Page 60 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Smith

Zoey stares into the fire like she’s watching her world burn all over again. I know exactly what it feels like.

I’ve been burning for five fucking years.

I can see her mind working as she processes the fact that I put a bullet in my lover’s brain. The way she grips her legs to her chest, bundling in on herself, tells me she’s finally grasping the full scope of this monster she’s trapped with.

What it’s capable of.

The smart thing would be to run. Lock herself in her room and pray I don’t follow. But Zoey’s brand of self preservation aligns closer with that of a honey badger than a deer.

“So you killed her because she betrayed you,” Zoey says, turning to look at me with blank, shell-shocked eyes, like she’s trying to make sense of an airplane crash that killed everyone on board.

“I ended it.” The memory of that night flashes through my mind—Michelle, bound and tied to a chair in the middle of that cold, dusty warehouse. Tears streaming down her face as she begged for forgiveness that would never come.

“You murdered her.”

“One bullet. Clean, quick, merciful.” My voice grows thick. “More than she fucking deserved.”

“Merciful?” Zoey scoffs.

“What should I have done different, Zoey? Refused, and let Elonzo gun down her and everyone else?”

“Yes,” she hisses. “He’d have done it anyway, right?”

Christ, and if that doesn’t feel like a fucking backhand right across my soul.

“You’re right.” I look down at my glass, surprised to see it empty. “I should just have let it play out. She’d have gotten what she deserved, and so would I.” When I look up, there’s a sadness in Zoey’s eyes, but I doubt it has anything to do with my sob story. “So would Ricky.”

She flinches at his name, looking down at her knees. Then she frowns, chin slowly rising so she can glare at me.

“Ex-cuse me?” she says.

“You’re trying to build a puzzle, but you don’t have all the pieces,” I tell her, pouring myself another a measure of Macallan. I pause, tapping the bottom of the decanter against a second, empty glass. “Drink?”

“No.”

“Hard truths go down a lot easier with a stiff drink, but suit yourself.” I sigh as I sit back down, and she scowls at me like she’s imagining how good it will feel to stab me to death.

I’m at the point where I’d hand her the fucking knife myself, but only if she promised to see it through to the end.

“Elonzo Hernández.” I turn in my seat, watching her face for a reaction. Purely for my own curiosity, because it’s not like it fucking matters at this point.

“He’s an enforcer for the Bogota cartel. Runs several money laundering operations in the area. Same as us.”

“Rivals, then,” she says, briefly smirking like I just confirmed something.

I suppose it’s possible she didn’t know I was in the mob, even though it’s the worst kept secret that The Devil’s Luck and the Devil’s Den are both run by the Irish mafia.

“Your brother doesn’t owe some loan shark, Zoey. Your family’s debt is with a Colombian cartel.”

“Was.” Her frown deepens. “ Was .”

“Elonzo won’t see it that way.”

The crackle of the fire sounds like breaking bones in the sudden silence.

I sit back, willing the scotch to ease the tension bunching up my shoulders. But this glass does as shit a job as the first two. I can still the marks on my cheek stinging, fresh as the moment Zoey clawed me yesterday.

Zoey deserved to know, but I feel like I’ve done her a huge disservice.

What else can I call it, shredding someone’s hope?

She might have thought Elonzo was in her rearview mirror, but I’ve just told her he’s hidden around a corner up ahead, waiting to ambush her.

I should’ve seen this all coming.

Zoey distracted me enough that I let two of Elonzo’s soldiers into the Devil’s Den, that the handwritten note he’d left at Zoey’s diner came as a surprise when I should have been expecting it.

Now all I can do is provide brief sanctuary before I annihilate her life and replace it with a fake name, fake address, fake memories.

I drain my glass, and catch her flinching from the corner of my eye when I sit forward. My legs feel stiff when I stand, and I work one shoulder as I turn to face her.

She looks tiny in her massive wingback chair, legs curled up, body swathed in too-big sweats.

I reach down and pick up a leather folder.

In the dim light, it blends nearly perfectly with the coffee table.

No surprise then that Zoey stares at it suspiciously, like she’s wondering how I conjured it into existence.

The manila folder I remove and hold for her to take is subjected to a scathing glare.

“What fresh hell is this?”

“Not fresh hell. A fresh start.”

She tugs the folder from my fingers and empties the contents onto her lap.

“The fuck?” She lets out a humorless chuckle. “Patricia Dyer? You fucking serious?” She holds up the driver’s license like she’s accusing me of murder. Again. “Where the hell did you even get that photo?”

I sigh, letting the leather binder drop back to the table. “It’s all been arranged. New name, new house, new job. Somewhere Elonzo will never find you.”

“Somewhere no one will ever find me. Beaver Creek? You gotta be making that up.”

“It’s as legitimate as a fake ID can be,” I say, voice straining as I force myself to remain civil. Discovering that your only viable option is leaving everything you’ve known behind can come as a shock, but my nerves are shot.

She tosses her new identity down with another sour huff. “Keep dreaming, mister.”

“Have you forgotten there’s nothing left for you to go back to?” I snap.

Zoey glares up at me. “So that’s it? You’re done with me, so you’re just going to toss me out like a bag of trash?”

“You’d prefer I left you out where the rats and cockroaches can get at you?”

She flinches like I slapped her.

My chest rises and falls too rapidly, my breaths too shallow.

I shouldn’t be losing control like this.

I push my glasses up, rub my face with both hands, trying to wring some calm back into myself. When I open my eyes again, she’s staring down in her lap with a bent neck, hair hiding her face.

“I’m giving you a new life. Most people would kill for the chance to start over.”

She gives another sour chuckle. “Yeah. Lucky me. All it cost was Ricky’s life.”

She collapses in on herself and starts sobbing.

Christ, how I have to fight not to go over and soothe her. To wrap her in my arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay.

But it’s not.

I know how awful false hope feels when it finally shatters.

I’ve already hurt her so deeply. I refuse to drive that knife any deeper, twist it any harder.