by Kailin Gow
I don’t know what Xander wants with me, or whether or not he wants me dead. But one thing is clear to me. Xander wants nothing to do with Roni or her plans. Whatever sick fantasies Roni has conjured up, Xander wants no part of them. And as I realize this, I feel a strange flutter in my chest. Something like relief. Xander may be in with the Tannenbaums – and I have to figure out how I feel about that – but the worst scheming, the worst plotting, was all Roni and Ben’s doing. Terrence and Xander, at least, seem invested in my survival. Which is more than I could say for a lot of people I know in the world of the Blue Room right now.
I stare at Xander as he gets closer to Roni, ever closer.
“You stupid bitch,” he whispers. I can hear a real anger in his voice, the likes of which I’ve never encountered before. “How dare you. How fucking dare you threaten the woman I love.”
Love?
Did he mean it, then – the words that he’d written in that letter he’d left on my bedside table? At the time I hadn’t been able to believe it. I’d dismissed them as just another one of his lies: just something he’d said to keep the fantasy going. Just part of his plan to lure me into his web of trickery. But now he’s saying those words again: before Terrence Blue, before Roni Taylor, before everybody. Like he means them.
Maybe he means them. Maybe Mr. X., Alexander Blue, really does love me after all.
The blush in my cheek gets hotter and redder. Even Terrence notices it. I can see him stare at Xander with a mix of admiration and anger. He’s jealous. Xander has made him jealous. And I can’t deny it: that fact makes me a little bit happy.
“You don’t love her!” Roni cries. “You can’t!” She’s lost, now; it’s clear she’s lost, and this anger makes her almost bestial. “You can’t love her. You don’t even know her. What is she – eighteen? Nineteen? Too young for you, you sick fuck. Or do you take after your half-brother? Clarence Blue – that wrinkled old miserly tyrant, obsessed with fucking every nubile young body old enough to be his granddaughter…does fucking young girls run in the family?”
“Stop it, Roni,” Xander is commanding. “You’re making this worse for yourself. You know this. Age has nothing to do with it. Get your facts straight and stop putting out lies. Staci’s a grown woman in her twenties, and I’m in my late twenties. Nothing like you seducing my older half-brother while you were dating my nephew Danny. You’re not the victim at all, Roni, but the one who orchestrated this madness. Stop lying, cheating, and blaming everyone else, especially Staci. All you’re doing now is making the inevitable consequences of your actions that more serious.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m giving you an out, Roni. Put the gun down, now. Give up. And we’ll pretend like this never happened. You’ll get some money, a ticket to somewhere nice. Granted, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, and I’ll make sure you’re under surveillance for the rest of your miserable, lonely life, but I’ll make sure you’re happy. Or at least, as happy as someone like you can ever hope to be. I don’t think getting everything you say you want would make you happy, either, though. So I guess it’s all a wash. Don’t be a fool, Roni.”
“Why not?” Roni says. Hot tears stain her eyes. I’m almost feeling sorry for her. Or would be, if she hadn’t just tried to kill me. “You’re allowed to be a fool. You’re a fool for love right now – mooning over Staci. Both of you. Well, I love power. And why shouldn’t I be allowed to be a fool for that?”
She’s almost noble in the way she raises her head proudly, stares Xander full in the face.
And then she lunges for him.
It’s a hopeless gesture. She knows this from the first. We all do. There’s no way she’ll be able to carry out the attack. And she doesn’t. Xander grabs her by the wrist, forces the gun out of her hand. It goes off into the ceiling; more plaster blizzards down. And then Xander is holding the gun, pointing it at her, and Roni is doubled over in the center of the room, weeping, sobbing, keening, wailing, crying like I’ve never seen a woman cry before. A rage is in her and it’s frightening to watch.
“How dare you…” she whispers. “How dare you.”
“I’ve already buzzed hotel security,” says Terrence.
A few minutes later, they arrive to take her away. Paramedics come to take Ben away, too, but I don’t know if it’s too late for him. His body is ash-grey.
My friend. Another of my friends: a liar. Another of my friends: dead.
But I am alive.
Then I am safe.
I need to sit down.
I put out a hand; I wobble and almost fall; Xander catches me.
“Staci…” he is pressing his lips to my forehead, kissing me so sweetly. “Staci, Staci, I was so worried about you. I was so scared. I looked everywhere for you, Staci, everywhere. After I found you gone – I came to you and you were nowhere to be found.”
I look at him warily.
“So…you didn’t come to kill me?”
“Kill you?” Xander’s mouth drops open in astonishment. “Why would I kill you? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I love you. You know that.”
“But you…and the Tannenbaums.”
A shadow crosses his face. A darkness, a pain.
“So you know,” he says.
“Yes, I know.”
“I never wanted you to find out this way,” he says. “I wanted to tell you the truth a hundred times. I said so in my letter – I wanted to take you out on my yacht, that night. Confess the truth to you then. But I was afraid. I was afraid if you knew I was mixed in with the Tannenbaums you wouldn’t care for me anymore. I didn’t know you were a Tannenbaum when I met you. I only found out later, after you went to visit your mother. But by then…I’d all but forgotten my promise to my late godmother. I’d all but forgotten about this “mysterious granddaughter” I was supposed to destroy. I was crazy about you. But I lied. I lied because I didn’t want to lose you and I am so, so sorry about that.”
“But I saw that text…from Gina…who works for Roni.”
Gina – or Rita?
Xander sighs. Then he smiles.
“It’s time I told you the whole truth,” he says. “I should have told you a long time ago. But I didn’t know who you were. And as much as I liked you, as much as I thought I was falling for you, I didn’t know how much I could trust you. I’ve been very wary of trusting anybody,” he says. “Perhaps you can see why.”
“Yes,” I say. I certainly can. I think of Ben, lying there on the floor just moments before, and I want to throw up. My gorge rises. I feel sicker than I’ve ever felt. But I force down the bile. I look up at Mr. X. and try to smile at him, try to be brave. My hands are still shaking. I’m still getting used to the fact that I’m not about to die.
“I was part owner of the Malibu clinic where you learned the news of Rita’s death,” he says. “I hired Rita after she joined the Blue Room. I’d been tipped off to her real identity, of course. I thought she could help me spy on the Blues holdings. I knew she was the best in the business. So I tapped her for this job: investigating the Blue Room from the inside out. I had a hunch she wasn’t just at the Blue Room for kicks – I knew she was running her own operation. But I didn’t realize that operation was set up by your father: to track down your enemies. That piece of knowledge came later.
“So Rita started working for me. That’s how I found out about Roni and her blackmail scheme, which she was running for Gloria Tannenbaum – at least, until she turned on her. Using the Blue Room to entrap prominent and powerful clients, pairing them off with girls like Roz who were there to extract political secrets from them. There was a whole sub-culture within the Blue Room, see? Girls who were not there to give pleasure but take information, pass them on. Gloria Tannenbaum’s way of saying fuck you to her longtime rivals in the Blues Clan. Roni was her right-hand woman. But then Roni decided to double-cross Gloria and blackmail her, too…”
“I know,” I said. “At least, I know now.”
Then a thought occurs to me.
“Roz,” I say. “Was she one of the girls in this group?”
“Smart girl,” says Xander, nodding. “That’s exactly right. Roz was working for the Tannenbaums. And Rita was onto her. Or at least, she had her suspicions. So, one night, Roz, who was training to be a Blues Girl under Rita’s guidance, entrapped Rita in a room. Rita was her mentor at the Blue Room, and was kind to her, despite suspecting Roz of being one of the girls who was blackmailing their patrons. Roz told her she needed her help acting out a kinky scene, or a lesbian sex scene with another of the Blues Girls or something like that – I don’t know how she got her in there. But Rita goes into the room, and Roz has a team of violent thugs – probably Roni Taylor’s old associates – lying in wait for her. They beat her to a bloody pulp. Probably even wanted to kill her – I don’t know why they didn’t. But Roz got Rita out of the way. Because we didn’t want a scandal at the Blue Room, Rita was mysteriously whisked away to our doctors at my rehab clinic in Malibu. Then Roz takes over Rita’s patrons. A surefire way for her to figure out what Rita’s been up to – how much she knows.”
“So who killed Roz?”
“I don’t know,” Xander says. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I assume it was her patron. But who it was….I have suspicions…but they’re only just that. I don’t know anything concrete, you see. And I’m tired of all of this. Danny…he’s been working with FBI, but they didn’t want anything to do with a place like the Blue Room because it can taint their reputation. Except he’s found someone outside the system…someone who used to work for the FBI. Someone connected to a high-level security company called Donovan Dynamics, who would be able to trace things that normal companies can’t.”
I am shaking slightly as the magnitude of all this hits me. The Blue Room is clearly not a place of pleasure and fantasies for the rich, famous, and powerful. It is a place where important decisions, deals, and negotiations were done. Because of the patrons and who or what they are.
“So Roz…” I still can’t believe I cared about this girl. This girl who ended up betraying people she pretended to be friends with…Rita and me. “She was the one who tried to kill Rita or killed Rita…I still can’t believe it.”
“I have strong suspicions that Roz knew too much. Found out too much when she took over Rita’s patrons, and one of them killed her.”
I was shaking now. “Nothing is ever as it seems,” I said. I was so suspicious of Mr. X or Xander when I requested to be his Blue Girl after Roz’s death, so sure he had something to do with her death, but fell for him anyways. The realization of how close I was to being the next victim and how easily I could have been the next victim if Xander was the killer, hit me. Xander was that charming, that irresistible of a lover, I would have fallen like Roz have for the killer. Roz was killed by one of the patrons. Roz killed or at least attempted to kill Rita. The thought angered me so much that I was now shaking with rage. How I cared for Roz, only to find that she was the murderer behind Rita’s death and disappearance.
“Rita…she went into the Malibu clinic?” I asked.
“That’s what I was told,” Xander said. “I didn’t have much interaction with her before, in fact, I was not involved in the Blue Room much before until after her attack and Terrence and Danny asked me to come help with the situation. All I know was that she was taken there, and they tried to treat her, but her wounds were so bad, they had to bandage her up.”
He takes my hands. He lightly kisses each one, then covers my wrist and arms with more kisses.
“Staci, I had no idea you knew Rita and that you were looking for her or I would have help you find her. You never confided in me about your relationship with her. I thought you were here just to be a Blues Girl. Which of course I was surprised yet delighted in finding out when I saw that it was you, the beautiful down-to-earth girl I was interested in at the gym. Staci, I’m no good at this fantasy life. I can’t play the part of Mr. X. any longer. From now on, I’m Alexander Blue, to you. That’s all I am. And my feelings for you – they’re real. I love you. I would never harm you.”
He got down on his knees, holding my hands in his. “I swear, Staci, all that business with the Tannenbaums is behind us. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I can’t and won’t go through with my promise to Gloria. It’s wrong, and I love you. I’ll do anything to convince you, Staci. Just be mine. Please believe me.”
Chapter 6
I stare into Xander’s eyes. I can’t believe what I’m hearing: what he’s offering me. This is no longer my patron, my client, the Mr. X. I was paid to sleep with. This is Alexander Blue, a self-made billionaire and a Blue, the handsomest manly man I have ever seen, standing in front of me, no, kneeling in front of me, asking me to love him. I hardly know what to say. I’m overwhelmed. My throat is dry. I want to say something, anything, be it yes or no or maybe or who can say, but I just can’t. My lips won’t move to form words. No part of me will move to form words. I’m shaking from the shock.
What’s going on?
Xander loves me. He loves me.
He doesn’t want to kill me. He wants to be with me. He wants to be with me, always. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. A truth I had once thought too beautiful to ever dare to believe. But now the knowledge of his love fills me with such happiness, such joy. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Terrence, standing by the doorway. He’s glowering over at us. I can see how much Xander’s words have hurt him. There is so much pain in his eyes.
“I should give you two some privacy,” he mutters. His voice is as dark as his visage. He storms out before I can stop him.
“Terrence…wait…” Those are all the words I am able to say, but I say them too quietly for him to hear.
“Staci, please,” says Xander. He’s smiling up at me, beaming, almost beatific in his beauty. “Will you trust me? Tell me that you trust me – please!”
I smile at him.
My heart is beating like a drum. I feel like I’m going to faint. I feel…I can’t even put a name to what I’m feeling right now. It’s so overwhelming. How can I trust Xander – after all the lies, after all the fantasies, after all the fear? How can I trust him, knowing as I do that he lied to me about his identity for so long, that he kept back his knowledge of the Tannenbaums – he must have known almost as long as I did who I really was – that he set me up as bait to catch Roz’s killer.
But I want to trust him. Everyone else has betrayed me, and in this wild and crazy world I feel like I need somebody to hold onto, somebody to trust. In this wild and crazy world I need one thing that feels safe, feels real. And so I take his face in my hands, touching his hard, sharp cheekbones with my fingertips, and kiss him.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, Alexander, I trust you.”
He looks happier than I have ever seen him. His dark blue eyes, usually so serious, are dancing with strange mischief. For the first time I see the resemblance between him and Terrence.
Poor Terrence…
He looked so sad, so lonely, when he skulked out of the room. I hadn’t even thanked him for saving me. I hadn’t said anything to him. I’d just been so wrapped in Xander: there, before me. Had I even looked at Terrence? No wonder he was hurt.
But did that mean I loved Mr. X – I guess I can’t call him that anymore, now that he’s no longer a client – more than I loved Terrence? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m in Xander’s arms, and that should make me the happiest woman in the world, and I am happy, to be sure, but still somehow it feels like something is missing. Like maybe I’d be happier if Terrence were here too.
“Come on,” says Xander, kissing my forehead. “I need to get my gunshot wound attended to. And then I’ll drive you back to L.A. I have something else to tell you.”
“Back to the Blue Tower?”
It looks like I’ll never escape that place, no matter how hard I try.
“Back to the Blue Tower. I have a surprise for you.”
We don’t talk much on the drive
back to L.A. I’m so exhausted by my ordeal that I fall right asleep, my head leaning, nodding on Xander’s shoulder. There’s so much I still want to ask him: about Gina, about my father, about Roni, about his investigation, but my head is so heavy, and I can’t find the words.
Right now all I want to do is allow myself to lull into sweet slumber, to close my eyes and breathe in the heady, musky scent of Xander, which even now I associate with warmth, with safety. It reminds me of nights spent by the fire in his beach house, warming ourselves by the roaring of the flame. It reminds me of days spent languidly watching the surf crash against the cliffs with him as we enjoy the beach together, just the two of us, just him and I. Enjoying days of fantasy I now know are real.
Then we pull up at the Blue Tower once again.
“I have a surprise for you,” Xander says again. He’s beaming, positively beaming. He leads me back to a room – a different room than the one I remember.
“We’ve beefed up security here,” says Xander. “Giving you one of our normal guest suites, not the normal Blue Girls rooms. You’ll be safe.”
He hands me a key card. I unlock the door. I push my way inside. Was this the surprise – a new room?
Then I see him, sitting in a chair.
My father.
“Dad!” The word just spills out of me. I’ve been used to calling him by his first name, ‘or “Hey You,” but I’m so happy to see him, alive and well, that the word just…comes out.