Page 122 of House of Cards

I press the cool plastic receiver to my ear, stabbing out four numbers. The dial tone doesn’t change. I tap the cradle again a few times, try a different number sequence.

Again.

“Come on!” I sob, tears damming up my eyes before spilling over. “Fuck!”

The dial tone changes.

I freeze, staring at the phone, my mind a blank.

Who?

Who the fuck do I call?

The police? Ha. As if they’d just barge into this casino and start raiding the place.

I’m not an idiot. Places like this must grease a lot of palms to keep flying under the radar. At the very least, it’ll lead tonothing. At worst, Smith would get wind of this call and punish me.

I swallow hard, shoving away the insidious thought of justhowhe’d?—

Danika from the diner. We’re…well, I wouldn’t really call us friends, but she’s the closest thing to it.

I’ll call her, explain everything. She knows about Ricky’s latest disappearing act, about the money I need. I didn’t tell her everything, of course, just that Ricky got into shit with one of his bookies. She covered for me when I went to the bank to speak to them about the second mortgage.

It’s a huge jump from ‘I need some money’ to ‘Ricky owes some thug money and now I’m being sex trafficked by a depraved psycho in a thousand dollar suit because he caught me counting cards in his casino’…but Danika smokes weed, so I’m hoping she’ll believe me.

My hovering hand falls to my side.

I should really start memorizing people’s phone numbers.

There’s one number I’ll never forget. And that’s because I’ve dialed it from the diner’s landline so many times, I know it off by heart.

Not that he’ll pick up. He’s been ghosting me for weeks.

Calling him is better than choking on my tears as I throw a fucking pity party for myself. So I type out his number anyway, hoping against all hope that he’s still checking his voice mails.

Not that it will help. In a few hours, Smith will be back, and then?—

I don’t dare continue the thought.

After three rings, I still don’t have a clue what I’m going to say if hedoesanswer, so I go to hang up the receiver.

Ring, ring, ri?—

My ears prick up at the sudden silence. I’m fully expecting his voice mail, but there’s just silence.

Not an empty silence, either.

He’s on the other end of the line. Probably only picked up because he doesn’t recognize the number, thefucking asshole.

“Ricky?” I blurt out. “You there?”

Why isn’t he saying anything?

“Answer me, asshole!”

And that’s when therealdam bursts. The one that’s been building ever since Buzzcut shoved my mother’s pearl necklace into his pocket like a drugstore receipt.

“It’s the least I fucking deserve after the shit you pulled!”