Page 73 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Zoey

ONE WEEK LATER

Either I’m dead, or I’m having the world’s most fucked-up fever dream. If this is what dying feels like, I’m not even mad about it. Last thing I remember, I was bleeding out in Smith’s arms. Now I’m starring in a luxury hotel commercial while in a delightful, drug-induced haze.

What else could explain this soft bed, these silky sheets, the sunlight that casts everything in a warm, golden glow?

Everything, including the man beside my bed, currently reading a book. A man who looks like Smith, but couldn’t possibly be the same person.

The Smith I know paces like a caged animal, barks order, and plans other people’s demise while he’s having his morning cup of coffee.

This doppelg?nger is just reading a book like a normal person.

He’s not even dressed like Smith. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, his dark hair slightly mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. No blood. No weapons.

He looks almost...peaceful.

As much as I’d love to stay in La-La Land forever, I’d rather know what the hell is really happening to me. I try to move and immediately regret it. Pain shoots through my shoulder, sharp and insistent. Now my arm feels like it’s on fire.

Smith’s head snaps up at my pained gasp, his book now forgotten on his lap as he leans forward.

“Hey,” he says softly. “You’re awake.”

His voice is different. Gentle. Concerned. Like he actually gives a shit whether I live or die.

“Am I dreaming, or did you give me the good shit?” I mumble, my tongue thick and clumsy. Everything looks and feels fuzzy around the edges.

“You’re sedated.”

“Tripping balls, you mean. How else do you explain this?” I try to point at him, but my arm doesn’t feel like cooperating. “You being all normal .”

A shadow crosses his face. “Zoey?—”

“Where am I?” The room tilts slightly as I try to focus.

“You’re safe.”

I scoff, instantly regretting it as a stab of pain goes through my chest. “Last time you told me that,” I croak, “I nearly died.”

Smith flinches, looks away. Serves him right, lying to me about how safe I was.

I blink hard, trying to clear the fog from my brain. The room comes into sharper focus, and my heart sinks. Dark gray carpets. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Obscenely expensive furniture.

“We’re at the Devil’s Luck?” I mutter.

My hearing keeps dipping, so I look down at Smith’s mouth as he speaks. His split lip is puffy but healing. He speaks carefully, like it still hurts.

“The villa was compromised.”

Memories crash down like a collapsing ceiling.

The villa. Elonzo. The gun pointed at my head. The knife in my hand. Blood everywhere.

“Elonzo.” I try to sit up, panic clawing at my throat. “Is he?—?”

“He’s dead.” Smith’s hands hover near my shoulders, ready to steady me if I fall.

“You’re sure?”

“If he wasn’t before we buried him, he is now.”

It should make me sick hearing him speak like that, but all I feel is intense relief. Then utter sadness as I remember why I’m here.

Relief, pain, exhaustion, loss and grief—it all pours out of me in violent, heaving sobs I’m powerless to stop.

“Zoey, hey!” Smith steps closer as my shoulders begin to shake.

Everything hurts, but I can’t tell what’s physical, and what’s emotional pain. Smith’s arms slide gently around my shoulders, pressing me against his warm body. “Shh.”

“Ri-Ri-Ri—” is all I can push through the sobs.

Smith leans back to study my face, his lips thinning. “Ricky?”

I nod, face crumpling through another sob.

“Zoey, he’s okay. Ricky’s alive.”

I’m so shocked, I stop sobbing. But only for one second, long enough to wail out, “Really?” before I burst into tears again.

“Yeah, kitten, yeah,” Smith murmurs against my hair as he drags me against him again. Harder this time, but I don’t mind. It hurts, but his forceful grip makes me feel like I’m back on solid ground again, not bobbing around like a Goodyear blimp.

“He’s down the hall,” Smith says. “Been here every day, waiting for you to wake up. Want me to get him for you?”

“Yes!” I gasp in a brief lull between sobs.

Smith pulls back to study my face again, then nods. “I’ll get him.”

He heads for the door, limping slightly. I must drift off for a second, because I don’t hear Smith coming back, just Ricky’s voice ripping me awake.

My mother’s green eyes stare out at me beneath thick, wild brows and even wilder brown hair. He’s gotten a lot paler since I last saw him, a lot skinnier. His left arm is in a sling, and he hobbles over to the bed like he has a sprained ankle or some other injury.

Zoey.” His voice cracks on my name.

I start crying again before I can stop myself.

Ricky carefully wraps his good arm around me as I fall apart against his shoulder.

“I thought you were dead,” I choke out. “I thought they killed you.”

“I’m okay, Sis. I’m okay.” His voice is thick with his own tears.

We hold each other like we did when we were kids, after one of Franco’s rages, or when the electricity got shut off again. Like we’re the only two people in the world who matter.

When I finally get myself under control, when I can sit back and take him in, my chest clenches at the sight. He looks like hell. Nose broken but healing. The mass of bruises on his face already fading to yellow-green. Midsection moving stiffly like he’s nursing broken ribs.

And, oh God, the stump on his left hand where his pinkie finger used to be.

But he’s alive. He’s breathing. He’s here.

“I’m so sorry,” Ricky whispers. “This is all my fault. All of it.”

Something in his tone makes me pull back to look at his face.

There’s guilt there. Shame, too.

“It’s okay, Ricky,” I say. “I mean, I wish you’d just told me about the money. We could have figured something out.”

Confusion, then frustration, flicks over his face. “Like what, Sis? A third mortgage on the diner?” He squeezes his eyes shut, his voice softer now. “You have no idea—” He cuts off, his gaze darting to the door.

Mine follows a second later.

Smith steps inside, dark eyes narrowed. Keeping his distance like he wants to give us our privacy, but close enough to jump in at a second’s notice.

Ricky stands. “You need to rest. We can talk about this later?—”

“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intended. “Sit. Tell me what you were you going to say.”

“Sis—”

“Tell her,” Smith says quietly from the doorway.

Ricky shoots him a glare. “She doesn’t need?—“

“She needs the truth. Sit down, Ricky. Tell her everything.” Smith’s voice is firm, commanding. I can’t even blame my brother for obeying.

Ricky sinks back onto the edge of the bed, his face even paler than when he first came in. But he says nothing, and refuses to meet my eyes, not even when I fumble for his hand and squeeze it tight.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, though part of me doesn’t want to know. I’ve had enough revelations to last a lifetime.

“I didn’t leave because I owed Elonzo money,” he says finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

“So why did you?”

Ricky takes a shaky breath, his good hand fidgeting with the edge of his sling. “A few months after Franco disappeared, some guys showed up at the diner late one night. You were already in bed. It was just me and Mom downstairs.”

“Some guys?”

His eyes flick up to mine, but they drop to his hands a second later. “Gangbangers.”

My skin crawls. “What?”

“They came in the back while I was taking out the trash.”

“What did they?—”

Ricky doesn’t let me finish my question. “Protection money.”

Smith comes closer, but it’s obvious from his expression that he’s heard this story before. I guess he and Ricky have been filling each other in while I was unconscious.

“Mom told them to go fuck themselves.” His voice cracks. “They wanted to beat the shit out of her, but I told her to run and call the cops. So they beat the shit out of me instead.”

Oh my God.

I remember that night.

When I saw Ricky in the morning, he told me he’d gotten drunk and had a fistfight with some idiots outside a bar. I thought Franco’s disappearance had sent him into some kind of self-destructive spiral.

“The cops took our statement.” He scoffs. “Not that it made a lick of difference.”

“They came back,” I murmur, my brain serving up a too-vivid flashback of Elonzo’s silhouette as he stepped into my apartment.

“A few months later, yeah. After we’d both started to relax.”

I know where this story is headed. Elonzo told me his version of it already.

“You weren’t there that night,” I whisper. Not accusing him, but trying to get ahead of the guilt and remorse he surely must feel. “The night they came back and killed Mom.”

Tears well up in Ricky’s eyes, spilling when he gives his head a hard shake. “N-No. Thought I’d scared them off. Thought we were safe.”

“Ricky, it wasn’t your?—“

He doesn’t let me console him. He sniffs hard, swipes a hand down his face to wipe away the tears.

“They came back again after that. Broke in late one night. Thank God you’d already gone upstairs, else?—“

Else I’d have ended up like Mom.

He swallows hard, blinks to clear the tears wobbling in his eyes. “They took all our cash. Beat me up again. Told me they’d kill me and do worse to you if I went to the cops again. So I just…made up a story. Don’t even know what I told you?—“

“You’d gambled it away,” I murmur. “You told me you’d gone to the casino and gambled it all away.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Ricky’s laugh sounds as terrible as he looks. “You seemed to buy it.”

“I did.” I squeeze his hand. “Every time, Ricky.”

He falls silent. “Yeah. They kept coming back. Earlier and earlier every time, like they were hoping to catch some of the staff before they left.”

“That’s why you started closing the diner at like nine?” My heart’s picking up speed as my brain furiously rewinds through the past few years of my life. I thought Ricky was flaking on me, on the diner…on Mom. Slowly losing control, and dragging me under with him.

“Yeah. And they made me pay for it. Put me in the hospital for a week.”

“And I just made things worse,” I mumble, tears pricking my eyes.