Page 16 of Diamonds (Aces Underground #2)

MADDOX

A lissa is a beautiful crier.

A lot of people get puffy and red when they cry, but Alissa cries with dignity, with poise.

That symphony was something else.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

It was like watching a war movie with your eyes closed.

The most brutal scenes in Saving Private Ryan had nothing on the violence I just heard.

The audience is still applauding—it’s been going on for over five minutes now—but I stop clapping and wrap my arm around Alissa’s shoulders. “You okay?”

She swallows, wiping her eyes. “Y-Yes. It’s just… I love Shostakovich. He’s so raw, so real.” She reaches into her handbag, pulls out a tissue, and dabs at her eyes. “You must think I’m such a mess.”

“I could never think that of you.” I kiss her tearstained cheek. “If anything, the fact that you’re so moved by what we just heard tells me everything I need to know about you.”

“That I’m a big softie?”

I shake my head. “That you allow the music in. Into your heart, your soul. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone can feel with their whole body like you can.” I gesture to some of the stuffier audience members around us who are applauding politely with bone-dry eyes.

“I’m sure a lot of these people have been going to the symphony for years, but they don’t have your ability to truly…

empathize with the sounds you’re hearing. ”

“Really?”

I nod. “I saw the way you closed your eyes whenever we reached a more emotional section. The way your wrist twitched every so often, as if you were the one conducting the orchestra. It’s amazing, Alissa. You’re amazing . ”

And I love you.

Just say it, Maddox. Three little words.

Fuck.

I want to. So fucking bad.

But I’ve known this woman a week. Exactly a week. Last Thursday was the day she walked into my shop for the first time.

We’ve been through a lot. There’s a certain bond formed by shared trauma.

What if that’s all I’m feeling? What if it isn’t real love at all?

I loved Laurie. That was real.

But I also thought I loved Rouge. And I couldn’t have been more wrong about my feelings for her.

The applause has finally died down. By now the conductor has bowed four separate times. And I thought pop singers were divas.

The musicians have begun to leave the stage and the patrons have started to fill the aisles. I offer Alissa my arm. “Should we head out?”

She takes one more wistful stare at the stage before nodding and giving me a slight smile. “Yes. Thank you so much for bringing me here, Maddox. It was… It was exactly what I needed. A reminder to appreciate all the beauty that this world has. And a reminder to fight for that beauty.”

I stop myself from dropping my jaw. This woman is something else.

She takes my arm and we walk out to the main lobby. Lots of slow-moving people get in our way, but we finally make it to the Symphony Center entryway.

Alissa leans toward me. “Don’t look now, but that old bitch who tried to cut the line is staring daggers into both of us right now.”

I tilt my head discreetly and catch a glance of her through the corner of my eye.

And this time my jaw does drop.

But not because of the woman. Alissa’s right, she’s glaring at both of us, her arms crossed over her luxurious fur coat.

I’m shocked because of the man at her side.

He’s wearing a charcoal Armani three-piece suit with a golden tie. A wedding band on his left hand. His nearly white hair is perfectly coiffed, and he has on a large pair of Aviator glasses.

Under the glasses… A salt-and-pepper goatee.

It’s the goatee that triggers my memory.

This man is a member of Aces Underground.

And not just any member.

This is the man I remember seeing the night I played the craps table. The night I took his two dates, Pia and Serafina, to bed.

The night he took the Nine of Diamonds—whom I now know as Svetlana, May’s friend from the club—behind closed doors.

This man could very well be the last person to see her alive.

“Maddox?” Alissa asks. “You all right?”

I turn my gaze back to Alissa, blink a few times. “Yeah. Fine. Just…”

I look back up, and both the man and the woman—I assume his wife—have walked out of the concert hall.

Fuck.

And now my phone is buzzing in my pocket. I turned it back on during the endless applause at the end of the symphony.

I pull it out of my pocket.

It’s a text.

From Bill.

Tests are finished. Please come over ASAP.