Page 23 of Roulette Rodeo (Jackknife Ridge Ranch #1)

"Promise me, Rowenna. Don't be as weak and pitiful as Mommy, okay? Always fight for what you want. No matter what. Don't let the cruel world force you to lose your spark. Can you do that for Mommy?"

"Yes!" I vow with all the fierce certainty of childhood. "I'll be the strongest omega ever! Stronger than you, stronger than anyone! I'll fight the whole world if I have to!"

"That's my girl," she whispers, and I can feel her tears dropping onto my hair. "My brave, beautiful girl."

The field begins to fade at the edges, the ranch becoming transparent like morning mist. I clutch at her dress, trying to hold on, but I can feel myself getting heavier, older, pulled back to a body that hurts and a world that's cruel.

"Mommy, don't go!"

"I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart. I'm always with you. In every cherry blossom, in every sunset, in every moment you choose to fight instead of surrender."

"But I'm scared," I admit, and I'm not sure if it's eight-year-old me or twenty-four-year-old me saying it.

"Being scared is okay," she says, her voice fading like an echo. "Being scared and fighting anyway—that's what makes you brave."

The dream dissolves completely, and I'm pulled back to consciousness like being dragged from warm water into cold air.

My eyes open slowly, weighted with exhaustion and maybe drugs, definitely drugs from the way my thoughts move like syrup. The world swims into focus in pieces—white ceiling, soft lighting, the quiet beep of medical equipment.

I'm in a bed. A real bed with actual sheets that smell like lavender laundry detergent instead of industrial bleach. The room is clean, medical but somehow homey, with actual windows showing trees and sky instead of neon and concrete.

My body feels like it's been taken apart and put back together by someone who lost the instruction manual.

Everything aches, but it's distant, muffled by whatever pharmaceutical cocktail is dripping through the IV in my arm.

There's a nightstand beside the bed, and on it, a water bottle with condensation still beading on its surface. Fresh. Recent. Someone was just here.

A sticky note is attached to the bottle, close enough that I can reach it without setting off whatever monitoring equipment I'm hooked to. My fingers are clumsy, uncoordinated, but I manage to grab both bottle and note.

The water is cold, blessedly cold, and I realize how parched I am only when the first sip hits my throat.

I drink carefully, aware that too much too fast after whatever happened?—

What did happen?

The memories are fragmented. The performance. The VIP section. Shiloh in his cowboy hat looking at me like I was salvation and damnation combined. The hundred million dollars that couldn't be real except it was. Marnay's office. The vial of?—

Fuck. He drugged me.

The water bottle nearly slips from my fingers as the reality crashes over me.

That bastard had drugged me, had tried to—what? Kill me? Make sure the Lucky Ace pack's investment went bad?

My hands shake as I look at the sticky note, needing something to focus on besides the knowledge that I'd almost died. Again. That Vegas had tried one more time to chew me up and spit me out.

The handwriting is careful, precise, nothing like the usual doctor's scrawl or the harsh block letters of guards and enforcers.

"Rest. You're safe now."

Safe.

When was the last time I'd been safe? Really safe, not just temporarily out of immediate danger?

The handwriting is beautiful, controlled but with little flourishes that speak of someone who learned penmanship when it mattered.

Shiloh, probably. It has to be him.

The sticky note connection alone—our weird little thread from a storage closet to here, wherever here is.

I let myself sink back into the pillows, my body already demanding sleep despite having just woken.

But for once, the exhaustion doesn't feel like defeat. It feels like healing.

Safe.

The word echoes in my mind as my eyes drift closed again.

Safe from Marnay.

Safe from the Crimson Roulette.

Safe from contracts and performances and men who saw me as meat with a price tag.

Maybe not safe from the Lucky Ace pack—jury's still out on whether I've traded one cage for another.

But Shiloh's eyes hadn't looked at me like property.

Neither had the others, even with Rafe with his cold disappointment.

They'd looked at me like I was something else. That I had value more than my body and the idea of a pleasurable performance. Worthy of a hundred million dollars and a midnight escape from Vegas.

My mother's voice echoes from the dream: Always fight for what you want.

I'd fought.

Fought for three years in that velvet prison.

Endured the challenges to keep my virginity, my savings, my sanity. Did everything on that stage tonight— was it tonight? How long have I been out? —showing those alphas that I wasn't just another omega to be consumed.

And somehow, impossibly, I'd won.

Or at least survived to fight another day.

The medical equipment beeps steadily, a mechanical lullaby that pulls me back toward sleep. But it's different from the unconsciousness of being drugged. This is natural, healing, the kind of rest that comes from a body that finally feels safe enough to let go.

My last coherent thought before sleep takes me is a prayer of sorts, whispered to my mother's ghost or whoever might be listening:

May my freedom remain… finally free from Marnay's clutches…let this be the true beginning of my strive to remain free.