Page 6 of Convict's Game

Someone tapped at my door. I stumbled over to open it.

With a bundle in her arms, Dixie gave me a once-over. “I brought you clean clothes from the wardrobe next to the strip club downstairs. Feel free to raid it if you don’t like what I picked. Got to say, you’re looking stronger already. I checked on you a few times throughout last night and today. You slept hard.”

The clothes smelled clean and not of hospital. “If I’m a saint, you’re an angel. What time is it?”

“Nine in the evening. Almost twenty-four hours after we brought you in. You ate?”

At some point in my rest, I’d spotted a packet of sandwiches left for me and had devoured them. “That was you?”

“No, Shade. Arran’s going to call again soon, if you’re fit to head downstairs? He tried once already, but we thought it better not to wake you.” Something ticked over in her gaze. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

I grabbed my crutch and threw a glance around the room to check I had all I needed. Except I didn’t own anything. At least not here. No keys or phone to take.

“Yeah, I remember Arran.” Just about. “Where is he anyway?”

“Honeymoon. Somewhere hot. I’m a little jelly over it so I’m choosing to space on the details.”

Arran was married?

Dixie noticed. Tsked. “His wife is Genevieve. She’s lovely.”

The name summoned a face, though no other details. They’d come back. Piece by piece, the blanks were being filled in. “Fuck, right. I know her.”

“That memory still troubling you?”

I purposefully eyed her throat bandage and returned her words from yesterday. “Nothing I want to talk about, hun.”

She smirked in amusement, and we left my room and made our way down the hall.

Giving me a ten-minute warning, Dixie waited while I used the bathroom then cleaned myself up as best I could, changing my clothes for the replacement t-shirt and sweats, slicing them open for my boot, and the single shoe I needed to match.

I needed a shower, which I could do now I had the leg cast off, but that meant removing the bandage covering the burns onmy arm. I grimaced at it. In the hospital, the nurse had said it should be good, but I didn’t want to stare down at that mess. Not yet. One demon at a time.

Back in the cloakroom, I called Dixie in.

“Can I use this?” I waved the razor I’d found in a row of toiletries baskets on the counter.

“Everything here is for the staff to use. Knock yourself out.”

I fronted up to the sink, lathered up, and tackled weeks’ worth of scruffy beard.

As I worked—fucking hell, did that feel good—Dixie hopped onto the counter and crossed her legs at the ankles, watching me as she continued her crew update.

“Shade’s girlfriend is Everly, and she’s pregnant. Cassie and Riot are paired off, but I don’t think you’ve met him. He’s a newer crew member, real name Riordan.” She peered at me. “You saved Cassie from the fire that almost killed you. She came upstairs with me earlier to check on you. She’s my boss now.”

I scowled at my reflection, hating my broken memory. “Tell me about the fire.”

Dixie launched into a story of how I’d been in the basement of a rival gang’s brothel when someone torched the place. Cassie had been held prisoner and would’ve died if I hadn’t boosted her out of a cellar door while the building burned around us.

“Several people burned to death that night. It’s why everyone thought you were dead. But Arran kept the faith. No body, no mourning. They pulled out any number of charred corpses, but none were yours.”

In the mirror, I finished my shave then ruffled my dark hair to cover the scar slicing back from my hairline. My brush with death was written right there on my face, but I was still the same guy from the wrong side of the tracks. Just one of my nine lives lost.

Out of the bathroom, we made for the lift, and I leaned on the wall while Dixie pressed the button.

“Why was I there? In the place that burned down.”

“Beats me.”