All Chapters of Deuces Wild: The Billionaire's Dangerous Obsession: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

122 Chapters

Empty

POV: BRIGAILShe reached for him before she opened her eyes.Empty.She sat up. The room held the particular stillness of a place that had recently had a person in it and didn't anymore.Under the bedside lamp were two playing cards. The Ace of Spades on top of the King of Hearts. Under the cards, a folded sheet of white paper.Brigail,Don't be mad. I'm leaving for Macau today. Another jet will be waiting for you and Jerry at Louis Armstrong. It will take you back to Vegas.Hold the fort while I'm gone. I won't be long.You were right. Something was wrong. Something I need to fix.But I will fix it. And when I get back, we'll take that trip. No guards, I swear. Just you and me.How's Uganda sound? (You smiled, didn't you?)I love you.EliShe didn't smile.POV: ELI"You have to tell her," Pam said."I can't. Not until I know exactly what happened."Pam sat across from him in the private jet with her elbow on the armrest and the particular expression she wore when she was choosing her

Eighteen Hours Earlier

POV: BRIGAILIt started like any ordinary day.She was on the floor of her old bedroom wrestling with the pull-tab of her suitcase when Pam appeared in the doorway."Let me help.""I can do it."Pam tried anyway. Brigail turned and glared. Pam sat on the edge of the bed and studied the floral quilt instead."For the record," Pam said, "I tried to stop him."Brigail said nothing."It's okay to cry.""I'm not mad," Brigail said, still working at the zipper. "I'm disappointed." She sat back on her heels. "He keeps saying we're a team. Then something goes wrong and I'm the last to know. He casts me aside like I can't handle it.""You're his asset, Brigail.""That's just it, Pam. I don't need a hero. My dad tried to be a hero. Look where that got him." She pressed her wrist to her eye. Just once, quickly. "Every time Eli races off to fix something for me I get this knot in my stomach. What if that was the last time I'd see him?"Pam was quiet for a moment. Then she sat down on the floor be

Executive Decision

POV: BRIGAILPam arrived in a firefighter's uniform with four people behind her and a clean-up kit that suggested this was not the first time she had dealt with something like this.She gave Brigail a once-over. "You okay?"Brigail nodded."Good." Pam turned and began issuing instructions.Jake and Pam worked quietly, efficiently, without discussion. The crew moved through the dressing room with latex gloves and industrial solvents. Rodney admitted he'd started the fire in the women's bathroom by tampering with a hand dryer circuit. Controlled. Just enough to trigger evacuation."The weapon's not here," Jake told Pam after a sweep."Then we have no choice." Pam looked at Brigail. Not at Jake. At Brigail.Brigail understood what she was being asked.She thought about Longshadow's family, if he had one. She thought about her father. She thought about the justice she had spent years imagining for him, and how different it looked in practice from how it looked in her head.She looked at J

Return Trip

POV: ELIThey never left the plane.Eli gave the order before the wheels stopped rolling. The pilots had the good sense not to argue. They requested an immediate refuel and Eli got back on the phone."Someone is trying to frame Jerry," Pam said. Her voice was clipped and methodical, which meant she was frightened and refusing to show it. "When it didn't work they went after Brigail. Anonymous tip. Burnham's running the arrest personally. Jimmy's working his contact in the Department. The DA's pushing for a speedy trial.""She will not drag Jerry into this," Eli said. "She's stubborn enough to take the fall for him on her own."Silence."I know," Pam said."Did you call the Mayor?""Cataliades came in shortly after we arrived. But Burnham put out a press release before anyone could contain it. Morning news already has the story. With the press involved, the Mayor could only buy us time by delaying the arraignment. It was the best we were going to get."Russell. This was Russell's archi

Clancy

POV: ELI"I smell a rat," Eli said.Roman was already thinking it. He started dialing before Eli finished the sentence.Jimmy picked up on the second ring. "Already on it." His voice was tight. "The real Clancy Burgess died two years ago in Iraq. Someone scrubbed the record of his death and built a clean identity over the top. I only caught it when I ran facial recognition through my contact in Quantico." A pause. "There's more. He had an account in Philadelphia. Two million euros, deposited two days ago through a chain of shadow accounts bouncing from Switzerland to the Middle East. The principal account traces back to Monaco." Another pause, shorter. "Deposit was made by one C. Warlow."Roman went still across from Eli.Caroline Warlow.Michael's mother. Eli had put her son in a cell so she had arranged for Brigail to go into one.Eli looked at Roman for a long moment. Roman held the look without flinching, which took some discipline because they both knew that Roman had hired Clanc

Cheekie

POV: BRIGAILShe remembered the exact moment.Jerry running across the Fortenberry's backyard, his blonde hair plastered to his forehead. Maxine Fortenberry in her Sunday dress yelling at him for the mud on her freshly waxed floor. Henry chasing after Jerry with a white face, begging his mother to stop.The smell of hickory pork on the grill. The sting of grease on her arm when she flipped the meat.Dad ain't comin' home, Sook.The tong falling on her foot. Running. Jerry calling after her. The porch of the farmhouse, her grandmother's face, and knowing before anyone confirmed it that it was true.She remembered all of it as she stared at the man in front of her.It wasn't him. She kept telling herself that. They had buried her father. She had stood at the graveside in the Louisiana heat and watched them lower the box into the ground. She had placed her hand on her grandmother's arm and felt the old woman shaking.Then the man opened his mouth."Cheekie."Her lungs stopped working.Th

Russell's Blood

POV: ELISixteen hours earlier. Still in the air."When Russell's only son died after the first assassination attempt, he became obsessed with producing another heir," Felipe said. "He started keeping mistresses. He was terrified his name would die with him.""He never had another child," Roman said from the aisle."Correct." Felipe pressed his lips together. "You remember the second attempt on his life? The long-range shooter after the Mosley fight at Staples? His publicist put out a statement that the injuries were minor. They weren't. The bullet took out a kidney. He survived but it cost him. He became sterile."No one laughed."After his third wife left, he asked me to check on Adele. She had never left New Orleans. He had kept eyes on her the entire time, even from Las Vegas." Felipe paused. "When I found Corbett I saw it immediately. Adele's hair and lips. Russell's eyes and nose. I said nothing. I wanted to keep them safe." He looked at Eli. "The first time I went to the farmho

The Floor

POV: BRIGAILLevel 3 heat.They never made it to the bed.One moment he was pulling the wig off her hair and the next she had her back against the carpet and his hands were everywhere and she had stopped caring about anything except the fact that he was here and solid and real and she could feel his heart going as fast as hers.She kept closing her eyes and he kept asking her to open them and she understood why even if she couldn't quite manage it. She was afraid that if she looked too long she would realize she had invented him."Look at me," he said, and his voice was raw in a way she had never heard from him. "I want you to see who's here with you."She opened her eyes."There's no one else," she said. "Only you."That was what undid him. She could feel it the moment the words left her mouth. The control he had been holding onto went, and he stopped being careful, and she didn't want careful anyway.She bit down on the back of her hand to keep quiet and he pulled it away with a sou

Operation Raven, Updated

POV: ELIThey sat on the sofa for half an hour and she laid out the plan.He listened without interrupting, which cost him. When she finished he leaned back against the headrest and looked at the ceiling and let out a long breath."That is the most insane plan I have ever heard," he said.She started to deflate.He lifted her chin with one finger and kissed her. Soft. No agenda. Just a clear and simple point of contact."It's insane," he said against her mouth. "But it might work."She bit back a smile. He pulled away before she could let it out."We're not celebrating yet." He kept his voice level. "The operative word is might. Russell has your father and your brother as leverage. This only works if your bluff holds. Russell is a kingmaker. He is very, very good at finding the obscure." He held her gaze. "When I tell you to go, you go. You don't wait for me. You don't look back. Do you understand?"She nodded."Say it.""I understand.""And when I tell you to run?"She threw her arms

The Hallway

POV: BRIGAILGrowing up with Adele Havens had taught Brigail two things: how to make biscuits from scratch, and how to move through a house without making a sound.This was not a three-room farmhouse. This was one of the largest hotels in Las Vegas, with a hundred cameras and twice as many staff who reported to a man who had been patient for thirty years and was not about to stop now.She kept the dark wig on. Eyes down. She knew every camera angle on this floor from three weeks of surveillance work with Jimmy. She moved through the casino floor the way water moves around stone, finding the gaps, never forcing anything.She was ten feet from the high-stakes corridor when the hand closed around her wrist.Cold. Dry. Unhurried.She didn't look up immediately. She already knew."Evenin', Brigail," Barry said beside her, pressing the elevator call button with his free hand like they had planned to meet here all along.The corridor was empty except for the single guard posted at the lift.

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