Chapter 33
I was still gripping the steering wheel like I’d just outrun a SWAT team. “I think I blacked out after my Queen of Hearts,” I muttered. “Was that a fever dream? Did we just—win?”
They were indeed so sweet.
To say that £275,000 made them so happy.
For me, it was just a penny but to them, it was like that world rained gold.
Jhing Jhing slapped the dashboard. “What do rich people eat after a win like that?! Champagne and caviar?!”
“No,” I said solemnly, turning the key in the ignition again.
We all looked at each other.
And said in unison:
“McDonald’s.”
Fifteen minutes later, we marched into our tiny, chaotic apartment carrying three giant bags of fries, six burgers, two apple pies, three sundaes, and the kind of victorious madness usually reserved for lottery winners or deranged game show contestants.
We slammed everything onto the living room table like we had just looted a golden temple. Makeup still on. Heels tossed near the doorway. Jhing Jhing was half-sitting on the armrest like a queen with a paper crown made of napkins.
Mylene ripped into her burger with the kind of growl only heard in National Geographic documentaries. “I haven’t had carbs like this since 2006.”
“I feel like we should pray,” I said dramatically, opening my fries like sacred scrolls.
“To what?” Jhing asked, mouth full of McChicken.
I raised my drink cup like a chalice. “To Blackjack Jesus. And the sacred dealer who couldn’t read faces.”
“To cleavage and bad cologne!” Mylene cheered, nearly choking on a fry.
We clinked our sodas like champagne flutes and dissolved into full-blown hysterical laughter.
And the laughter didn’t stop. It rolled out of us like champagne foam—loud, bubbly, uncontrolled. Mylene wheezed until she fell sideways off the couch, Jhing laughed so hard she cried off her eyeliner, and I laughed until my stomach hurt, sprawled on the floor in a designer dress, barefoot and greasy-fingered.
We looked like we’d just returned from robbing the Queen’s vault, not a casino.
My makeup was melting, my hair was falling apart, and I was balancing a cheeseburger on one hand like it was fine crystal.
But for the first time in what felt like years—I felt alive. This body felt alive. Catherine felt like she did it. She was happy. I am happy.
There were no bullets flying. No one screaming in the background. No betrayal looming like a shadow.
Just three girls. Fries. And a ridiculous, once-in-a-lifetime win that felt like justice in paper wrappers and barbecue sauce.
Outside, the city was cold and dark. But inside, we were glowing.
And as Jhing Jhing bit into a sundae spoon and whispered, “Let’s do this again tomorrow…”
I smiled.
Oh, we will.
But next time?
We aim for more.
And maybe—just maybe—add chicken nuggets to the order.
The next night, we went again and this time, we wore sexier clothes than last night.
The chips kept piling. Like a fortress. Like a throne. Like revenge in glittering plastic circles. And believe me when I say this, I have more respect for women now that I experience how to wear five inch heels, the agony of waxing, hair fixing, not to mention the spanx. Yes, it was a gift from the gods.
I sat straighter in my velvet chair, every movement intentional. The gown Mylene picked for me clung like sin—deep emerald green, backless, with a slit high enough to show I meant business and legs. And I swear, it took me two hours of practice to even walk from the weapon they called high heels. Somehow, Catherine's body remembered grace, feminine, remembered how to act like a seductress, remembered how to even smile like she owned the world. Indeed she was something else. I am something else.
Mylene sparkled in rose gold, Jhing Jhing in scandalous red that made one man walk into a server carrying two glasses of scotch.
Clink—crash.
"Sorry, sir," the server muttered, but the man didn’t even hear him. His eyes were locked on us. On me.
We were the three extra-large magnets. Not for metal, but for attention, desire, and suspicion.
And I felt it—the ripple effect. The discomfort. The envy.
It was intoxicating. Across the floor, a woman with a fur stole the size of a taxidermy bear narrowed her eyes. Her date, a wiry man in a navy suit, leaned so far in to get a better look at us that his wine tipped and soaked the cuff of his sleeve.
He didn’t care.
“Who are they?” I imagined them whispering. “Why haven’t we seen them before? Lottery winners? Movie stars?”
Wrong. We were ghosts dressed in Prada. My ghosts.
Then, the most important tell yet.
Mick. He was standing by the bar.
I hadn’t seen him earlier, but I felt him before I spotted him. Tall, stocky, suspiciously bald—not by genetics but by choice, like he wanted to look more "military." He was the type of man who wore sunglasses indoors even when the ceiling was pure art deco and the lighting softer than a lover’s sigh.
Mick had once worked directly under me. Casino security chief. A smart man, by the average IQ of thugs. Loyal—until Alec got his claws in him.