Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Grant
To say Cara Collins has successfully messed with my head would be an understatement.
I’m not quite sure how this woman has gotten under my skin like she has, but I know I have to keep her at arm’s length. Ordinarily, I would have given in a lot sooner than this. The amount of blue balls this woman has given me is obscene, and she has no idea what she’s doing to me.
If this were anyone else, I would have left for a day to find a sexual partner out of state to help distract me from my situation, but alas, it’s not.
Instead, it’s the woman who has been distracting me for years.
This isn’t some flippant crush on a partner or someone I’ve come across a time or two; it’s Cara. The woman who has been haunting me day and night. The one I promised myself to protect. The one whom I can now admit the truth about.
She’s the woman I’m falling in love with.
It’s pathetic.
I can’t find love at my age with someone like Cara. I see the way she looks at me, longingly and with lust in her eyes. There’s no way that what she feels is real. It has to be because she hasn’t had sex either in the past couple of weeks.
When did I start caring about feelings all the time? I’m a shell of the man I was before this mission started. This woman has made me a complete and utter mess, and I’m the fool who thought that making her my wife on paper would help the matter.
If anything, it’s made her crawl under my skin more than ever before. All it takes is a whiff of her perfume or watching her study a file for hours, and I’m turned on.
Even her taking lead on the calls with Dodger has me falling more for this woman than I thought possible.
I should be paying attention to what Cara’s telling Dodger during this check-in call, but instead, I’m daydreaming about the way her mouth moves as she speaks with ease to him. She’s confident and sure of herself as she explains what we’ve found already and our upcoming plans.
I know there’s something between the two of them. Not a present matter but something of the past.
“Sir, we attend tonight,” she finishes.
“That’s excellent news, Collins,” he answers.
“Anything to add, Sinclair?” Cara asks.
“Well said. Tonight is the first time we’ll be in the Kingpin’s secret hideout. Nothing more to report until tomorrow.”
“Very well,” Dodger says.
He pauses on the video monitor. Normally, Dodger isn’t one to mince words, so it makes me feel uneasy that he’s debating something.
“Report back to me tomorrow.”
“Will do,” Cara answers for us.
She shuts the laptop screen down and turns her attention toward me.
“So quiet.”
“You had it covered.”
Cara twitches her lips for a moment.
“You did,” I continue.
“Okay. Whatever you say.”
Right as I’m about to ask her about Dodger, our front doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it,” I say as a way to leave the table.
Sliding out of the kitchen nook, I head into the living room toward the front door. As I’m about to answer it, the doorbell rings through the house once again.
I square my shoulders back and open the door. To my surprise, it’s Brad.
“Nice to see you, man. What’s going on?” I ask.
“We need to talk,” he says while looking from side to side.
“Everything okay?”
I notice his hands are in the front pockets of his pants, and he’s twitching more than usual.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I answer as I gesture for him to walk through.
He does and immediately helps me shut the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Is everything okay?” Cara calls out.
“All good, love. It’s just Brad. He and I will be a few minutes in here.”
Cara comes out from the kitchen with a wide smile on her face.
“Brad. So good to see you. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No, thank you,” he says as he scratches his neck.
“Okay, I’ll just be upstairs getting ready for tonight. I have to check in with my friend Ruby about some things too,” Cara says.
“Tell Ruby hello. Maybe she can fill our friend Rob in as well?”
“No problem. I’ll tell her to talk to Rob about how the move-in has been going.”
I see the slight furrow between her eyebrows as she takes in Brad’s peculiar demeanor.
She looks up at me, and I give her a reassuring signal. Cara and I have taken to being able to say so much without saying anything at all to one another.
As Cara heads up the stairs, I look at how Brad is pacing around the room.
“Take a seat,” I say.
“Thanks,” he answers, almost relieved.
Brad sits down in the closest seat, a lone accent chair. I sit on the main sofa nearby.
“You don’t look so good,” I say.
Brad breathes out a long rush of air.
“This is the one favor I’m going to do for you since you are so adamant about getting involved here.”
“Okay…”
Brad rests his hands on top of his bouncing knees.
“If you say I told you, I’ll lie. Got it?”
“Yes.”
I sit still as I wait for Brad to share.
“This is bigger than anything I’ve been involved with, Ace.”
“How so?”
“It’s not just local or even, fuck, just the Carolinas. This goes bigger than cards and drugs.”
“What is it?”
“This is it .”
“That’s not telling me much.”
I need him to share more. We already assume that Cordelia is the Kingpin we’ve been waiting to get. I need more than this.
“There are big players coming to the tournament tonight. Cordelia’s tournament is the place to be.”
“In what way?”
“Ace. I like you. Your wife seems like good people too.”
“Brad, I saved your life.”
“And this isn’t the time you want to play that card. You only get it once from me.”
I hang my head as I grip the edge of the couch.
“You gotta give me more than that.”
“The Marlin.”
My head shoots up to find Brad’s weary expression on mine.
“Are you sure?”
“This tournament is one of many. Cordelia is auditioning you for more than you know. The Marlin trades in drugs, diamonds, everything but people and kids. Says everyone needs a code.”
“A code?”
“A moral one, if you can believe that,” he says in disbelief.
“At least we know that much about the Marlin.”
Brad’s expression turns more serious.
“No one knows anything real about the Marlin. Remember that before tonight.”
“I will. Have you met the Marlin before?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Why?”
“I’m not telling you more than I can to feel safe. You want in this mess? Then you need to figure it out as you go. But Ace?”
I wait for him to continue.
“Nothing is what it seems. Don’t come to this game unless you really understand that.”
“I do. Thank you for coming here.”
Brad gets up and leaves without another word.
If what he’s saying is true, then tonight is the night that Cara and I have to try and figure out who the Marlin is and how everyone is connected.
We need to know from Cordelia what the big play is and when it’s happening to put an end to this once and for all. The sooner that we catch the Marlin, the sooner I can retreat back to California and figure out my life.
It’s pathetic.
I’m the closest I’ve ever been to meeting the Marlin, and all I can think about is the way Cara glances at me. If this isn’t a sign that I have to figure out my life after this, then I don’t know what is.
What we thought was going to take months still could, but less than two weeks in, and we’re already heading to the casino as friends of Cordelia’s. That’ll show all the players we don’t know are involved that we can be trusted or, at the very least, are important enough.
I head up the stairs, finding Cara’s door slightly ajar. She’s examining herself in the mirror. With long cascading locks rolling down her back and a different black sequin dress on, she looks every bit the part that we need her to play.
That’s the problem.
The more I see her like this, the more I want her for my own.
I don’t just want the happy housewife; I want the vixen I know is underneath those clothes. The one who puts me in my place when necessary and softens when I need that too.
And most importantly, I want to be that person for Cara in return. The one her father, Luke, described would be best for Cara. I could be her partner in every way imaginable if only things were different between us.
Cara glances over her shoulder, and our eyes meet. She tries to turn around to face me, but I’m gone before she can ask me what I was doing or how the conversation with Brad turned out.
In my room, I quickly change into my tuxedo. These tuxedos are beginning to feel like a second skin with the rate I’m wearing them. In my day-to-day life, I don’t usually dress this formal, despite what Cara may think.
If Cordelia is hosting a big tournament at the casino, then this will be one of the events where all the local who’s who will be. Never mind all our neighbors in Rippling River, but throughout the Carolinas as well.
That reminds me, I need to ask Fisher if he’s gotten any word of it down in Charleston.
Picking up my phone off the dresser, I shoot him a quick and discreet text message. Ever since Fisher has been in Charleston, he’s been running with a local crowd, where surely this would have made its way to them.
Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina, are only about a four- or five-hour drive apart.
For Americans, driving that distance is an easy road trip.
Or they could take a flight that’s under an hour to get here.
That’s also a possibility for the elite to do without a care in the world.
“Knock, knock,” Cara says as she taps her knuckles against my open bedroom door.
“Almost ready.”
Cara walks closer until I can feel the heat of her body only mere inches away.
“Need help?” Her voice comes out sultry, almost as if it were unintended.
I don’t, but I turn as I place the bow tie around my neck. She puts her hands on my chest and peers up at me.
“May I?”
“Be my guest,” I whisper.
Her delicate fingers tease the length of mine as they pass by one another. She takes the end of the bow tie in her hands as mine fall to my side.