C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N
Lincoln
That image, the one where she puts that last bite of cheesecake between her lips, the same lips that have given me more pleasure in four days than in my whole life, is burned into my brain like a brand.
The penthouse is humming. Players surround the tables. Chips click together, a constant drumbeat as players either toss them into the pot or fidget with their stacks, or as dealers pull or push them to and fro.
Same sounds I’ve heard every day of my life for longer than I can remember.
But today, the temperature feels different.
The noises are harsh. They crack against my eardrums like gunfire.
And for the first time in my life, the smell of cigar smoke and false hope sickens me to the core.
None of it matters. Not the money. Not the image. Not the illusion of power. I’m an icon of nothing that matters to me anymore, and there’s a hole opening inside of me that cannot be filled.
Except it could, and I know it.
It could be filled by her.
But I make my peace with the deep black hole of my existence, because she and I can’t be. There’s no way to keep her safe if we continue. No route out of this place with my name intact and her tagging along. Deal was, I disappear, no trace. No attachments. At the time, it was the cherry on top of a very lucrative transition-of-my-business sundae.
Now, it’s the very thing that’s killing my soul.
“Boss.” Walrus doesn’t even look up from the ledger open in front of him, his fountain pen swirling names and dollar figures into columns only he can understand. If he’d ever wanted to screw me over the years, I’d be fucked. He’s the one person in my life I trust. And we speak barely ten words to each other a day, even when we’re working in the same room.
I hear him laugh, and it draws my attention. With a sigh, I sit down in the chair in front of his desk, cross my arms over my chest and look.
He’s smiling.
The cigar barely stuck to his bottom lip.
“What the fuck is with you?” I grunt.
“You don’t think I know.”
Five words and I understand exactly what he’s saying.
“I couldn’t tell you. How’d you find out?”
“I see clues. I have eyes. No one has to tell me. I waited for you to tell me, but I figured there must be some good fucking reason you didn’t.”
Walrus notices things that even someone with X-ray vision and the ability to read minds couldn’t catch.
“I’m fucked.” A long exhale tears from my lungs. The weight of this decision on my shoulders leaves me in that one breath.
“Yeah?”
He doesn’t know everything.
I tell him the deal. The details.
Then I stop and he shifts in his chair, pushing back and standing up. He never fucking stands up except to leave the room at the end of the night or when he has to piss. He slaps his thick hands down on the desk and leans over.
“You taking her?”
Fucker doesn’t miss a trick.
“That’s the ‘I’m fucked’ part of this. Can’t take her. Can’t risk her.”
“I got this,” he hisses.
“What the hell do you mean, you got this?”
“You shoulda told me sooner. You better get ready to send my mom a shit-ton of flowers. She likes orchids. Oh, and peonies. Pink.”
Walrus groans as he stands back upright. Centering his hands into the small of his back and stretching with a pained rumble.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his phone, then turns and walks to the windows, bringing it to his ear.
A minute later, he’s back in his chair, giving me a stare.
“What the hell did you just do?”
“I called my mom.”
“I got that part.” I’m getting fucking annoyed right now. “What the fuck does your mom have to do with anything?”
“You’re an asshole, you know that? You’ve always been an asshole, but you don’t know everything, motherfucker.” He shifts the cigar butt to the opposite side of his mouth. “My mom and his mom, that piece of rat shit you sold your world to, sit next to each other every Thursday night at the fucking bingo. They get their fucking hair done together every Monday morning. Meyer won’t fuck with you if you take your girl. Not now. I guarantee it. I just told my mom, ‘Lincoln found his one. Rudolf needs to back the fuck off if he takes her with him. Fix it. They’re leaving tomorrow. Don’t ask anything else, just tell Norma.’”
“That’s it?” I shake my head, my hands coming to rest on my knees, gripping hard. I’ve been a fucking idiot.
“The power of the mom. Do not ever doubt what a good mamma’s boy will do.”
“Fuck. You know what?”
Walrus just stares. He’s done talking. I know the exertion of all those words has already set him over his limit for the next year.
I don’t wait for his response. “I thought about killing him.”
Walrus lifts one eyebrow. That was our one pact when we started down this life all those years ago. We’d do a lot of stuff. Fuck, whatever it took. I’ve broken my share of noses and extracted debts in ways I’m not proud of, but we vowed never to take a life. And we never did. Never even came close to that. The idea hadn’t really ever been a possibility until the last three days.
I rub my hands up and down the tops of my thighs as my friend waits for me to finish. “But he’s got reach. I kill him, it comes back on her. On me. On you.”
He nods, looking down at the open ledger, then begins scribbling again.
A loud “whoop” comes from a newbie at table three, and you can see the collective eye roll from the seasoned players at his outburst. But at the moment, I’m ready to follow his lead and do a fucking yee-haw with a set of pom-poms waving around.
“I love you, man. Thank you.” It’s the last thing I say before Walrus raises one hand and flips his fingers toward the door, dismissing me without another word.