by C. C. Piper
“No denying the truth, sweetie. You did great. Better than great. Wish I could’ve been there in person.”
“You pretty much were,” I told her. At least she’d made a genuine effort.
“I’ve gotta go, but you have fun with Drew, okay?”
“Will do. Break a leg.”
Then, she was gone.
“Okay, now that that’s taken care of, you good with me dragging you away from your adoring fans?” my brother inquired, a sparkle of genuine pride in his gaze.
I blew out a breath and rolled my eyes. He made it sound like I was a rockstar like Alicia, instead of a college student hauling around a cello as big as I was. Still, Drew didn’t offer to relieve me of my unwieldy instrument. He knew I preferred to put my cello away and carry the case myself.
I’d even given my instrument a name. Madison. It probably sounded like a pet or something, but I didn’t care. Madison might be inanimate, but she was also a huge part of my past and present. If I had my way, she’d also be a significant part of my future.
Madison was hand-carved with a spruce top and maple along her back and sides—the best money could buy. I could admit to being a little possessive with my cello; I handled Madison as if she were my firstborn child. Well, if my baby wound up being the size of a full-grown adult, anyway.
As we left the Shakespeare theater, I glanced up at its glass façade and roof shaped like an arrowhead. Beyond it was the night sky; the city glow made picking out the individual lights of stars difficult.
Though it was now late September, the area had been experiencing an Indian summer, and the barely-there breeze remained warm as it lifted a few flyaway strands of my hair. I gazed out toward the often-turbulent waters of the lake, remembering the many yacht trips Drew and I had taken here as children. Most of the time, our nanny accompanied us rather than either of our parents. Even though I considered myself a daddy’s girl, I’d spent a shockingly tiny amount of time with him over the years. He was forever busy with this acquisition or that meeting. Not that I had the right to complain. The reason he worked so hard was for us. He’d said so over and over.
Although I wished he’d stay around more, I never admitted such feelings out loud. My dad had given Drew and I any material object we’d ever asked for, sparing no expense. It seemed a bit tacky, as a woman of twenty-one, to demand his precious time on top of everything else. Regardless, if I was honest with myself, I could admit that I resented the fact that neither he nor my mother ever managed to watch any of my concerts in person.
My mother ran two of Brisbane Industries’ smaller branches, businesses that made less than ten million, while my father took on the rest. She always assigned someone to video the performances so she and Daddy could watch them later, although I didn’t know if they ever actually sat down and did so. Just once, I wished they’d both show up for me the way my brother did.
But that was a pipe dream, one I’d realized a long time ago would never come true. They loved me—I knew they did—but their priorities had to remain consistent with the building up and maintenance of my father’s empire. This was their way of taking care of Drew and me, by making certain any financial needs we might ever have were met. Any other needs we might have had to be fulfilled in a different fashion.
Which was fine. Totally fine. What I found far less tolerable was their insistence that I major in business instead of music. Now that I was approaching the end of my undergrad time here, the pressure to enter Loyola’s Graduate School of Business was impossible to ignore. Every time my parents communicated with me, the discussion revolved around going full steam ahead toward an MBA.
“Loyola has been ranked number one by Business Week, Rachel Diane. Of course you’ll finish out your education there,” her mother had said during our most recent phone conversation, emphasizing my middle name as if to make her point.
“We must maintain our standards, Princess, and doing so from the old alma mater just makes sense,” my dad had echoed her sentiment over lunch three months ago. Even when not in the same room together, they remained a united front when it came to my brother and me.
Drew and I both attended the business school together and shared many of the same classes, but Drew enjoyed his courses and excelled at the various ins and outs of entrepreneurship. He knew we were being groomed to take over Brisbane Industries, but he’d confided in me that he’d like to try his hand at a startup. He wanted to make it on his own merits, just like I did.
Too bad that was unlikely to ever happen.
“You in the mood for crab or Mediterranean?” Drew asked me once I’d carefully tucked Madison into the back of his Audi SUV. No one knew better than him that I’ve never been able to eat before a performance. Now it was over, I was famished.
“A falafel wrap sounds awesome.”
“Mediterranean it is.”
Entering the restaurant was like waltzing into an upscale fast-food joint. The menu was posted on the wall, but the dining area was nice, with contemporary wood details polished to a high shine. Once seated, Drew leaned in conspiratorially.
“Dad said he would’ve been here except for that thing going on with Christoff what’s-his-name’s company. The weird thing is how secretive he’s been about all his meetings and greetings lately. It’s like he’s planning some strange foray into espionage or something.”
Although I didn’t know much about him or what he looked like, I’d heard my dad say the name Christoff before. The man was the owner of Dodecahedron, a gaming software company. His innovative ideas regularly gave Brisbane Industries’ online gaming branch a run for its money.
“What, is he turning into James Bond?” I teased, but Drew’s nod wasn’t in jest.
“Sort of. I think Dad’s up to something. When I went to see him at his office, he jumped about a mile when I wandered in, then asked me to wait outside a moment before letting me back inside.”
That was extremely out of character for our father. Once we reached an age to be trusted enough not to race around the halls of his offices like children, he’d welcomed us into the fold without reservation. We both knew he wanted the two of us to take over someday, so him hesitating to show certain aspects of the business to Drew when he dropped by felt…off.
But I didn’t want to think about my dad just then. He always had an excuse not to come hear my concerts. It might’ve been different if he made more of an effort, but he didn’t. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen the man sitting out there in the audience. I pushed the thought away, though. It didn’t matter.
Throughout dinner, my brother kept texting someone on his phone. He acted all nonchalant, but I knew Drew better than anyone. Being twins afforded us instincts about one another that were nearly always correct, and I could tell my father wasn’t the only one up to something.
“Alright, spit it out. What’s going on?”
He blinked at me innocently for a second, then gave in. “Fine, you got me. Go look in the passenger seat of my Audi.”
While my brother settled the bill, I did exactly that, knowing to expect something fantastic. Drew didn’t let me down. The moment I opened the door, I saw a sizable garment box with a pretty red bow.
I opened it with a flourish, sending tissue paper flying, then gasped. It was the brilliant blue sequined gown I’d been eyeing in my favorite boutique. I was going to ask my father for it as a birthday present, but I’d never gotten around to it. The card inside said, ‘Have a great show tonight, Rachel. Love, Daddy.’
I heard Drew’s chuckle behind me. “You found it.”
“Of course, I found it. The question is how did he know? I didn’t even…” I trailed off, realizing from my brother’s closed expression what he’d done. “You told him I wanted this.”
He shrugged and I threw myself at him. He laughed at my exuberance before the usual jovial lines of his mouth dropped into a much more sober look. “If he spent more time with you, he would’ve known without me telling him.”
He hugged me, then turned me back toward the theater and the dressing rooms it held. “Now, hurry up and change. Alicia is waiting for us at the club.”
He flipped his phone around, showing me my best friend’s most recent text.
Tell her royal cuteness to get her happy ass on the move. We’ve got dancing and celebrating to do.
Sounded good to me.
2
Christoff
I glanced through the window and into the darkness lying outside like a shroud. Once upon a time, I would’ve appreciated the nighttime energy flowing through Chicago, the pulse of the city and its occupants. But tonight, it felt constrictive and heavy. Like a yoke around my neck weighing me down.
This building housed Dodecahedron, one of the top gaming software businesses in the world, the company I began as a startup from my dorm in college. After developing one of the bestselling online games ever produced, Dodecahedron took off like a rocket, surpassing everyone’s expectations, including my own. It’d been a heady time. Yet now, eight years later, it was coming apart at the seams.
I scratched along my chin and frowned to feel the stubble there. When was the last time I’d shaved? I couldn’t honestly remember, which should’ve bothered me but didn’t. I hadn’t cared much about my physical appearance at all over the past six weeks. Not since I’d last seen Hannah Lawrence. The woman I’d planned to propose to. The woman I’d thought would be my partner in both the boardroom and at home. The woman who had become my ex.
Hannah’s appearance was precisely what I imagined it would be once I’d heard her name. Everything she wore had been soft, from her cashmere sweaters in the winter to her cotton sundresses in the summer. She had this feminine look about her in general. Lovely light brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. Kissable pink-stained lips. Touchable skin with the barest hint of a tan. Gray eyes that glanced down coquettishly as if she was shy and withdrawn.
All of which had been nothing but a mask. The woman was a goddamn snake.
I’d been the one to expel her from my presence that fateful day. Which had sucked. But what sucked worse were the circumstances. I’d already made a reservation for us that weekend at Les Nomades, the most romantic five-star restaurant in all of Chicago.
Its French cuisine was renowned throughout the area, and I’d had it all figured out. The words I would say. The table I would reserve. The dessert I would order for her, illustrating how I’d taken note of which had been her favorite. I’d purchased the ring.
But the proposal never happened.
Instead, two days prior to the big one, I’d learned that Hannah had been put in my path by the CEO of my most direct business competitor, Brisbane Industries, in order to steal my latest ideas and patents. At first, I’d been shocked down to my core. I’d been in love with Hannah Lawrence, or at least, I’d been in love with the woman I’d believed her to be. But that person turned out to be a facsimile, a ghost. She wasn’t real and never had been. She’d been a plant, a spy. One who’d utterly duped me.
Well, I refused to be duped ever again.
If it’d been a whirlwind romance, it might not have been as bad. I could’ve passed it off as an irrational decision made too quickly and without thought, but it hadn’t been. I’d met Hannah three years ago, and we’d been together for two and a half of them. She’d been living with me in my penthouse apartment for over a year. I’d shared my home with her. I’d fed her from my own fork, showered with her, made love to her on countless occasions. And all of it had been a lie.
From start to brutal finish.
Pissed off, I took the molded plastic character from the latest video game I’d created on my 3D printer and threw it as hard as I could across the room, lodging it in the drywall.
“Well,” Kit, my best friend and CEO of my company, commented wryly, “you don’t have to tell me what kind of mood you’re in this evening. Wanna hit the gym with me again?”
The tempest whirling through my system calmed enough for me to reclaim my composure. Mostly.
“What are you doing here?” I snarled at him.
Okay, maybe not.
“Hey, bro. I’m on your side, remember?”
I did remember. I’d known Kit ever since we’d gone to preschool together. He’d been by my side when I’d been nothing but a middle-class kid with nerdish tendencies who’d been bullied as much as anything else. He’d also been by my side when I developed my first online video game platformer, the game anyone could play for free that had caught on so fast that the products attached to it had made me a fortune. I’d known Kit before I made my billions and knew I could trust him now.
Even if I couldn’t trust anyone else.
I marched over to the wall and removed the character, a demon-lord dressed in black and red with devil’s horns. The horns had been bent, but far more damage had been done to the wall than the figurine. Now I’d have to have someone stop by to patch it.
Par for the course.
Maybe I did need to go to the gym tonight, even though I’d already worked out this morning. I had all this pent-up rage and working out until my muscles screamed might be the only thing to keep me from doing something stupid.
Kit poured over the storyboards covering my drafting table. The table was of the kind typically used by architects to create blueprints and draw up plans for buildings. I’d decided my work desk needed to have the ability to tilt, to be mobile. I might not be an architect, but I found the dimensions and angles of the table to be much more conducive to my work than a plain old wooden executive desk.
“This is what you’ve been working on?” he asked me. I nodded silently, and he thrust out his bottom lip. “Kinda different from your last game, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.”
“It seems pretty…fucked up.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this looks like something out of a horror movie. You don’t even like horror movies, Chris.”
“The demons and devils are the foes in this game, Kit. They’re the bad guys,” I said, though I didn’t know that reassuring him was my goal.
The truth was, he had a point. My last game had been an open world fantasy game where people could either go through in single-player mode or choose multi-player mode with their friends. Players could help one another to get further into the game and collect more shiny gold coins as elves, fairies, or giants. It’d been bright and colorful and suitable for all ages. The software I’d utilized to create the explorable landscapes had been something I myself had come up with. The program had revolutionized gameplay across the board. Such specialized and proprietary software and hardware ended up being what Brisbane wanted most.
So, when I’d come up with a new take on virtual reality glasses that would look more believable and yet be more affordable than anything else on the market, he’d apparently decided to steal it right out from under me. Which he did. That was apparently why he’d sent Hannah to me in the first place.
It’d been the impetus behind her betrayal of me.
In contrast to my last game, the game I’d been working on over the past few weeks was anything but bright and colorful. The levels were meant to torture each player along the way, to terrorize them, to wear him or her down until they gave up.
The demons and devils could be destroyed, but it came at the price of immense effort and fortitude, and the reward was lots of blood and gore. Over-the-top violence and rage-kills had been my two guiding principles this time around. That’s what had driven both my plot and my characters. My two creations were like night and day.
Worki
ng on this, making this type of art, had been cathartic for me. It’d been a representation of what was going on inside me. The fury. The hatred. The need for vengeance. I’d channeled every ounce of it into my newest project. And still, I felt those emotions boiling within me like a volcano ready to erupt. I felt like I was holding onto my sanity by mere threads.
My faith in humanity had been torched, burned to the ground. How could I believe anything good existed while in the middle of a legal suit against the bastard who’d stolen not just my professional secrets, but my one chance for a happy future? A chance that had evidently never even been real?
What was I supposed to do with that?
My professional life and personal life had hit the skids at the exact same moment and for the exact same reason. Hannah had pulled the wool over my eyes so thoroughly I’d never seen her coming. I hadn’t been completely stupid going in. I’d known things like professional rivalries existed. I just hadn’t anticipated being cut off at the knees like this.
So now, I got up every morning with one intention: figure out some way to make the CEO of Brisbane Industries, Jack Brisbane himself, pay. At first, I’d concluded going the courtroom route would be my best bet. But then, my legal counsel had warned me that unless I had the records to back up what I substantiated to be mine, we could easily lose the lawsuit. I didn’t know what I’d do if that happened. I’d patented the hardware for the glasses, but I hadn’t yet gone so far as to buy the trademarks for each individual word, symbol, and logo. The idea had been in my brain more than anywhere else, and the thought of protecting that so early on in the process had never once occurred to me.
But I knew better now. I documented every single step I made as I drew up this new game. I had photographs and notes taken by witnesses in the presence of my legal representatives. Before this, I would’ve considered such measures to be over the top. But I’d learned the hard way that those methods were absolutely essential going forward.
“Please tell me you’ve eaten today,” Kit said, and when I didn’t respond because I couldn’t answer him in the affirmative, he kept going. “How about sleep? Did you sleep at all last night?” Again, I ignored his inquiry. “The reason I’m asking is because you look like shit.”