Page 3 of Queen of Diamonds

“Decent in bed,” I told Leisha with a grin. “Well—he kept up.”

Leisha’s eyes slid to me for only the briefest flicker, as if trying to work out what was happening.

That meant she knew.

Of course she knew. I’d never replied. I’d switched my phone off and ran. Kent was from one of her (many) social circles, and the Omega she’d set him up with last night had bailed with no warning.

Still, without flinching, Leisha took another sip of her drink. “Ex-military,” she said. “Was told he had stamina.”

My smile widened as she played along.

“Kept me busy until the morning,” I said.

I’d fled the date to do the only thing that made me feel better.

The recoil of the shot struck me to the bones. Goosebumps rose across my body. The gun range wasn’t well insulated, and I hadn’t changed. The brush of the black dress Leisha had helped me choose was cool against my skin.

I shifted my gun again toward the forehead of a faceless poster.

Never faceless.

Not to me.

Dorian, the beta who ran the range, never asked me to leave and never said a word when I slipped by him at one a.m., two hours after it should have closed.

At home, I stood at the foot of my bed, hugging myself, broken nail tapping anxiously at my waist as I stared at my pillows in the dim room.

Paranoid.

“Roses are normal,” I chided. “Get a grip.”

Still, I knew if I lay my head down on those pillows, they would swallow me into the late hours of the morning, trapping me in nightmares I couldn’t escape.

I’d turned the late night news on and began drills I’d long committed to memory on the heavy punching bag that hung from the ceiling in my room. Sweat glistened across my skin in the morning light before I’d dared pass to my blaring TV, feeling safe that no broadcast had whispered the name of the Brotherhood in the area.

“You were right,” I said, watching the club below as the music finally came to an end. “A night like that was exactly what I needed.” I wasn’t expecting the burn in my eyes as those words struggled out of my mouth. I shoved the tears back, horrified. I was at work.

I couldn’t cry at fucking work.

But maybe… maybe that date was exactly what I needed.

What if Kent really had been nice? What if we’d spent the night together, and I’d panicked when I reached for the hem of my dress, and he had been okay cuddling me in my oversized bathrobe while we watched Netflix?

I was fooling myself about all of this.

I was a shell.

A lonely, broken coward.

Three years, and Ace was still stealing from me with every breath I took.

I sat beside Leisha for a while in silence. She was watching the floor below with a half smile on her lips, she was the mother hen to all the girls here.

When my break was over, I took the last sip of my coffee with a sigh. Two hours of sleep wasn’t enough for a night as busy as tonight, and I was fully committed to never trying that date debacle again.

I didn’t need an Alpha. I didn’t even want one.

Not Kent, anyway.

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