Page 18 of Stealing Cinder

Five months. One hundred and fifty-three days since a pale-haired angel stepped into an elevator, smiled at me over her shoulder, and vanished.

I shuffle the deck and let the cards whisper between my fingers. The mahogany table under my forearms is new. Expensive. Built for showing off, not for playing.

Edgar Silvani's poker room occupies the west wing of a brownstone that belongs to a dead man. Crown molding lines the ceiling in craftsmanship Edgar couldn't commission with all the money he married into. The original hardwood floors are a deep honey oak, worn in places by decades of real living, and the contrast between those floors and the gaudy crystal decanters lining a sidebar cabinet makes my back teeth grind together. Gold-framed mirrors hang where photographs once took up space. I can see the faded outlines on the wallpaper left behind after frames were removed. The man who built this home had taste. Edgar, on the other hand, wasn’t gifted with an eye for elegance.

The whole mansion reeks of cigar smoke, the bitterness ground into the curtains and the upholstery. Underneath all of it, is a floral perfume so cloying it coats the back of my throat every time I inhale. It cuts through the cologne and sweat of twenty-plus guests packed in for Edgar's first annual poker game.

I didn't choose this location. Edgar insisted, and since I need him to sign a document that prevents a war, you give a little. I'd rather be on my own territory, drinking my own whiskey in silence.

But the peace agreement sitting in the briefcase at my feet is more important than my comfort. Giving up my father’s support cost me a little in the relationship department. Once I cut ties with the Payne family, some people sided with him. Edgar is one of those men. He values older relationships rather than building new ones. I get it. But I still need to bridge the gap I formed when I told my father I didn’t want his New York kingdom.

I deal the next round and glance across the table at the three men sharing this overdecorated room with me.

Oliver Stone leans back in his chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, charcoal eyes scanning his cards with a boredom that borders on disrespectful. He’s my oldest friend. My brother in every way that counts except blood. He got married eight months ago and the sharp edges I've known for thirty years have started to round.

He’s a fucking softy through and through for that woman.

Bastian sits to Oliver's right, rotating a poker chip between his fingers with lazy precision. Those same hands have snapped necks, and most of the people in here know it. His jacket hangs open. His tie is loosened. A gold wedding band catches the light every time the chip spins. That ring is newer than Oliver's, and Bastian touches it more often than he realizes.

Valerian fills the chair across from me, his scarred frame dominating the space around him. Burns cover over ninety percent of his body in various stages of healed tissue, and the cigar between his lips sends a thin ribbon of smoke curling past the ruined side of his jaw. He and Bella just had their first baby. His wife and daughter are at home waiting for him. I understand the pull of that distance in the way he checks his phone between hands. I wouldn’t say it to his face, but he’s a fucking teddy bear hiding inside a body that terrifies most people on sight.

All three of them are married. All three softened at the places where they used to be granite. I watch the way Bastian absentmindedly turns that ring, the way Oliver's jaw unclenches when his phone buzzes with a text from home, the way Valerian smiles at his screen with a tenderness that would terrify anyone who only knows him by reputation. These men used to sit at tables like this with nothing waiting for them on the other side of the night. Now they all have someone to go home to.

I don't envy them.

I keep telling myself that.

"You going to stare at your cards or play them?" Oliver lifts his tumbler without looking up.

I toss two chips into the center. "Raise."

"Bold for a man who's been distracted all evening." Bastian's grin pulls wide, all teeth and diabolical amusement.

"I'm focused."

"You're somewhere else entirely, brother." Valerian draws on his cigar and exhales through his nose. Smoke wraps around his head and the low light from the chandelier overhead turns the haze amber. "You've been somewhere else for months."

I don't respond. He's not wrong about that either.

Pale blonde hair. So light it glowed under the firelight of that penthouse suite. Blue eyes with a silver sheen that turned translucent when she looked up at me. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is the black raven inked across her left shoulder. I mentally trace the edges of its wings as I try to drift off to sleep. And in my dreams she whispers to me ‘A dream is a wish from the heart’. Falling feathers drift in a hazy blur and then I wake.

Every night for the past five months, it's the same damn dream. The hole in my heart grows a fraction larger each time I wake up and she’s not at my side.

But that’s not all. I can still smell her. The taste of her on my lips has not faded. The warmth of her skin is a ghost of a memory that chases into the sunlight.

Cinder promised she would come back. Every fucking day I curse myself for letting her walk away. I should have asked for her full name. At least that way I could have hunted her down.

Searched for her, I correct myself. Searched for her and then begged her to be mine.

"The contract." I redirect. "Edgar is the last signature we need. Without him, the peace agreement is incomplete and war breaks out by the end of the year. It will be Payne against Payne. Silvani against Stone. You get the idea. We will all be at each other’s throats."

Oliver sets his cards face down. "We are aware. None of us want a war with the fucker or your father."

"Then let's get him to sign and get the hell out of this place." Bastian drops three chips and leans forward. "I don't trust a soul in here."

Neither do I. The stiff leather chairs are new and unyielding against my back. The whiskey Edgar left for us is expensive and showy, all burn and no depth. Every surface in this poker room is staged for impression. The Ashford warmth this place used to hold is gone, just like the man behind the name.

Vincent Ashford built this mansion. He was a good man and easy to do business with, but I didn’t socialize with him on a personal level. Edgar married Ashford's widow sometime after the funeral and moved himself in like the ink on the death certificate was an invitation. I didn't pay attention to the details at the time. Ashford's death didn't involve my territory, and the nuptials that followed were none of my concern. What I know of Edgar is secondhand. He’s somewhat respected across Chicago. He wants to be as powerful as Vincent was in real estate. But no one can be Vincent. He was friends with half the city, from the doormen to the politicians. Had a daughter who kept out of the public eye, smart enough to stay behind the curtain while her father worked the stage, so I’m told. A good man by most accounts, which in our world means he was either genuinely decent or very good at hiding his dirt.