Page 117 of The Heart

It’s fucking weird having it confirmed.

I hear a ball land in a pocket, and I can tell by Colton’s expletives that he fucking lost. I chuckle at that.

“Alright, we doing this?” Jace asks, tossing his cue onto the table and pulling off his shirt. Leena’s eyes go wide, wondering where this is going, all of us burst out laughing at her reaction.

Colton steps closer, tipping her chin up toward him. “Calm down, beautiful. You’re not getting a show,” he tells her softly. It’s not the tone he uses with her normally, and it’s certainly not a tone he uses with submissives.

Andthatcatches Jace’s attention.

Luke and I watch as he stops in his tracks, staring wide-eyed between Colton and Leena. Then he looks at us, and seeing that we’re not bothered by this must confirm his suspicion. His eyes grow wider as he looks between all of us.

“What?” Colton says when he notices the man standing there like a deer in the fucking headlights. It only takes him a second to figure it out. “Oh, sit the fuck down, I’ll tell you later.” He grips the man by the back of the neck and shoves him into a chair.

As Colton starts unpacking his tattoo equipment onto a nearby table, I glance over at Ryan and Ava. They are still busy laughing over their game of darts, clearly having missed that entire interaction. Thank fuck for that, I’m not sure how much more of our bullshit those two can handle. And we’re trying to be professional here.

Professional.I chuckle at that.

Because we’re about to tattoo one of our employees with a Queen of Diamonds playing card so that tomorrow, we can throw him into the fucking fire.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LEENA

Ihop up to sit on the pool table then bite at my nail. I don’t like this plan.

Even though we’ve thought this through and it’s by far the best option, I still don’t like it.

After days of digging, we came up short on information. We don’t know which Card took Kathryn, or where they’re holding her. Because the entire Deck wants the both of us, which makes sense. If you want to control the Deck, then you need leverage on The King of Hearts. What better way than to kidnap his children, one of which he isapparentlytraining as his successor, and the only two people he pretends to care about? Well, I suppose he might actually still care for mom, but knowing her she probably ran off to Italy or something the second all of this started going down.

We knew that asking around about my sister would only put a greater target on our backs, so we came up with a plan to get into one of the Card’s computer systems.

It’s no secret that the Queen of Diamonds keeps their eyes and ears in everyone’s business, even though The Queen herself generally stays out of it. And like the rest of the Deck, she owns territory here, which means that if Kathryn was anywhere near this island, and we have good reasons to believe she was, then The Queen would know about it.

The only problem is, Ryan can’t hack the servers remotely without drawing attention. Which means someone has to go in.

I obviously couldn’t go, not that the guys would let me anyway, and everyone knows who Luke and Sebastian are after the mess with Jack of Spades. Ryan and Ava aren’t trained for this sort of thing and Colton’s already been shot, which just leaves Jace.

I watch as Colton finishes drawing an intricate version of a queen of diamonds playing card between the other tattoos already on Jace’s toned back.

Suddenly, this all becomes very real.

“Jace, are you sure about this? We can figure something else out.” He turns back to look at me, but I don’t find his smile reassuring.

“There’s nothing else. You know this is the best plan. I’ll be okay Leena, really,” he says calmly, and I’m concerned he’s not as worried about this as he should be.

“But what about the tattoo? That’s permanent. What if you wind up in the wrong Card’s territory?” I say.

“I won’t. And I’m not worried about the tattoo, boss. Colton can fix it up later,” he replies, then moves on, jumping right back into conversation with the guys.

I take a breath, because I know he’s right, about all of it.

Then my mind starts to wander. I watch Colton’s smile, his laughter. I watch his expert fingers as they prep the tattoo gun.

I think about his tattoos. About the first time I caught a glimpse of them on Christmas Eve. How they looked when he was on stage, all oiled up and in that harness.How his skin felt when I finally got to run my fingers over them in the bath. How…my thoughts are suddenly interrupted as Sebastian walks over to stand beside me.

I’m quickly distracted again, my eyes fixed on where Colton is now sliding a thick black rubber glove over his large hand, snapping it into place. I’m brought back to the crack of the flogger at The Club and think about how those very same fingers gripped my hips,how his thumbs trailed over my… Sebastian clears his throat.

I look up at him sheepishly, giving him a little smile. I love when his arms are crossed like this, all big and bulging. Reminds me of how just this morning, he reached over and wrapped his large hand around Colton’s–

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