Queen Of WildCards

CONTENTS 1. Joker 2. Mallory 3. Spade 4. Mallory 5. Ace 6. Mallory 7. Joker 8. Mallory 9. Spade 10. BlackJack 11. Mallory 12. Joker 13. Mallory 14. Ace 15. Mallory 16. Spade 17. Mallory 18. BlackJack 19. Joker 20. Mallory 21. Ace 22. Mallory 23. BlackJack 24. Mallory 25. Joker 26. Mallory 27. Spade 28. BlackJack 29. Mallory 30. Joker 31. BlackJack 32. Mallory 33. Ace 34. Spade 35. Mallory 36. Joker 37. Ace 38. Mallory 39. Ace 40. Joker 41. Mallory 42. BlackJack 43. Mallory 44. BlackJack 45. Spade 46. Mallory 47. Joker 48. Mallory Epilogue—Mallory Acknowledgments About the Author Queen of Wildcards Copyright © 2023 By Heleva Risque 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, please contact [email protected] Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. To all the girls whose dark trauma drives them to read about other women suffering, conquering, and healing to cope with their own pain. I hear you. I see you. I am you. Let us heal together, ladies. And then, we'll take over the world. CHAPTER ONE JOKER "I told you this was a bad fucking idea, you numbskull." Ace growled through the phone at me, his voice laced with a sigh that would make any dom trainer proud. I was beginning to think my kink was pissing him off by being a brat. Would make fucking sense. I tossed the bag of jewels over my shoulder and slung a leg over the expensive Maserati bike I'd bought myself for a birthday present. Hey, it's not every day a man turns twenty-eight. Might as well enjoy life while I'm still living. The matte black paint on this metal beast cost me a pretty penny, but it gives me an extra layer of anonymity, a benefit for every successful thief. Today was my biggest haul yet. Ace could suck a dick; when I unloaded these diamonds, he wouldn't be complaining as I stacked fat wads of bills in his hands. "Listen," I grumbled into the receiver, "I know what I'm doing." I jammed the key into the ignition, casting a careful glance around the parking lot. I shot out the street lights when I arrived, so I was bathed in darkness for the moment. Ace's sigh was audible through the phone. I could almost see the irritated furrow of his brows through the line, could practically feel the irritation radiating off him as he spoke slowly, like I was a child who didn't understand the rules of the house though they'd been explained a hundred times over. "Joker, we have a system, and you can't just run roughshod all over it." I could hear him typing furiously at his keyboard, probably preparing some boring memo for the bosses. "When you deviate from the plan, bad things happen." I didn't bother contradicting him. "I'm leaving now. I'll be home in a few minutes." The sound of another bike echoed in the alley behind me, and my thighs instinctively clenched around the huge mass of metal between them as I slipped my helmet off the handlebar. "Hey, I've got company. I'll see you at home." I could hear him sputtering some directive or another as I hung up and pocketed the little square that kept me so connected with the rest of the world. I wasted no time slipping the helmet over my head, and the bike roared to life beneath me as I peeled out of the lot and into the slow traffic of four in the morning. The city slumbered at this ungodly hour, but not us criminals. We never slept, not in the underbelly of this festering slum. You had to be on your toes, even when you were some of the city's most prolific, infamous criminals. My bike purred like a dream and handled spectacularly as I wove in and out of gaps between cars, careful not to draw too much attention. I could hear the bike behind me gaining ground, though, which was disturbing at best. At worst? It could be someone who'd been watching me, come to lift my haul from my shoulders and put it to good use elsewhere. And we couldn't have that. I'd cased that fucking joint for months. Countless hours of work, and an infinite amount of patience as I watched every little thing about the store. Days of hunkering down in my car as if waiting for an imaginary wife to exit the nearby stores. Hundreds of dollars in coffee and energy drinks and takeout. Thousands, maybe. The payoff would be worth it, as long as I made it home with my haul. I wove through another couple of cars and banked a hard left, slingshotting myself into an alleyway tucked between two buildings. I pulled my bike into a dark alcove and killed the engine, counting slowly as I ran my hand over the Sig Sauer at my hip. One. Deep breath. Two. Sounds like they kept going. Three. Four. Five. And then I heard it. The sound of my tail's engine grew louder, and suddenly it was nearly on top of me. I realized with a start that the fucker managed to loop around without me noticing and slip up behind me. He had me dead to rights; if he were armed, I wouldn't make it ten feet without being shot. Looks like the only way out is up. I ran directly at the rider, and in a split second of confusion, he