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Chapter 13. Salt and Smoke.
Last Updated:
2025-09-07 18:46:32
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Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother Chapter 20. Shadows Don’t Lie.
Ariella’s POVI didn’t wait for dawn. There wasn’t time anymore.By 4:15 a.m., I was in the basement of the old boutique Layla used to manage, now converted into one of our fallback data points. The drive Damon tried to wipe wasn’t just corrupted; it had been mirrored, and the original metadata had slipped through before the encryption collapsed.I uploaded the file.There are frames inside a buried subfolder. Damon, not in Zurich, but Tangier. And beside him? The man from the coin drive. Tall. Gray eyes. Surgical coldness in his expression. They weren’t allies. They were partners.“Name,” I said aloud.The facial match engine ran slowly, then displayed a result: Nathaniel M. Roe, former paramilitary contractor turned asset broker. Sanctioned. Blacklisted. Alive, apparently.My stomach clenched. Roe wasn’t a shadow. He was a ghost. The kind the government didn’t claim, and no one crossed. Why Damon?I called Marcus.He answered without a greeting. “I’m listening.”“Roe. Tangier. Four
Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother Chapter 18: The Stranger in the Safehouse.
Ariella’s POVI noticed it immediately: papers misaligned by millimeters, a scent that didn’t belong, and the surveillance app freezing for exactly seven minutes at 2:03 p.m.The drawer I always locked was now flush, not recessed. My chair faced a sharper angle toward the window. The air held a note of unfamiliar cologne, sharp, industrial, and not Marcus’s, not Damon’s. Someone had been here.I checked the internal logs. Loop confirmed. Seven minutes of overwritten data. Not an accidental glitch. Someone had slipped past me while I was out picking up secure mail.Not Marcus. Not Elsa.Someone new.I locked the penthouse down. Windows sealed. Devices silenced. Burner powered. My hands moved faster than my thoughts. Panic lingered at the edge, but I filed it away. Fear was inefficient.I swept the room manually, one grid at a time.It was beneath the coffee table. Taped with transparent fiber and matte edges.A coin drive. Silver, cold, unmarked.I slid it into my air-gapped laptop.On
Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother Chapter 17: Throne of Echoes
Damon’s POVThe elevator hummed, softly predictable. Unlike everything else.Floor seventy-two climbed fast. In my hand, a file folder not meant to exist. Paper. Untraceable, except to ghosts who knew where to dig.Ariella had gone silent. That was louder than anything she could say.Marcus was compromised. Elsa unpredictable. And Freya, my handpicked girl, was showing friction. Not loyalty. Not yet.The doors opened to my private lobby. My office. My territory. Except now it felt brittle.I moved straight to the inner room. No assistants. No delays. Just control, or the illusion of it.I sat behind the desk and inserted the flash drive I’d recovered. Elsa’s signature on it. She’d touched it. Either she wanted me to see it, or assumed I wouldn’t.Ariella had been here. I could smell the defiance she left behind like perfume. And the documents? Proof of old crimes. Transfers I never authorized, signatures that weren’t mine. A chessboard laid bare.She was cornering me, not with guns, b
Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother Chapter 16: Ashes in the Archive
Ariella’s POVI didn’t sleep. Not even an hour. My night was raw, fractured by jagged thoughts. All I could see was the fire I’d sparked underneath Damon’s empire, burning bright behind my eyes.By 5:00 a.m. I dressed in a black turtleneck, flat shoes, and gloves—shadows for armor, not fashion. I ghosted through the penthouse, each step silent, deliberate. At the burner, the message glowed with unease:“Thorne House Archive. East Wing. 9:30 a.m. He’s clearing records. You need to get in first.” I read the lines many times, stared at the words until they branded themselves into my mind.I’d planned to wait. Collect, analyze, strike later.But this? This was an opportunity clawing at my window.I replied with one word.“Going.”At 8:45 a.m., I nestled my car under a sycamore two blocks from the Thorne estate. The East Wing, absent on blueprints, still lived sharp in my memory: once a forgotten storehouse, now a vault swaddled in pretense. The world saw an art gallery, all cool marble an
Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother .Chapter 15: Inheriting His Own Fire.
Damon’s POVMarcus waited outside my office, jaw locked, phone clutched tight. I didn’t need to ask what was wrong. His face told me everything.“Elsa’s off the grid,” he said.“For how long?”“Seven hours. No ping, no voice. She’s not dead. Just be careful.”She was always too careful.“And Ariella?” I asked.“She hasn’t moved from the penthouse. But there’s something else.” Marcus pulled out a tablet. “Look at this.”He hit play. Surveillance feed. Ariella, balcony, mid-call. Muffled audio. One phrase cut through the wind: “If Damon makes that move, I’ll cut deeper.”I leaned back. “So she’s escalating.”“She knows about the second jet,” he said.I looked away. That jet wasn’t for Ariella. It was my reset button. One Ariella was never meant to discover.“Pull the second team from Geneva. I want that penthouse watched from across the street. No drones. No shadows.”“Yes, sir.”I turned back to my screen. Ariella had built her war room with patience. But she underestimated how deep I’
Between Her Shithead And The Wrong Brother Chapter 14. Collateral Hearts.
Ariella's The digital map glowed dimly across the wall, pins and strings connecting names, deeds, and betrayals. At its center was Damon’s face. The list of bank accounts had just been updated, with new movements and encrypted transfers into a trust registered under a shell company in Dubai, a signal. Damon was preparing an escape route.I tapped the burner. “Marcus, he’s moving the money again.”“Affirmative. And Ariella... he’s in Dubai next week. Quiet trip. No board notice. No press.”I closed the ledger. “Then we get ahead of it.”“Should I arrange tail surveillance?”“No. I’ll handle it personally.”Marcus hesitated. “Ariella, you’re getting too close.”“I want him to know it’s me.”Before the call ended, I loaded the decoy file. Not the real documents, not yet. This one would trace back to a familiar shell firm: Camdis Ventures, the business Damon buried six years ago after a failed bribery scandal. I sent the file anonymously to two members of the corporate board.By 10 a.m.,
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