Jeff finally stopped shuffling. He fanned the cards—a perfect spread of kings and sevens, all dead hands—and then scooped them into a single pile. “Pretty thing, ain’t she? Bit of a screamer, though. Not the fun kind. The legal kind.”
He tilted his head, and a grin cracked his face like dry earth. “You here to threaten me, or to ask me how I train ‘em for that round?” Pale Carnations -Ch. 4 Update 4- -Mutt Jeff- ...
He laughed—a wet, phlegmy sound—and leaned back. The chair groaned under his weight. “Fourth round ain’t about pain, pup. It’s about want . You strip a girl down to her last nerve, and then you offer her a glass of water. That’s the game. The audience doesn’t pay to see her cry. They pay to see her choose to crawl.” Jeff finally stopped shuffling
He held out the deck of cards to me. “Pick one.” Bit of a screamer, though
“Club wants a lot of things.” Jeff stood, slow, his joints popping like distant gunfire. He loomed, not tall, but wide—a bulldog in a stained vest. “But you tell them this: Mutt Jeff delivers what he’s paid for. And what he ain’t paid for stays in the back room. Under the floorboards.”