Page 46 of The Heart

Sebastian glares at him as he does. “You’ve seen it before. Don’t make this fucking awkward,” he scolds. I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me, which earns me a glare as well.

“What?!” Leena exclaims, looking between the two of them. I laugh louder.

Sometimes I forget just how much we haven’t told her yet.

“Oh, you don’t know where we met?” Colton smiles. He smiles really big.

The bastard is enjoying this.

Fuck, nowe haven’t told her yet. That’s not the kind of conversation that we’re eager to bring up. To be honest, we weren’t quite sure how she would feel about it. And we left that life before we met her, so it’s a non-issue anyway.

“No, they haven’t.” She looks between Sebastian and I, wide-eyed.

“Colton, why the fuck are you here?” Sebastian changes the subject, and I’m grateful for it. That’s not a conversation we want to have with Leena when Colton is here.

Or while Sebastian’s dick is out.

And especially not when Colton is standing next to Sebastian while his dick is out.

“Oh, yeah. Here,” Colton says, pouring us each a shot. “You’re going to need it.”

I don’t know what he has to say, but I already fucking need it.

“So, the Cards are going after each other.” He’s already pouring us more drinks the second we finish the first.

“That’s not fucking news. Every Card in the Deck is always at each other’s throats,” Sebastian says, and he’s right. Every gang that has named themselves after a playing Card makes a point to never get along. One petty squabble turns into a decades long war. It always has.

“Which Cards?” I ask, because clearly Colton found this important enough to land a helicopter on our fucking roof.

Although, now that I think about it, he might have just done that because he was bored.

“From what I can tell,” Colton says, leaning on the counter. “The biggest players are the King of Hearts, of course.” He tips his glass to Leena and she doesn’t look one bit surprised. “The Queen of Diamonds, and… the Jack of Spades. They’re the ones riling everyone up. Their numbers nearly tripled overnight, and they’re still adding new members, some of which are coming from the other Cards.”

Sebastian straightens at that, so do I.

I glance at Leena and she’s holding perfectly still, her petrified face telling me she knows how bad this is.

You don’tswitch Cards.It just doesn’t happen.

It’s fucking suicide.

And after we took out most of the Jacks and Leena killed their leader, the last thing any of us expected was for them to be growing in numbers, let alone so quickly.

No wonder the entire Deck is getting riled up over this.

“So they found someone to take over. That was fast,” I muse.

“Yeah,” Colton says, looking down at the shot glass he’s twirling in his hands. And I don’t like the look on his face. Or, thelackof looking he’s doing at us.

“What?” Sebastian asks, picking up on it as well. “Who is it?”

Colton stands up straight, setting the glass down on the counter carefully, as if he’s afraid to break it. He takes a deep breath before turning to me.

My jaw tightens when I meet his gaze.

“Who. Is. It?” I repeat the question.

He looks back at me with a sort of apology, and I don’t fucking like it. I don’t fucking like it at all.

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