Page 15 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“Marcel was on a date, so we figured we’d go to the Salt Shaker.” Marcel was our assistant, and he did most of the cooking. It wasn’t that we couldn’t make dinner by ourselves, more that he got snippy if we messed with his kitchen. “A nice quiet meal, an early night, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We were waiting at the bar for a table, and there was this guy. Reasonably hot, a little too smooth, hanging out with another dude, so we figured he was there with friends. Or maybe gay, but he didn’t act that way.”

“How does one act gay? Did you expect him to toss glitter and kneel for the pride flag?”

“It was more that he kept checking out Barbie’s boobs and my ass.”

“I see.”

“They bought us drinks.” Usually, I’d have told them where to stick their offer, but I was annoyed. Annoyed at myself because a certain night kept playing over and over in my head, and I stupidly figured that lousy sex with an idiot might erase the tape. “And then it turned out the pair of them were there on a double date, and the jackass who was into Barbie was waiting for a lunatic.”

“Let me guess—you got into a fight?”

“Not really. She threw some things, and I was trying to stop her from clawing Barbie’s eyes out when she grabbed a glass from the table next to us.”

I’d had her in a bear hug at the time, her dumbass boyfriend was shrieking—which was when I pointed out she was a psycho—and her BFF was trying to loosen my grip. A shocked Barbie had flattened the bitch afterward, but I still had to suffer the indignity of visiting the hospital.

And Barbie was right to be shocked. I’d taken my eye off the ball, something I never normally did. I’d been out of sorts lately, and it didn’t take a shrink to work out why.

Cole fucking Gallagher.

Two weeks had passed since our liaison, and he still kept intruding into my thoughts. One part of me wanted to find him again, just to prove he wasn’t as good as I remembered. The other part of me wanted to drive out to the desert and scream into the void.

So far, my self-control had prevented me from doing either, but it was a battle. I’d even driven past the Galaxy once. That was where his hot ass spent most of its time. Thanks to Echo, I knew that he’d inherited Nebula Holdings by virtue of being Uncle Mike’s closest living relative, and as such, he owned the casino and the old place in McNeil. Although rumour suggested that might not be the case for much longer. Like the house, the Galaxy was tired and run down, and the banks owned more of it than Cole did.

She’d offered to dig further, but I’d told her to stop. Cole wasn’t a gangster. The four men on ice in the morgue had been local guns for hire, we knew that much, and they’d most probably been after me. Sin had heard rumours that Bastian’s former buddies were on a quest for revenge, plus we knew there was at least one high-level mole somewhere in the government. Too many secrets had leaked over the past few years.

“Might I suggest getting takeout next time?” Doc Martinsson said.

“I don’t give in so easy.”

“I was afraid you might say that.”

The doc finished stitching my leg with his usual efficiency and taped a dressing over the wound. If I hurried, the café nearby might have a couple of bacon double cheese croissants left—those usually sold out by mid-morning.

I jumped down from the table, cursed at the pain in my leg, and fished in my pocket for my car keys.

As usual, the doc didn’t look happy. “Tell me you’re not driving.”

“I’m not driving.”

“Is that the truth?”

“You didn’t say anything about telling the truth.”

I grabbed my crutches and skip-hopped into the corridor before he could give me another lecture about recovery times. Driving was fine. My car was a 1971 Porsche 911 with a Sportomatic gearbox, one last gift from my absent father. The keys had been posted through the mail slot on the morning of my eighteenth birthday, the car left on the driveway with a note on the driver’s seat.

I’ll always believe in you.

Love, Dad

P.S. Her name is Thelma.

Was it possible to both love and hate someone at the same time? Absolutely.

I’d been doing it my whole life.

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