Page 93 of Tricked By Jack

I stride over to the doorway, my gaze is locked onto something else. A smear near the entrance. Dark and wet against the wood. I drop into a crouch, fingers hovering over the stain.

“Jack!” Ned comes to stand next to me, phone already in hand. “Shelby’s not answering her cell—”

I press my thumb into the smear. Rather than being dried or congealed, it’s warm and slick against my skin. “Blood,” I say, the word falling from my lips like a stone into still water.

My pulse doesn’t quicken. My breath doesn’t catch. Instead, something cold and clear washes through me, a crystalline calm that feels like floating outside my body.

Ned curses, spinning in a tight circle, eyes wild as he sweeps the apartment again. “Maybe they went out? Maybe they—”

“Someone took her.” I rise slowly, blood still wet on my fingertips. I bring it to my nose, inhaling the copper tang. “Took them both.”

Ned is still talking, still moving, still calling Shelby’s name like she might materialize from the shadows if he says it often enough. I tune him out, my focus narrowing to the blood on my skin and the space where my wife should be.

I cross to the kitchen sink, turn the tap, and watch red spiral down the drain. The water is cold against my hand, a shock of sensation in the numbness spreading through me. With mechanical precision, I dry my hands on a dish towel, fold it, and set it back on the counter.

Turning back to the blood smear, I study it from this new angle. It’s too much for a simple cut finger. Too little to be a fatal wound. It could be a signature.

Ned stares at me, confusion warring with the panic in his eyes. “How can you be so fucking calm?”

I meet his gaze, and whatever he sees in mine makes him take a step back. “Calm?” I mock. “I’m not fucking calm.”

On the inside, I’m bellowing, pacing, and throwing shit around just to have something to do. But I’m also planning, calculating, and trying to come up with…

“I need answers,” I say, already heading for the door. “Stay if you want.”

“What do you mean? Your wife is gone. My sister is gone. We need—”

Instead of replying again, I practically run to the stairwell, taking the stairs three at a time.

When he finally catches up with me, I’m almost out of the building. But to Ned’s credit, he doesn’t ask more questions or try to slow me down.

“You drive,” I order, tossing him my keys.

We both get into my SUV. “Where the hell am I going?”

“Aces Fly,” I grin coldly. “It’s time to pay my old friends a visit.”

Ned darts through traffic, barely slowing down for the red lights. Still, the drive feels like it takes forever. Who the fuck could be messing with the Knight family? And why go after Eve? None of this makes any sense.

“So this is it? This is the master plan?” Ned snorts, but there’s an edge to it. He knows me well enough to recognize when I’m holding back.

“No,” I growl. “This is step one.”

“Whatever. Since you know the bar, are there any cameras I should look out for?”

My lip curls. “There are always cameras. But no, none to worry about. The owner is a…” Trailing off, I consider how best to describe the man who’s taken me for thousands over the years.

I used to go there two or three times a week for the backroom poker games. But it’s been a lifetime since I set foot on that sticky floor. Still, the owner is one of those people who believe in customer loyalty.

“He’s an acquaintance,” I decide.

At the intersection, a homeless man pushes a cart across the road. Each step drags, grinding against my patience until he’s finally clear.

I turn my attention back to the road, to the approaching silhouette of Aces Fly. Thanks to the heavy rain clouds, the neon sign flickers in the afternoon gloom, casting a sickly blue light across the cracked pavement.

“Pull around back,” I instruct, my voice dropping lower as we near our destination.

Ned nods, guiding the car toward the rear of the building. “You know, if you’d told me a month ago you’d be this worked up over someone hurting a woman you claim to hate, I’d have laughed in your face.”