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

Deuces Wild: The Billionaire's Dangerous Obsession의 모든 챕터: 챕터 101 - 챕터 106

Empty

Eighteen Hours Earlier

Executive Decision

Return Trip

Clancy

Cheekie