Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:33:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 http://www.ilovenovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com 32 32 Hearts (Aces Underground #4) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.ilovenovels.com/hearts-aces-underground-4-read-online-helen-hardt Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:33:36 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/hearts-aces-underground-4-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Erotic Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)

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Don't miss the gripping conclusion!

They followed the truth down the rabbit hole.

Now escape comes at a deadly cost.

Bianca Montrose always knew her sister’s world was built on secrets. What she didn’t know was just how far that darkness went or how much evil it hid beneath the surface. When Bianca finally uncovers the truth behind Aces Underground, it shatters everything she thought she understood about loyalty, ambition, and family.

Harrison O’Rourke has already risked his life chasing answers. Now the stakes are higher than ever. What began as a search for missing friends has turned into a fight against a powerful network that thrives on control and eliminates anyone who threatens to expose it. He’s determined to protect Bianca, the woman he loves, from all of it.

With danger closing in from every side, Bianca and Harrison form an uneasy alliance with a man who plays no one’s game but his own. But trusting him may be as deadly as going it by themselvesDon't miss the gripping conclusion!

They followed the truth down the rabbit hole.

Now escape comes at a deadly cost.

Bianca Montrose always knew her sister’s world was built on secrets. What she didn’t know was just how far that darkness went or how much evil it hid beneath the surface. When Bianca finally uncovers the truth behind Aces Underground, it shatters everything she thought she understood about loyalty, ambition, and family.

Harrison O’Rourke has already risked his life chasing answers. Now the stakes are higher than ever. What began as a search for missing friends has turned into a fight against a powerful network that thrives on control and eliminates anyone who threatens to expose it. He’s determined to protect Bianca, the woman he loves, from all of it.

With danger closing in from every side, Bianca and Harrison form an uneasy alliance with a man who plays no one’s game but his own. But trusting him may be as deadly as going it by themselves

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

PROLOGUE

BIANCA

Rouge saved me when I hit rock bottom.

But that doesn’t excuse what she’s done.

And I won’t allow her to get away with this.

“Bianca!”

A harsh whisper from behind me nearly makes me jump out of my skin as I enter my dressing room. I turn with a start.

It’s Harrison.

“Oh, thank God. You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He exhales. “I just saw you slip in here and wanted to talk to you. I think I might know where we’ll find this writing raven.”

I widen my eyes. “Really? Where?”

“The women’s restroom.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why there?”

“I don’t know for sure. But it’s the only place I haven’t looked yet, besides the places I’m not allowed to go.” I pace back and forth. “But it makes sense for a place to hide something, right? Easy access from the secret entrance and all.”

I scratch the side of my head. “Okay…”

He holds up a hand. “You’re not convinced. Neither am I. But it’s the only place I haven’t looked. Obviously I can’t go in and look without a woman going in first to make sure the coast is clear.”

I’m about to tell him that what he’s saying makes no sense, but then I feel the familiar twitch above my eyebrow. It could just be nerves—this is a high-stakes situation, after all—but it hasn’t led me astray yet.

Maybe Harrison is right. There could be something in the ladies’ restroom hiding in plain sight.

“Let’s try it out.” I check my phone. “I have fifteen minutes until my next set. Rouge sometimes comes in and checks on me during my breaks, but there are a lot of extra people here for the holiday. They should keep her busy.”

He nods. “Great. Thanks for trying this out for me, babe.”

I get on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “I have a feeling you might be right about this.” I open my dressing room door and peek through. Rouge is all the way across in Spades, and no one seems to be paying much attention to the area surrounding the ladies’ restroom. I gesture Harrison to follow behind me.

We cross quickly toward the restroom. I go inside first, and the coast is clear. The three stalls are empty, and there’s no one sitting on the fainting couch at the entrance or adjusting their makeup in the mirror.

I open the door. “It’s empty. Come in.”

He enters, and together we push the fainting couch against the door to keep people from coming inside while we look around.

“Let’s be quick,” I say. “You never know when my sister might have to heed nature’s call.”

Harrison chuckles. “I didn’t think Rouge would ever be caught doing something so human as taking a shit.”

I let out a short laugh. It’s a funny thing to say. Unfortunately, I have seen the human side of Rouge, and it might be even more terrifying than her Queen side.

“Let’s look around. See if anything looks out of place.”

He nods.

I check the mirror behind the sink—since mirrors seem to be important to this section of the club—but find nothing. No secret cabinet or anything. I run my hands along the upholstery of the fainting couch. It’s all original stitching.

“That’s weird,” Harrison mutters from the stalls.

“What’s weird?” I walk over to him.

“The stalls in this bathroom. They have writing on the locks. Like in an airplane bathroom. When you switch the lock”—he demonstrates—“it goes from ‘vacant’ to ‘occupied.’”

I purse my lips. “So? That’s not exactly uncommon.”

He shakes his head. “I was in the men’s room before I met you in the dressing room. I looked up and down the doors of those toilet stalls, seeing if there was a picture of a raven or something, and they don’t have that feature.”

“So? There probably isn’t a fainting couch either. Sometimes ladies’ restrooms are a little fancier than men’s.” But then I gasp. “My God! It’s writing!”

“Yeah. As in the writing raven.”

“I thought it meant that the raven was doing the act of writing. Not the writing itself.”

He nods. “I was thinking about this earlier. The river of tears in the riddle wasn’t referring to an actual river, or actual tears. So we have to think outside the box on the other half of the riddle as well.”

“Okay. So what could raven mean?”

“I was thinking it could be raven as in raven hair. Like the color black.” He gestures to the stall doors. “But the writing on all these locks is pink, just like everything else in this bathroom.”

“Right.” I grab my phone. “Let’s see if there are other definitions of the word.” I pull up Google and search for the definition of “raven.” Several results pull up, and I pull up a dictionary website. “Well, the first definition is the bird, obviously. Then there’s the adjective, like ‘raven black hair.’ And then…” I widen my eyes.

“Then what?”

“It’s a verb, too. ‘To raven’ means ‘to devour voraciously.’ It must be where the word ‘ravenous’ comes from.”

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Clubs (Aces Underground #3) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.ilovenovels.com/clubs-aces-underground-3-read-online-helen-hardt Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:40:57 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/clubs-aces-underground-3-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Chick Lit, Erotic Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)

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The deeper they dig, the darker the rabbit hole becomes.

Renowned surgeon Harrison O’Rourke is starting to panic. His two friends said they were going on a trip, but a month has passed with no word and no trace of them anywhere. When the trail leads him to Chicago’s shadowy Aces Underground, Harrison forces his way inside, determined to look for clues.

Bianca Montrose once chased Broadway dreams, but New York chewed her up and spit her out. Now she sings in the smoky corners of her sister’s exclusive underground club, a place built on secrets and silence. When handsome Harrison O’Rourke slips inside looking for answers, Bianca smuggles him in…and one charged moment between them sparks a chemistry neither can ignore.

Their attraction is instant. Their connection is dangerous.

And the club is watching.

As Harrison and Bianca begin peeling back the layers of Aces Underground, they uncover whispers, lies, and a network of power that doesn’t tolerate curiosity. Every step pulls them toward the truth as secrets sharpen, danger rises, and the fire between them blazes hotter.

Together, they might expose Aces Underground…or be swallowed by it

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

HARRISON

I fucking hate March.

The worst month of the year by far.

But Harrison, you might say, it’s the first month of spring. The month of the first blossoms of the trees. The snow is beginning to melt, the sun beginning to peek through the skies of gray.

Big fucking deal.

The city of Chicago goes all out for March. Every damned window is covered with four-leaf clovers, pots of gold, and mischievous leprechauns. Then of course there’s the drinking. My hospital, St. Charles General, is always swamped with patients suffering from alcohol poisoning or brawl-related injuries this time of year.

The city’s gravest sin, though, is the millions of gallons of green dye that it pours into the Chicago River to mark the occasion. Makes the whole thing look like a runoff of toxic sewage. I have to cross it on my commute from my home in Oak Park every time I come into the city, holding my breath against any noxious fumes.

Of course, these are merely symptoms of my disdain for the month.

The real reason—well, one of the reasons—is because my birthday is the seventeenth.

Yep. You heard that right.

St. Patrick’s Day.

My parents were thrilled. The firstborn son of two second-generation Irish-Americans, born on the day when the Yanks celebrate our culture by drinking more whiskey and Guinness than their livers could ever hope to process. They dressed me up in leprechaun onesies the first several years of my life and then always made sure my wardrobe had plenty of green in it.

I never wear green anymore. It’s my favorite color, but I consciously stopped wearing it in middle school.

Fuck… Middle school.

Those years are rough on anyone, but for me…

Damn.

I don’t like to think about it.

Because not only was I born on the Irish people’s answer to Christmas, not only did my parents dress me in an all-green wardrobe until I started sprouting armpit hair…

But as luck would have it, I was born with abnormally large ears.

And the school bullies had their way with me about them for years.

Any name you can think of, they called me. A lot of rabbit-inspired options, of course. And once they realized that the first syllable of my name was a synonym for our cotton-tailed friends, they were unstoppable.

I grew into my ears eventually.

But the scars of those formative years will never heal.

The bullying was just the beginning of it.

But I shake the thought from my head.

Look at me now, Mom! I’m an attending physician at one of Chicago’s leading hospitals. I make a shit ton of money, bought my first home—an actual house, with a yard and everything—in a good part of Oak Park, and I have a prime reserved parking spot right in the Loop. St. Charles treats its doctors well.

The nurses don’t get parking, but whatever. Most of them live right off the L, so their commutes are pretty straightforward anyway. And if they’re not driving, they’re doing their part to save the whales or the pandas or whatever cause we’re all tacitly agreeing to support this week.

I, on the other hand, am driving my car, a vintage 1972 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, into work today. I’m the envy of all my colleagues except for my best friend, Maddox Hathaway, whose gorgeous 1967 Rolls-Royce makes my vehicle look like a bumper car. Of course, Maddox got his car from his father, and I worked tooth and nail to be able to buy my little beauty and get her fixed up like new. And yes, I’m already holding my breath as I pass over the river, even though the city isn’t scheduled to dye it until tomorrow. It’s probably good sense no matter what time of year it is. God knows what—or even who—might be interred in that waterway.

Jesus, where did that thought come from?

I mean, it is Chicago. I’m sure the mob has dumped a body or two in the river over the years. And those poor bastards’ eternal home is about to be stained the most violent shade of emerald imaginable.

Oh, well. I guess it’s more interesting than being worm food.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Attending physician. Leading Chicago hospital. I rub elbows with lots of city elites, date lots of beautiful women, and even go to one of the city’s most exclusive clubs, Aces Underground, as Maddox’s guest. He comes from Chicago royalty. The Hathaways are a local political dynasty. The Kennedys of Chicago.

The O’Rourkes aren’t the Kennedys of anything, except perhaps for binge drinking and baby making, often at the same time.

I was born into nothing. Less than nothing. And I built a damned life for myself. Worked three separate jobs to get myself through medical school. Survived off ramen and Easy Mac for the years of my internship and residency to scrounge up enough money to pay off my remaining student loans.

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Diamonds (Aces Underground #2) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.ilovenovels.com/diamonds-aces-underground-2-read-online-helen-hardt Sat, 30 Aug 2025 08:42:20 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/diamonds-aces-underground-2-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Billionaire, Contemporary Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)

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The deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the darker it gets…

Alissa Maravilla thought she was ready for Maddox Hathaway's world—the intensity, the heat, the exquisite chaos. Their passion is electric and undeniable, but so are the secrets they've uncovered beneath the surface of Aces Underground.

The club that awakened her deepest desires is hiding something far more sinister than velvet ropes and whispered fantasies. And Alissa can't look away. Not when people are begging for help.

Not when the dead are piling up—and she may be next.

Not when the truth is bleeding through the cracks.

The two lovers vow to stop the madness.

But Maddox has secrets of his own, memories buried deep inside his subconscious that he's tried hard to forget.

Because some doors should never be opened.

And some rabbit holes lead straight to hell

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

MADDOX

Where the fuck am I?

First I have to check in with this creepy-ass guy in purple pinstripes at the front door, and then I have to go down this staircase lined with mirrors, and now this.

Four sections, one each for spades, diamonds, clubs, and hearts. Jazz music coming from the Hearts section, a cloud of tobacco and marijuana smoke hovering over the Clubs, the clinking of poker chips echoing through the Diamonds, and people gathering around the bar in Spades.

I was freaked out going down that staircase. I thought for sure I was about to fall victim to some elaborate prank to embarrass the son of Henry Hathaway. I had absolutely nothing to do with the stunts my old man pulled in the last year of his mayorship, but I still get sneers from people on the streets. I thought they might go easier on me after he died, but if anything, the news of his demise brought all the emotions from his term back to the surface, and the treatment got worse. I actually had to board up the windows of the haberdashery to keep people from throwing bricks through them.

For several weeks, I questioned my father’s decision to leave me his membership at this club. I’m still at a complete loss as to why he left me this and the Rolls-Royce, but not a penny of his millions.

Well, I guess there are several pennies in that damned trust, but I’m never seeing a single cent from there. I’m not abandoning the haberdashery for anything. It’s the only thing that is completely mine.

I didn’t even abandon it when Laurie threatened to break up with me. I loved her, thought she was end-game material, but she turned out to be like every other girlfriend I’ve had. Just in it for the potential of power and prestige.

So, after several weeks of jacking off on my couch, I decided I’d rather find a good piece of ass to ease the blue balls Laurie left in her wake.

I could have gone to one of my regular haunts, but I decided to finally check this place out. Aces Underground, where my dad went when he was “at the club.”

I wasn’t anticipating this. The colored lights, the unlabeled liquor bottles, the tattooed waitstaff wearing next to nothing. This doesn’t match my dad’s vibe at all.

But I kind of like it.

I spent the first year working at the haberdashery trying to cultivate a particular aesthetic. I went up and down the streets of Chicago, checking inside every antique store, haggling with the owners for a good price on certain items. I got that old gramophone for a steal, same for the awesome set of wingback chairs and the vintage register. Most of the time, the people running the shops were just happy to make a sale at all.

But all the work I did on the shop pales in comparison to what the owners have done with this place. The theming is next level.

There’s a small empty table by the bar, so I take a seat. Almost immediately, a young lady with porcelain skin and dark-brown hair approaches me. I instinctively look right at her tits, which are spectacular. I then notice that the pattern on her bikini top is tiny white spades over a black background. She has a tattoo of a spade on her left shoulder, and the number three on her right.

She closes her eyes and bows her head.

I blink. “Are you here to take my order?”

She nods.

I cock my head, confused. “Cat got your tongue?”

She wrinkles her forehead.

“You can talk to me, you know.”

She widens her eyes and then shakes her head.

“You can’t speak?”

She presses her lips together and gazes around.

“You can speak, but you won’t?”

“Correct, Mr. Hathaway.”

I turn around to the cool female voice behind me and widen my eyes. A gorgeous woman, late thirties, wearing an outfit that makes the waitstaff’s look normal. Big poofy collar, and a crimson ballgown that looks like something straight out of Bridgerton. Her hair is bright red and styled in an elegant—if not slightly stuffy—updo, and she is bedecked from head to toe in rubies. She extends a hand to me, and the gem-studded bracelet around her wrist tinkles.

“Rouge Montrose. I’m the owner of Aces Underground.” She looks me over. “We’ve been expecting you for a few weeks now, Mr. Hathaway. We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show up.”

I swallow. “Well, my father left me his membership here. I wasn’t even aware that was something someone could do.”

She crinkles her eyes. “My grandfather insisted on that policy when he started the club. It was during Prohibition, you know, and people would disappear from time to time. We decided that members could bequeath their membership to their next of kin in the event that they died of something other than old age.” She lays a hand on my shoulder. “My condolences on the loss of your father, by the way.”

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Spades (Aces Underground #1) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.ilovenovels.com/spades-aces-underground-1-read-online-helen-hardt Thu, 01 May 2025 18:18:13 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/spades-aces-underground-1-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Suspense Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Aces Underground Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)

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Tumble down the rabbit hole…

Alissa Maravilla has spent her life playing it safe. She gave up her dream of being a professional musician for the steady, predictable world of nursing at a Chicago hospital. No risks. No chaos. Just straight lines and sensible choices.

Until she meets Maddox Hathaway.

The moment Alissa steps into his enigmatic haberdashery, she feels the shift—his piercing gaze, his effortless charm, his debonair style. Maddox is temptation wrapped in silk and sin, and when he invites her into his world, she can’t resist.

Aces Underground isn’t just a private club. It’s a descent into desire—a place where inhibitions shatter and the air hums with tempting possibilities. With Maddox, Alissa discovers a darker, more intoxicating side of herself—and she’s ready for more.

But beneath the seductive allure, Aces Underground has secrets. Secrets that whisper of danger. Secrets that could consume them both.

And Alissa is about to find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

ALISSA

Straight lines.

Everything in my life is a straight line.

The hallways at St. Charles General Hospital, where I work. The lines on the charts I read. The heart monitors on the sad occasion that we lose a patient.

Even my commute to the hospital is a straight shot down the Red Line. Five blocks east from my apartment in Uptown Chicago. Ten stops from Uptown to the Loop. Five more blocks west—away from Lake Michigan—and I’m there.

All straight lines. All right angles.

My mother would have loved it. She was obsessed with keeping everything in order. Her final descent into her eternal home was a straight shot down, six feet even. Her grave plot was thirty square feet, her coffin a perfect rectangle.

Straight lines, no curves.

Even the people I work with at St. Charles are straight lines. Not literally, of course, but in their personalities. They’re all perfectly nice people, for the most part, but they’re about as interesting as a bowl of paperclips.

And that’s an insult to the paperclips, if I’m being honest.

Today has been a pretty uneventful day. Time itself flows in a straight line, each tick of the clock a direct track toward our own perfectly crafted graves. The mundaneness should terrify me, but it doesn’t. Perhaps Heaven—or wherever we go once we’re done on Earth—has a little variety.

Then again, the pearly gates are always depicted as what? Straight lines. Bars of iron, perfectly vertical up and down to keep sinners from entering.

I have no one to blame but myself. I’ve conducted my own life in a straight line. Childhood to high school to university to grad school. I majored in music, to my mother’s chagrin. My instrument of choice? The flute, of course. The straightest line you can find in the orchestra.

Of course, from there, I assumed my life would continue on the straight path I envisioned. I’d audition for a few orchestras, get some callbacks, and eventually land a full-time position. Probably not with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—they’re one of the best orchestras in the country, even the world—but certainly with some regional orchestra somewhere. There are dozens of them in the US alone.

But one by one, each audition yielded a big fat nothing. The path I had laid in front of me was broken. And I panicked.

So I ditched my dream and decided to pursue nursing.

This time the line wasn’t broken.

I got my associate’s degree, passed the national exam, and became an RN. Got the job at St. Charles soon after, where I’ve worked for the last five years.

It’s…fine.

I don’t hate it.

I’m making a difference. Probably more of a difference than I’d be making as a flautist, where I’d be playing for the city elites who are only there because they’re expected to frequent places like the symphony and the opera, not because they actually enjoy the music.

And Chicago has all of the hoity-toity fine arts in spades.

I still gig on the weekends every so often. I’ll get a call from a local church for a service or even a wedding. I’m pretty good at the flute—I mean, I do have two degrees in it—and it’s nice to pick it up every so often, even if it’s just for a measly fifty bucks.

But those gigs are getting rarer and rarer. Every year the universities pump more music graduates into the talent pool, and the young ones are always willing to take a gig for less money. The classical music industry idolizes youth. The younger you are, the more likely you’ll be labeled as a prodigy, and people will take more of an interest in you.

I’m nearly thirty now. An old hag by their standards.

Of course, I threw away the dream of working full-time as a musician a long time ago. The path wasn’t straight enough for Alissa Maravilla, the woman who needs everything laid out nice and pretty before she’ll even consider dipping a toe in.

“You okay, Liss?”

I blink. Dinah, my best friend in the hospital, is poking my shoulder.

I look at her, paste a smile on my face. “Yeah, just lost in thought, I guess.”

Dinah furrows her brow. “Concerned about one of your patients?”

“No more concerned than normal.” I rub at the back of my neck. “Just… I guess I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night.”

That’s a lie. I got eight hours. The same I get every night. In bed by ten, wake up at six. Like clockwork. I don’t even have to set an alarm.

Dinah raises an eyebrow. “That’s a rarity for you, Liss. Something on your mind?”

I shake my head. “Nothing at all. I just zoned out.” I bite my lip. “You know how it can be here. It hasn’t been a particularly exciting day.”

Dinah smirks. “I’ll take that as a good thing. No one has died.”

“Well of course I’m happy about that, Di.” I roll my eyes. “But it’s just… Do you ever wonder if you chose the right path? If maybe you should have taken a risk, tried something that wasn’t a guarantee?”

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