Page 24 of Convict's Game

My loyalty was to my crew. That deserved and demanded all my attention.

I left the fucking thing on the seat and forced myself inside the warehouse.

At the office, I greeted Shade with a bro hug and tugged on a skeleton bandanna to conceal my lower face.

Shade tapped the boss’s seat. “You’re leading the show. Confident with what you’re asking? It’s been a while.”

Surprise hit me, but I took the big leather chair, more because he’d asked than I thought I had the right. A new memory hit, or a partial one, at least. I’d done this before, but standing where Shade was. The support guy, part of Arran’s show of strength.

My blood rushed in my ears from a racing heart.

The doctor had told me if I had amnesia, it would lift by degrees. I’d told them it already had, so if anything, I should’ve felt better.

I didn’t. I felt worse. Panicked and battling to hide it.

At my lack of an answer, Shade filled in the gap. “All we need to do tonight is size up the applicant and confirm his intent. He’s committing to not just the game itself, and to making a claim, but to thirty days with his woman, if he’s one of the lucky ones. He’s passed all the checks. Finances, bloodwork, a home to take her to. I’ll run through the specifics, but the point of the interview is to look for alarm bells. We had a guy a while back who went psycho after he lost. He stalked the woman he’d wanted, though she was happily paired off with someone else. He couldn’t respect the rules of the game.”

“What happened to him?”

Shade’s face might’ve been covered by a matching bandanna, but I knew he’d formed a deadly smile.

“We manage the rules outside the game as much as inside. We took care of him.”

I didn’t ask if that meant he was dead. I didn’t care.

The enforcer continued. “It’s hard to assess that dangerous edge, fuck, it’s part of all of us and necessary once they’re in that basement. But if ye pick up on anything ye don’t like, we’ll kick him out. There’s always a long list of others waiting on their chance.”

“Got it. Did you say there were two applicants needing an interview?”

“Aye. The second is a woman. If she can’t make it in, I’ll talk to her on the phone. In general, the lasses are safer to judge than men.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in.” My voice rang clear, nothing like how fucked up I felt.

Shade palmed my shoulder and gave me a shake, stepping back to be my wingman.

One of the skeleton crew announced the visitor. “Rhys Jacobs. Applicant for the game.”

He left us, and Jacobs took the chair beyond the desk. Our bright spotlight made his skin spectre-white against his charcoal suit. It also made it harder for him to see us. The man sat still. A deer in the headlights.

I stared him down. “Mr Jacobs. You kept us waiting.”

He swallowed. “My apologies. I meant no disrespect.”

On the desk was a clipboard of notes Shade had prepared. I picked it up and perused it. “You’ve fulfilled the basic requirements of entry, but we don’t let any man in without getting his measure in person.”

Jacobs forced a smile. “I wouldn’t do business that way either.”

At my side, Shade made a sound of derision. “Ye compare your corporate meetings with what happens in our basement?”

The applicant rolled his shoulders, nerves showing in his small, jerky movements. “In a manner of speaking. Excelling at business requires the need to win at all costs. Just like hunting down the woman I intend to spend my life with.”

I leaned in. “Then I guess you fuck over your business partners with the same ruthlessness. Save it. That doesn’t impress us. Shade, the rules.”

My friend rested his hip on my chair and counted off on his fingers. “On Friday night, if we accept ye, you’ll be locked in a cage in the basement below this office. You’ll be one of twenty men who will compete by any means necessary to claim one of the five women in our game. Ye can and will be hurt during this process. Men have been knocked out before the siren even sounds and left to bleed in the cage. Ye might die. How’s this sounding so far?”

Jacobs blinked, his body held taut. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t agree to the risks. Tell me?—”