All Chapters of The Billionaire's Showgirl: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Returning to Euphoria after saying yes to Luca felt like walking into an old dream with a knife hidden under the pillow.The marquee was dark when we arrived.That should have helped.Euphoria had always been easier to love at night when the lights were blazing, when gold letters glowed against the Vegas sky, when music spilled from the lobby and women in feathers became impossible creatures under the stage lights. In daylight, with the front doors locked and security positioned along the curb, the theater looked more honest.Beautiful, yes.But tired at the edges.Scarred in places the public never noticed.I stood on the sidewalk for one breath too long.Luca noticed.Of course he noticed.“You do not have to do this,” he said.I looked at the doors.The last time I had been here, smoke had turned every hallway into a throat closing around me. I remembered the heat, the screaming alarms, the awful

I realized my mother had been part of the story before I was even born.Not adjacent to it.Not accidentally brushing against it the way ordinary people sometimes brushed against powerful men in cities built around money and neon.Inside it.Her name sat on Beth’s laptop in a grainy scan from Don D’Caputo’s old venue, clean and undeniable beneath the heading for private events support and backstage accounts. Helena “Lena” Vale. My mother’s name, tucked into Don’s world as if it had always belonged there and I had simply been the last person allowed to know.The penthouse felt too bright around me.Morning had fully broken beyond the windows, spilling gold over Luca’s dining table, the half-empty coffee cups, Beth’s color-coded notes, Jake’s wrinkled vendor lists, and Brian’s neat arrangement of devices that made my life look like an investigation board. The ring on my finger caught the light with every small movement of my hand.Engaged.Watched.Targeted.And now, apparently, inherit

I stood in a wedding dress I never chose, holding a threat about a mother I thought I understood.The bridal suite mirror was enormous.Cruel, really.It reflected every inch of the dress: the high lace collar, the long sleeves, the narrow waist, the pearl buttons marching down my spine like little sealed mouths. It made me look elegant. Expensive. Untouchable.It made me look like someone else.Beth stood behind me with the note in one hand and murder in her eyes.“Take it off,” she said.I looked down at the ivory paper again even though I already knew what it said.Your mother wore white the day she betrayed Don.The words did not feel like the other threats.The flowers had been ugly. The anonymous messages had been frightening. The stolen proposal photo had been violating.This was intimate.This reached back past Luca, past Euphoria, past every choice I had made as an adult, and pre

The person watching me was still inside the building.That was the first thing I understood when Luca turned the phone toward Brian and the photograph filled the screen.Not across the street.Not hiding behind tinted glass in a car.Not somewhere far away with access to an old feed.Inside.The locked salon.The dress I had chosen still brushed against my legs, soft ivory layers shifting every time I breathed. A minute ago, I had felt like a bride for the first time. Not a symbol. Not bait. Not a woman dressed by someone else’s cruelty.A bride.Then the photo arrived.Much better.Two words beneath my stolen image, as if whoever watched me had opinions. As if my fear, my choice, my body in lace and silk were still theirs to appraise.Beth saw the message over my shoulder and went white.“Oh my God.”Luca’s hand closed around the phone so tightly I thought the glass might crack.

My mother may have known Don D’Caputo was going to die.That was the thought I could not escape as we left the bridal salon.Not the hidden camera. Not the watcher who had slipped through a service corridor. Not even the fact that someone had seen me in the dress I had chosen and sent the image to Luca like a taunt.My mother’s handwriting followed me.If Don dies, Kade wins.It did not say if Don disappears. It did not say if Don loses power or if Don is exposed or if Don makes a mistake. It said dies, as if death had been one of the possible outcomes she had already considered.Or feared.Or tried to stop.Brian sealed the laptop in a hard evidence case before we left Vesper & Veil. The dress I had chosen went into another garment bag handled by a security guard who looked very aware that Luca would ruin his bloodline if anything happened to it. Celeste Varrin stood by the front desk with her hands clasped too tightly, apologizing again and again until Beth finally told her apologie