Chapter 5
JUDAH
“What’s a pretty little thing like you doing all alone tonight?” John said as he thumbed the cards in his hand.
I kept an ear on their conversation while I rotated through the rest of the camera feeds. As long as Amelia was seated at the table . . . and didn’t lose . . . she was fine.
“Time to rotate out,” Jeremiah said as he strolled in and shucked off his jacket. Even though the mid-May temperatures were balmy during the day, the ocean brought in a chill once the sun went down.
My attention darted back to the grid of video feeds. “Go have a cigarette. I don’t want to have to deal with your irritable ass when I start yawning.”
If there was anything I could count on, it was that Jeremiah needed at least two smokes to get through the night. Usually he’d slip out the back door just after midnight, but he was jittery tonight.
“Already did,” he said as he grabbed the back of the rolling chair. “Al is heading outside, Tommy’s got the door, and you’re on the floor.”
“Who’s on the high roller tables?”
“Boss said to stay outside the door tonight.” Jeremiah glanced at the clock. “His guests are on the way.”
I glanced at the screen, where Amelia had won another hand and the game was coming to an end. I didn’t know who Valentine was entertaining tonight, but I hoped it was one of the regular pieces of shit he did business with. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Amelia hit. Wait . . . Why the hell did she hit when she had nineteen in her hand? I studied the screen until I could see the card she got. Five of hearts.
She sighed and, for a moment, I believed her disappointment.
That was, until I mentally calculated how much she had made tonight.
Even after losing that round, she was still sitting there with ten grand to take home. Clever girl.
Static burst in my earpiece as Al’s voice came across the line. “There’s a silver sedan parked two blocks away, sitting in the alley. It’s been there for a couple hours. Someone’s asleep in the passenger’s seat. Boss wants the area cleared out.”
“Driver probably drank too much and passed out,” I said.
“Local plate?” Jeremiah asked.
“Connecticut,” Al said.
I groaned internally as Jeremiah shoved me out of the seat while Al rattled off the plate number. Before Jeremiah could run it in the database, I said, “Tow it.”
“Easy enough,” Al said.
Jeremiah started to bitch me out, but I walked out onto the floor.
Guests sitting at the poker tables paid me no mind as I slid between the seats.
That was the benefit to working the floor.
People feared the guys who patrolled the mostly abandoned block that the Four Horsemen called home.
They tried to suck up to whoever was watching the door.
But once they landed at a table and put money down, everyone keeping an eye the floor disappeared.
Dollar signs were a damn good distraction.
But Amelia certainly wasn’t distracted by them. Her mouth moved in a silent whisper as she counted her winnings and weighed them against her losses.
I didn’t know who John Valentine would be seeing at the high roller table tonight, but the ten grand Amelia had won was pocket change compared to the money that would be played—and the blood that would be spilled if it wasn’t paid.
She had played a solid game and hadn’t drawn too much attention to the fact that it wasn’t beginner’s luck, but it was time for Amelia Hawthorne to leave.
I sidled up to John Valentine, putting myself between him and Amelia. “Sir, your guests will be arriving shortly. We’re clearing the vehicles around the block.”
Amelia stiffened.
Good. Leave.
John frowned. “Seems a little unnecessary, Jude. Don’t you think?”
“Better safe than sorry, sir.”
“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” he said with a chuckle as he reached for his glass and rattled the ice inside. “Get me another, will you?”
And now I was a fucking waiter.
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Amelia said as she adjusted the tacky tiara on her head. “I probably need to go find my friends before they start to worry.” She began to collect her chips.
“Color up,” John said to the dealer, cocking his head at Amelia. He offered her a kind smile that was coated in insincerity. “Tell the dealer to color up, and he’ll exchange your chips for bigger ones so it’s easy to move tables or cash out.”
Amelia batted her eyelashes. “Thank you so much, John. You’ve been so kind.” She giggled. “And I won!”
John chuckled as if he was watching a kitten chase a laser pointer. “You’ll have to come try your luck again.” He looked at me and tipped his head. “Jude will help you cash out.”
Thank God.
That was code for “clear the floor of anyone who didn’t need to be here.” Unfortunately for me, that meant it was going to be a long fucking night.
The dealer slid a tray with Amelia’s chips across the table.
“This way, ma’am,” I said as I placed one hand on the back of her chair and motioned for her to head to the cashier’s cage.
Amelia picked up her tray of chips and stood but looked longingly at the amount. “Maybe I could play one more—”
“You’re done tonight,” I said, keeping the order just between us as I walked her across the casino floor. “You’re going to cash out, act giddy about it, and never come back.”
“But—”
I took the tray out of her hands, breaking one of the long-standing rules of the Four Horsemen.
No one touches the chips except the player, the dealer, the cashier, or John Valentine.
The cashier looked at me with wide eyes as I pushed the tray through the slot at the bottom of the bulletproof plexiglass. “She’s cashing out.”
I pinned Amelia with a hard stare. “You’ll need about three hundred of that to get your car out of the tow yard.”
Her jaw dropped. “You had my car towed?”
The cashier slid her cash out and placed the receipt on top.
Amelia grabbed the stack of hundreds and immediately went to put it in the pocket of her dress.
“Count it,” I clipped. Maybe I was a jackass, but I didn’t want her to get cheated. Frankly, I wanted her to take that ten grand, leave her ass potato of a brother asleep in the tow yard, and get the hell out of dodge.
But since she was likely here on his behalf, I had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
I watched as Amelia quickly counted the bills, making sure she hadn’t been shorted, then folded them and tucked them into her pocket.
“Good girl.”
She looked up at me as her lips parted.
Fuck. It didn’t matter how dim the lights were, how hazy the air was, or how tired I was. She was stunning.
Without a word, I walked her to the door and pointed down the block as a blacked-out SUV pulled up. “Tow yard’s that way.”
Amelia swallowed, nodded, and started down the sidewalk.
“And Angela?”
For a moment, she didn’t stop walking—until she realized that I was talking to her.
“Yes?”
“Be safe.”
She nodded.
“And don’t come back.”
By the time I made it back to my apartment, Cordelia had turned in for the night. Her three a.m. cigarette was still smoldering in the ashtray she kept by the door, which meant I hadn’t missed her by much.
That was alright. Around six, she’d be back out for another cigarette—the same time I’d leave to punish myself with a grueling workout in order to settle my mind.
Neither of us slept much these days.
I unlocked the door and elbowed my way inside, then kicked it shut with the toe of my boot.
I went straight for the kitchen sink, using my wrist to turn on the hot water.
The blood on my knuckles had dried to a cracked rust, but as soon as I stuck my hands under the water, it turned crimson before sliding down the drain.
Once I had rinsed most of it off, I doused my hands in soap and scrubbed every crease in my skin, using the nail brush I kept by the pump bottle to get beneath my fingernails.
It had been a messy night. Thankfully, Amelia had been long gone by the time things got interesting.
Water streamed down the drain as I rested my forearms on the edge of the sink, taking slow, deep breaths as I stared at the brush. But instead of the rough bristles cleaning someone else’s blood from my hands, I saw corn-silk hair wrapped around my fist as I—
Fuck.
Nope. I couldn’t go there. I hadn’t gone there in years.
When I first started working for John Valentine, I had tried to compartmentalize my job and my personal life, still entertaining relationships in my free time.
That was, until I realized that with John Valentine, there was no such thing as free time.
If you were on his payroll, every minute of the day belonged to him, whether you were on a job for him or not.
I was a quick study and made a habit of not learning hard lessons twice.
I rinsed the nail brush and doused it with disinfectant before spraying the entire sink and giving it a thorough wipe down. I went back to the front door and did the same to the doorknob and my keys.
My eyes began to glaze over as I wrote down the events of the day like a lovestruck kid scribbling into a diary. That’s what it felt like, at least. Useless monologuing with no one listening.
I went through the routine of putting my clothes directly into the washing machine with a hefty scoop of OxiClean to break up the hemoglobin, then started the cycle before laying out tomorrow’s clothes and my motorcycle boots by the bed.
Nothing with laces, of course. Laces were a liability. They could come untied. Make running difficult or make me trip. No laces.
Like every night that preceded tonight, I looked around to make sure I could leave in less than thirty seconds, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.
Usually, fractured images of whatever I had done that night played through my mind in a macabre montage until I opened my eyes to study the mostly empty apartment that could have belonged to anyone but me.
But not tonight.
Tonight, when I closed my eyes, I smelled lavender. I pictured flickering candles, books on the end tables, and baseball memorabilia. I pictured hair the color of sunlight and Atlantic eyes. I pictured a tacky bachelorette tiara and smeared mascara.
And then I fantasized over all the things that would smear Amelia Hawthorne’s makeup. Good things. Things that would make her look at me the way she did when I said good girl.
And for the first time in years, I slept.