Page 36 of Diamonds (Aces Underground #2)

ALISSA

I take a step back from Maddox, my eyes wide. “No. No, no. If we set foot inside of that club, we’re history. We’ll end up in that back alley right next to Bill’s body, our throats slit. Or our heads removed. Or both.”

“Technically, you do slit the throat when you remove a head,” he says.

“This isn’t funny!” I stomp my foot on the ground.

“I can’t allow the man I love to go into that dreadful place.

Not now, not now that we know that we love each other.

” I grab his arms. “We could go far away from here. You can fly anywhere from O’Hare direct.

It doesn’t even have to be London. We could go somewhere far away, where Rouge will never find us. Live out our lives in peace.”

He darts his gaze around. “A fair point.”

“At the very least, we could go away for a short while. Come back when things have calmed a bit. When Rouge’s guard is down.”

He sighs. “Alissa, I don’t think Rouge’s guard is ever down.

If someone is on her shit list, they’re not long for this world.

As far as we know, she still has no idea that we know about May.

All she knows is that I might have an inkling that my father’s death was not entirely by natural causes.

Half of Chicago thought his death was a conspiracy when it occurred.

He was massively unpopular because of that legislation he ran through. ”

I bite my lip. “And the longer we wait…”

“The more time we give her to strike.” He massages my shoulders. “Rouge is extremely well traveled. She goes to all corners of the globe to find servers for Aces. And not just servers. Bar staff, the dealers in the Diamonds section. It might take her some time, but she’ll find us.”

“And who knows how many more people she’ll have killed by then,” I whisper.

“Exactly. We know she’s had May and Bill offed just in the last week. Probably Svetlana, too. At that rate, we could be talking about dozens of lost lives. It seems like Rouge likes to pick off anyone who doesn’t follow her rules to the absolute letter.”

The thought of May brings tears to my eyes. “Those poor people…”

“You’re right.” He brushes a tear from my cheek. “And it’s up to us to stop her.”

“How can we? She has the cops and the politicians on her side. She even sits on the board of my bloody hospital.”

“True, but we have this.” He holds up the ruby-encrusted key. “If we find whatever this key goes to—probably a safe or something—I bet we’ll find some damning evidence. The kind that the cops and politicians won’t be able to ignore. The kind that will turn the court of public opinion against her.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure about any of this, Alissa.

But my father’s dying wish was that I get my hands on this key.

I’m guessing he figured out what Rouge was up to, but she caught him.

He knew his days were numbered, so he hid this key in the pocket of the car door.

He was already planning on leaving me the car and the club membership—I figure he wanted to give me a taste of the high life, tempt me into going for that trust money—but he realized that he could use those bequests to his advantage.

That’s why he stopped at my mom’s house, made sure that someone living knew how important it was that I get the car.

And then he came up with that little riddle to get me to find the key.

” He sighs. “Only took the better part of a decade.”

“But if Rouge suspected your father knew something he wasn’t supposed to, why on earth would she have allowed you into the club? I assume she could have rescinded your membership easily.”

“True. And Rouge is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.

” He rubs his forehead. “Like we were talking about earlier, it would have aroused some suspicion if she had rescinded my membership. My father was unpopular, but his death was still covered by all the major news outlets. If word had gotten out that his only heir had been cheated out of one of the only two things he was bequeathed by his father, she would have had to make up some reason.”

“So she decided to keep you close.”

“She did. And she liquored me up. Got me hooked on those damned gin and tonics. And… Oh, fuck, Alissa.” He buries his head in his hands.

“What is it?”

“We… It only happened once, but I slept with Rouge.”

I drop my jaw. I’m not sure whether to be angry or frightened. The only thing I’m certain of is that I’d like to toss my crumpets. “You did?”

“It was a one-time thing. She made that very clear when I asked. This was years ago, long before I met you, of course. But that… That wasn’t it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She… She made me take a magic mushroom. A special variety that she had cultivated herself.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. I kept blacking in and out between reality and hallucinations. And one of the things I saw—I thought it was a hallucination at the time, otherwise I would have turned tail and never returned. She made me drink this goblet full of…”

My heart is beating into my throat. “What, Maddox?”

He swallows. “ Blood , Alissa. Human blood, I think.”

I gulp down the acid in my throat. It doesn’t help. “Oh my God. And you thought…”

“I thought I had just hallucinated it. I thought that it was the shrooms. Until we found May’s head in the ground. Then I couldn’t help wondering…”

“If it was real.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

I swallow again, trying to quell the nausea. “So…if what you saw was real…”

“I think we can assume it was.”

“Then Rouge is into something really dark. If she simply… had human blood on hand, she’s probably been killing people for years. Servers who break the rules, people like Bill who betray her trust…” I wrinkle my nose. “But why on earth would she make you drink it?”

“I thought it might be some kind of ritual. But now that I’ve given it some thought…

She wanted to see if I shared her fucked-up sensibilities.

See if she could recruit me to her side.

Make me a King, maybe. Keep your enemies close, you know.

But she gave me the shrooms first so she could write off anything I thought I had seen as a vision. ”

God…

This has gotten so much more fucked up than I could imagine.

And that’s coming from a woman who’s not even a week separated from finding the decapitated head of a young girl in the ground.

I can’t shake an awful feeling.

That this… Rouge’s blood ritual, the disappearances of May and Svetlana, Bill getting his throat slit…

This is just the tip of the bloody iceberg.