Wild card, p.1
Wild Card, page 1
part #1 of Love is a Gamble Series
WILD CARD
Love is a Gamble
ALEXA RILEY
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Epilogue
Married in the Mountains
Chapter 1
Read Me Romance
Stalk the Author
Copyright © 2024 by Author Alexa Riley LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to riley_alexa@aol.com
http://alexariley.com/
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Edited by Aquila Editing
Sometimes Reddit sparks a story…
Wild Card
BY ALEXA RILEY
After Kelly's fake engagement ends, she's back to square one on finding a way out for her and her brother Marco. Her father's a notorious crime boss and it's not like they can just walk away. No matter how much the handsome private detective tries to convince her it’s a possibility. He wants to hide her and keep her safe, but she can't trust him. Can she?
* * *
Luke knew the moment he saw Kelly that he had to have her. It didn't matter that she was engaged to his client's son. She wasn't meant to be in anyone's arms but his own, and he was going to do whatever it took to get her there. He never predicted the trouble she was in and what he would have to do to set her free. But it's too late for Kelly because he's all in.
* * *
Warning: The house always wins in the Love is a Gamble series! Danger, kidnapping, and a happily ever after? We'll take those odds!
Chapter One
RUE
This is not how I thought my day was going to go. I’m not sure if I should be more concerned that the man standing in front of me with a gun might be a cop or that there’s a dead body a few feet from me.
This is what I get for trying to save the day. It’s come back to bite me in the ass. I suppose no good deed goes unpunished. This is why I do bad deeds. It keeps me out of trouble. Or maybe it keeps me from getting in situations like this.
My ears are still ringing from the gunshot, and my fist is throbbing from when I punched the dead guy. Well, before he died. As I assess the situation, I’m pretty sure my chipper disposition won’t help charm my way out.
“He’s dead,” the young boy named Marco mutters. He’s in the corner of the room, but his eyes are trained on his father.
I nudge the body with my foot. “Yep,” I chirp, confirming that Vince Sledge is truly dead.
I’ve only been in this city a month and even I know of Vince. He was a very bad man. One that was trying to put his hand up my dress until he took three bullets to the chest.
“Who the hell are you?” the man that fired those shots asks. His gun is hanging down at his side.
“She’s Rue,” Marco answers for me. Damn it. Why did I give the kid my real name? It was a moment of weakness when being kidnapped.
“Are you okay?” Kelly, Marco’s sister, asks him before putting her hands on his shoulder.
This has got to be a lot for him. I’m guessing the kid is maybe thirteen. We didn’t have much time to talk during our kidnapping.
“He’s dead,” Marco repeats, and it’s not so much shock as it is relief. “Do we have to bury them or something?”
I'm not doing that.
“Why don’t you go to your room and grab anything you want to take with us,” the guy named Luke tells Marco.
Kelly said he would come and save us, but I didn’t believe her. Most of the men I’ve met aren’t the save the day type, but she was right. Luke came to our rescue, but I guess more specifically to Marco and Kelly’s rescue. I’m still not sure what they plan on doing with me, and I don’t want to know. I just want to get the hell out of here.
The man with the gun is staring at me, and I’m trying to pretend I don’t notice. I keep using my chipper smile and easy disposition that has people thinking I’m not a threat.
“I’ll clean this up if you want to get them out of here,” Mr. Stares-A-Lot says and then tucks his gun into the holster under his arm. And so what if I notice how hot he is? Or that I thought he was even hotter when he shot Vincent?
“Great. I’m going to dip out. It was nice meeting everyone.” I creep toward the door, hoping they won’t miss me. They have this under control, and I’m no longer needed.
“You’re not going anywhere.” His stare becomes more intense somehow, and I know he’s not joking.
With the life I’ve had, reading people is easy for me, but somehow I can’t with this guy. I also can’t figure out why he wants me to stay.
“Who is he?” Kelly asks Luke in a low whisper, and I’m wondering the same thing.
“My foster brother Maxim.”
Well, that name fits. He’s easily three times my size, but being this small, most people are bigger than me. Sometimes my size works in my favor but not always. Brute force can get things done if they can catch me.
“You a cop or something?” I ask Maxim, putting my hands on my hips and giving him my sweetest smile.
I’d never make it in jail. I don’t like staying anywhere too long. I’m sure it’s partly because of how I grew up. We never stayed anywhere long, and even now, having been here for a month, I'm getting anxious.
“Or something.” He nods toward the couch. “Sit your pretty ass down.” The smile drops from my face, and I shoot him the same glare he’s been giving me. Maxim isn’t going to make this easy, and I think he might be good at reading people too.
“She kinda helped us.” Kelly comes to my defense.
I ran into Kelly outside of an urgent care, but I did it on purpose. I might have snagged a few things out of her purse, but she didn’t notice. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat, and my fingers have been sticky since I was a little. One of the many skills I acquired in my childhood.
That should have been the end of my interaction with Kelly, but I felt a twinge of guilt when I saw how much money she had. She wasn’t dressed like she would be carrying that kind of cash around. It was wrapped up in a plastic bag, which made me curious. That’s always what gets me into trouble. I knew it had to be the kind of money you had when you were on the run. I knew because I have my own stash like that.
Then I spotted two men watching her and Marco. That damn curiosity had me following them to the back of the building, and when I saw the guns, I knew I had to do something. The second they came back out with Kelly and Marco and I saw them trying to force them into the SUV, I struck.
Literally.
I hit my target, but there were two of them. Why I bought a metal bar to a gunfight, I have no freaking clue. It’s what got me kidnapped right along with them.
“She stays put,” Maxim responds, pulling out his phone.
I plop down onto the sofa as Kelly and Marco collect their things and leave with Luke. Maxim talks in a hushed voice on the phone, never letting me out of his sight.
Deciding it’s easier to do what he says, I sit back and bide my time. He can only watch me for so long. Then I’ll do what I do best and disappear. It will be as if I was never here to begin with.
It’s better that way. Not only for me but for everyone else too.
Chapter Two
MAXIM
“How long before your team arrives?” I ask the fed on the other end of the phone.
“Twenty minutes. Did you manage to leave anyone alive?”
I glance over at the little firecracker on the couch who is pretending not to listen to my conversation.
“Nope,” I say, knowing damn well I’m not about to give them anything extra. I already did their fucking jobs for them. I’m not going to gift wrap it too.
“Jesus, Maxim, could you do one mission for us where we’ve got a suspect we can prosecute?”
“Why?” I ask, genuinely confused. “The guys are off the street. The operation is shut down. Case closed.”
My lead contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation sighs dramatically, and I want to roll my eyes. “It’s a little something called due process.”
“Yeah, due to his process of running drugs and girls, he got shot.” Rue looks up at me when I say this, but I don’t have an apology for it. It’s the truth. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes. Vince Sledge was no exception. “You got the recording I sent you earlier?”
“Yeah, we got it. It’s enough to seize his assets and prosecute his known associates.” Even the fed has to admit it’s a win for the good guys. Although I’m not sure I’d ever mistake myself for one of those.
“Good. Then I’ll be in touch.” I go to hang up, but he stops me.
“Wait. You need
“Nah.” I can hear his protests through the other end of the phone as I end the call and tuck my phone in my pocket.
Barbra is one of his informants, and she’s been undercover in this building for years. She can answer all his stupid fucking questions. They hire me to do the dirty shit they can’t, and we both know it. Part of them hiring me means I don’t have to answer to them. I do the job and get the fuck out. The end.
“All right, firecracker, it’s time to go,” I tell her and reach into my back pocket to take out what I need.
“What? Go where?” She’s confused as I walk over and kneel down on the floor in front of where she’s seated.
“The feds are on their way.”
“What are you doing?”
Reaching out, I snag her bare ankle and pull it towards me.
“Hey, get your hands off me.”
“I’m guessing a girl like you doesn’t want to be around when they start asking questions.” She tries to tug her ankle away, but I’m too quick. Before she can move, I’ve got the tracker on her and locked into place. I let go of her the same time she yanks it away, and she knocks it against the couch.
“You can’t do this. Get this thing off me.” She tries to pull it off and then starts messing with the lock.
“Time is ticking, firecracker. Get your little ass in gear.”
“The size of my ass is none of your concern. Get your hands off me!” She squeals as I easily lift her off the couch.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“If the hard way is me punching you in the dick, then let’s dance, copper.”
If I wasn’t in a hurry, I might laugh at the way she glances at my crotch. “Damn. It’s too bad that was the easy way.” At her look of confusion, I grab her around the waist and throw her over my shoulder.
“Put me down! Kidnapping is illegal!”
“So is murder, but you didn’t seem to mind that.”
“Good point,” she mumbles, more to herself, as the elevator doors open. “But you can’t put an ankle monitor on me like I’m some kind of criminal.”
“Do me a favor and don’t lie to the both of us. Because we both know how you ended up here today wasn’t because you were on a holy mission.”
When the elevator reaches the bottom floor, I can hear sirens in the distance. Thankfully there’s a car out front with the keys in the ignition. Vince Sledge won’t be needing this anytime soon.
“Being kidnapped in the same car twice in one day is a little cliché, don’t you think?” Rue spits at me while I toss her in the passenger seat and buckle her up.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, and the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get the hell away from those guys.” I nod down the street to the black armored trucks, and her eyes widen.
“Shit. Okay, let’s get out of here.”
“It’s like I’ve been talking to myself,” I say as I close her door and get in the driver's seat.
I see Barbra standing in the entrance of the building smoking a cigarette as I pull away from the curb. With her telling the story, I know I don’t have to worry about loose ends.
“Where are we going?” Rue asks as I take a side street and we watch the armored trucks roll by with their sirens blaring.
“You like the beach?” I ask, and she blinks at me in surprise.
There’s something about her that I can’t seem to shake. It’s something familiar, like maybe we’ve met, but I know that’s not it. There’s no way I could’ve forgotten seeing her before. I’ve always lived a nomadic life, and maybe that’s what I see in her. She didn’t give me an outright reason to think she would try to escape, but I knew instinctively that I needed to put that ankle monitor on her.
Something tells me she’s going to run the first chance she gets. I’m not about to make it easy on her.
Chapter Three
RUE
“’Cause baby now we got bad blood. You know it used to be mad love. So take a look at what you've done. ’Cause baby now we got bad blood. Hey!” I sing at the top of my lungs, and Maxim side-eyes me. “Now we got problems. And I don't think we can solve them.”
His lips twitch, letting me know he’s fighting a smile. Well, that wasn’t the plan. This is the third Taylor Swift song I’ve sung, but he hasn’t said a word. I keep going, thinking it has to annoy him at some point. When I finish “Bad Blood,” he shakes his head but still doesn’t speak.
When I break out into the next, he taps his fingers on the steering wheel.
“I knew you were trouble when you walked in. So shame on me now. Flew me to places I'd never been. Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground. Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble.”
“Is this one your theme song?” he finally asks before glancing at me and then back at the road. This time I notice he looks at my legs, and it makes me shift in my seat.
“Pretty sure you’re the trouble around here.” I tug at the hem of my skirt when I realize it’s ridden up. It probably happened when I was dancing in my seat. I thought for sure he’d throw me out of the car when I finished the first song.
“Me?” He shakes his head. “I got your little ass out of trouble.”
Okay, so he’s right, but I glare at him anyway. Maxim saved me, and I’d be a liar if I said otherwise. “I had it all worked out. I’ve been in worse situations.” I fold my arms over my chest and stare out the window. How long have we been driving now?
“Liar.” He says it more to himself, but I bite the inside of my cheek so that I don’t make an expression.
I’m finding it hard to maintain my disinterest around Maxim. There’s something about him that throws me off balance. He’s got me trapped, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get away.
Damn it, I’m getting rusty. The one thing I’ve always been good at is getting away.
“Worse situations? Like what?” he asks, breaking the quiet. Does it bother him? I tuck that away. Normally I run my mouth, whether it’s being sweet, annoying, or hostile.
“Why would I tell you that?” I toss back at him.
“You could go back to singing.”
“Nope,” I chirp. “Are you a Taylor fan or something?” Everyone loves her, but I know all her songs, so it was an easy choice.
“You have a sweet voice.” My chest tightens for some inexplicable reason. Maybe I’ve got heartburn. I’ve never had it before, but that has to be what this is.
Once again, the quiet grows. “How about if I answer a question, you answer one,” he offers.
“Hmm.” I tap my finger against my lips, not sure this is a good idea. But as always, my curiosity gets the best of me. “Okay.” I sit up straighter and turn slightly to face him.
“No lying,” he orders, and I roll my eyes.
“Fine,” I huff. “But I go first.”
“Deal.” Another smile plays at his lips but he quickly gets it under control. Why do I want to break that control?
Maybe because I enjoy pushing things to the edge.
“Are you a cop?” I blurt out.
“Pretty much.”
“‘Pretty much’? That’s not an answer.”
He lets out a long sigh. “To most of the world, no. To a select few, yes.”
“Ooooh, like the FBI or CIA. Wait! Is there an agency that no one knows about like SAA or something?” I bet the government has another secret branch they don’t tell us about. If I ran the government, I know I would.
“SAA?”
“Secret Asshole Agents. It would fit for you.” I shrug. “I don’t know. I made it up.”
He lets out a low chuckle that’s deep and way too sexy. I didn’t know a laugh could be sexy, and it makes me giggle. People think I’m stupid or adorable. Either works in my favor for the most part.
