Page 28

Dinah

I hate Marci. Right now, she’s leaning over her husband’s shoulder, looking at his cards, her claws digging into his neck.

She’s giggling, and when her gaze darts my way, I look down at my cards.

My spite is a pill I’ve hidden for two decades, and her ignorance of it is one of the only things that makes it bearable.

I won’t ever give her the satisfaction of knowing how much I care.

No one loved me back then. No one, but maybe he had been close. Close and then gone, in love with her, and I had to lie in my bed each night and listen to her giggle to him on the phone.

Sal pushes a stack of blue poker chips forward, and Eric follows suit. I glance at Eric, and our eyes meet. His mouth curves. It would serve her right if I returned the favor and let her see how betrayal felt. It is painful, yes—but from your own sister? Horrible.

“You got what it takes, Dinah?” He winks at me.

He really is a terrible husband. Joe would never wink at another woman.

His gaze wouldn’t drop to her neckline, which is where Eric’s has just fallen.

Joe wouldn’t make it obvious, every chance he got, that he would take his wife’s sister upstairs and fuck her until he collapsed.

That’s exactly what Eric does. I could have screwed my sister’s husband a hundred times since they’ve been together, but I haven’t. I wouldn’t, even if she does deserve it—even if the thought of the revenge is delicious.

Four hundred missing women in this city, yet she couldn’t be one of them. I tuck my cards under the stack and push a pile of red chips toward the middle. “Raise.”