Minute by Minute (Games & Diversions #3)

  Copyright © 2016 by Natalie E. Wrye.

  This novel is an original work. It is a fictional writing, a work entirely derived from the author’s imagination. All characters and events are entirely fictional and not based in fact, nor based on any real person(s) living or deceased. Any resemblance or similarity to any real person(s), alive or dead, or event is purely and clearly coincidental. This book contains adult language and in some instances coarse language and, due to its content, should not be viewed by children.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without the written permission of the author (except for the use of brief quotations in a book review).

  Cover Design:

  Bookin’ It Designs

  www.bookinitdesigns.com

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Beginner’s Luck

  Playing a Bad Hand

  Ace Up Your Sleeve

  “The Marshall Swindle”

  Snake Eyes

  Call a Spade a Spade

  Missing Your Shot

  Behind the Eight Ball

  Russian Roulette

  Laying the Burn Card

  Playing the Endgame

  “Knight” in Shining Armor

  No Dice

  Betting in a Burning House

  Luck of the Draw

  When the Chips are Down

  Double Whammy

  Stacking the Deck

  Queen of Hearts

  Unlucky Pair

  Piecing the Puzzle

  Winner Takes All

  Break or Bust

  Epilogue

  Special Surprise

  To the Reader

  Acknowledgements

  More about the Author

  Dedication

  To the reader:

  This book—this series—is for you.

  PROLOGUE

  DAY 7—9:02PM

  ELENA LEXINGTON

  I see the gun before I see the person behind it.

  The phone in my hand drops before I can scream, and the crash that it makes against the floor is loud enough to almost make me shit my pants.

  Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut, preparing for the sound of the gunshot—the last sound I’ll probably ever hear…

  One second…

  One and a half…

  Two.

  Beginner’s Luck

  How dreadful...to be caught up in a game and have no idea of the rules.

  ― Caroline Stevermer

  Day 1—Sunday, 5:55PM

  Tampa General Hospital

  LUKAS GRIFFIN

  Tampa General is no different than any other hospital.

  The walls are eggshell. The floors are cream.

  The overhead tiles are the color of porcelain, and the sheets… well, the sheets are the color of blinding snow.

  In other words… this entire place is revoltingly bland.

  And it is here, in these vanilla hallways, that it feels so clear to me why white… is such a disturbing color…

  Most likely because it is not a color…

  It is the absence of it.

  It is the absence of courage, the absence of audacity. It signifies doubt. Anxiety. Worry. Fear…

  And for a man like me, there is something particularly disconcerting about the concept of fear…

  For me, fear took on a different color—the color red.

  Red marks. Red welts. Red cuts.

  Blood red.

  The color of my body after some quality “father-son” time.

  Red is a color I know. Red is a color I understand. But ghostly white—well, that’s something I’m not acquainted with.

  I’d read about people turning ashen, sneered at tales of frightened protagonists turning pale.

  But I’d never seen it in person… until now.

  The anxious look on Elena’s face when we entered Tampa General sent an unnerving chill down my spine, but the expression she’s showing me right now?

  Nothing compares to this.

  Her pretty countenance was pallid as we headed for Ana’s room, but this face—this expression of pure terror—rivals any reflection that has ever bounced back at me.

  No beatings, no put-downs, no bruises could compare to the pain I saw on Elena’s face—a pain that cut me deeper than the lash of my father’s belt.

  The pain in her eyes, the pain I feel, becomes acute—unbearable—as we head towards the room number that unexpectedly resonates within the hospital’s taupe-colored walls.

  “Code 99!”

  The hallway intercom rings out loudly.

  “Room 242… Code 99!”

  The sudden broadcast is like the sound of a gun firing at the racetrack.

  It sets into motion a tidal wave—a rolling surge of medical personnel that rumbles across the tiled floor, tumbling down the blanched corridor in hues of “hospital-scrub” blue and “lab-coat” white.

  Like racecars responding to the waving of the checkered flag, they’re off—the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies…

  And two uninvited guests—a terrified Elena… and me.

  Upon hearing that announcement, we align ourselves as if at the track, hurtling towards the same unified goal—desperate to reach the same white line.

  Only in this race… there is no finish line.

  No slowing. No pit-stops. No breaks.

  The race doesn’t end when we reach the destination.

  In fact… it’s just beginning…

  “Code 99” marks the initiation of a struggle… the beginning of a fight for someone’s life.

  And that someone’s life… is Ana’s.

  No matter how fast Elena and I run towards room 242, we can’t seem to cover any ground in the hospital corridor.

  The white tile swallows us in like quicksand, and our “white line” only seems to drift further and further away.

  With heavy legs and racing hearts, we trudge behind a trail of white coats and scrubs, attempting to rush past an impartible sea.

  A female nurse grabs Elena.

  “Excuse me, ma’am! Ma’am! You can’t be here!”

  “Yes, I can!” Elena heatedly retorts. “That’s my sister in there!”

  She pries the woman’s fingers off of her arm and we bum-rush to the edge of the room, prepared to join the semi-circle of staff forming around Ana’s bed.

  It is only when we clear the crowd that we realize that “Ana’s bed” belongs to someone else.

  She’s not in it.

  The nurse approaches once again.

  “We need you to exit immediately. This is an emergency.”

  The stone-faced employee hustles us out of the room and back into the hallway where our desperation only increases.

  The resuscitation call puts our nerves on an edge as thin as a knife’s blade, sharpening with each passing minute that we can’t find Anastasia.

  Elena looks at me.

  “Didn’t the receptionist say room 242?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, where is she? She isn’t here. I called Kat but she’s not picking up and I don’t know if she’s even…”

  The words die on her lips.

  My sudden grip on Elena’s arm catches her attention and I squeeze lower to grab her cold, hanging hand.

  I almost flinch from the chill that’s on her skin.

  I watch recognition dawn on her face as it has just dawned on mine, and the sound of a floating laugh—a very distinct, yet familiar laugh—puts a sudden heat back
into her clammy skin.

  I wouldn’t know which room was Anastasia’s if not for that laugh… and the chorus of “Ouch, Charlie—Ouchhhh!” that comes immediately after, turning speculation quickly into confirmation.

  Upon hearing that buoyant sound, Elena and I turn the sharp corner, bolting into the boisterous room.

  We almost walk straight into the arms of a bed-ridden Ana, one of which is bound by a makeshift cast and bent at an unnatural angle.

  I catch Elena before she can topple over Ana and the hospital bed.

  Ana gasps, thrown off-guard by the incoming train that is Elena.

  “Holy shit, Elle,” she exhales roughly, throwing her hands up in defense.

  Pale-faced with shock, Ana nearly jumps from under the covers, cradling a bandaged-wrapped wrist and forearm.

  And yet still, she smiles… and the room grows a little brighter, a bit sunnier—made so by the light behind her tired eyes.

  Her eyes, sunken in with fatigue and physical trauma, are still a sparkling shade of grain, the tint matching the amber-champagne hue of her hair.

  But the white cast on her arm is almost the shade of her skin, and there’s a dark bruising on her face and hands, purple and blue swirls that are signs of the automobile “accident” that almost took her life just earlier this morning.

  Despite the joviality in Ana’s smile, the marks on her body are hard-to-miss indicators of a recent pain—a pain that may have been wrought by my indecision.

  A pain that may have been the result of my recent lies.

  My conscience is knocking on reason’s door, and before reason can answer, Elena cuts in, interrupting the internal struggle between my right mind and the wrong one—the one that’s been dominating my life since I was twelve years old.

  “God, Ana, I’m so… I’m so…”

  Elena stammers, barely meeting Ana’s eye.

  “Just come here,” Ana says, motioning.

  With one hand still in mine, a relieved Elena falls into her sister’s embrace.

  It is a silent hug full of appreciation and admiration—all of the amazing things between them that they cannot say.

  No words could do justice to their touch.

  Silently, I stand by in sheer awe.

  It is only when Elena steps away from Ana that we both discover the other person now standing in the room.

  A surprised Kat, holding a tray of cap-covered coffees, suddenly steps forward from the chair on the opposite end of the room. She narrows her eyes at us, and, guiltily—almost hesitantly—I let Elena’s small hand go.

  Fuck me.

  And even when I release her into the arms—well, arm—of her miraculously healthy younger sister, I can’t stop the air in the room from shifting.

  The joyous moments are yanked at the root—supplanted by something threatening.

  Some type of anger—resentment.

  A score that has yet to be settled.

  Kat steps forward into the center of the room and within minutes, the sisters exit with Elena leading, as usual, and a noticeably seething Kat following closely behind.

  I stay with Anastasia, keeping her company… until the voices of her two sisters rise too loudly to be ignored.

  I excuse myself from Ana’s side and step into the hallway, finding myself in the unpredictable path of destruction.

  The two sisters are engaged in a tornadic battle—and it is bloody.

  They spare no verbal blows; they hold nothing back, and the only prisoners they take… are each other.

  Rage and hurt swirl in Elena’s frosty blue irises. I see the same emotions explode in Kat’s identical eyes as she begins to yell at her older sister.

  “You know, I worried for you,” Kat declares. “I worried about you all damn day.

  “When I got the call about your car, I’d just assumed it was you. I went frantic,” she says, folding her arms.

  “I kept wondering how this had happened… why this happened, how you were and if you were dying while all I could do was pace back and forth like a freaking idiot…”

  Kat penetrates Elena with a watery stare.

  “And then to find out that it was Ana…” she sniffles harshly.

  “I’d assumed that there was a reason—some reason—why Ana had your car in the first place, why you weren’t around, why you weren’t there while I was freaking out and having a nervous breakdown.

  “And now I guess I know why…” Kat finishes, motioning towards the door to Ana’s quarters.

  I look into Kat’s face and watch a shift take place. Something stronger replaces the hurt—something hardened.

  The pain melts away, and what is left is like stone.

  Tough.

  Solidified.

  Unyielding.

  “What the hell kind of game were you guys playing, acting like you hated each other?”

  “It isn’t a game,” Elena replies softly.

  Or is it?

  I’m not exactly sure…

  “Oh, it isn’t?” Kat’s voice rises. “One minute, I have to keep you guys from tearing each other apart at my engagement party, and then I look up and you’re making moon-eyes at each other!”

  Kat motions towards the door again. “Meanwhile, Ana’s out there alone, nearly dying, and you’re nowhere to be found!”

  The statement shocks even me.

  It’s an accusation that, frankly, is unfair, and it hits Elena where it hurts most—her love and responsibility to her sisters… who she loves more than anything on this Earth.

  Like the building of a summer storm, I watch Elena’s fury take form.

  I’ve seen this too often not to recognize it. I know it is only a matter of seconds before she strikes.

  I step into the storm… and just when I reach my hand forward to stop the inevitable, the lightning strikes.

  It’s white.

  Hot.

  Searing.

  And I am blindsided by it.

  It crashes into my world, exploding into a burst of light. The sky cracks into a shock of hurt, and all I see next are fucking stars.

  Playing a Bad Hand

  There are usually no direct answers to how do you play such-and-such a hand when somebody raises in front.

  Every poker situation is different.

  The only way you can learn is to play.

  –Doyle Brunson

  Day 1—6:23PM

  Tampa General Hospital

  ELENA

  Oh my God! He hit him.

  Foxx hit Griff.

  And I can’t fucking believe it.

  Just as I was rearing back—just as I was two seconds from slapping the shit out of Kat’s self-righteous ass—a foreign fist crashes over my shoulder, landing directly in the middle of Griff’s face, and for the first time since I’ve met him, I realize that he has added another enemy to a list that, until recently, I’d thought only included me.

  Hell, as far as I knew, I was enemy number one. I’d chewed this man’s ass out more times than I can count—at one point, publicly cursing him to the ends of the Earth and back.

  He was an “irreverent asshole”—a whorish, womanizing prick.

  And those were some of my better compliments.

  Kat had heard it all.

  Every swipe I’d taken at him. Every insult.

  She’d been there for the multiple hang-ups, for the in-office arguments that rumbled over the phone line in her editorial suite.

  She’d witnessed Griff and I go to hell and back with each other, seen us at our very worst.

  And now—on one of the most distressing days of all of our lives—up pops another surprise…

  Griff and Elena.

  Mortal enemies.

  Complete opposites.

  Total and complete opposites.

  Like Jennifer-Aniston-and-Angelina-Jolie sort of opposite… or, being that Griff is a guy, Billy Bob Thorton and Angelina…

  Oh, shit.

  Billy Bob married Angelina at one point.
<
br />   Ok, not them…

  But… you know… the whole “water and oil” thing.

  I’m talking about the type of contradictory pair that can barely mutter a civil “hi” to one another suddenly being able to breathe the same air in peace… talk to each other instead of at each other… hell, touch one another without seeking the nearest bottle of Purell.

  And not only that… but now this inconsistent couple shows up together, hand-in-hand to visit the most adored family member.

  We weren’t fooling anyone… least of all, Kat—who undoubtedly saw the little moment between Griff and me.

  What I didn’t know is that Griff’s best friend—the one man who was dead-set against any involvement between us—would literally walk up and hear about the intimate moment, too.

  The thunderous sound of his knuckles across Lukas’s unsuspecting face only confirms Foxx’s hardened sentiment.

  Kat and I gape as Foxx’s fist makes contact, and Lukas recoils, taking a step backwards as he struggles to find balance from a punch that I am sure felt as disorienting as it looked.

  Foxx steps forward, sweat plastering blonde strands of hair across his forehead, and he raises his other fist.

  The look of fury in his molten brown eyes puts pure fear into mine.

  His voice is the most vicious whisper I’ve ever heard.

  “You lying son-of-a-bitch,” he snarls at Griff.

  “One favor. To stay away from her. That’s all I asked. One goddamned favor… and you couldn’t even do that.”

  Griff shakes off the punch, his cheekbone reddened by the sock, and he faces Foxx, standing to his full six-feet, nearly two inches, indignation imprinted on his face.

  I can’t even breathe.

  I wait for the barrage of fists that I know is coming; I wait for Griff’s inevitable retaliation.

  But he doesn’t respond to the hit.

  He plants his feet, breathing heavily, staring his best friend squarely in the face.

  He says nothing.

  “Congratulations,” Foxx hisses, bringing them nose-to-nose. “You’ve fucked me, you’ve fucked my sister-in-law, and now, you’ve fucked yourself.”