Page 76 of Roulette Rodeo
Maybe all of it.
Or none of it.
Maybe just for this pure, heartfelt moment, where she gets to be young, free, and silly in a way she probably hasn't been since childhood.
I reach up, pushing wet strands of hair from her face. She's so beautiful it physically hurts to look at her. Not perfect beauty—her makeup is gone, her hair is a mess, she's covered in mud—but real beauty.
The kind that comes from someone who's survived hell and still knows how to laugh.
"We should go in," I say, but make no move to get up.
"Probably," she agrees, also not moving.
We stay there, her weight comfortable on my chest, rain still falling but gentler now.
Duke comes over to investigate, licking both our faces, making her giggle again.
This is what we could have.
This is what life with Red could be—unexpected, messy, full of laughter and spontaneous rain dances. So different from the controlled perfection Sophia had tried to maintain, the rigid standards she'd held herself to until the pressure cracked her apart.
If Rafe could see this...
If he could see her like this, muddy and laughing and so vibrantly alive...
Would Rafe change his mind?
WATCHING FROM TOWERS
~RAFE~
"Fuck!"
The curse echoes through my office as another trade slips through my fingers, the numbers on my screen flashing red like arterial blood.
Three million. Gone. Just like that.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, taking a slow, measured breath that does nothing to calm the rage building in my chest. This is the fourth loss today, each one perfectly timed to maximize damage, each one bearing the same signature pattern of manipulation.
My eyes drift to the leaderboard on my second monitor, and there it is, mocking me from the top position:LucaTheKing.
The pretentious bastard couldn't even pick a subtle username.
No, he had to announce himself like the peacocking piece of shit he's always been.
"Cheating bastard," I mutter, though we both know he's not technically cheating.
Luca's always operated in the grey spaces between legal and illegal, legitimate and criminal. Market manipulation isn'tcheating if you're smart enough to make it look like natural fluctuation. And Luca, for all his faults, has always been smart.
Too smart to let me forget that he's out there, watching, waiting for his moment to strike.
The trading screen blinks at me, waiting for my next move, but I know better than to chase losses when I'm emotional. That's how fortunes evaporate, how empires crumble—one desperate trade at a time, trying to recover what's already gone.
I push back from my desk, the leather chair worth more than most people's cars, creaking slightly. If I keep this streak going, I'll lose more than money. I'll lose the discipline that's kept Lucky Ace Enterprises profitable through recession, pandemic, and the occasional FBI investigation.
The whisky decanter on my sidebar catches the afternoon light, amber liquid promising the kind of burn that might wash away the taste of defeat. Or at least dull it enough to think clearly.
I pour generously—three fingers becomes four, because why the fuck not—and move to the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the eastern wall of my office.
