“This Thursday? Wow, that’s quick.”
“I know. So I need to start making arrangements to travel over there. Even if I don’t win, I got to the final ten, Serena, without them knowing who I am. That in itself is reward enough.”
I squeezed his arm. “I said you were talented. Now will you believe me?”
“Oh my God, could life be any more perfect?” Carter almost sang. “I’m an actor, Flynn’s a photographer, Smith’s sober, Jayden is… well, Jayden, and you are a vampire. It’s time to marry you, Serena.”
I don’t know how my chin did not actually hit the floor, such was my shock.
“Err, Carter. That’s kinda jumping the gun a little. We’ve been together a couple months and I’ve been a vampire for a couple days. We need a little more time.”
“What do we need time for? We’re yours and you’re ours.”
“You make it sound like I’m some kind of pet cat.”
“Well you are our pussy.”
I sprang up off the sofa. “I suggest you calm yourself down, Carter, because I’m finding you a little offensive right now.”
“But I’m excited. Be our wife.”
“And have you discussed this with the others?” I looked at the surprised faces around me. At the strained expression on Flynn’s face; the hangdog expression on Jayden’s; and the set jaw of Smith’s.
“No. Well, we all feel the same. Don’t we?”
“This only works if we all discuss things, Carter. You’re barreling through us all like skittles at a bowling alley.” Flynn commented.
“But we want one woman, right? Serena? To be our wife?” Carter looked at Jayden.
“That’s what we hope for eventually, yes. Right now I’m just trying to figure out who I am, seeing as like you said, I’m Jayden. That’s the sum of me. You’re acting. Flynn’s doing photography, Smith’s finding his way in life, and I’m, well, who am I? I wouldn’t offer myself up as a marriage prospect right now. Not until I have something to bring to the table.”
“You bring a lot to the table. You’re kind and caring, Jayden.” I said.
“Yeah, but I want to be a husband, not a puppy. We’re not ready yet, Carter. Not ready at all.”
I looked around at the five of us, sat there largely in our own thoughts. Carter looked confused, like he couldn’t work out what the problem was.
“I thought we’d get married and figure things out as we went along, like we have been doing.”
“If we can’t discuss things together, huge issues like marriage, we have problems.” I said.
Carter sighed. “I’m sorry, guys. I got carried away with the excitement of everything. We can wait. I know it’ll be okay.”
“So, I got a letter.” I told them, suddenly feeling the need to be away from here. “From someone who says they’re my father. He wants to meet me. If it’s okay with you, Flynn. I’m going to travel back to New York for a few days. I need to get my things out of my old home anyhow.”
“You can’t leave!” Carter said. “You just got turned.”
“I’ll be with Flynn. He’ll make sure I’m okay and anyway I feel fine.”
His gaze dropped to the floor as if he’d broken a priceless antique vase.
“Carter. I do want to be with you all. It’s our ultimate aim, but we have to find our own way there. I recently discovered I’m part succubus. The answers could be back in New York and I’m going to go find them. Well, try to find them.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re running away?” Smith said. “I know the pattern well, remember?”
“I need to leave to find myself. Otherwise you don’t have the whole me anyhow. You said yourself you’re a work in progress. Carter and Flynn have new careers to explore and Jayden wants to find himself. We need to do this or we won’t succeed together. Not as fragments of ourselves.”
“So you’re leaving?” Jayden questioned.
“Yes. I’m going back to New York for a few days. I’m going to go pack. Can you get me on your flight, Flynn, and book me a separate hotel room?”
Flynn nodded but didn’t say a word.
I left the room and I didn’t need my super strength hearing to know I’d left a room full of silence.
8
Smith
She’d left at the time I probably needed her most. But the fact was—and I knew this after many a consultation with a therapist—I was using Serena as a crutch when I needed to confront my problems and deal. And one of those problems was my old friend.
Denny Holloway.
I’d been to high school with Denny and he’d been the one who’d kept up with my own wild ways. When even Jayden would bow out, Denny was always up for pranks and getting high. But where I dabbled with the stuff, Denny made it his career, until he was so successful he ran his bar as a front for his highly lucrative drug ring. In addition, Denny had decided that you couldn’t run a business as a mere mortal, so he’d sold his soul. Denny was now a demon and not to be crossed, though we’d kept a civil relationship due to our past history.
Class A’s and other shit like that were never my thing. But alcohol was another thing entirely, especially a fine bourbon. I’d had money to burn and Denny knew it, opening me tabs that became increasingly higher, topped with other people’s unpaid drinks tabs, added to my own as I didn’t know what planet I was on, never mind what I was spending. Then there were the women, especially Harlow. They’d pour themselves around me all night until my weak self gave in and let them take me to a room round the back for a blow job or for them to ride my cock. As long as they kept the booze coming, I didn’t care what they did to me.
I helped fund Denny’s lifestyle, and he helped me enjoy mine.
But then the shit with Leonie went down, and I tried to kill myself. Suddenly I was in a facility and Denny wasn’t getting his regular pay day any more.
Something I’d given little thought to, until the message three days ago.
I pretended to take a sip of the drink in front of me but I had no intention of letting myself go back down that slippery slope. Harlow’s gaze watched me and I saw the slight raise of her eyebrow as she noted the liquid had not reached my lips. Denny looked unaffected.
“So I called because something interesting dropped into my lap and well, it changes things between us, Smith. Changes things a lot actually.”
I stared at him. “Just get this over with. I want to draw a line under things. You know I’m done with all this shit now, yeah? The booze, the girls. I have a girl of my own now.”
Denny slowly scratched at his chin. “Well, not exactly of your own is it, but yes, from all outward appearances it seems you finally have your act together, Smith. And as one of your closest friends I’m really happy for you. We go way back remember? I’m happy if you’re happy.”
The set of his jaw tipped me off that Denny was anything but happy right now. “The thing is I’m having a few financial difficulties. Now, I’ve had your back many a time, right? Anyhow, it seemed right that the first person I came to was you as you’ll see.”
“You want me to help you with rent and shit?”
Denny sighed. “I took some merch from a supplier and then the bar was robbed. All of it gone. Now he wants payment.” He held his hands up. “I don’t have it, man.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
I let out a gasp. “I don’t have a spare half a million bucks under the bed to pay for your drugs.”
“Well, I think you do, and anyhow there’s an easier way.”
I pushed back my chair and stood up. “You’re out of your mind, Denny. You need to find another way to pay your debt. This doesn’t involve me.”
“Yeah? I think you need to watch this video.” Denny lowered his hand to underneath his desk and the television on the wall behind me flickered to life. I turned to stare at the screen.
The video showed a thin man with greasy brown hair and dark circles under his eyes, sitting in
the chair I had just vacated. I took my eyes off the screen to look back at Denny, who pointed to what looked like an ordinary wall light behind him. Surveillance. Made sense he’d have it in his line of work.
“Take a seat. Smith.”
I retook the chair repositioning it to face the television.
I heard Denny whisper. “Run along, Harlow. Us men need to talk business. I’ll see you tonight. I promise things are about to change.” He didn’t know I was a vampire, that I could hear his every tiny whisper.
The man on the screen began to speak. “I need a fix, man. But I don’t have any money right now. I need to put it on account, like we used to.” I realized the man on screen was Rob Delaware. He was barely recognizable from the last time I saw him; his face ravaged by the mask of an addict.
Denny’s voice joined the recording.
“But you began to not settle your bar tab on time, didn’t you?” The emphasis on ‘bar tab’ let me know Denny was covering his back, but the bill was not from a couple drinks at the bar.
“I can pay you with information? I know something about one of your regulars. Some shit went down between him and my sister when he was drunk. I found photos on her cell, forwarded them to myself. I don’t wanna drop my sister in it but I could give you my cell until I have your money?”
I sat upright in my chair. Alerted at ‘regular’ and ‘drunk’. With my presence this could only be me.
The video ended, and I swiveled my chair back around to Denny.
“Thing is. I saw the photos and I turned him down. I don’t give the likes of him free merch. But then I found the place robbed. And not long after that, Rob went to ‘rehab’ God knows where. Coincidence? I think not.”
“What were the photos?
“They were really interesting. You and Cynthia. Making out in a room here in my club. In the photo you have fangs and she has two bite marks on her neck.”
I kept my face calm and rolled my eyes. “You gotta be kidding. I’ve never heard anything so crazy. I’ve never done anything with Cynthia Delaware and I’m just a regular guy.”
“Save it, Smith. You’re not the only vampire frequents my club. I have Shifters come too, the Fae sometimes. It was a shock when I saw the photo but I knew it was genuine. All these years, Smith. You knew I went over to the dark side but you never said you were a vampire. It cuts deep, man. Deep.”
I sighed. “I have my reasons. No one knows. You understand? No one outside my very tight circle. You were just outside that, dude. Close but that information is dangerous. I didn’t tell you to protect you.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself…” He stared at me, waiting.
“So this photo’s on Cynthia’s phone? Shit.”
“It’s on both these phones. Cynthia’s and Rob’s.” Denny went in his drawer and pulled out two cells. “Rob’s not the only one who can steal.”
And now we got down to the truth. To the actual business at hand. Blackmail. “Let me get this straight. You want me to pay five hundred thousand dollars for you to keep your silence? Then we’re done, right?”
“If you want us done, then you clear my debt and get me access to a regular line of supply for a very good price.”
“Who is the person you owe money to? If you give me their name and contact information, I will ensure that they do not remember your debt, but I’m not sorting out your future supply. We’re done after this, Denny. You went too far when you chose blackmail over asking a friend. I’d have helped you anyhow, that’s the sad truth in all this.”
Denny looked at me with dead eyes. Looked like the demon had taken his humanity once and for all.
“My suppliers name is Bill Henderson.”
I froze in place for a second.
“Bill Henderson, the tycoon? My father?”
“Yes. Of course he doesn’t come himself. He has a team. He sends one of those with my supplies.”
“You’re fucking fooling yourself. My father doesn’t deal drugs.”
“Yeah? Who’s this waiting in the car outside then?” Denny played another video taken outside the bar. A car pulled up outside and the door opened, a burly guy exiting the rear. Before he walked to the club, the passenger door wound down and my father could clearly be seen talking to the guy.
My father was a drug dealer? It couldn’t be true.
Could it?
“Leave it with me. I’ll sort it.” I told him, and I walked out.
My mind was more fucked than ever. Had Denny told anyone else? What had happened that night with Cynthia? She’d never mentioned it since. Where was Rob Delaware, and how did I equate the father I loved dearly with the one purportedly running a drug cartel?
I stood in the liquor store staring at the bottles, telling myself I didn’t need a drink. But my craving wouldn’t listen to common sense and I purchased a bottle of Jack and went to sit in the car and drink it.
I was losing control again. The parts of my life I’d taken for granted crumbling to ash. I dropped the glove compartment down on the car and eyed the wooden stake I’d placed there earlier. Sometimes I’m sure it would be easier all around if I didn’t have to exist in this shit world.
But thoughts of a blonde haired woman pulled me back and I smiled, thinking about love and children and giving them everything I’d not had. Instead I had a mother who’d rather tour the world and a father who although he loved me, was consumed by his business brain and what he could achieve next. Opening the car window I threw the stake and the bourbon outside, the bottle crashing to the ground and splintering into shards. The smell hit my keen senses and my mouth watered. I took my cell from my pocket and dialed Serena’s number. I needed to know how she was, that she’d arrived safely, and ask if I could fly to join her. Right now, I needed her.
It went to her voicemail, and I banged on the steering wheel in frustration. I looked around. There was no one nearby, no one to see me. I leapt out of the car and clawing at the ground, I licked the puddles of liquor on the street like the addict I was, cutting my tongue and lips on shards of glass. Disgusted with myself, I stared at the stake before I stood and stamped on it, splintering it into useless tiny pieces. Then I jumped back into the car and broke down.
Maybe I should tell the others, but Flynn was with Serena, Carter was full of his new role, and Jayden was in a mood of his own. There was only one person I could turn to right now though I didn’t know how much use she’d be.
My mother. The one person I did my best to avoid. That about summed up the sorry state of my life right now. I called her but there was no answer. Defeated I walked back into the liquor store and bought another bottle.
9
Serena
Flynn obviously knew that if I wanted to talk about what had gone down at the house, I’d raise the subject myself and so he avoided it. We spent the flight chatting about his photography and how he planned to announce who he was to the organizers once he landed.
My brow creased. “Why not wait until they’ve chosen the winner?”
“Because I hate deception. I’ve already proved to myself that my photography is good enough to be shortlisted for a major award. Now anything else is a bonus.”
“I understand. So, what are you planning to do now?”
“The gallery where all the shit went down with Leonie. It’s for sale. I wondered about purchasing it and selling my photos and other talented artists work.”
My jaw dropped. “That sounds like an incredible idea. Have you made an offer?”
“No. I need to discuss it with everyone and well I found out it was for sale just before we left…”
I placed a hand on his arm. “Call the others and get their agreement. You do not want someone else buying your dream.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it later. Once we’re settled in at the hotel.”
We made our way to the hotel Flynn had booked for us. The hotel was located on Times Square. I was pleasantly surprised to see he hadn’t gone all Billionaire and b
ooked something flamboyant but had booked us separate rooms in a nice boutique hotel. When I opened the door to my room, I saw it had an adjoining door. I turned to look at Flynn who had followed me in to ensure my room was okay before going to his own.
“I know you wanted your own room but this way if you need me for anything you don’t have to stand in the hall; just knock on the door. I promise I won’t sneak through in the night and climb into your bed.”
A yawn broke out over my face. “I’m beat. I’m going to order room service and have an evening with my eReader and a nice soak in the tub. Is that okay with you? In the morning I want to set off early to my old apartment to collect my belongings. Maybe we could do dinner tomorrow evening?” I told him.
Flynn nodded. “Sounds fine. I’ve a few things to do tonight and then tomorrow I’m meeting with the competition committee. I’ll book us somewhere nice for dinner.”
“Okay. I’d be happy to eat in the hotel if you preferred.”
“No, I rarely get to New York. I’d like to have an explore while I’m here. Take in some of the sights.”
“Even though I lived here, I rarely did the tourist thing.” I confessed.
“Well then I think we need a trip up Rockefeller or the Empire State while we’re here, and I’m definitely taking you to Tiffany’s.”
“No you’re not.” I told him.
He sat down on the couch in my room. “What’s going on, Serena? I know we haven’t known you that long, but I know enough that you aren’t yourself.”
Sighing, I sat myself on the couch at the side of him. “I feel like a concubine or something. I feel like I’m dependent on you. On all four of you. I have a small amount of savings which if I lived your lifestyle would last me a couple hours. Here in New York maybe a couple months if I was careful. I don’t have shopping-in-Tiffany’s money and I don’t like it, Flynn. It all seems one- well, four-sided. You’re all equal and I’m the odd one out.”
Filthy Rich Vampire Husbands Page 5