Page 31 of Double Down

“How could you possibly know that?”

Under normal circumstances, I’d love to eavesdrop on this conversation and find out. Since they’re connecting me with the dead body in question, however, I’m less enthusiastic.

I shift restlessly, and the tarp crinkles. Storm shoots me a sharp look, and I hold my breath and listen for footsteps.

At least Conrad and Phoenix aren’t here to give me shit about the irony. Storm doesn’t care, and Atticus is too focused on the issue at hand to enjoy the joke being made of my life.

“Because that’s how all of them are. It doesn’t take an idiot to know there’s no chance. There’s only one girl any of them have ever looked at twice. And it’s been the same way since we were teenagers.”

“That tacky trailer trash hanging around them? She isn’t even that pretty.”

Storm’s eyes narrow, and I send a quick prayer to whichever god watches over us for shits and giggles to keep him from losing it.

One dead bitch is enough for the night.

“Sheistoo pretty,” the other voice says, and I can see some of Storm’s anger ease. If his hands were free, he’d flip his knife and stroll past the girls just to watch them scatter.

“Phoenix is one of the sweetest girls here. She wouldn’t even live in that trailer if her dad wasn’t holding her back. She spends all her time working here or taking care of that drunk loser before he died,” the voice continues. “I always thought she was pretty and liked her.”

I agree with her assessment.

“I mean, I guess?—”

“No, look, Phoenix is one of us. She was raised around here, and her dad was an asshole and the worst kind of gambler. I don’t know what it is about her that caught their attention and held it, and I don’t care. She deserves something good. Yeah, those guys are hot. But hot guys are a dime a dozen in our world. What matters is that they’re good to her.”

“How do you know they’re good enough for her, then? If you think she’s one of us and deserves it.”

I look at Storm, ready to share another eye roll, but his face falls, and his shoulders slump. I see it land.

He doesn’t think we’re good enough for her—or at least, he doesn’t think he is. His mouth goes flat; he stares at the wall in front of us like he’s looking in the mirror and he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Hold tight,” Atticus’s voice crackles through the earpiece. “I’ll get rid of them.”

A second later, a walkie-talkie chirps, and the girls are called back to work. Their voices recede down the corridor in theopposite direction, and I release the first full breath I’ve taken in five minutes.

“You’re clear,” Atticus says.

I open my mouth to say something to Storm and realize I’ve got nothing. Not because I don’t want to comfort my friend, but because I’m not sure he’s wrong.

She does deserve better than us.

We have money, and we have power, but when you get down to it, that’s all we have. We’re degenerates. I’m not sure that makes us anything special. She deserves normal, and we aren’t capable of giving it to her.

I can rationalize it, pointing out that when she was in danger we killed for her, and we’d do it again.

But she’s seen so much death and pain in her life, she deserves men who can keep her from danger in the first place.

Part of me thinks we should let her go. Maybe put her where she could find someone who can make her happy. That’s what good men would do.

I’m not a good man, and I never claimed to be.

There isn’t a deadly sin I haven’t basked in or a commandment I haven’t broken. And I’m not the only one.

I refuse to give her up. If that means I have to figure out how to be good enough for her, or how to bring her down to my level, then so be it. Because the woman who asked for my help to rescue a dog? Yeah, I’m not going to let her walk away from me.

I square my shoulders again under the weight I’m carrying. The tarp bites against my neck, and Storm sends another look back.I have the feeling the same thoughts are rattling around his skull and smile darkly.

There are no more interruptions as we carry the body to the pickup with stolen plates waiting in the delivery bay. Conrad and I wanted to dump her in the ocean, but Atticus said it was too risky. We were just there the other night, and we don’t have the time.