♠️ THE GAME BEGINS—SPADES IS NOW LIVE! ♠️
Your first glimpse into Aces Underground... Don't say I didn't warn you...❤️
Dear wonderful readers,
Spades is here!
Get ready to tumble down the rabbit hole...
In Spades, nothing is what it seems. Loyalty is a weapon. Love is a risk. And the truth? It’s buried so deep, it just might take you down with it.
Read on for a short excerpt:
“Our drinks,” I say. “We should at least finish them. I don’t want that good booze to go to waste.”
He grins. “I can respect that.”
I nod to Seven, indicating that we’re coming over.
Goodness. Seven.
I haven’t thought of her since last night. I had a few too many drinks, and Maddox has dominated my headspace ever since that ardent kiss last night.
But I thought I caught something in her eyes. A fleeting look of fear.
Maybe I was just seeing things. I was pretty weirded out for the first hour we were here last night. It took a while for me to adjust.
But now I know that Aces Underground is just a regular club with a bizarre coat of paint. Completely harmless and a lot of fun.
I walk over to Seven. “We’ll grab a table back at the Spades section.”
Seven nods and follows Maddox and me as we cross toward the bar and grab a small table in the corner.
She sets down our drinks and whisks away to attend to another table. Maddox grabs his gin and tonic, and I take a sip of my martini. It’s delicious, perhaps even better than the one I had last night. I ordered this one dry, meaning that it has much less vermouth than a regular martini. That allows the rose-petal infusion in the vodka to really shine and blend with the earthy and acidic flavor of the olive juice. It’s delicious.
I take another sip when I notice something at the base of my glass. A tiny blue sticky note affixed to the bottom.
It’s handwritten, in a language other than English. Roman letters, but lots of marks that I don’t recognize.
Maddox raises his eyebrows as he puts his glass down. “What’s that?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. It’s a small note, handwritten.”
“Let me see it.”
I hand it to Maddox.
He looks it over and strokes his chin. “Interesting. I’m not sure what language this is. But the letters are the same letters we use in English, so we can rule out a Slavic language and most Asian languages. Which is odd, because most of the servers here are from Eastern Europe or Southern Asia.” He hands the note back to me. “Probably just a note from the bar. Someone wrote down an order from a patron and it accidentally got stuck to your glass. You can probably toss it.”
I blink. Odd that a note would be attached to my glass. “It could be important. I’ll flag Seven down and give it back to her.”
Maddox looks up. “I think she’s preoccupied.”
Indeed, the middle-aged man at the table Seven served after us is getting to his feet, his gaze lingering on the curve of Seven’s waist and the sway of her hips. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.
I swallow. “What do you mean, preoccupied?”
Maddox discreetly gestures to Seven and the older man. “Watch.”
*
“Alissa!”
I look up and see Dinah running down the hall. She runs up to me and gives me a hug.
“I heard about Lou. Is he going to be okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. He flatlined, but we brought him back. Janice is taking him to the ICU for observation.”
Dinah looks over to the closed door of Room 1832. “But won’t Carol be lonely?”
I shake my head. “She’s a big girl. I already promised her we’d bring Lou back as soon as he’s ready.” I look back over at my nurse’s station, where my purse is still sitting on the counter.
God, I just left it there. Luckily no one picked it up.
Normally I’d leave it in my locker, but I want to ask Dinah about that note.
I look back at her. “Do you have a second?”
She cocks her head. “Yeah. As long as it’s a literal second.”
“Well, fifteen seconds then.”
She grins. “I think I can manage that.”
I lead her over to the nurses counter and pull the tiny blue sticky note out of my bag. “Is this Vietnamese?”
She looks at the note, her eyebrows rising. “Where did you get this?”
“I went back to that club last night with Maddox. This was attached to my drink. Could have been a mistake, attached by accident.” I move my weight from one leg to the other. For some reason, my stomach is fluttering with nerves. “Is it just a drink order?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s not that.” She scratches the back of her neck. “And you received this from a server?”
“I’m not sure if I received it or if it just made its way to me. All I know is that it was attached to my drink.”
Dinah swallows, looking back at the note. “Well, it is Vietnamese. The handwriting is a little scratchy, and one of the words is misspelled, but it’s pretty clear what the note is saying.”
My heart starts to race. “What does it say?”
Grab Spades now!
Have a wonderful week of reading! ❤️
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