Chapter Two
Max
Imanage to wrangle my rage into check over the next thirty minutes… and that’s when I get my head back into the game. My mission may have changed, but I can’t afford to let my calculation take the hit. I’m underprepared, which means I need to be smart.
Killing Dagon and getting away is one thing. Killing Dagon and taking Ember is an entirely different story—something that ought to require much forethought and planning.
Fuck forethought and planning. The girl I fell for as a teenager is attached to one of the worst men in the country—world.
I don’t know why, and there’s obviously a very long story I’m missing, but I don’t need to know.
I don’t require background or digging. All I require is to kill Dagon and take Ember out of here, then interrogate her and punish the fuck out of her for disappearing on me.
The first step to that requires me to gain an audience with Dagon, and the only way to do that is to piss him off by taking too much money from his casino.
That’s why I move onto the Blackjack tables. At these tables, I’m not playing the other players—not really. I’m playing the casino, and pocketing money from the bottom line, not from high-ballers that deserve a lesson in humility.
Most people who approach the blackjack tables are idiots. Not because they don’t understand the spoken rules, but because they don’t realize that you have to be a mathematical prodigy to truly get this game and be able to win.
Math was always my strong suit. I used to help Ember with her math homework—in other words, do it for her and prep her for tests. There was a time in my life when I was a slave to that girl, incapable of denying her anything.
She took that and disappeared on me, only to go to Dagon.
“Sir.” One of the floor managers finally steps up to me, after I’ve pocketed a total of 500k. “My congratulations on your fortune tonight.”
It’s not fortune or luck; it’s strategy and math.
Instead of saying that, I paste a stupid smile on my lips and lean into the drunk, lucky fratboy archetype.
“Thanks, man,” I say brightly, running my eyes up and down the manager.
Short hair, beady eyes, a suit jacket half a size too big—just enough to hide the weapon no doubt holstered beneath.
This isn’t just a casino manager, it’s a guard. Half the staff here are armed, and this guy’s no different.
“The owner is requesting a word with you, if you’d care to join him for a drink in the back room.”
Bingo. Dagon occasionally fishes patrons at his casino out and offers them a chance to play for him professionally.
I’ve done my background on him; I know how he operates.
Tonight’s hit would be stunningly easy if I didn’t have Ember to account for.
Now, nothing will be simple—this evening’s bound to turn into a total shitshow.
“Wait, really?” I widen my eyes. “I swear, I wasn’t cheating—”
“I’m well aware. You’re not in any trouble.” The casino manager rolls his eyes, buying into the act.
“Oh.” I bob my head in a nod. “Aight, then. Yeah, I’d love a drink. You guys have whiskey?”
The manager’s lip curls with dislike. “I’m sure we can get something sorted. Please, follow me.”
The backroom is behind a velvet curtain in a roped-off corner of the casino. I cased it the first night I came here, but it’s remained empty until tonight. Until Dagon.
The manager pulls open the curtain, and—
Fuck.
There she is. She’s as much a punch to the gut now as she was when I spotted her a few hours ago.
Catlike, glittering blue eyes. Legs for days. Fair skin that I’d like to sink my teeth into. She reclines on a velvet armchair, posture straight, eyes empty
And there he is, on the sofa beside her.
Dagon is a man who’s handsome in a strange way—thin lips, brown eyes, features that are just a little too sharp to be classically attractive.
His skin is fair to the point of being too fair, and there’s an energy swirling around him that advertises sheer menace.
I expect for shit to go nuclear immediately. Ember will recognize me, and if she’s loyal to Dagon, she’ll tell him exactly who I am. I can’t imagine what that piece of shit might’ve done to earn her loyalty, but she’s here with him. I assume she has her reasons.
But when Ember’s eyes meet mine, there’s nothing in them.
No flash of recognition or confusion. No hope, no fear, no emotions whatsoever.
She runs her gaze up and down my body, and it takes me a few heartbeats to realize she’s casing me.
Searching for weapons or anything that would make me seem like a threat.
I want to part my lips and yell at her. I want to ask what the hell is going on, or whether she’s a doppelganger of some sort who looks exactly like my Ember but lacks the emotions of the vivacious girl I spent the best years of my life around.
I almost lose it when she looks away from me, dismissing me as a threat.
I’m missing a huge chunk of information on her—at least half a decade worth of it, and something in the last five years has turned this girl from my future into Dagon’s…
something. It better not be girlfriend, or I’ll punish her so fucking hard she won’t sit for weeks.
“Thomas, was it?” Dagon’s voice, quiet and hiss-like, slithers through the air and curls around my neck like a noose. Something about him is so profoundly wrong. I peel my eyes away from Ember, shelving my questions and confusion so I can focus in on Dagon.
My plan is simple. First, kill the fucker that I’m certain has something to do with my Ember falling off the face of the earth.
Second, get Ember away from here. She doesn’t look like she’s expecting a rescue or even needs a rescue, which once again makes me wonder what the fuck is going on here, but now isn’t the time for wondering. It’s the time for action.
“Yeah,” I lie, offering Dagon a sloppy smile. “Uh… why did you call me here?”
“You’ve cost my operation the better part of half a million dollars in the last hour alone.” Dagon smiles a soul-chilling smile. “I thought you were at the very least worth meeting.”
“Sorry ‘bout that, man,” I say with a hapless shrug, as if to say what can you do. “Just wanted to—”
“Don’t care.” Dagon cuts me off with a yawn. “Have a seat. Drink?”
“Uh, yeah. Whiskey, please. Neat.”
Dagon snaps his fingers at Ember.
The fuck?
She stands from her seat robotically and walks over to the liquor cabinet against the back wall, selecting a crystal tumbler. My gaze alternates between her full, round, extremely fuckable ass and her profile as I watch her pour me a drink.
Dagon catches me staring. Rather than getting upset, a serpentine smile curls his lips. “Pretty, isn’t she?” he asks casually. “Unfortunately for you, my soon to be fiancée is also off-limits.”
Ember’s movements falter for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Her posture tenses. I can’t see her face, and I’d give an arm to watch her expression at Dagon’s words.
The effect they have on me is immediate and debilitating; tension threatens to tighten my muscle, and an animalistic roar is trapped in my throat.
This piece of shit is planning to get engaged to my Ember?
No.
Over my dead fucking body.
She disappeared out from under me five years ago; now, she’s in my sights again. I plan to find out exactly why she doesn’t seem to know who the hell I am. In any case, it doesn’t matter; not now. I need to act first and ask questions later.
“Sure, man,” I say, holding up my hands in a placating gesture.
Ember turns around, holding the crystal tumbler with a few fingers of liquor, and closes the distance between us.
My gut, balls, and spine all tighten at once.
The dress swishes with each of her movements, showing off more hints of creamy skin that’d look damn good with my cum slathered over it.
She stops in front of me and extends the glass.
I take it, and my fingers brush over hers.
I catch her gaze, looking for hints of recognition, of something.
Electricity shoots up my arm from our contact, and Ember seems to feel it too, because she jerks her hands away and meets my gaze.
Her own eyes are filled with confusion and something that might be… contempt? But no recognition.
For the millionth time tonight, I have to ask myself what the fuck is going on here.
“You ever play professionally?” Dagon asks me, apparently not catching my moment with his ‘soon to be fiancée’. Probably for the best, but still infuriating. If he wanted to keep my Ember, he’d put her on a much tighter leash.
Why doesn’t she remember me? Or is she just putting on a front?
“I haven’t,” I respond, casting a brief, analytical gaze around the room. The manager has flitted off somewhere, and there are only three soldiers here with Dagon. I retrieved the gun I hid in the men’s bathroom about an hour ago, so taking them out shouldn’t be an issue.
It will, however, be messy as fuck.
I mentally start a countdown. Dagon’s relaxed; he doesn’t recognize me or see me as a threat. Now’s the time to take him off guard.
Two minutes to go before I unleash hell and try to get out of here unscathed.
“You’re very good.” Dagon says it with a hint of derision, sipping his drink. His eyes move to Ember as she retakes her seat on the armchair, silent as a grave. No sooner does her ass hit the cushion than does he snap at her again, like she’s a dog, and hold up his drink. “One for me as well.”
No please. No consideration. Nothing but control.
A few things strike me at once. Whatever Ember’s doing here isn’t of her own free will. She’s a servant of some kind, though I’m not sure which kind. Second, I have never been as eager to kill someone as I am to kill Dagon.
Third, fuck the two minutes. I’m acting now.
It all happens remarkably fast after that. I fold my hands into my pockets, curling my fingers around the three thin throwing knives sitting there. Gunshots are loud; knives are silent. If I can get out of here without causing a fuss, that’d be much preferred.
Dagon turns around to watch Ember, eyes glinting with appreciation. One of his guards frowns on me, eyes zeroing in on my pocketed hands, and spots the outline of the throwing knives.
I pull one out and send it sailing through the air, right at his forehead. It buries in his brain to the hilt.
All hell breaks loose. Dagon’s on his feet in an instant, as are the two other bodyguards.
One pulls out a gun with a silencer; I run straight at him, barreling into him and taking him to the floor.
Another knife goes into his chest. Shouting ensues as I snatch up his discarded weapon and point it at Dagon.
Guard number three throws himself in front of Dagon, taking the shot.
He falls; I shoot again, catching Dagon’s shoulder, except the fucker turns tail and sprints out of here. I manage to put one more bullet in his back, but the asshole doesn’t even falter. And he leaves Ember behind like she’s nothing.
And then, I see a glint of metal in the corner of my eye.
Ember. My sweet Ember is holding a gun, pointing it at my forehead. Her posture’s tense, her eyes are bored. I have to get both of us out of here right now, except I don’t think she’ll come willingly.
We’re alone for maybe ten more seconds before I need to move us out the back exit.
“Ember,” I say. “Ember, what’s—”
She pulls the trigger.
I repeat; the woman pulls the fucking trigger, sending a bullet into my chest.
What she doesn’t count on is the ultrathin bullet proof vest sewn into my shirt—courtesy of the Nighthawk’s seamster.
Ember’s eyes widen, and she falters. That gives me the opening I need to shoot at the gun in her hands, clipping it from the side and sending it sailing out of her hands. She gasps and recoils in pain; I lunge forward, grab her arm, and yank her out of the room.