All Chapters of A Billion Desires 1: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

"Ezra Kane, may we enter? I am here to play poker and not witness you crash and burn with my boyfriend's sister." River and I have resumed walking hand in hand and I look around behind me for Sierra to take the other.She circles around Ezra Kane and interlaces her fingers with mine as we move upstairs.Oh, come on," Ezra Kane shouts after us. "Why is he getting both?" He's still muttering as he starts up the steps behind us. "Twins are in. I might not even care about a guy and a girl if they were like these two.""We can hear you, you know," I serve up with a straight face."I hope you can," he laughs, and makes me feel better. I much prefer his joking about lusting after my boyfriend to him shunning us, judging us, or being totally bizarre.We remove our coats inside and notice the other guys sitting around Ezra Kane's dinner table."Hey guys. This is Sierra, River's sister," I say.There is a rotation of names and pleasure to meet yous before Ezra Kane gets a word in edgewise as he

Sierra helps me as she comes into the office with Mr. Jenkins' keys and a tag with services we requested. She places them in my hand and raises an eyebrow."What are you thinking?"She stands with one hip cocked like she's ready to go to war."I'm thinking some seriously shady shit is going on.""Same. Did you talk to Julian yet?"You're assuming correctly. I'd just gotten a call from him. He told us to keep this under wraps for now.""You don't think." she starts, but I cut her off in an angry tone."Sierra, don't even say it. I don't know if being with Julian is what got us into this or if only because of him are we possibly going to make it through it, but either way, he's not the one who is doing the crap that's going down. I know him."I'd like to believe you, but the timing is kind of suspicious and confessing with you would be a very good way for him to ingratiate himself. I won't press him. Sierra's always taken care of me — overprotected me — but this goes too far."Sierra,

I give the main section of the office a hasty search and turn up nothing. Fortunately, the space is compact and familiar, and I'm capable of making it to the bathroom before I attempt the breakroom. The smoke is thicker the closer I am to the shop and with the office cleared, I make a step in the direction of the door. Why the hell is it locked?The knob is smoldering but my gloves provide enough time for me to twist the dial to the open position and rip it open. There's no room for me to stand aside so when the wave of smoke and heat come rushing toward me, I drop to the ground, but get choked up nonetheless.I yell for River, but it's a croak. I try again with no luck.The heat. Oh God, it's unbearable and I have on full fire gear. It will be a miracle if whoever is in here hasn't…no.I force myself and crawl on my hands and knees, trying to bump into whoever's in here as I yell out desperately for them. I have to get the mask on them as soon as possible if they are to have any cha

"UHMM," the voice mutters on the phone. "Greedy fucking assholes. All of them. I'll need a bit more time or proof before involving the Governor, but maybe his daughter will give us some lead.""Thank you, Lieutenant." My throat hurts still, but there's sufficient adrenaline flowing in my body to override the pain.Having ended the call, I ring the nurse's bell."I'm out of this room in five minutes. Get my papers ready to exit."I have a personal appointment I must attend to while the police take Camille into custody."Sir, I can't—""You can. Either turn them over to me or mail them to me, I don't care which."As I look back, River is frantically writing on the whiteboard. He sustained further injury to his throat since he was out in the smoke for a longer time.Where are you going?"I need to go speak with Governor Richard Stratton. I'll be damned if I let him get away with allowing Camille to take the entire blame for this fiasco.I will come with you."."River, I need you to stay

We make our way into my parent's compound and before long we hear my father's shout."I never told you to kill him for goodness' sake!""What? You thought burning down his shop was enough compensation for ruining our lives?"Camille shouts back.Governor Richard Stratton and I pause on the steps and flash a look of surprise at each other. It certainly doesn't sound like Camille is being held against her will...nor does it sound like my father is in charge of this interaction.I take out my phone from my pocket, turn it back to video, showing briefly both Governor Richard Stratton and myself in the camera so both of us are accounted for before we move a few steps up so we can better hear as the argument continues."Camille, I only wished to ruin Julian. To make him understand, if he wasn't worth a dime, that mechanic would never mess with him and Julian would realize his error and slink back to the life I had arranged for him, finally able to put behind him his strange existence.""Yea