Queen of Ruin (The Fifth Suit of Sin #3)

1. Diego

DIEGO

“You can’t take that with you, Hank. Hank, give me the glass.”

The glass in question tips to one side and slips in Hank’s fingertips, but he manages to retain enough of his grip for me to get there, rescue the glass, and set it down on the bar.

“What glass?” Hank asks, his words slurring ever so slightly. “I ain’t got no glass.”

“Hank, are you sure I can’t call you a cab?”

“I’m fine.” He brushes me off with a wave of his hand, patting my chest in the process, and then he turns for the door. “I’m fiiiine.”

Doubt clings to every one of his words until Francis appears at my elbow with a warm smile.

“Don’t worry, Diego,” Francis says, bumping shoulders with me as she passes. “I’ll get him home safe.”

“You do that. Goodnight, Francis. Goodnight, Hank!”

Despite already being halfway out the door, Hank raises one wrinkled hand and waves at me in the best direction he can guess. Francis sweeps under his raised arm and winds her arm around his waist, then together they head off down the dark street and disappear into the night.

The world falls quiet and the doors of ‘The Crown’ close and lock softly with a click of my key.

I should have closed hours ago, but like every Thursday night, my old regulars who spill in from bowling have a particular look about them that keeps me open an extra hour just to listen to their golden stories.

Life several decades ago sounds so much easier than it is now. Cheaper too.

Will I have the same stories to tell forty years down the line when I’m the one stumbling home after too many beers?

That’s the dream.

A light, cool breeze rushes across the quiet street while I hurry down the sidewalk and around the corner to where I parked my car hours before my shift.

With no one at home waiting for me, the only urgent reason to get home is exhaustion.

I’ve worked flat out this week and there’s a takeout menu and a beer in my fridge calling my name.

A simple, honest plan of drink, food, and bed.

A plan disturbed the moment my car comes into view and my phone vibrates to life in the back pocket of my jeans.

Who the fuck is calling me at three in the morning?

Tech’s name flashes up on the screen and my heart sinks ever so slightly. We haven’t talked in weeks, which means he’s either on something or he wants something.

Against my better judgment, I answer.

“Ello?”

“Diegooooo!” Tech yells my name loudly, and I jerk my head away from the speaker.

“What do you want, Tech?”

“What, no words of love? No excitement? C’mon, my guy. You’re awake and I’m awake. Isn’t this perfect fucking timing?”

“I’m awake,” I reply, glancing up and down the street and then lightly jogging to my car. “Because I have a job. I work. I earn money, pay taxes. The usual shit, Tech.”

“Boring shit,” he remarks. “Listen. Listen. I got a proposition for you.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Bullshit. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have answered the phone.”

“Politeness doesn’t equate to interest, dickhead.”

“Man, fuck you. I’m tryna offer you the best night of your life.”

So this is about drugs. It always is with Tech. Five years clean and he’s still trying to shove a needle back in my arm. My Narcotics Anonymous group would tell me to block his number and remove temptation, but I can’t.

We’ve been friends since we were teenagers. He was there for me when my brother died and we took our first hit together. I can’t shake the weight of responsibility that his life took that path because of me.

“I don’t need anything, Tech.” My car greets me with a light creak as I enter, then soft pop music rising from the radio. “I don’t do that shit anymore.”

“Cause you’re too fucking good for it, huh?” He snorts dryly. “Stuck up asshole.”

“Alright, goodbye, Tech.”

“No, wait!” He nearly chokes with how desperately those words come out. “I get it. You nearly died and it scared you off the high. I get it. I respect it, man. I do. So don’t shoot it, sell it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I got so much shit, Diego, and you’re a charmer. You always have been. You could pick this shit up from me and make 5k by the time the sun rises!”

Five thousand dollars.

That would end my struggle over rent for sure. And for next month, too, on top of letting me catch up with my bills.

A curl of temptation rises in my gut as the amount of money teases through my thoughts. It’s a lot of money and I’m in need of money.

But I can’t risk that shit in my hands again.

“No, Tech.”

“You serious? Five grand and you’re saying no? Ain’t no way you make this much at that little job of yours.”

“You’re right,” I say, starting my car and pulling out into the quiet street. “I don’t. But I know my limits, Tech. And you know, if you ever wanna get clean—”

“Fuck off with that shit. This world is too fucked to survive sober. Night.”

He hangs up before I can reply and silence falls, broken only slightly by the hum of noise from my car radio.

On nights like this, when the streets are empty and the lights are down low enough that a hint of stars peeks out from the clouds of light pollution, I want to tell Tech that getting clean is the best thing I ever did.

I traded aches, pain, and nausea for easy breathing, sleeping through the night, and being able to handle more than one meal at a time. The stress of where to get my next fix, how to get enough money for one, and how to cheat the dealer out of enough are things of the past.

Now I stress over taxes, bills, hot water, and how to make my pay last until the end of the month.

Snorting softly to myself, I ease my car to a stop at a red light. Maybe this life isn’t as easy as I make it out to be. The only other positive is that sober, I can keep track of my—

The passenger door suddenly rips open, interrupting my loose train of thought, and a figure throws herself into my car with a muted gasp of pain.

She tumbles over herself and her ankle catches on the door, but she seemingly doesn’t even notice as she drags her leg inside, slams the door closed, and faces me.

All her features fade into a blur as I lock eyes with the black handgun held tightly in her hand and pointed directly at me.

“Drive!” the woman screams at me. “Fucking drive!”

Holy shit.

I do as she commands. Red light be damned, I slam on the accelerator and we tear away from the intersection while I grip the wheel with both hands.

“What the fuck,” I gasp. “What the hell are you doing?”

“J-Just drive!” she gasps back at me, arching her body in the seat as she struggles to situate herself. “Drive and I-I won’t fucking kill you, alright?”

That threat is enough to keep my eyes on the road while my mind races.

Strange woman and a gun. I’ve seen a few guns in my time, but never have I been on the wrong end of one.

It haunts my peripheral like a shadow, floating back and forth as the woman shifts in her seat and peers behind us as if she’s looking for something.

When she slumps back, something wet lands on my wrist and I glance down.

Blood.

Droplets of blood glimmer against my bare wrist and for a single, cold moment, my heart stops.

Did I get shot?

Did she shoot me, and I didn’t even notice?

There’s no pain on my next breath and my heart resumes beating. No pain. I wasn’t shot. Not my blood.

It’s hers.

A single glance at her panting heavily in the passenger seat gives me a glimpse of a horror movie. There’s blood everywhere.

It’s soaked into her torn jeans and ripped shirt, matted into her auburn hair, staining her pale skin. Her eyes, wild like a trapped animal’s, dart back and forth out of the windows and behind us, with each movement sending another spray of blood droplets all over the inside of my car.

“Listen,” I start to say, driving with no direction. “You’re clearly hurt. Should we be going to a hospital? Or—or the police station or something because—”

“Shut up,” she snaps. “Just keep driving, okay? Have you got a phone? I-I need to m-make a call.” Her voice trembles as violently as the tremors moving through my arms.

Don’t piss her off. Don’t scare her. Don’t grab the gun.

Should be easy, right?

“Uh, yeah, yeah, it’s—”

A sharp, ear-piercing squeal of brakes fills the air and suddenly, vibrant, blinding headlights flood the inside of my car from a vehicle behind us.

No sooner have the lights utterly blinded me from a glance in the rear-view mirror than the vehicle slams into my rear bumper and shunts us both forward into the dashboard.

A yelp of pain escapes the woman beside me but she grits her teeth, spins in the seat, and aims her gun at my back window. She opens fire, deafening me with two gunshots that send the car behind screeching to one side as if trying to avoid them.

“What the fuck!” I yell, hunching down in my seat. “What the fuck is going on?!”

“Just keep driving!” She fires again, three shots this time, and then she suddenly doubles over with a pained, breathless gasp. “Shit. S-Shit.”

“H-Hey.” I spare a single glance toward her as her forehead comes to rest against my shoulder and bloodied, matted hair drapes over my arm. “Hey, if you’re about to die on me or something, y’gotta tell me where to go. I don’t wanna die here, either!”

“I-I…” Her head snaps up and our gazes meet.

My heart stops.

Golden-brown eyes, light like sun-kissed toffee, squint at me for half a second before contorting into pain and flickering closed. “Phone,” she chokes out. “N-Need your phone!”

“Yeah, yeah, let me get it.”

The stranger sinks back into the passenger seat as the revving engine of the chasing car fills the air again, and those glaring headlights illuminate even the smallest specs of dust within my car. I steady the car with one hand, grab my phone from my pocket with the other, and hand it to her.

She reaches for it, but just as her crooked, blood-stained fingers grasp it, the car behind slams into us with such force that the phone flies from my fingers and hits the dashboard.

“Shit!” Both my hands end up back on the wheel as I wrestle with the shudder tearing through my poor car. The woman dives for my phone and the car behind slams into us again, then a third time.

The fourth one seals our fate.

Metal screams and crunches as it twists and dents under the force of the pursuing car and the rear-end of my car lifts into the air, then crashes back down.

We jolt and shudder like we’re caught in a blender and then, suddenly, I’m weightless as all control fades from the steering wheel and my car flips.

The seatbelt snaps against my shoulder and chest, restricting any possible breath I try to take. My stranger isn’t so lucky. There’s no seatbelt to save her and she’s thrown hard against the dash, cracking the windshield and then hitting the roof as we roll once and thunder to a complete stop.

Darkness takes me briefly.

Everything burns.

My throat. My chest. My shoulder.

I want to breathe but I can’t. Heat builds behind my closed eyes and nausea curls in my gut while all my thoughts jumble together.

I was just driving.

I was just trying to get home.

But that woman and the blood and then the—

The pressure of the seatbelt against my chest suddenly vanishes and I’m falling.

I hit the roof of my car and groan as hot pain flashes through my chest and back.

Glass crunches somewhere around me, the warning ding of an unconnected seatbelt rings through the air, and there’s a dull rumble like approaching thunder.

Then hands.

They grab at my limbs and my clothes. One even sinks into my hair. I’m hauled mercilessly out of my car and dumped onto the tarmac just as I regain the strength to open my eyes.

My poor car rests on the side of the road, upside down, with the wheels still spinning. Broken glass twinkles across the road, reflecting the too-bright headlights from the stationary car parked a few feet away.

“What the…” My tongue catches at the back of my throat and suddenly I’m coughing, then wincing as each breath radiates pain through my chest.

The woman… where is she? What happened?

A dull thump reaches me. Then another. Then a cry from a man and a much harder thump that squelches slightly. I roll onto my side and see her.

The stranger.

She’s on her feet but swaying from side to side as if a strong breeze might be enough to knock her over. A tall, burly man stands in front of her and throws his fist at her face. When it collides, the sound sickens me and my stomach flips. Somehow, she remains standing.

“Hey!” I croak, fighting to get to my feet. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Leave her alone!” My organs fly up to my throat as a second man, likely the one who dragged me from the car, kicks me hard in the gut. It’s enough to shock me into silence and pain consumes me for a few seconds.

But I’m used to pain.

This is nothing compared to cold turkey.

Another blow comes, one so powerful that it lifts me off the ground for a second, and when I land, momentum makes me roll away and slump to a stop. The tang of copper coats the back of my tongue and my next breath sends spots of blood onto the ground.

That sound reaches me again. Fists against flesh.

She cries out, a sound of pain that cuts through me worse than the glass embedding in my palms as I try to get onto my hands and knees.

Another blow and she crashes to the ground like a crumpled paper bag and her gun, previously loosely held in weak fingers, lands with a clatter and skitters across the ground.

Right toward me.

I spot it at the same time as the bastard who rearranged my guts does and he lunges for it, but for once in my life, I’m faster. Rolling over it, I snatch it up, lift it, and pull the trigger before the thought’s even complete in my mind.

The bullet thuds into the stranger’s throat, and he immediately lifts his hand to the side of his neck.

He chokes and takes a single step back, then a fountain of blood pours from his parted lips, and he stumbles backward once more, then again and again until he falls down onto the ground with a furious yell from the man standing over that woman with his fist raised.

I sit up, take aim, and shoot him too.