Page 157 of Roulette Rodeo
Never let them see you as prey, even when you're cornered.
And the third?
Sometimes the best weapon is patience, letting them think you're helpless while you're actually learning their every tell.
Thunder booms again, rattling the windows, but I don't flinch.
I just turn the page and keep reading, a small smile on my lips.
One thing no one really knows about her is her intrigue when it comes to problem solving. She observes to see what the problem is, and that’s when her curiosity piques, desperateto learn the depths of the rooted cause of the hidden chaos everyone’s too much of a coward to see.
He'll learn eventually that I'm not a pawn to be moved or a prize to be won.
I'm not Sophia who enjoyed being a marionette that was pulled in every direction that she thought would benefit her mirage in this game of life. I'm not those three omegas who need someone else to save them from a storm.
I will not be used as a weapon against the men who are becoming what I dare admit is feeling a lot like home.
I secretly vow it…
GHOSTS IN THE RAIN
~RAFE~
The Range Rover's tires spin uselessly in the mud, high-performance engineering defeated by something as simple as rain-saturated earth. I slam my hand against the steering wheel, the horn blaring into the storm like a futile protest against nature itself.
"Fuck."
The word echoes in the leather interior, swallowed by the sound of rain hammering against the windshield.
I've made it exactly three miles from the compound before having to admit defeat. The road ahead is flooded, water rushing across in a torrent that would sweep even this heavy vehicle off into the ditch.
I reverse carefully, the backup camera showing nothing but brown water and debris. There's only one option now, and the thought of it makes my chest tight with something that might be panic or might be grief or might be both twisted together into something I don't have a name for.
The truck.
It sits in the garage like a monument to everything I've tried to forget. A 2018 Ford F-350, black with chrome details I'd been so proud of when I bought it. Four-wheel drive, lifted slightly,the kind of truck that says you have money but you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. The kind of truck that can handle flooded roads and mud and whatever else this storm wants to throw at it.
The kind of truck I haven't touched in two plus years.
I pull back into the garage, the Range Rover's headlights illuminating the truck's shape under its dust cover. My hands shake slightly as I turn off the engine, and I sit there for a moment, gathering courage I shouldn't need just to switch vehicles.
It's just a truck.
Metal and glass and engineering.
It doesn't hold memories…I do.
But when I pull off the cover, the familiar shape its all my nerves.
Nothing even happened in this truck with Sophia. That's the ridiculous part.
No passionate kisses in the cab, no intimate moments in the bed, no laughter or tears or anything that should make this vehicle a shrine to grief. Just occasional goodbye kisses that felt forced, perfunctory pecks that we both seemed relieved to have over with.
Kisses that tasted like obligation rather than desire.
I stopped using it because it was what I drove the day I found out she was dead.
The memory crashes over me as I open the driver's door. The phone call from the hospital. The numb drive through Chicago traffic. The sterile smell of the emergency room. The doctor's professionally sympathetic face as he explained that they'd done everything they could, but the overdose had been too severe, her system too overwhelmed.
