The Rich and the Dead

by Liv Spector

  “I know how you like to tease,” he whispered loudly into her ear. “But tonight you came to me, so don’t pull away like some silly virgin. See this girl,” he said, pointing to a brunette with enormous implants pushing out against her seemingly tortured skin. “You think you are better than her, with your fancy clothes and all your money.”

  “I don’t,” Lila said, still trying to get out of his grip.

  “But you are nothing compared to her. She is honest. You lie. You act like you’ve never had a cock in your mouth before. But I can tell you have. I can tell you like to play hard to get. I just like to play hard. Do you know who will win?” he asked as his fingers dug into her flesh. Lila winced in pain. “I will.”

  Lila was holding her breath, her eyes darting around the room. She was trying to assess how she could escape if she needed to, which she probably would any minute now. But all she saw were barriers. Alexei’s bodyguards were there by the back exits. He had five supersize comrades sitting with him at the table, and Lila knew they were all armed. She had miscalculated the situation. If he decided to get violent with her, she was outnumbered and in big trouble.

  She made a split-second decision. It was the only way she could think of to get out of this place. She stopped pulling away from Alexei and leaned into him.

  “It’s a bit crowded in here,” she purred. “Plus, I don’t like it when you look at other women. Why don’t we go back to your place, alone?”

  By going to Alexei’s she was putting herself in the lion’s den, but at least there she would be with only him. She figured she had a better chance of fighting off Alexei, if it came to it, than of battling his entire cadre of coked-up and drunk psychopathic sycophants.

  Alexei released Lila, who exhaled in relief to be out of his clutches. He went over to one of his bodyguards and said something to him in Russian. Then the two bodyguards quickly ushered Lila and Alexei out of the club and into the idling black SUV waiting for them outside.

  The bodyguards sat in the front, with Alexei and Lila in the back. Alexei poured himself a vodka from an open bottle sitting in a silver bucket between them. The car raced through the streets of Miami.

  Alexei regarded Lila with a drunken smirk. “You don’t fool me for a minute,” he said. His speech was slightly slurred.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t fool me!” he shouted with such force that he spilled some of his vodka on the car floor. “Dumb whore, look what you’ve made me do.”

  “Alexei, calm down. Nobody’s trying to fool you.”

  Alexei began to laugh. It was a cackle that made Lila’s skin crawl. There was so much hate in him. “I’m sick of playing this game with you. You think you’re playing me. But I’m the one playing you. I know you’re just Chase’s spy. He couldn’t send his little bitch Effie, so he sent you instead.”

  “You’ve gone crazy,” Lila said. She tried to make eye contact with either of the bodyguards, but they both kept looking forward. She knew they’d do nothing to help her. “I barely know Chase.”

  “Liar! You fucking lying cocktease. You think I believed you wanted to be with me? You think I don’t feel you shudder when I touch you? And all these dates we still haven’t kissed. Well, I’m going to get my kiss from you now.”

  He leaned toward Lila. She was thankful that the bottle of vodka was sitting there between them, giving her some kind of barrier against him. She imagined smashing the bottle over his head, but instead she moved closer to him, closed her eyes, and readied herself for a kiss from a monster. Will I have to sleep with him tonight to prove that I’m not Chase’s spy? When nothing happened, she opened her eyes to see him laughing at her.

  “Even worse than a tease is a whore who’ll fuck her way out of a problem.” Alexei sneered. “Sit back and shut the fuck up. I’m taking you back to my place for a real surprise.”

  Now Lila was seriously afraid. If she punched his windpipe, she knew she could disable him, but she’d have to do it the moment the car hit the next stoplight.

  “Not such a tough bitch now, are you?” Alexei said, seeming to relish the fear on her face.

  Without him seeing, Lila kept her hand on the door handle. The second the car came to a stop at an intersection, she started to frantically turn the handle, pushing her shoulder against the door. She was ready to bolt. Nothing. She tried again. The door didn’t budge.

  Again, Alexei laughed. He was really enjoying himself now.

  “How much of a fool do you think I am? That my security doesn’t know to lock the car doors?”

  The light turned green, and the car began moving again. Lila sank back into the leather seat. A feeling of defeat overwhelmed her. She was trapped.

  After a long drive north up Miami Beach, the SUV turned onto La Gorce Island and pulled up in front of Alexei’s gigantic white stucco mansion. The bodyguard driving the car exited the vehicle, opened Lila’s door, and dragged her out.

  She kicked and screamed, but he outweighed her by almost two hundred pounds. The other bodyguard and Alexei silently followed them into the house. This was it. What she had feared her entire life and had come close to several times as a cop was going to happen at this very moment. She didn’t know what form the pain and violence would take, but she was sure it was coming. As sure as she’d been of anything for her entire life.

  Her body went limp, and the bodyguard, holding his arm around her waist, tossed her onto the floor of the main living room. Then the two giant men flanked the front door as Alexei disappeared into another room.

  When he came back, he was holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and two flutes in the other. He was smiling from ear to ear. He set down the glasses on a side table next to the black leather couch and picked up a remote control. The TV clicked on to CNN.

  “You’re here to be a witness to my victory. My triumph,” Alexei shouted as he uncorked the champagne. He poured some in one glass and set it in front of Lila, who was still crouched on the floor. “Drink,” he said to her. “And listen. The deal was announced at midnight, so it should be coming on any minute now.”

  Lila had never been more confused. What was happening?

  On the screen, a young blonde in a coral-colored blouse and matching lipstick was reading the business news. “The Dow Jones was down over one hundred points over investor concern about the continuing decline in housing prices.” Lila looked at Alexei, who was transfixed by the TV. “And, in breaking news,” the woman on the screen continued, “the hotelier Chase Haverford has announced that he has sold his hotel conglomerate to a holding company controlled by an Israeli businessman identified as Nakaleni Suka. Suka has agreed to buy a controlling stake of the Haverford empire for a reported one point six billion dollars. Next up, how can economic uncertainty work for you . . .”

  Alexei turned the television off, downed his champagne, then greedily refilled his empty glass.

  “Drink with me!” he shouted at Lila. “Toast your friend Chase’s big news-making business deal.” She sat still, her glass untouched. “Drink,” he commanded.

  Lila brought the champagne flute to her lips and took a small sip. Her hand was shaking.

  “I can see him now. Celebrating somewhere. Thinking he is the king. But what Chase doesn’t know is I am the one who bought his hotels. Me. The Russian pig farmer. The man he thinks is beneath him. He thinks some man named Nakaleni Suka bought his hotels. Well, you know what na kaleni, suka, means in Russian? It means ‘On your knees, bitch.’ And that’s where he’s going to be, on his fucking knees.”

  Alexei picked up a pile of papers from the table. “It’s all here. Signed and certified,” he yelled, waving the pages around, his eyes bulging and wild. “That idiot thinks he’s still in control. But I’m the one who runs things now. Little does he know, I’m about to dismantle his entire life’s work, piece by piece, and sell it to the dogs. He’ll have to watch helplessly while I tear down everything he’s spent his entire life building.”

  “Why would
you do that?” Lila asked, trying to piece everything together, but nothing quite made sense.

  “You still want to act as if you know nothing?” Alexei asked.

  “It’s not an act,” Lila said, finally standing up. She was done with cowering.

  “Sit down,” Alexei said, his voice suddenly cold and dangerous. “And I will tell you.”

  Lila sat. Alexei poured himself another glass of champagne and downed it in a single gulp. “I grew up in a small city on the Black Sea,” he began. “It was Soviet era. A dark time, and we were all very poor. Every year a circus would come to town for a few days. It was all that mattered to the children. One year, when I was six, I saw a circus lion rip apart his handler. He grabbed the man’s arm with his jaw, then devoured his face. My uncle tried to cover my eyes, but I pushed his hand away. I wanted to see. Do you know why?”

  Lila shook her head.

  “Even though I was a little boy, I knew what I was seeing. I knew what it meant. Life is cruel. A battle between weak and strong.” Alexei was pacing the room, his hands balled into tight fists. “Chase thought he could order me around, making me dance like a circus animal, all so I could be part of his stupid club.”

  The Janus Society? Lila wondered.

  “And then he tells me I’m not good enough. Me! Alexei Romanovich Dortzovich, who is one hundred times more man than him! Now I own him. Now he is the one who does not belong.”

  “Belong to what? Are you talking about the Janus Society?” Lila asked.

  Alexei rushed toward her. Before she could duck out of the way, he shoved her to the floor. “Why do you continue to play games? The game is over. I have won. Don’t pretend to know nothing. I was as good as in, then that asshole Chase, your spymaster, told me I was out. Now he acts as if I’m a stranger to him.”

  He placed his foot on Lila’s upper thigh and pushed her along the floor toward the door. “Now, leave. Go back to Chase. Tell him what I’ve told you. As much as I will miss seeing his face when he learns what I have done, I want you to be the one to tell him. And I have better things to do.”

  Lila scrambled onto her hands and knees, trying to crawl toward the front door, but she was knocked back to the floor when Alexei’s foot pushed her over.

  “Look at you now, princess,” he said, laughing. “Get out. You are no longer of any use to me.”

  One of the bodyguards opened the door as two barely dressed women from the strip club sauntered in. “Ah, here are some real women. Come to me, my lovelies. Pay no attention to this dog on the floor.”

  The two bodyguards approached Lila, picked her up by her arms, and tossed her out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

  Her palms and her knees were skinned and bleeding. Lila sat on Alexei’s front stoop catching her breath, somewhat shocked to find herself alive.

  CHAPTER 32

  LILA LOOKED OVER her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed by any of Alexei’s goons as she hurried to the bridge that connected the cloistered opulence of La Gorce Island to the real world. No one was following her. She was alone.

  It wasn’t until she was on the other side of the bridge that she fully exhaled.

  It was as cold as a Miami night could get, and she shivered in the frigid air. Her tiny cocktail dress and stiletto heels provided little protection against the elements. She walked for at least twenty minutes before she was able to begin to calm down. As the veil of shock slowly lifted, she realized that her body was in pain, and a debilitating headache was blooming in her skull.

  Star Island was a long, cold, two-hour walk away, but Lila wanted to walk. She needed the time to collect her thoughts and settle her nerves. As she headed south toward home, she began to sift through what Alexei had told her. Here she’d thought she was seducing him in order to prove her overwhelming suspicion that he was the Star Island killer. But the whole time, he was using her to get to Chase. Yet again she had been wrong, all wrong.

  Alexei wasn’t the killer; he couldn’t be. He would never have spent so much time and money buying Chase’s empire if he was going to kill him in just two weeks.

  And then there was the business with the club. When Alexei had been railing against Chase rejecting him, he had to have been talking about the Janus Society. It was the only thing that made any sense.

  That explains why I’ve seen him with every member of the society, Lila thought.

  Of course, she realized, Alexei had met with all twelve members of the society because he was being considered as a new member. But then Chase must have rejected him, which explained the argument she’d overheard on the South Beach boardwalk.

  Alexei wasn’t going to murder Chase, or any of the rest of the society. He’d carried out his revenge by taking away what Chase valued most: his company.

  But this new revelation left Lila more lost than she’d ever been. Instead of finding the killer, she’d found another dead end. She was, once again, lost in the maze.

  By the time she stepped into Effie’s driveway, it was a little past two in the morning, but Effie’s bedroom light was still on.

  Lila was desperate for answers, and she couldn’t wait until the morning. Time was running out. She needed to dig deeper into what Effie knew. Maybe Lila’s telling Effie about what had happened with Alexei would prompt Effie to be more honest about her involvement with the Janus Society.

  And then Lila remembered what Alexei had said, about how he’d thought Chase sent Lila to spy on him because he couldn’t send Effie. Lila wasn’t sure what that meant.

  As Lila climbed the stairs toward Effie’s bedroom, she heard voices. She tiptoed to the door, curious.

  “Please don’t leave,” Lila heard Effie plead.

  “Never beg. It’s beneath you,” a man said. Lila instantly recognized Chase’s distinctive voice.

  Effie and Chase? So they were together. Hiding in the darkened hallway, Lila listened.

  “How could you be so cold?” Effie sobbed. “You won’t even look at me!”

  “Just calm down. Here, take this,” said Chase, in a tone as measured as Effie’s was wild.

  The sound of glass shattering exploded from the room.

  “I’ve told you, I won’t swallow those tranquilizers anymore,” Effie screamed. “I don’t want to be calm. There is nothing to be calm about.”

  “You’re weaker than I thought you were.” Lila didn’t have to see Chase’s face to hear the sneer in his voice.

  “You’re not who I thought you were either. You’re cruel.”

  “I’m not cruel. I’m in control. I take care of my business. Why don’t you take care of yours?”

  “I told you I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Then you know what I’ll be forced to do.”

  “No one is forcing you.”

  “You spoiled child,” Chase said. “How can you say that?”

  “But I love you.” Effie let out a large, mournful sob. “And you said you loved me.”

  “Of course I love you.” Chase’s voice was rough. “What matters more than anything is that you do your job. And we won’t ever have to have this conversation again.”

  “Why can’t you help me, just this one time?” Effie wept. She sounded trapped and desperate.

  “I should never have exposed myself like this. Rules are made for a reason, right?” Chase paused. “Now go wipe your face, and then let’s go downstairs and fix you a drink.”

  Quickly, before she could be discovered, Lila slipped off her high heels and moved away from the door, running down the stairs and out the back entrance, wondering what she had heard.

  CHAPTER 33

  LILA HURRIED ACROSS the lawn, her bare feet racing over the dew-heavy grass, making her way as quickly and as quietly as possible to the guesthouse. She got inside and locked the door behind her. Safe.

  Needing to wash the miseries of the day off her skin, she took a long, burning-hot shower. She winced as the water hit the scrapes on her hands and knees, watching the blood circ
le down the drain. Then she wrapped herself in a terry-cloth bathrobe, poured four fingers’ worth of Wild Turkey in a tumbler, and collapsed on the couch.

  Her head was spinning. She felt as if she were a pinball, bouncing off of one concussive surface only to be propelled to another. The moment she hit one wall, she was sprung back into the fray for another round. Nothing felt in her control. Each lead had only set her off in the wrong direction. Now she was thoroughly lost, and couldn’t see the big picture.

  Taking a sip of bourbon, she tried to settle her spirit and sort through her tumbling thoughts. Several things had become abundantly clear to her tonight. Alexei had been vetted as a possible member of the Janus Society. But he was rejected, and, in revenge, he carried out a raid on Chase’s hotel conglomerate.

  She now knew that Alexei wasn’t the killer, and that Chase, the ringleader of the society, was Effie’s lover. But what were Effie and Chase fighting about? And why did Effie think she had to keep their relationship a secret?

  Lila sighed. Effie was such a puzzle. For every true thing that could be said about her, the exact opposite could also be true. She was cunning, yet ditzy. She was generous, yet thoughtless. She seemed like an open book, yet Lila was slowly realizing that she barely knew her.

  Was her dad really being investigated by the SEC, or was that just another lie? Lila was 100 percent sure that Winston Webster was never indicted by the SEC for investor fraud. That juicy fact would’ve been revealed during her investigation into the murder of his daughter. So either the truth about Webster’s thievery was buried or he had been able to dig himself out of whatever financial pit he had found himself in. Or, Lila wondered, was that story all a lie, something Effie came up with in order to hide the truth about what had really upset her that night at the Fisher Island Club?

  Lila finished her drink, then went back to the kitchen for a refill. The accumulating futility of her investigation over the course of so many of her days and weeks and months was wearing her down.