Page 116 of Double Down

“Also,” Phoenix adds, voice casual in a way that makes my stomach flip, “if you ever bring another woman to our door again, I mean it. I’ll kill her, and then I absolutely will light you on fire.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and hold her tighter, wanting to keep the world out for a few more minutes.

29

Conrad

I don’t sleep.I count the revolutions of the ceiling fan and the miles between my self-control and the wall dividing my room from the one where Phoenix and Maverick are having an…enthusiastic…evening.

Every time she says his name, jealousy slides under my ribs, hooks its claws in something soft, and rips. I flip the pillow, roll to the cool side, consider noise-canceling headphones, and reject the idea on principle.

I’m the adult in the room. Adults don’t get jealous over things they agreed to. Adults also don’t lie awake cataloging every way they’d do it differently if it were them in the dark.

I try to ignore it.

Phoenix Jones is just a girl.Thegirl, maybe, I’ll give her that much.

She was the one who got away, the one who…damn, what was that song? Put my tender heart in a blender or some shit. Oh, yeah, that’s the one. She rendezvoused, then she was through with me.

But she was only ever just a girl. I have to keep telling myself that. This entire ‘minder’ experiment was never meant to be anything more than a fancy brand of exposure therapy—a means of getting over the one who left me empty inside.

I’d bring her close, get what I didn’t get last time, then find every flaw and fixate on it until I was done with her.

Instead, here I am, sulking as I listen to Maverick make her cry out toGod oh Jesusover and over.

By the time five a.m. rolls around, I’ve set a new personal record: zero minutes of sleep and a gallon of coffee.

The phone lights up on the desk, the name of the hotel’s law firm flashing across the screen.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

I answer on the second ring. “Give me something good.”

“Define good,” my lawyer says, brisk, caffeinated, already billing ungodly money to multiple suckers.

“Just give me good news.” Sleep deprivation does nothing for my usual sunny disposition.

“My billables are going to skyrocket with the new lawsuit you’re facing.”

“How is that good news?”

“It’s good for me.” I can hear the shark in his smile. “Your senator’s wife, Mrs. Langford, has escalated. She’s alleging that after her initial incident, someone came to her suite to ‘fix’ the botched Botox. They dissolved it, re-did it, then sold her lip injections. She’s also claiming she was offered weight-lossinjections. Now she’s complaining of headaches and swelling. And horrible constipation.”

“As she is a huge pain in my ass, that kind of tracks,” I say. “But we don’t do injectables. At all.”

“I am aware, but someone still gave them to her—and they claimed they work for you. Perception is nine-tenths of reality.”

I groan. “Fuck my life. How the hell do we fix this? I don’t need to pay for some schmuck’s scam.”

“I understand that. However, she’s very loudly married to a senator and quietly dating a gaming board member. She can be a real problem.”

“I’m aware.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“There’s more.” He pauses just long enough to be theatrical. “There were three more overdoses overnight. Fentanyl. Not designer party blends. Pure ‘let’s close a coroner’s backlog’ fentanyl.”

The words hit like a hammer to the sternum. I stare at the window, where dawn has decided to look like a crime scene today—flat and gray. A dull drizzle hits the window, telling me the land casino will be busier than usual. No one wants to be on the river when it’s raining.

“Send me everything,” I say. “Names. Times. Toxicology when it posts. And pull Mrs. Langford’s exact statements. Every word.”