CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | ACE
I started drinking early that day.
Noon maybe?
It was straight after I spoke to Bingo. Right after I rode away from the garage feeling like shit.
My head was thumping.
My adrenaline was pumped in my veins.
I couldn’t even think straight.
When there was a knock on my door later that night, I must have already been at least twelve beers in.
It was Sienna. I could barely recognize her in the disguise she’d donned.
Brunette silky hair, sexy velvet dress, leather boots and wine colored lipstick. Even her eyes were a different color. Not the usual brilliant green ones. She’d covered up her freckles too.
But I would have recognized her anywhere.
“Ace, oh my god! You won’t believe where I just was!”
She burst in through my front doors, her heels clicking on the floor.
My eyes roamed over her body, breathing in her scent.
I tried not to react.
She was breathless with excitement. Clearly she’d experienced something she couldn’t wait to tell me everything about.
“I was at the casino. Mr Money’s casino. I had my suspicions that Chief Kaplan has been helping them. That he’s working as a double agent.”
Her shoulders heaved as she spoke.
I couldn’t tell if the pink on her cheeks was makeup or the blood gushing to her face with excitement.
“So, I disguised myself and got there and I saw him! I saw Kaplan and guess what else I saw?”
I hadn’t said a word to her yet. She was too happy to notice.
Maybe I should have been happy for her too.
This was good news. This was going to serve us both well, bringing Mr. Money down.
But I just couldn’t focus my mind on it yet.
Sienna continued, a smile stretching her beautiful face.
“Kaplan had that playing card you showed me. He actually had it with him and he showed it to one of Mr. Money’s thugs to gain entrance to the back of the casino.”
Sienna had her hands on her hips now and she was shaking her head.
“I’m sure of it. There has to be some kind of club at the back of the casino. Some sick secret club that I’m going to bust. Isn’t this great news? I mean it’s horrible. Kaplan…but I should have expected it from him. Why didn’t I think of it before?”
She was speaking too quickly and making herself breathless.
I still wasn’t reacting and then finally, she noticed my silence.
Sienna crossed her brows and stared at me.
“Ace? Is there something wrong?”
I clenched my jaws and ran a hand through my hair.
I knew exactly what I wanted to tell her; I just didn’t know how to.
“Ace? Seriously, what’s going on?”
The color drained from her face and I turned to glare at her.
“I had a visit from Bingo this morning,” I began and she tipped her head to one side like she was confused by what I was saying. “And he had some information for me.”
“Information? Sounds more like bad news.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Sienna?” I growled, before she could add anything more.
I’d taken one step towards her and she looked up at me in surprise.
“Told you what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Daisy found it. There was no way of the pregnancy test being anyone else’s but yours. You were the last one to use the bathroom.”
Sienna’s face dropped, and she suddenly went from being amusedly confused to panicking.
“What…”
“She saw the positive test.”
“I didn’t…”
“You didn’t what?”
“I wasn’t sure of what I saw.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
I crushed the can of beer that was in my hand. It spurted amber foamy liquid out of the can and on to my rug.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now. Except the fact that there was a baby growing and I was the father. I had to be the father.
“Ace, you have to believe me. I barely looked at the test. I didn’t trust what I saw and I wasn’t sure…everything was happening so fast that day.”
I whipped away from her. I couldn’t bare to look at her anymore. All of a sudden, Sienna was nothing more than a big, fat liar to me.
How could I trust anything she said? She could be lying about everything.
“If there is one thing that’s always clear as day—it’s a fucking pregnancy test,” I growled.
I could sense her moving behind me, and I wished I could touch her now. I wished the situation was different and things weren’t so fucking broken between us.
“You’re right,” she finally agreed.
Now that her voice was solemn like this, I had no choice but to turn and face her.
There were tears twinkling glassily in her eyes.
“I did see the test, briefly, I hid it because I couldn’t believe it. You were outside, Daisy was banging on the door, I panicked and I thought I hid it well.”
“Did you take a second test?” I hissed.
Sienna gulped and then she looked down at her feet and shook her head.
“Too many things have been going on.”
“Okay, so what you’re saying is you’ve been too busy to take another fucking pregnancy test?”
She shot her head up to look at me.
“I’ve been nervous too, alright? I’ve been shitting bricks, Ace. This has the potential to change my life. So forgive me if I didn’t go running to take another test! I just…I just needed a moment to breathe.”
Her shoulders were heaving again, and this time it wasn’t from the excitement.
She was in distress and I wished I could do something to take that away.
But I was nobody.
I meant nothing to her.
She had made it very clear to me.
“Is it me?”
She shot a look at me again.
“What?”
“Am I the father, Sienna?”
“How could you even ask that?” Her voice was strained, so were her eyes. With her wig on and the rest of the disguise on, it was easy for me to imagine talking to someone else.
“It’s not like I know you!” I grunted and she took in a sharp breath and crossed her arms over her tits.
“It’s yours,” she replied.
I turned away from her again, walking to the fridge so I could pluck out another can of beer. Her heels clicked the floor. She was following me there.
“Ace, seriously, I would have told you eventually. Maybe after all this was over and I’d gotten some time to think.”
I cracked open the can, sticking it to my mouth and taking a big glug.
“All you had to do was inform me. That I’m going to be a father. And you chose to keep that information from me. I had to find out from Daisy and Bingo because she happened to go through her trash can!”
I was raging at her now and Sienna seemed to be shrinking in her own clothes. I knew I was being rougher than I needed to be. I could have kept my voice down, but I felt like I was losing my mind.
“You’re right. You don’t know me. So don’t assume what I would or would not have done. Fuck you, Ace.”
“Yeah, sure, fuck you too.”
“Look at us!” she shrieked, flailing her arms about her. “How are we supposed to bring a baby into this world together? How are we supposed to be a fucking family? Can you really blame me for not telling you?”
I glared at her for a full ten seconds before I reached past her for the papers on top of the fridge. I scribbled on the lines with a pen.
“This is what you wanted right?”
I tossed the pages at her and she caught them.
“There you go. Our marriage is now annulled. You don’t have to fucking worry about me anymore.”
She stared back at me. She didn’t even give the papers a look.
Then she turned from me, walked straight to the front door and I heard it bang shut.
She was gone.
She’d taken my signed annulment papers with her. This was over.
She was right, we could never be a family together.
This baby was going to be better off not knowing its father.
I roared and threw the can from my hand.
It went flying across the room, whiplashing against the wall first before falling straight down to the ground. The room stank of beer now.
I roared again.
AARRRGHHH
I sounded like a wild animal.
I scratched my face with my own fingernails.
I knocked my head against the wall. Pressing my eyes close in agony.
I was going to be a father and this child would never know me.
Once again, I’d fucked everything up. Maybe this was my last chance to redeem myself. To right every wrong I’d done and now it had slipped out from between my fingers, too.