Retribution

by Shana Figueroa

  Through tear-rimmed eyes, his fiancée asked, “Then why haven’t you made love to me since the day you met her for coffee?”

  Max froze. Shit, was that true? It was. “I—” His mouth moved, trying to come up with an explanation, but nothing came out. He’d been busy searching for Margaret. He’d been taking too many pills. And his stupid preoccupation with Val was distracting him from the things in his life that mattered. Max felt the heat of shame flushing his cheeks. Goddammit, he could get Val out of his system. He could fix things with Abby. He could.

  The bong of the front door intercom interrupted their painful conversation.

  Abby’s jaw clenched, and she let out a slow, controlled exhale. “I’ll get it.” She rose and disappeared down the hallway toward the intercom next to the door.

  Max took a deep breath, forcing himself to think clearly and not panic at what an outside observer would think was the slow death of his engagement. He needed to get a hold of his life again. He’d get in Abby’s good graces again, have sex with her and remember what she felt and tasted like, and all the other things he’d enjoyed up until a couple of weeks ago. He would remind himself why he loved her—because he did love her.

  He went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot Abby had brewed a few minutes ago. Maybe later he’d go for another jog to clear his head. From around the corner, he heard Abby invite somebody in over the intercom. He’d leave for a three-hour run right then and there if it turned out to be Ginger. While she remained out of sight, Max snuck to the liquor cabinet and dumped a couple of shots of whiskey into his black coffee. Toby trotted over and barked at him.

  “You’re not in a position to judge, rageaholic,” he said to the dog’s accusing eyes.

  A minute later, Michael Beauford walked into the kitchen with a twelve-inch square box in his arms. His craggy face split into a genial grin. “Max! How are you, my boy?” He dropped the box on the kitchen counter, then embraced Max in a hug.

  Max wasn’t big on hugging, though he made exceptions for certain people. Michael was one of them. The CFO of Carressa Industries was the closest thing he’d had to a father figure, and had been Max’s only supporter during his run from the law last year.

  After Michael hugged Abby, she kissed him on the cheek. “I’d love to stay, but I said I’d go shopping with Carrie.” She leveled Max with a cool half-second glare, then left. Dammit, he would make things right with her.

  Michael crooked his thumb toward the box. “That was on your doorstep when I came in. Doesn’t feel like a bomb.”

  “Thanks for potentially getting blown up for me. Coffee?”

  “Nah. The wife’s banned caffeine, thinks it’ll cut my life short. Like living to eighty-six instead of eighty-seven is a real tragedy. I’ll take a glass of water, though.”

  Max poured him a glass, and they sat down at the kitchen table.

  “How’s life treating you?” Michael asked. Though he leaned back and relaxed in his chair, he looked Max up and down with wise eyes that took in Max’s every movement for clues to things unsaid. Max squirmed under the scrutiny. He had a lot to hide these days.

  “Eh, you know.” Max shrugged. “Abby’s busy with wedding minutiae. We’ve been…okay.” He sipped his coffee, wincing at the whiskey he forgot he put in there.

  “Wow.” Michael made a popping sound with his lips. “You really know how to spin a picture of premarital bliss.”

  “Every couple has their ups and downs. So I’m told.” He’d had some casual relationships before, got good at faking orgasms for a sheen of normalcy, but none of them had come close to being marriage-worthy—not counting what he’d had with Val, which was in a class all its own.

  “True enough.” Michael drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ll be honest—I’d like to say you look good, but you really don’t.”

  Max frowned. One thing he’d always liked about Michael was his friend’s ability to tell the truth to people’s faces. Max usually appreciated the candor. Not today.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” he said, but couldn’t meet Michael’s eyes. The CFO had seen Max messed up before, knew what he looked like when he was off the wagon, as he’d been right after his father’s death. He didn’t want Michael to worry about him.

  “Well, good,” Michael said. “I’m glad you moved on from all that unfortunate business last year. I thought you’d take more time to settle into your independence and hard-won freedom, though. You look like a man suffering from whiplash, trying to change too much too fast.”

  Max brought his coffee cup down on the table with a hard clink. “Are you saying I shouldn’t get married?” Who the hell was Michael to lecture him about how to get on with his life? No one knew the entirety of what he’d been through—no one but Val.

  “I’m not saying that,” Michael said in a softer tone, perhaps sensing he’d pushed too hard. “All I’m saying is that you look like shit. Maybe you need a break from…whatever it is you do all day. Knitting, I assume.”

  “You came over here to tell me to take a vacation from knitting?”

  “No, actually.” Michael straightened in his chair. “I came to talk business.”

  “Let me guess—the board’s finally found a way to force me to sell my shares.”

  “No again.” Michael chuckled. “I’ll have to tell them you’re not, in fact, a fortune-teller.”

  Max choked on his coffee.

  “I know, I kill me, too. But seriously—they want you to come back to the company.”

  Max wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “They want me back on the board?”

  “Yes, in some capacity, though probably not CEO again, sorry. Carressa Industries has been turning a quarterly profit at about the market average since you left, which as you know is worse than average for us. We’re used to performing ahead of the pack, because that’s the way it’s been for over a decade—right about when you joined the company. Lately our quarterly earnings have come in under expectations, and shareholders are panicking. End of the world, might have to sell their yachts, et cetera. They don’t think it’s a coincidence that the pinnacle of our prosperity just happened to coincide with your tenure. They don’t know how you did it, but they know it was you.”

  Max remained silent. Only his father knew he used his ability to decide which companies to acquire and which to divest of at exactly the right times. There was no way anyone would guess he could literally see the future, even if that was the only explanation. And Max highly doubted his father would’ve told anyone else. He was a prized family secret, a golden calf to be bled dry.

  “I am the board’s emissary of goodwill. We want our financial genius back, and we’re willing to make generous concessions—embarrassingly generous, even. Name your price. So…are you bored with knitting yet?”

  Max chewed on his thumb for a moment. He honestly didn’t know what he thought about the offer. He was tiring of the charity circuit. Raising money for worthy causes was definitely fulfilling, and he relished the opportunity to finally contribute to the world in a positive way. But all the expensive dinners and fancy galas with rich, boring people were beginning to wear on him. And when he wasn’t doing charity stuff, he was doing…nothing, really. Puttering around the house. Reading. Exercising. Popping pills. Obsessing over Val. Fighting with Abby. A better way to occupy his brain did sound appealing, though going back to using his ability for the company’s financial gain felt too much like old times.

  “How long do I have to think it over?” Max asked.

  “However long you need. Or until you get arrested again. Whichever comes first.” Michael leaned toward Max, a new intensity in his eyes. “Listen, kid. Take it from me when I say the Devil makes work of idle minds, and you have one hell of a mind to get up to no good. No amount of drugs is gonna whip that sucker into submission if it doesn’t want the life you’re trying to live.”

  Max flinched. Before he could offer a rebuttal, Michael clapped h
im on the shoulder and stood.

  “I’d say my emissary mission’s complete. Come back to the company or don’t, it doesn’t matter to me, honestly. I’ll probably drop dead any day now, so what do I care? Do what you wanna do, Max. Simple as that. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure, one way or another.” He gave Max a quick hug on his way out the door.

  Max rubbed his temples and leaned against the kitchen counter, next to the mysterious box. Goddamn Michael, he knew Max too well. Of course he could tell Max was on drugs. Everyone could probably tell, except poor Abby. She wanted to believe the best in Max, and ignored most evidence to the contrary—until recently, that was. The truth would crush her.

  It’s cruel of me to keep her hanging on. I should let her go.

  The thought hit him like a punch to the stomach. If he couldn’t make it work with Abby, he couldn’t make it work with anyone. He would make it work. The next time he’d see Michael would be at his damn wedding.

  Max grabbed the box and ripped it open without concern for the frailty of its contents. He expected to find an early wedding gift, maybe a five-hundred-dollar gravy boat. Instead, buried beneath layers of tissue paper, he pulled out two masquerade-style masks; a wolf and a fox. Max turned them over in his hand. They looked handmade and high-quality, like the mask he’d worn at the Blue Serpent party last week. He set the masks down, picked up the box, and scanned its sides; no address label. Finally, he turned the box upside down and dumped everything out, tissue paper and all. An envelope fell onto the counter. Max ripped it open and pulled out a card made of smooth papyrus that read in cursive script:

  Maxwell Carressa and Abigail Westford

  You are cordially invited to the Northwest Mountain Lodge

  on July Thirty-first at Ten O’clock in the Evening

  Formal Attire, Masks Required

  Bring Your Sorrows and Be Cleansed

  A small coiled blue snake was embossed on the bottom of the card—the Blue Serpent. Max guessed he held in his hand an invitation to the coveted top-tier event, despite his bad behavior at the lower-tier party. Assuming Lucien ran these things, why would he want to bring Max into the inner fold? He couldn’t imagine he had anything Lucien wanted. And the requirement of a tuxedo as well as the addition of a significant other probably meant something more substantial than a drug-fueled orgy.

  He dropped the invitation on the counter and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. With a trembling hand, he dialed Val. Finally, he had an excuse. But this was the last time. It rang, and kept ringing.

  “Come on, Val, please answer the fucking ph—”

  “Hey,” she said, sounding tired.

  Max cleared his throat, stifling a relieved sigh. She hadn’t shut him out completely after all. “Have you found Margaret yet?”

  “No.”

  “Are you still convinced Lucien’s got her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Abby and I just got an invitation to a Blue Serpent top-tier party. It’s something fancier than the party I went to. The invitation says, ‘Bring your sorrows and be cleansed.’”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not versed in cult-speak.”

  “If you tell me where it is, I can stake it out, maybe sneak in and look for Margaret or clues to where Lucien’s keeping her.”

  “Why would you sneak in when we can just walk in with my invitation?”

  “Max…”

  “There’s no way I can bring Abby. I’m not dragging her into this mess.”

  “Who am I supposed to be then?”

  “Be Abby. Everyone will be wearing masks. Just wear a wig, too, don’t say anything, and you’ll pass for her. From the head down, you look close enough. You’re more athletic, and your breasts are fuller, and—”

  Jesus, Max, shut up! Thank God Abby wasn’t around to hear him drooling over his ex-girlfriend’s body.

  After a pause, Val said, “I don’t know if we should—”

  “Do you want to find Margaret or not?” he snapped. “Because I’m not giving you the address so you can run in there and get killed, or kill somebody yourself. We do this my way or not at all.”

  She let out a defeated sigh. “When?”

  “Saturday, ten o’clock. Wear a formal dress. I’ll pick you up at your house. And don’t bring a gun this time, for Christ’s sake.”

  He hung up before she could argue, then let his head drop into his hands. Another potentially disastrous plan kicked into motion. Why couldn’t he just let it go? He groaned as he admitted the truth to himself—he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see her again. And it would probably get him killed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Val fluffed her blond wig as she sat in the passenger seat of Max’s car, adjusting one of the fake blond curls so it covered the circular scar behind her ear. She swiped on some lipstick and took a moment to check her makeup in the vanity mirror. Why she even bothered with makeup was a legitimate question, given she’d be wearing a fox mask all night. But it seemed odd to don a gorgeous black satin gown with no effort to make the rest of her body look just as nice. Thank God for the mask, though. Her facial features didn’t resemble Abby’s at all. There’d be no way she could pass for Max’s fiancée without the fox muzzle covering most of her face.

  He’d only told her their destination after he picked her up. Per the GPS in Max’s car, they were about ten minutes out from the Northwest Mountain Lodge, where something strange was certain to happen—hopefully not another sex party. Pretending to be her ex-boyfriend’s fiancée at an orgy would be beyond awkward. It was bad enough as it was. He looked impossibly handsome in his tuxedo and slicked-back hair, the textbook picture of a dark, smoking-hot millionaire. Though he finally got to see her looking good—by far the most put-together she’d ever been for him—he’d said nothing when he first saw her.

  Instead, he stared at her for a long time, taking in every inch of her, the amber in his eyes popping like embers as the fire in him burned hotter and hotter, until she swore he was about to kiss her. She found herself leaning forward against her will, beckoning his lips to hers. But his gaze cut away, and he didn’t look at her again or speak on their drive to the lodge. Maybe she’d read him wrong, projected her own wants and desires onto him. His whole body seemed tense, as if being in her presence caused him physical pain. Forcing herself to mentally and physically back off, she distracted herself with her phone as he drove. She wished she could keep him out of all this chaos, but there was no putting that horse back in the barn.

  Max surprised Val by pulling into a gas station and parking his car away from the pumps. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a joint and a lighter. He lit the marijuana cigarette and took a long drag.

  Val raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “I’m nervous. If I don’t chill out before I get there, it’ll look suspicious.”

  He held the joint out, offering her a hit; she shook her head.

  “You look nice,” she said, resisting the urge to lick her lips at the same time. He looked better than nice, but admitting she wanted to rip his clothes off with her teeth might be a bit awkward.

  He shrugged. Max went to swanky charity events all the time. A tuxedo was probably like a second skin to him, nothing special. They sat in silence as Max stared out the window, lost in thought. It reminded her of when they’d been on the lam, trapped in a fleabag motel room for days while Max healed from the severe beating Sten had delivered. He’d stared out the window thinking God knows what for hours. Always his mind churned, a puzzle forever trying to solve itself. It drove him nuts sometimes, he’d told her.

  After a couple of minutes where she snuck glances at his gorgeous face without being too obvious about it, he said, “Carressa Industries wants to hire me back to the board.”

  “No kidding. What made them acknowledge your existence again after all this time?”

  “They want me to lead the company back to better-than-average
returns—using my knowledge of the future. They don’t know that’s how it works, but that’s what would happen.”

  “You don’t have to use your ability. You’re still a whiz with numbers.”

  He shook his head. “There’s too much randomness in the market. I’d need to perform.” He spat the last word. All he’d done his whole life was perform for other people.

  “If you don’t want to perform, why are you considering it?”

  He sighed as if he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. “It’s something to do. And charity work is worthwhile, but…”

  “Boring?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does Abby think?”

  His gaze flicked back out the window. “I haven’t told her.”

  Val wasn’t sure what to make of that. It couldn’t be good that he’d failed to mention a critical life decision to his fiancée. Maybe it had nothing to do with Val. She wasn’t a major part of his life anymore.

  “If you’re asking my opinion, I think you should take the job, but do it without using your ability. Give yourself a real challenge.”

  “Hmm,” was all he said. He took a final drag of his joint, then carefully extinguished it with his fingers and put it back in his pocket. He looked at her. “Ready?”

  “Whenever you are.”

  He started his car and drove the final few miles to the Northwest Mountain Lodge. They pulled up to the posh country club twenty minutes late, a ploy to avoid any forced socializing that might expose Val’s true identity. She took a deep breath, slipped on her mask, and prayed these rich assholes weren’t chatty. Then she nodded to Max, who looked sexy and ridiculous in his wolf mask, and they opened their doors together.

  A man in a servant’s tuxedo and a blank white-faced mask took Val’s hand and helped her out of the car. Suppressing the urge to recoil from his touch, she smiled politely, her mouth and eyes the only visible parts of her face. A moment later Max was at her side. He took her arm as another creepy-faced valet drove away with his car.