Share

At the Table

Author: Ms. Chiamaka
last update Last Updated: 2025-09-23 22:57:57

Savannah

The night after Gloria’s arrest, I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face again, the calm, almost smug look she wore as the cops dragged her out of the café. It wasn’t the face of a woman who thought she had lost. It was the face of someone who was already planning something after the arrest. And I could tell that revolved around me.

And she wouldn’t even be wrong to come after me. I had set her up and made her take the fall. It was better them than me. But if Gloria managed to slip free, which I had no doubt she would eventually, she’d come at me with everything she had.

That left me with one clear thought: if I wanted out of this, really wanted to get out, I couldn’t keep reacting to their plays. I had to make one of my own. And that gave me an idea.

By dawn, the plan started taking shape. Gloria had told me about The Others, the shadowy council that kept the balance of the city’s underworld drug business. She had told me about how Tyrant and
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   Phase Three

    JulianEvan’s gaze lifted to me. “Phase two?”I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t want him to react out of fear. Fear was dangerous. “We destabilize the control points further,” I said finally. “We redirect enough capital, create enough friction, that the predator network begins to devour itself.”He blinked slowly, the comprehension dawning. “So… we let them turn on each other.”“Yes.” And it was beautiful in a cold, detached way. Watching a system unravel from within, each piece snapping into the intended chaos, each predator forced to question the others. Efficiency became doubt. Greed became miscalculation and by the time the first shockwaves hit the surface, those at the top would already be scrambling, trying to salvage their control. And the more they scrambled, the easier it became to predict their next moves.I stood up then, walked to the balcony, and looked down again at the web of lights. Clint. Savannah. Melordy. I could feel the pulse of the city’s life intertwining wit

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   Phase Two

    Julian“We do,” I replied.“I’ve noticed disruptions.”“I’m sure you have.” I said. There was a pause on his end. Not surprise, just calculation. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that.”“No,” I said, truthfully. “But I know why you’re worried.”There was another pause. Longer this time. “Careful.” He said.“I am,” I said. “That’s the problem.”His exhale was controlled. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”“You taught me how,” I replied, and ended the call.Evan stared at me afterward, eyes wide open in shock. “You just…”“I know,” I said. “He’ll move now.”And he did.Within hours, emergency liquidity began appearing from entities we hadn’t mapped yet. New capital injections. Temporary stabilizers. It was impressive, but also revealing. Each move showed us another layer, another name, another corridor we hadn’t seen before.The handler adjusted the strategy without being asked. Entire channels went dark. By the tenth day, the offshore groups began feeding on each other.It

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   Quiet Hands

    JulianI learned early that real wars never announce themselves. Throughout the course of history, this has always been the case. They didn’t begin with shouting or slammed doors or dramatic ultimatums. They began quietly, sometimes in spreadsheets that stopped balancing, in calls that went unanswered, and in meetings where people smiled too much and said too little. At least, that was how this war started. My father had always preferred that kind of war. He said it was quiet, clean, and deniable.It was the last part that bothered me most because it meant that no matter who or how many casualties there were, it simply wouldn’t matter.Undoing him required the same discipline. I knew that now. And so that morning, Evan sat across from me at the dining table, his laptop open but untouched as his eyes were fixed somewhere past the screen. The apartment was too still. That kind of stillness only happened when something was already moving underneath it.“We can’t move money directly,” he

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   No Clean Way Out

    ClintI had learned the hard way over the years, that the most dangerous moments were never loud. They didn’t come with sirens or raised voices or a gun pressed to your head. They came quietly, slipping into the space between our decisions, thoughts and emotions, settling in your chest like a weight you couldn’t shrug off. That was where I was now. I was past the panic and the fear, standing in the calm that came right before everything broke.The safehouse I’d stayed in for the pasy couple of days sat just off a dead service road, the kind built decades ago and forgotten once traffic found faster routes. It had concrete walls, one narrow window, a door that stuck unless you lifted it just right, but fortified enough to block anyone or anything from entering. I’d chosen it because in a way it looked abandoned. Places like this didn’t show up on surveillance sweeps. They didn’t register as important and were most often overlooked. But it didn’t matter to me. To me it was the perfect hi

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   Lines Drawn

    JulianBy the time Evan and I finished outlining the plan, the sun had already dipped low enough to cast a gold hue on the office windows. The light made everything look calmer than it felt. That contrast had become familiar; quiet rooms, steady voices, and sharp decisions.We had reached the same conclusion separately and then confirmed it together without saying much at all. If we touched the money directly, it would explode. Not immediately, not loudly, but it would leak in ways we couldn’t control. The kind of leak that led enemies straight back to your front door with smiles and documents and carefully prepared accusations.Our father had built his empire on plausible distance. We would have to dismantle it the same way. Evan leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face like he was trying to wipe the years off it. He looked older lately. Not from stress alone, but from awareness. Knowing something is wrong is one thing. Knowing you helped maintain it is another.“So,” he said quiet

  • Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife   The Endgame

    MelordyI learned a long time ago that silence often said more than noise ever could. That was why even as the city was quiet that morning, to me, it wasn’t peaceful. It carried the kind of stillness that came right before something broke. I felt it in the back of my neck as I stood by the window of my apartment, watching the traffic below move in orderly lines, pretending the world still made sense.Clint was preparing something drastic. I knew it the same way I knew when a deal was about to collapse or when a lie was about to surface, by instinct sharpened through years of watching men unravel when their backs were finally against the wall.He had gone quiet. That was never Clint’s style. For days now, the reports had been thin. There were no sloppy moves, no desperate mistakes or frantic calls except the one he shouldn’t have made, the one to the mercenary. That single thread told me everything. Men didn’t reach out to people like that unless they had decided they were done playing

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status