Queen of Diamonds

Chapter 32

I’d never caught up quicker to my reality than I did when my eyes opened in this locked room. I’d had years to prepare, years of false starts. The scent of roses was the first thing in my senses every time I woke, even if, for every other time, it had faded.

All, so that this time, when I opened my eyes and the roses were real, I could breathe. So that I could find the courage to push myself up and look around at the room with dark wallpaper, a standing mirror in the corner, and a vacant red velvet armchair beside a fireplace.

So I could hold the tears in, one shaky breath at a time, as if a numb blanket of snow settled over my mind.

This was the fate always destined to find me, and in a way it was a painful relief.

All those nightmares had been for something.

I waited, seated on the edge of the bed, hands clasped in my lap. Finally, when too many minutes passed in foreboding silence, and the door opened, I held my head high and faced the monster who had caught up to me at last.

Ace Maverick was everything I remembered.

A few years had added sharper angles to his lean face. He was twenty-seven now. Far too young to have the power he had, or the know-how to wield it the way he did, but Ace wasn’t anyone’s idea of normal.

Not by any metric.

He leaned against the frame of the door, frighteningly familiar, from his pale face and ice-blue eyes to his memorable motions. Like the way he carefully picked a stray piece of midnight hair from his vision as he examined me.

Ace would never fit in with normal people. He moved, talked, and acted differently, as if social conventions didn’t apply, or were perhaps never learned in the first place.

It made him unnerving to be around, even after you’d learned to translate his strange mannerisms. His intimacy with silence, I hated most, because it never had a translation. It could as easily indicate dissatisfaction as it could apathy, and there was never a clue. Not until he spoke, and then he chose words carefully, so you knew in a second if you’d made a mistake.

And by then, it was far too late.

What my nightmares had forgotten was the way every fight and flight instinct misfired when I was in his presence, right down to the heart of what made me an Omega. The predator before me was a member of his designation like no one I’d ever met. An Alpha with ice-cold instincts that set me on edge with every movement he made. There were things in this world that he wanted, claimed, and never forgot, and there was nothing more frightening than knowing I was one of them.

It was why, even with years between us, I’d still been a stranger to a full night’s sleep.

I fought to steady my expression as he drank in the sight of me from the doorway, one thumb caught casually in his pocket as if he were examining wall decor at a dinner party. I noticed a piece of red fabric tucked over his arm and felt a faint sense of foreboding.

Finally, he stepped in, shutting the door behind him.

I glanced at it, but even if it wasn’t locked, he would have men outside, waiting to catch me if I ran. He took a seat on the armchair, a loose smile on his face as he crossed his legs, eyes expectant.

“I’ve been so bored.”

I bit my tongue on the thousand questions I needed to ask.

No nightmare could have concocted the situation I was in, because my nightmares would never have accounted for my mates bringing me into their home.

What had happened to them?

I shoved the terror and question away, knowing I needed to wait.

I held the silence, meeting his eyes in challenge. I needed more from him before I asked.

“Three years was far longer than I’d imagined you’d be gone.”

I took a steadying breath. “How long did you imagine?” I asked, needing to know where he was at.

Was he here to talk, or to torture me?

“Weeks, perhaps,” he replied. “I underestimated you.”

A very slight offer of vulnerability, no matter how insincere, but he was at his most unhinged when at his most prideful, so I dared push that. “I would have thought losing me in the first place would make that difficult.”

His underestimation was the only reason I’d managed to escape.

When he’d made me the promise that he would hunt me until the end of time—the final game—it had left me hopeless. It was in the wake of my hopelessness that my chance had appeared. I hadn’t realised quite how intently he watched me, not until it waned. He believed I had broken, and I think, perhaps, I was. Just not completely.

Ace tilted his head. “If your escape had been entirely unexpected, then yes.”

I stared at him, a lump caught in my throat.

What?

“You were getting dull. I thought it was low risk, giving you a chance at freedom, and then, when I got you back, it would all be better.” He spoke flatly, as if stating the obvious.

He’d... done it on purpose?

He could be lying to save face, but it was a dangerous assumption to make.

My mind flashed back to the day I’d escaped. Rex Sterling, a member of his pack who lived in another state, messed up a cartel deal. Ace had left in a rage to fix it.

I’d become familiar with the few guards remaining with me, including one I’d long since learned had a hidden cocaine stash for particularly long shifts. Ace didn’t let me nest, but that didn’t stop me entirely. My nest had been the tiny space beneath my dresser where I collected a dozen different items that might help me escape—or survive. From it, I’d pulled the small bag of laced cocaine I’d slipped from a bad stash when Ace had taken me to a drug meeting that went south. It was easy to swap the drugs. With fewer guards than he’d ever left me with before—and one collapsed, I’d escaped.

Ace had a half-smile on his face. “You proved more elusive than I imagined.”

I kept my mouth shut, stifling the wave of sickness as I considered that even my freedom had been something he’d planned for.

Ace rested his chin on his fist, still watching me unblinkingly. “Ask, Omega. It’s not a secret that you care about them.”

Goosebumps lit my skin at the mention of my mates. I swallowed. My voice was rough. “They were not protecting me.”

He smiled, and like everything else about him, it was slow and calculated as if he were discovering more reasons for it along the way. “That’s not the question,” he taunted.

I bit my tongue, breath still caught in my chest.

He rolled his eyes as the silence dragged on. “The answer to your question is no. The only thing I touched in that miserable warehouse was already mine.”

My mates were safe?

He… hadn’t taken them?

Why?

A thousand wound coils loosened in my chest, and it took more to keep my expression neutral than anything before it.

“You’re rusty,” he murmured. “You used to be smarter with what to keep and what to give.”

It was one of his old mantras. Hide behind lies I know are lies, and you won’t have any tells left that I haven’t found.

It’s why I never lied unless I could be completely sure he’d never know. I’d never met a person more fascinated with learning to read people than Ace.

“I like a fair game and good players, more than I like claiming secrets. Don’t disappoint me after all this time.”

I didn’t answer for a long time, breaking that down. He lived in his own little mind palace, speaking in ways that barely made sense half the time, and yet never was it meaningless to him.

This one didn’t take me long to decipher.

Play the game better, or I’ll get bored.

And there was nothing more frightening in this world than that.

“I brought you a dress.” He lifted the red fabric on his arm. Of course, he had, with his compulsion to control every detail. “I can’t wait to see you in it.”

He draped the red, floral-patterned silk across the bed at his side, and tilted his head minutely toward it. It might as well have been an Alpha command for the amount of choice it left me.

Nausea turned my stomach, and I tried to bury it as I steeled myself. I had to find out what was going on, and I wouldn’t get that by fighting. I would get that by stepping into the next game he wanted to play, in the hopes I could survive it long enough to get what I needed.

Ace was so… everywhere that a memory as simple as this, choosing my dress, at times, caused night-long battles with insomnia. I would relive it again and again: he would bring me an outfit and take a seat as I dressed, his gaze never drifting as he watched me turn myself into a creature to please him.

But this was not the hill to die on.

I took the dress, swallowed pride and fear, and slipped from the bed, facing him as I shrugged the shoulder of my shirt off.

As I tugged off my leggings, I tried to find the person I’d been before. The one with armour built for this. But she’d died a death at the High Roller, and then been buried six feet under when I’d met my mates again. There was a tremor in my hand as I lifted the gown. No longer the old me who would have been made of stone right now.

I hated the feel of his eyes across my bare skin.

The cool silk of the fabric brushed up my legs as I drew it up, knowing before it slipped into place upon my body, what kind of dress it would be.

The back was low, dipping to my tailbone and leaving on display the scars I desperately wanted to hide.

“Do you like it?” he asked as I adjusted the sleeve and it all fell into place.

I took a breath, glancing down at the silk that clung to my skin.

“Don’t answer before you see,” he said quietly.

He reminded me of my own father sometimes, who looked down on others with such disdain he felt the need to correct them before anything had even happened.

I followed his glance back to the mirror, then took one small step backward, knowing what he was asking for. I balled my fists to keep myself steady as I turned my back on him and showed my scars. The woman in the mirror blurred.

Don’t cry.

I gritted my teeth as his scent rose in the air, controlled, but thick, redwood and rose sharp with every breath I took.

“Stay.”

He got to his feet, approaching me so he could see in the mirror, too. My skin prickled with disgust as he took a closer look, and I finally got a hold of my tears.

“When is your next heat?” he asked, close enough for his breath to brush my temple.

I dropped my eyes, calculating my options. Risk a lie? Was he testing me? Was it something else he knew?

He knew about the High Roller.

“Within the month.”

“How have you been managing them?” he asked, and there was something dangerous in his gaze.

I was suddenly grateful for my refusal of Travis’ offer to become more than a bartender at the High Roller. The look in Ace’s eyes told me that those clients would be vanishing from the streets.

“Drugs.”

“Three years?” Ace asked, peering down at me curiously. “Three, since you’ve had a true heat?”

“I’ve never had a true heat,” I whispered, glad my voice was steady, even if it was thick.

He smiled. “What do you think, Omega? Will you finally choose me over those scars?”

He used touch just as carefully as words, leaving it with a weight designed to frighten. I’d never seen him use touch for anything else.

He’d told me once that he thought his touch was worth too much to be offered easily. I believed he believed that.

I suddenly regretted not going on that date Leisha had set up and not letting someone in—anyone—just once. So the ghost of him wasn’t the only memory joining the brush of his knuckle along the scars of my back.

The fact remained, I’d never felt Ace’s touch without something terrible following.

So it was hard not to shiver as his bright blue eyes held mine, and his other hand wrapped around me, holding my chin steady as his palm flattened against my back and he dipped his chin lower, jaw brushing my hair line.

Rose and redwood seeped into the air and I couldn’t fight the choked sob in my chest as he scent marked me.

I’m not his.

I’m not his.

His eyes glinted with delight as he got a reaction out of me.

“Do you like it?” he asked, firmer this time, like he wanted to know what I would say if forced.

I swallowed, finally seeing the woman before me. Truly. In floral red silk, held like a trophy by an Alpha who thought he owned me.

I’m not his.

My words slipped through gritted teeth. “I would hate the most beautiful dress in the world, if it was you giving it to me.”

“Well.” He flashed a smile. “I think you look stunning, Omega.” He traced lines across scars he was too familiar with as I held myself still on a knife’s edge. “Perfect bait.”

“Bait?” My blood went cold, eyes snapping back to his. “You said…” I took a breath, world spinning. “You said you left them.”

“I did,” he replied. He dropped his hand from my chin, settling instead on my waist ever so delicately. “You claimed they weren’t trying to protect you.”

“They weren’t.”

“I’d like to discover for myself if you’re lying.”

“What?” I turned, staring up at him, finding more of my sanity as his touch on my scars vanished.

“I made them an offer.”

“What does that mean?”

“I gave them a chance for everything they should want—if your story holds up—or…” He tilted his head, riveted by my reaction. “Or they could save you.”

“No.”

“You think they’ll come, then?”

“They’re…” I swallowed, trying to find a way out of this. “They’re good,” I whispered.

“Did you tell them that you ran from me?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell them anything. They helped me get away one time, but they wouldn’t let me go in case they needed leverage.”

“The night my men almost caught you at the High Roller?” he asked.

“I would have used any pack.”

“If your mates have truly accepted that it isn’t their business to interfere with me or my property, then…” He stepped back, sitting on the edge of my bed. “…You have nothing to worry about.” He reached into his breast pocket. “I left them a note. Four, actually.”

In his hand, he split four playing cards to which I could only see the backs.

“Three queens. One ace. And all of them had a message.”

I waited, heart pounding in my chest.

“On each, there was a location. All buildings that belong to me. I wrote that you would be at one of the three locations written on the queens. But, if they go to the fourth, they’ll get lifetime immunity from the Brotherhood and…” He shrugged. “One hundred grand. Give or take.”

“And if they come for me?”

“You said they didn’t care, and I’ve offered them all that they supposedly kidnapped you for, with extra on top.”

“What happens?”

I knew, though.

“You’ll be there, won’t you?” he asked. “You’ll see for yourself.”

There was a long silence.

“You look so concerned,” he murmured, delight dancing in his eyes. “Am I in for a show?”

A lie jumped to my lips, but this time I didn’t dare speak it, seeing his curiosity to catch me hiding things from him again. I could never win, though, because my silence seemed to make him more pleased.

“You’re coming back to me already, Omega,” he said. “I knew…” He trailed off, eyes too intense as he caught himself, as if he were about to say something he didn’t want to. My chest tightened, but instead of finishing, he lifted the four cards. “Choose one.”

I stared at them. “Why?”

“You’ll decide where we go.”

“You said there were three places I might be.”

“I did.”

“Then what’s the fourth?”

“The fourth is the same as their fourth. But choose the ace, and I’ll replace that hundred grand with three six-foot graves.”

“That’s not…” My mind reeled, trying to find something to argue with. “It’s not fair rules.”

“Fair rules?” He laughed. “You ran, Omega. Right into their arms. I’m offering far more than they deserve.”

He stood, cutting off any more argument.

I saw a flash of hatred in his eyes when he spoke. “You’re mine, but I do not have you, not completely. I cannot forget that if your mates die, you will have no one left but me.”

I caught another sob. “You could have killed them all this time.”

“Do you want the truth?”

“No.” My voice was bitter. Not that he cared.

“I don’t know that you’ll be a better toy once they’re gone, or if you’ll fade away.”

I swallowed, trying to shove back my terror.

Of the future that was coming for me—one in which he owned every minute, every nightmare, every dream.

Of a world where the beating hearts of my mates might not echo somewhere in this world, even if further away than I would ever hear.

“But this way is fairest,” Ace went on. “If they’re truly… over you, well, seeing your face, that will be a reward on its own. But pick right, and it won’t be so bad.” He cocked his head. “Three locations. Three Alphas. Only one has to die. That, I think, will suffice.”

I was trembling, nails digging into my palms as I tried to drag my eyes from him. “Suffice?” The word was faint and weak.

“I’ll leave the others so that when I bring you home, you’ll still fight me like you always have.”

The world was going dark, blinders closing my vision. A fist crushed my windpipe, making it hard to breathe as Ace lifted the cards again.

“Choose,” he said. “Or I’ll choose the ace. And if they don’t arrive, I’ll hunt them while you watch.”

I could fight him on this. Could sink to my knees and beg. I could swear to give him anything he wanted if he didn’t do this.

And none of it would work.

He didn’t want anything I had to offer because I’d handed it to him. He wanted to win it.

Was it possible that Kyan, Knight, and Zed would choose the ace?

Would they leave me behind?

I had never wanted them to hate me so badly.

Breath tight, I reached for a card, trying to contain the tremor in my fingers. But there was no hiding from this.

I didn’t linger, knowing it wouldn’t matter. Clenching my jaw, I picked a card.

I turned it in numb fingers.

“Seems two are safe,” Ace murmured, as I stared in frightened shock at the picture in my hands. “For now.”

The picture swam as I warred with tears until all I could see was the blurred reds of the queen of diamonds.

“Well.” Ace stepped back and offered me his hand. “Shall we go?”

“Now?”

Like this?

Only… this dress could be designed for nothing else.

“Now, Omega. I’m dying to see what happens.”