Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“Agreed.” Jack sits on the edge of his bed. “I was told I had a one-week grace period to move out, so the only way Rouge would know this is my final night is if she guaranteed it herself. And if that’s the case, I imagine one of the Kings will be by to check in on me pretty quickly.” He runs his hands through his messy blond hair. “What’s our move now?”
“We wait.” I sit on the bed next to him.
Jack turns to me. “What are they planning to do to me?”
I take a deep breath in. “If I tell you, you can’t panic.”
“I already know they’re trying to kill me. How much more could I panic after that?”
“Fair.” I take another breath in. “Bianca and I think Rouge is killing her employees and harvesting their organs, selling them on the black market.”
He jumps up from the bed. “What?”
“We discovered a cooler full of human hearts at Aces the last time we were there, on St. Patrick’s Day. I think Rouge also has all her servers—and sometimes even her patrons—killed.”
Jack paces the room. “But that night—the night I took mushrooms with Rouge—I didn’t see Mr. Rose taking the organs out. Just sawing Two’s head off, removing it from her body.”
“They do that to make the body harder to identify,” I explain. “When Alissa and Maddox found the head of May, the Seven of Spades, they found her hands as well. Fingerprints, facial identification, and dental records are the easiest way to identify a body, so remove them and all you have is DNA.”
“And if there isn’t a match in the police’s system…”
“Exactly. They can’t prove the person was an employee of Rouge’s. No way to concretely tie the body to her, and that’s if it’s found. The only reason Maddox and Alissa found the head in the first place was because Chet slipped them a riddle that led them to it.”
“Chet?” Jack raises an eyebrow. “I don’t trust that fucker as far as I can throw him.”
“Good instinct. He turned right around and betrayed them when they came to the club next. He’s the reason they ended up here at the Caterpillar Hotel, nearly starved.”
Jack widens his eyes. “There’s so much I still don’t know.”
“I wish I had time to explain the whole story to you,” I say. “It’s a doozy, that’s for freaking sure.”
“A doozy?” Jack asks.
“Like…it’s crazy. Unbelievable.”
“Doozy. You Americans have a word for everything.” He sits back down on the bed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “So what I saw in Rouge’s office that night—it was real?”
“As far as I can tell, I think it was,” I say. “My friend Maddox saw something similar. He doesn’t remember anything about someone’s head getting chopped off, but he remembers being offered a goblet of blood to drink. He freaked out, and my guess is Mr. Rose ended up getting the job Maddox was being tested for.”
All color remaining in Jack’s pale face drains away. “My God.”
“Yeah.” I clap a hand to his shoulder. “But we’re going to see to it that the same thing doesn’t happen to you. Or to anyone else. And we’ll start by making sure you don’t eat that damned tart.”
“Done,” Jack says. “But when will—?”
A knock at the door sends a jolt through me.
I’d look through the peephole, but there isn’t one.
But I can tell by the chills snaking up and down my spine that it isn’t Bianca. She hasn’t gotten here yet.
It’s the King of Hearts.
Here to collect.
27
BIANCA
I don’t think Rouge has seen me.
Of course, if she has, she wouldn’t make it known.
It’s like her brain is made of ice. She always keeps things cool, even in the most stressful situations.
She isn’t wearing her club attire—the Elizabethan gown dripping in her red diamonds—but her street attire. A smart pants suit with her flaming red hair tied up into a neat bun. I almost wouldn’t recognize her but for her long, crimson nails that extend from her fingers like demonic claws.
A small half-wall separates the check-in area from a lounge with cushy red couches, so I duck behind it and listen in.
Rouge’s voice is layered with faux sympathy as she speaks with the cops.
“Yes, I’m a dear friend of Florian’s. He’s in the hospital now, and the doctors have promised he’ll make a full recovery. They may even be able to save his eye, though he may require a corneal transplant.”
Damn. She’s already lining up Jack’s organs. If his eye isn’t a match, I’m sure Rouge has an arsenal of them at her disposal. Mr. Rose can just pop a new one in, one that was plucked from the unwitting corpse of one of her workers.
“Excellent news, ma’am,” the cop next to her mumbles.
Rouge crosses her arms over her large bosom. “And please correct me if I’m wrong, but you say there were two people with him in the office when the accident occurred?”