offer," Lucky murmured back. He pushed chips into the pile, trying to concentrate. It was deeply spooky having Angel right there without the rest of the players reacting to him. Like talking to a ghost.
"To join me, of course. Work with me again, like you used to."
Lucky turned to stare at him. "What in the world is in it for you? Why do you even want that?"
Angel raised his glass, as if in a toast. "It's like that old song says, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Don't you miss it too? You, me, and Lucia. Like the old days."
"No, I don't miss it. I don't miss anything about those days. Or you."
"Oh, little cousin. So young, so naive." Angel patted his shoulder.
Lucky jerked away, violently flinching from him. "Don't touch me!"
This outburst was enough to break through Angel's "look away" field. Heads turned around the table, and elsewhere in the room.
Angel looked genuinely startled.
"You don't get it, do you? I'm not ever coming back, no matter how you try to manipulate me. I'm not yours. Lucia's not yours. I'm here exactly as long as it takes to get her, and then I'm gone."
Angel stared at him, and Lucky braced himself. All that happened, though, was a slow and hard-edged smile. "We'll just see about that," Angel said quietly.
At Marius's table, there was a sudden groan and Bolo Tie dropped his head into his hands. First one down, Lucky thought, but rather than feeling a thrill at the narrowing field of opponents, he tensed. Angel looked around, and the air in the room seemed thicker suddenly.
The man in the bolo tie rose from the table, went to the door, and tried to open it. "Hey," he called over his shoulder, going red-faced. "This is locked."
"Yes," Angel said. "It is." He rose, whiskey glass clasped lightly between his hands. "There's been a slight change of plans. We're playing through to the end of the tournament today."
"Yeah, well, you might not've noticed, but I just went bust. So, want to open this door and let me out?"
"No," Angel said. "Duval, give him your weapon, please."
"Don't!" Lucky snapped. He wasn't sure why he bothered. Everyone in the room was riveted on the drama playing out in front of them.
Gray Hair drew his gun and handed it butt-first to Bolo Tie. The man accepted it, looking baffled. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Blow your brains out," Angel said.
"No!" Lucky yelled, knocking over his chair as he scrambled up from the table.
No one else moved. It was possible that they couldn't.
He was too slow, of course. The man in the bolo tie brought the gun to his own forehead. Lucky's desperate lunge fell short; his attempt to fling bad luck at the gun (misfire, misaim, something) accomplished nothing more than causing someone at the bar to drop a glass. The bark of the gun's single report was deafening in the enclosed room.
Lucky stumbled to a halt and tore his eyes away. "You son of a bitch," he snarled at Angel.
The entire room was dead silent. The dealers had halted with their cards in their hands. No one moved or spoke. No one, it seemed, was even breathing.
If Angel told them all to stop breathing right now, would they?
"I thought we all needed a demonstration of what happens to losers at this stage of the game," Angel said in a jovial tone. "For incentive, you know. Clean that up, please."
The redcaps snapped out of their frozen state. They looked as shaken as everyone else. "Sir," Duval began, "the door—"
"Will remain locked. Find somewhere in here to put the trash. Behind the bar, perhaps. I think keeping our friend there around for the duration of the game would be an excellent motivator." He raised his head and locked stares with Lucky. "Sit down and play. Unless you need additional motivation. There are still ten active players besides yourself, after all."
"What if I come with you?" Lucky asked desperately. "Let's talk about this, Angel. Let's go somewhere else and talk—"
"Sit down, Ambrose."
Lucky stayed on his feet for a long moment, then slowly righted his chair and sat down. Angel held all the cards at the moment, so to speak. Don't attack him directly. It doesn't work. You'll have to go in from the side.
His hands were shaking. He tried to slow his breathing before he hyperventilated.
It's not my fault. This isn't my fault ...
"What if we refuse to play?" the African woman asked. Her voice was calm, with only a slight catch in it, but her hands were clasped one over the other on the table in front of her.
Angel shrugged. "Then there would be no winners in this room, only losers." He nodded to the body, and the silent, stiff-faced redcaps wordlessly cleaning up the blood. "And you've seen what happens to losers."
"You've gone too far," Lucky said. His voice shook. "You're not going to get any more of them, Angel."
"You realize these people are all killers and thugs, don't you?" Angel set down his drink on the bar and strolled back to Lucky's table. The players who were sitting nearest leaned away from him as he approached. "I don't know who all of you are, but those I do know are not the kind of people to lose sleep over." He placed his hand on the shoulder of Sunglasses at Night, who flinched. "Anatoliy Anokhin, a.k.a the White Hand, a.k.a the Terror of St. Petersburg." He moved on to the African woman. She regarded him with thinly disguised loathing. "Onyeka Nkechi, notorious Lagos gangster. And perhaps with other secrets as well." His lips curled in a smile. He, of course, could sense her shifter nature as well as Lucky could—and she could feel it in him, too. Lucky saw the defiance in her eyes fade into fear as she realized that he held her deepest secret in his hands.
"And so forth." Angel patted her shoulder before moving along. "None of you are friends; none of you are allies. You're competing for a fortune, enough to set up any one of you for the rest of your lives. Why not make it a fight to the death? Leave the trampled ruins of your competitors behind?"
Lucky's hands curled involuntarily into fists. "You won't get away with this. I won't let you, Angel. You either open the door right now and let us all walk out, or you're going to die her
e, on this ship. I'll make sure—"
Behind Angel, there was a sudden scuffle. One of the men at Marius's table had lunged out of his chair and snatched the gun out of the holster of the redcap waiter standing nearest to him. He started to swing it in Angel's direction.
Angel merely looked at him calmly. The man's face went blank. He rotated the gun around until it pointed at his face.
"Really?" Angel said. "We need another demonstration already?"
The man made a tiny whimpering sound. Then his hand extended mechanically, like a marionette's, and placed the gun neatly on the drinks tray in the hands of the white-faced redcap he'd taken it from. He sat down in his chair, his face pouring sweat.
Angel clapped his hands together. Everyone jumped. The woman with the tray knocked over two of her drinks.
"Enough nonsense. There are eleven of you now. Soon there will be fewer." He waved a hand. "Proceed."
The dealers reached for their cards with trembling hands. Lucky wondered what they expected their own fates to be.
He closed his eyes briefly. I could have handled this better. I shouldn't have pushed him. I should have—
Should have done what? He knew now, as he hadn't known when he was a child, that there was no "win" condition when dealing with Angel. His cousin was a ruthless, controlling, homicidal bully. Lucky had spent his childhood trying to placate Angel and blaming himself when it failed. Now he saw that for the loser's game it was.
This time you're the one who's going to lose, Angel. I'll get these people out somehow, and then, once and for all, you're going down.
To make matters worse, the movement of the ship had grown markedly rougher. What are we doing, sailing right into a hurricane?
How seaworthy could a ship shaped like a giant floating sphinx possibly be, anyway?
We are not going to sink. This ship has been sailing safely for years.
The only thing he had to be thankful for was Jen's absence from the card room. She might be getting herself into some kind of trouble elsewhere on the ship, but at least she was safely away from this kind of trouble.