Page 28 of Roulette Rodeo (Jackknife Ridge Ranch #1)

WATCHING FROM TOWERS

~RAFE~

" F uck!"

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't cheating 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.

This view cost us fifteen million.

Not the office—the entire building. The only high-rise in this part of our carefully crafted oasis, rising eight stories above a town that pretends industrial complexes and logging operations are its only claims to fame.

From the outside, it looks like any other corporate building: glass and steel and aggressive modernism that says 'serious business happens here. '

Which it does…just not always the kind that gets reported to the IRS.

This building houses a dozen different companies, all legitimate on paper, all ultimately owned by us through shell corporations so complex even I sometimes lose track.

Tech startups that launder money. Import/export businesses that actually import and export, just not always what the manifests say.

Consulting firms that provide very specific kinds of consultation to very specific kinds of clients.

It's ideal for those hiding from the past, for those who need new identities, for those who understand that sometimes disappearing doesn't mean running—it means building something new where no one thinks to look.

The storm builds on the horizon, dark clouds rolling in like an invading army.

That's the thing about Jackknife Ridge—when it rains, there are only two kinds: light, beautiful rain that makes everything smell like pine and possibility, or merciless, storming drops that remind you nature doesn't give a fuck about your plans.

Looking at those clouds, this is definitely going to be the second kind.

I take another sip of whisky, letting it burn down my throat while I watch the trees in the distance start to sway. Thirty minutes. Maybe less before it hits. The drive from here to the house takes twenty on a good day, but I'm in no hurry to go back.

Not with her there.

Red.

Even thinking her name makes something twist in my chest—anger, resentment, and underneath it all, something I refuse to acknowledge.

It's been three days since we brought her home. Three days of carefully orchestrated avoidance on my part, though the others seem content to orbit around her like she's their new sun. She’s been sleeping for the most part, as if all that captivity in Crimson Roulette’s playground finally caught up and smacked her in the face in the form of endless sleep.

That only encouraged the others to make her existence their world.

Corwin is checking her vitals every few hours, even though she's clearly recovered.

Talon is making sure the nurse who comes on and off the property gives the right liquids and medications, hovering in doorways like a lovesick teenager. And Shiloh...

Shiloh's been the worst. Or best, depending on your perspective.

He tries to maintain his usual stoic distance, but I see the way his nostrils flare when he passes by her room. The way his eyes track her slightest movement in bed is