[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Six Of Hearts

Six of Hearts
Six of Hearts Page 41



“You’ve destroyed my business, my career, my life! I will use this. I swear I will,” Brian yells.

Jay looks at him like he’s a hysterical housewife who just had her clean carpets trodden all over with mucky shoes. “I don’t doubt you, Brian. A man left with nothing has nothing left to lose, right?” he says, and there’s a vicious tone to his words.

Jay pulls a cigarette from behind one ear and a match from behind the other. Striking the match off the side of his boot, he brings it to the end of his cigarette and lights up. He exhales a long puff of smoke as he stares at Brian. When he does this, his eyes are different; his face is transformed into something hard and inscrutable. Undiluted hatred seeps from his pores, all directed at the man standing before him.

I’ve never seen him look like this before. A chameleon that can become someone else with nothing but a change in its facial muscles springs to mind. He looks dangerous. For the first time, I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of the tortured, pained soul that’s been hidden beneath the surface. And it is just as real as the witty charmer I’ve come to know.

“I suppose I should start off with the simple part,” says Jay. “Fields was my mother’s maiden name. Do you wanna hazard a guess at what my birth name was?”

“I don’t have time for guessing games,” Brian spits.

Jay exhales another puff of smoke and flicks off the ash. “No, I don’t suppose you do. My birth name was McCabe. Jason McCabe, ring a bell?”

Brian’s eyes widen, and his hold on the gun falters for a second before he rights himself.

“You’re lying.”

“Nope. You wanted to buy my parents’ house back in the day. Dad was being a prick about it, so you decided you’d start up an affair with my mother, then use it as blackmail to get her to push Dad to sell the house. You didn’t bank on what an evil **** my dad could be, and when he started making demands, you got angry. You wanted to do something that would force my family out of that house, and that’s when your little girlfriend, Una, began whispering in your ear.

“I like to think of her as your own personal Lady Macbeth, but with a much lower IQ. Una was jealous of the time you’d spent with my mother. In fact, she despised my mother for taking your attentions away from her. She wanted her out of the picture, so she convinced you that setting fire to our house would be a good idea. That the fire department would arrive in time to save our lives, but that once the house was destroyed, my parents would sell the land to you in a heartbeat. So, like men who let their ****s lead them the world over, you did as Una suggested. Only the fire department didn’t get there in time, did it, Brian?”

Jay stands now and takes a step toward him, his passion growing by the second.

“You orchestrated all of this because that fire killed your family?” Brian responds, and takes a step back, the wind gone out of his sails.

“Yes, but wait, there’s more,” says Jay. “You got our house, but there was another one you needed to buy up in order for your building project to go ahead. The family who lived in this neighbouring house were just as adamant not to sell, because they loved their home too much to move somewhere else. You were no stranger to threatening people to get what you wanted, so you had your men break into the house one night with the intention of putting the frighteners on them. One of your men took things a little too far, though, and shot the wife. Do you know whose wife that was, Brian?”

“This was all a long time ago,” Brian mutters, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

“I didn’t think you’d remember, which only proves you deserve everything I’ve done to you. I know we’re not the only ones who’ve suffered because of the things you’ve done. You’ve f**ked up so many lives that you can’t even keep count anymore. It made you rich, I’ll give you that. But you know what they say, Brian, behind every great wealth is a great crime, and your crimes are insurmountable. Still no idea whose wife it was?”

Brian lifts the gun higher. “**** you. I don’t care. I don’t bloody care. You’ve completely f**ked me.”

Jay stubs out his smoke and gets up from his seat. What he says next makes me feel like fainting. “It was Hugh Brandon’s wife. The same man who represented me in court. The one who brought down your entire newspaper, everything you’ve built by being a selfish, evil degenerate. It’s all quite poetic, isn’t it?”

I turn around and sink to the floor as the puzzle pieces fit themselves together in my head. When I was little, my neighbours’ house burned down, and Jay was that boy, the one I used to play with and take care of. Una Harris and Brian Scott were the reason that house burned down. They were the reason my family was torn apart by my mother’s death.

The reason why Jay did this.

He did this for us. For my family and for his. Tears fill my eyes, grief and gratitude melding into one.

Brian’s voice is calmer now, but not in a good way. I try to pull myself together enough to pay attention to what’s happening. Slowly, I stand back up, scanning Jay’s apartment for anything that resembles a weapon. I still have the pepper spray clutched in my hand, but I’m not sure if it will help. What if Brian pulls the trigger as a reflex when I spray him?

Unfortunately, if what he says next is anything to go by, he’s going to pull it anyway.

“Thanks for clearing that up for me, Jason. Now I can do what I came here to do,” says Brian in a dead, monotone voice.

“You gonna shoot me? Go ahead,” says Jay, and that’s when his eyes move to mine. He knew I was here all along! He makes some sort of subtle nodding gesture to the spray I’m holding, but I don’t know what it means. Does he want me to use it? Not use it?

I only have seconds to decide, and right before Brian pulls the trigger, I dive out onto the balcony, aiming right for his eyes. Brian wails when the spray hits him, and the gun goes off. Jay jumps right over the edge of the balcony, and I gasp in shock. I think the bullet still hit him. Brian lets the gun drop as he clutches his face, and I grab it.

Sweat is pouring out of me and my heart is racing, my chest heaving. I have never held a gun before in my life, but I point it at Brian just as several uniformed men burst into the apartment. They take the gun from me, and I let them, shock kicking in. They handcuff me, but I don’t have words to explain to them what happened. I’m staring at the railing Jay just jumped over, but then I notice a pair of hands holding onto the edge.

Relief floods me as he pulls himself back up onto balcony.

He didn’t jump. He’d been holding onto the bar. There’s blood on his shirt from where the bullet grazed him. I focus on that as he talks angrily to the officers, instructing them to take the handcuffs off me right away. He goes on to tell them that the gun belonged to Brian and I was only defending myself. Once I’m uncuffed, Jay walks me over to his couch and sits me down, rubbing soothingly at my shoulders and staring at me with soulful, expectant eyes. I hear him telling the officers that there’s a security camera out on the terrace, and they’ll be able to see everything that happened in the footage.

Time passes.

I remain in my place, trying to figure out how the skinny, uncared-for young boy I used to play with as a child could be the same man I’ve come to know. How did I not recognise him? I know he doesn’t look anything like he used to, but I like to think there would be something in his eyes that would make me remember.

Something in his mischievous smile.

Because when I think of that smile, I suddenly realise that it’s the very same smile he often gave me when we played as kids. The tears spring forth again, my heart pounding.

He hadn’t been in my life for long, but I’d cared for him so much. Had always looked back on him as one of the most important childhood friends I’d ever had, both him and his brother. His poor little brother who’s dead and gone, all because of Brian and Una.

The moment I’d first laid eyes on him that day at the office, I’d felt a connection. I never fathomed it could be because I’d known him all along. And he’d known me.

Now I understand everything. I understand why Jay did all this. I understand his need for retribution. But why didn’t he tell me from the very beginning? Why keep it a secret all these months?

Before I know it, the apartment has been cleared, Jay has jimmy-rigged the door until the repair man comes in the morning, and we’re alone. Silently, he comes and wipes my tears away with his fingertips.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, moving my eyes to meet his. I want to stare at him for hours, just soak up the contours of his face. For a brief minute in time, I’d thought he was dead out there on that balcony. A moment of silence elapses. He stares at me until I look at him again, then starts to speak.

“Because I wanted you to see me, the real me. I didn’t want you to remember a beat-up, skinny, sad little kid with a dead family when you looked...

Six of Hearts
Six of Hearts Page 42



“You…you followed me without my knowledge?”

He clears his throat. “I’m not saying it was a logical or good thing to do. But I had to see you, even if it was from afar. I became addicted. And then I really knew I couldn’t tell you about my plan until it was all over. I couldn’t take the chance. I needed you to fall in love with me, because I was already so deeply in love with you.”

My heart stops, just literally stops beating. “What?” I whisper.

“I was in love with you,” Jay repeats. “I am in love with you. I think I’ve loved you since I was a kid.”

Staring into his eyes, I see the sincerity of his words.

Epic love.

All of a sudden, it comes to me. The epic love I’ve always wanted was with me all along, and it’s nothing like what I imagined. It’s better, because it’s real. It’s not perfect or pretty. It’s full of mistakes and sacrifices, and sometimes even ugliness. All of a sudden, I know that none of the bad things Jay has done in the past matter. My feelings for him are what matter, and there’s nothing on this earth that could change them. Words fail me again, and I’m shaking.

Jay rambles on, “If I told you who I was and what I was doing straight off the bat, you might not have wanted anything to do with me. So, I became your housemate. I became your friend. We got to know each other. And even though you won’t admit it to yourself, I know you love me, darlin’. I can see it right there in those gorgeous baby blues.”

He takes my face in his hands now, his thumbs stroking just under the line of my jaw, his voice hushed. I tremble.

“After my family died in that fire, I came to stay at your house. You probably don’t remember this, but I was crying into my pillow. You came into the room, crawled into bed beside me, and held me the entire night. I’ll never forget it. We were just kids, but I think you stole a piece of my heart that very night.”

Tears start to fall down my cheeks, but he wipes them away. “I do remember. I could hear you crying. I thought you were having a nightmare, so I went inside to check on you.”

“I never have nightmares when you’re with me, Matilda,” he says.

“I….” My throat catches. “I have so many questions.”

His eyes go sad, and for a second I feel like I’ve said the wrong thing. The sadness vanishes quickly, though, and he tugs me farther onto the couch to sit on his lap.

“Ask me, then.”

We stay there for hours, and he tells me everything. How it took him years to conceive of his plan. How in the beginning he never actually thought he’d go through with it, but just the idea of revenge, of relief, was soothing to him. The possibility that he would one day make things right. He’d pace each night before bed, reciting his plan, sometimes adding on new bits, and it helped him to sleep.

Then came the hard part. He knew that some of the things he needed to do would require the help of some questionable individuals, so he sought to make a connection with a man named Seamus Crowley, a powerful crime lord in the city. This was the same man I’d seen him meet up with that night at the docklands with the shifty-looking bodyguards. The one who came to me in the park.

Jay paid Seamus to help him forge the documents he needed to make it look like David Murphy had died. He also helped Jay ensure those documents went missing before the case got to trial. And that’s why he took something from Brian Scott that day outside The Daily Post offices. It was his access card, and Jay needed it to get into the newspaper’s file rooms. The idea of Jay having associations with a crime boss makes me worry, but he assures me that his debt to Seamus has been paid in full. Seamus threatening me that day was him flexing his muscles, ensuring that Jay paid his debt to him.

Both David Murphy and the cameraman, Blake, who was acting as Una Harris’ informant, were in on the plan. Like Jessie, they had been good friends of Jay’s for years, owed him for many favours he’d done for them, and so they agreed to help him. Blake started working as Una’s informer long before they started filming, gaining her trust in order to ensure she’d believe him about the death.

In regards to the TV show, Jay had only a small number of people working on it with him, people he knew he could trust with the secret that David Murphy wasn’t dead. The television executives only put a pause on the show after Una Harris’ article had come out, and Jay let them believe her, simply never correcting them that David was, in fact, still alive. Since it was mostly his own money invested in creating the show in the first place, the channel didn’t lose much in finally cancelling it several months before the trial.

So, how did he know Una would even pick up the story in the first place? Now, that I’m under strict instructions not to reveal. But I will say this:

My dad’s sudden interest in renovating our spare bedroom and renting it out was NOT his own decision. Neither was it the decision of the three volunteers at Jay’s show to write down the band, book and painting that they did. It’s all very clever and the power of subconscious suggestion is a fascinating thing. So no, Jay is not actually magic, nor does he possess “godlike super minding-reading skills.” (Jerry Burke, 2013, Hotmail.) Let’s just say, if you could crack open the man’s brain and take a look inside, it would be a truly illuminating experience.

My head actually hurts by the time he’s finished telling me everything.

“I can’t believe how much time you invested in all of this,” I tell him. “How much effort. I feel unworthy.”

Jay’s arm rests along the back of the couch. He runs his hand through my hair. “Never doubt your worth to me, Matilda. My whole life, my entire career, is investing vast amounts of time for one single result, a result that sometimes only lasts a moment. Every illusion takes hours, weeks, months of planning, and each one is worth the time. In a lot of ways, what I did to get justice for our families was a mirror of that process, and I don’t regret a single moment. You know why?”

“Why?” I whisper.

He locks eyes with me. “Because every step brought me here. To you.”

His mouth is so close to mine I can practically taste him. Our breaths mingle, full of need that we’ve been suppressing for months. I lick my lips, and he watches the movement hungrily. Between that second and the next, his mouth descends on mine, and he’s kissing me with a fiery passion. My body melds to his, my hands grasping for his belt, wanting his pants gone.

“Been a real long f**king time,” he murmurs as he sucks on my neck. “Do you know how badly I’ve wanted to kiss you, taste you, these past few months?”

I moan. “A lot.”

“Yeah, a lot,” he rasps. “So much I’ve now got a master’s in mast**bation.”

Giggles burst forth. “Jason, please never use ‘master’s in mast**bation’ ever again.”

“Why not? It’s got a good ring to it.” His hand goes between my legs, up under my skirt, and straight past my underwear. I whimper when he slides his fingers deep inside me and swears loudly.

“I don’t like it.”

“You love it.” One pump.

“Do not.” Another one.

“Yeah, ya do.” His fingers move fast now, in and out, and I don’t want to be talking anymore. Still, I can’t let him have the last word.

“Don’t.”

“You do. You f**king love it, and you love me, too.”

I gasp, and our eyes lock. He stares at me, still finger-****ing me. “Try to deny it. I dare you,” he goes on with a dark, ***y look.

“I do….”

He puts his other hand to my lips to shush me, then picks me up and carries me into his room. I’ve only been in his bedroom here a handful of times, and it thrills me when he lays me down on the bed before stripping off every last item of clothing I have on.

I lie there, chest heaving, as he moves away from me. Seconds later, he’s gloriously na**d and crawling back up my body. He spreads my legs, his mouth going straight for my ***. I cry out the second his tongue makes contact with my clit.

Jay’s right. It has been way too long.

He works on me in a frenzy, the both of us desperate for each other. He looks up at me, his eyes smouldering, and my cheeks heat. I love how quickly he can strip me bare, literally and figuratively. I brush my fingers through his hair in adoration, my heart so full it could burst. My body coils tight, and I know I’m going to come soon.

The orgasm hits me hard and quick, and as the pleasure is shattering through me, I blurt out a fervent declaration, “I love you, Jay. I love you so much.”

He smiles up at me, a crooked, dashing smile, and replies, “Yeah, ya do. Love you, too, Watson.”

“Come here,” I murmur, and pull him up my body, dragging his mouth to mine.

Our tongues collide as his erection teases between my legs. With one swift, hard thrust of his hips, he’s deep inside me. We break the kiss, and our...

Six of Hearts
Six of Hearts Page 43



“So, I guess you’re all wondering why you were invited here tonight.”

A man in the front row snickers disdainfully. “Yeah, you’d be right about that.”

“I suppose it’s accurate to say that I’m not your favourite person. You all lost your jobs because of me. My court case had your newspaper shut down, and I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, so I’ll make this quick. I investigated each and every person who worked for the newspaper, and the thirty-three of you are the only ones who came up clean. So, the question that I’m going to ask you all now is, did you play the lottery last week? I’m guessing you’re going to say no, or that you did but didn’t have much luck. Well, I actually beg to differ on that. All thirty-three of you played.”

A few surprised sounds come from the audience, but mostly everybody’s still sceptical. Video Jay pulls a small piece of paper from his pocket and holds it up to the camera.

“You see these numbers. Anybody recognise them?”

I let my eyes drift over the paper. It’s a lottery ticket, and the numbers selected are the exact numbers called in the previous video. The winning numbers! Gasps of disbelief fill the room. I stare at video Jay in awe, not understanding how this can be real. It’s not possible to predict the lottery. It just isn’t.

Almost every single person is confused. Video Jay’s smile reaches Cheshire cat territory as he goes and picks up the camera. He carries it over to his kitchen table, where there are dozens of envelopes spread out neatly across the surface, all containing addresses and stamps. Jay pans across the envelopes and continues talking from behind the camera.

“Anybody recognise these locations?” he asks.

One woman speaks up, rising from her seat. “That’s my address!”

“If you look real closely,” says video Jay, “you’ll see that each envelope is addressed to those of you in the audience. Inside each envelope is a check made out to the receiver. Last week’s lotto amounted to just over four million euros. Since you all played and won, each of you is now one hundred and twenty-five thousand euros richer. I hope this makes up for the stretch of bad luck you’ve all been having lately.” He puts the camera back down so that it’s on him again. “If you look to the bottom left-hand corner of this video, you’ll see that I filmed this yesterday, and I am now going to pay a visit to the post office. Tomorrow morning, check your post — you might just find a little surprise waiting for you.” He smiles into the camera, and then the video shuts off.

The audience bursts into animation, exclamations of disbelief filling the venue. By some strange feat, Jay has just won the lottery for all of them.

That’s some magic trick. Or was it a trick at all?

I want to ask him how he did it, but there’s no sign of him anywhere. Then, as if by magic, I sense somebody’s eyes on me. Turning around, I see Jay standing at the back of the venue. He smiles, gives me a nod to follow him, then turns and walks down the hall that leads outside, his back to me. I rise from my seat and hurry after him. Jay walks slowly to let me catch up, stepping out onto the cobbles of Temple Bar. The Saturday-night crowds are out in droves, filling the streets with their drunken shouts and excited laughter.

He turns to me, his eyes lit up with their trademark post–magic trick mischief. I beam up at him, shaking my head. He links his arm through mine.

“Good evening, Watson. Care to take a stroll?”

Silently, I nod, and we walk down the street until I stop and turn to face him again, placing my hands firmly against his chest. “Okay, I have to ask. Was that real? Did you really just magically win the lottery for all those people?”

He grins. “I’d like to hear your theory.”

“Hmm, I was thinking maybe you used the money from your settlement, but that was two million, not four.”

One eyebrow raised, he tells me, “I’m actually donating my settlement money to a charity for victims of domestic abuse.”

I gape at him. “You are?”

He swipes his thumb over my chin. “Yes. I’m certain some of your goodness must be rubbing off on me,” he murmurs, almost absently, as his eyes trace my features.

“Don’t give me that. You were always good. Too good. But please, tell me if what I saw on that video tonight was real.”

Jay looks at me for a long moment, eyes shining brown and green under the street lights. “Do you really want an answer?” he asks back. “Isn’t it more exciting not knowing, just letting the possibilities be endless? Like, maybe I’m a genius and figured out some mathematical formula of probabilities to predict the lottery. Maybe I bribed the ball guy to rig the system.” He pauses to laugh and pulls the same ticket he’d shown on the video out of his pocket. “Maybe I faked this ticket, and I’m just giving them my own money. Maybe I’m psychic. Maybe I had a real good time at the poker tables. The maybes could go on forever, Watson, but we both know that mystery is better than the truth. So why not live with the magic? Be a kid again and believe in the fantastical. Life is more fun with a little smoke and mirrors.”

He gives me a devilish wink.

I shake my head at him, unable to keep my smile from growing wide. I point a finger into his chest, beaming up at him. “You, Mr Fields, are insufferable.”

He laughs. “That’s a lie. You find me charming. I know when you’re lying, remember?”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate that?”

“You don’t have to,” his voice is full of affection. “I can tell when you hate it, too.”

Something pops into my head, and I wag my finger at him. “A-ha, but I lied to you once, and you never knew.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says indulgently. “And when was this?”

“The night I was attacked by the thug. It wasn’t random. Una was there.”

Slowly, his smile grows wider. “I knew you were lying then, too. Didn’t you notice my knuckles were f**ked up the next morning?”

“No, I didn’t. And what does that mean? You spent the night on the couch.”

“Not the whole night. I snuck out, found the f**k Una paid to threaten you, and made sure he wouldn’t be doing it again.”

I stare at him, awestruck. “How did you know?”

“I asked you a few innocent questions, watched your reactions, and figured the rest out for myself. It takes a lot of practice to be able to lie to me.” He pauses, voice going soft and ***y. “And I’m too obsessed with you not to know every single one of your tells.”

That answer both endlessly pleases and irritates the hell out of me at the same time.

“That’s…okay, that’s kind of cool.”

He chuckles tenderly as his arms go around my waist, pulling me flush against his body. I press my face into his shoulder, breathing him in. “And I love you,” I whisper.

He lifts my chin and takes my mouth in a slow, lingering kiss before coming up for air. “Yeah, ya do.”

Several people wolf whistle and shout encouragements at us as they pass by. He’s holding me so tight that I can feel his phone start to vibrate in his pocket, interrupting our little moment.

I giggle, breaking the kiss. “Is that a vibrating phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

He gives me a crooked smirk as he pulls out his phone to answer it. “A bit of both.”

He doesn’t let go of me through his conversation. I’m not sure who he’s talking to, but his end consists of a lot of yes and no answers, before ending with a, “Great, I guess I’ll be seeing you soon, then.”

I watch as he tucks the phone back in his pocket and pulls me closer, pressing his lips to my temples. “Who was that?” I ask.

His answering grin makes me shiver, in a good way. “That was my agent over in the States. You’re about to cough up on that agreement, darlin’.”

“Huh?”

“I just got booked for a string of shows. We’re going to Vegas, my dear.”

I stare at him, open-mouthed, remembering the time when he told me how he did one of his tricks, and in exchange I’d have to go to America with him the next time he had shows there. It seems I really am going to keep my promise to Dad and let Jay take me on an adventure.

I swallow hard, shivers breaking out all over my skin, and reply excitedly, “I guess we are. I can’t wait!”

Epilogue

Several months later. Las Vegas, Nevada.

I curse as I accidentally prick myself with the needle. The suit I’m designing for Jay to wear during his next performance is almost complete. Up until recently, I’ve only ever designed dresses, but since I’m now a permanent member of his style and wardrobe team, I’ve been inspired to create something truly original. Something that represents him completely.

If Mum is up there somewhere looking down on me, I think she’d be proud. I’ve taken...

Six of Hearts
Six of Hearts Page 44



“We’re not getting married by Elvis,” I state firmly.

He pauses and chuckles loudly, looking at me now. “Okay, it’s a deal. Sooo…how do you feel about ministers who wear deerstalkers?”

I point a finger into his chest, a laugh bursting forth. “We’re not getting married by Sherlock Holmes either, Jason. No way in hell.”

His smile deepens. “How about I go as Sherlock and you go as Watson?”

“You’re trying to annoy me on purpose now,” I scold but I can’t stop smiling. “Clothes are my business. I’m going to wear a beautiful dress to my wedding, Jay. There will be no compromises.”

“I suppose I can live with that,” he murmurs in my ear, his hand inching up under my skirt. “At least I can look forward to stripping it off you.”

When he buries his face in my chest, I forget all about wedding dresses, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Elvis, and randomly appearing diamond rings. I lose myself in this glorious man who’s turned my life into an adventure and shown me wonder in the miraculous.

With Jason Fields by my side, the world is a pretty magical place.

END.