by Lory Wendy
“My car is right there,” she whines at the end of the night, while we wait for someone to walk us out.
“Rules are rules.” I scrunch up my nose, then say, “Yeah, fuck it. I’ll protect you. Let’s go!” We’ve been waiting for a while.
“Where’d you park?” She whips her head around, probably looking for my car.
“I didn’t,” I say. “I got dropped off.”
“Bye, girls,” one of the newer dancers, Brooklyn, walks past us, making her way toward the complete other side of the building.
“We should probably make sure she gets to her car okay,” Chantal says, and I nod, wondering where some of the guys are. We might be breaking the ‘rules’ by not waiting for them to walk us out, but people know us by now. They wouldn’t dare mess with us out here. The new girl? Well…
We step in line behind her as Chantel shouts, “Wait up!” just as Brooklyn rounds the corner. We pick up the pace, and I grimace a little, my toes pinching. “Why did I wear these shoes—”
A bloodcurdling scream pierces the air, and both Chantal and I freeze for a solid five seconds before we both take off running in the direction it came from.
“Oh, my God!” Brooklyn sobs, but as we look around, I don’t get it. Chantel shouts her name and runs to her. I’m a little slower and it takes a second or two for me to get to them.
“He’s dead!” Brooklyn wails, pointing to the dumpster. At first, I see nothing, then morbid curiosity forces me a few steps forward. A rat scurries away, making me jump back and scream.
“Holy shit!” I push a hand to my chest, barely registering Brooklyn’s wails dying down. “Don’t tell me you’re this worked up over—” I stop when I see it. When I see him. Surrounded by bags of garbage and completely naked is the lifeless body of a person I haven’t seen in months. A person I had prayed I’d never have to see again.
Stretch.
“Oh God.” I hunch over, barely having the chance to turn from Chantel before vomiting out everything I ate today and probably the day before.
“Back up,” she commands. But I can’t move.
I don’t know how long we stand there, Chantel and I, since Brooklyn took off within seconds, but even though I’ve stopped throwing up, I’m still bent at the waist trying to hold myself together.
The sound of tires whirling to a stop a few feet from us is the only thing that stirs me out of my stupor.
“What the fuck happened?” Julian booms.
He says something to Chantel, too low for me to hear, but the command in his voice is loud and clear as he ushers me into the car.
Our ride home is silent. Our walk into the house is silent. I remain silent as he walks me to the bathroom, brings me in the shower with his clothes still on and he peels my vomit-soaked ones off. As he bathes me and washes my hair, I still can’t speak.
“Say something,” Julian begs.
“I have nothing to say,” I whisper. But it’s not true. I have plenty to say and a million things to ask. But for the first time in my life, I keep my mouth shut. I’d never seen a dead body before, not even on TV since gore was never my thing. Now it’s a part of my life. Now it’s too late for me to do anything about it.
I try to sleep, but I can’t. Most importantly, I can’t sleep next to Julian.
I’m hunched over the toilet and just about everything I’ve ever eaten is still coming back up hours later. Julian is rubbing my back, and I’m torn between seeking his comfort and wanting to recoil away from him. This is the third time I’ve woken up in the middle of the night—the images of Stretch’s dead body etched in my brain. But this last dream included a vicious-looking Julian hanging him over a balcony—a scene eerily similar to what I saw in Vegas. Then right before he pushed Stretch over, the face morphed and it was Julian being pushed to his death. No matter how hard I try, I can’t push it, or the feeling in my stomach, away.
“You need to calm down, sweetheart.”
“What did you do?” I ask between gasps.
“Come on.” He hooks a hand under my armpit, pulling me up from the bathroom floor.
“Just answer me.”
“Ask me.”
I ball my fist over my stomach, trying to push my fear down. “Did you do it? Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Promise me.”
“Selena.”
“Promise me!”
Huffing, Julian puts both hands up facing me. “I didn’t kill him.”
“But you know who did, don’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Oh God.” I turn to walk away, but he pulls me back and cages me against the wall. I whimper and turn away from him. For the first time ever, I’m actually scared.
“Shhh. Please, just listen to me. I didn’t kill him, nor did I have him killed. But the person that did is probably someone I know; that’s what I meant by that. You have to believe me, Selena. I swear to God, on everything, that I didn’t do this. I already told you. It’s not my style.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?” He rears back.
“Shocked?” I look away. “I am too.”
“Thank you.” He leans in for a kiss.
“Not so fast. For the record, the reason I believe you, isn’t because I think you’re above doing something like this.”
“Then why?”
Common sense. “Because neither you nor the guys would have been stupid or sloppy enough to dump him behind the club. So, yeah, I believe you when you say that you didn’t do it. But I don’t believe that you don’t already know who did. If something’s going on—if someone’s trying to set you up for anything, this is the time to tell me.”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was dumped at my club,” Julian says slowly. “When I find out who killed him—and I will find out—I’ll tell you. But here’s the thing.” He takes a step back. “I know you think I have a lot of enemies, and you might be right, but there’s only one person who would want to set me up for something like this. Only one person who would want to make sure that you found the body along with Chantel.”
“Well, Chantel and I don’t really run in all kinds of circles. The only people who know the both of us are you and the guys. Are you saying that one of them did it?”
“No, but if they did, they didn’t do it for themselves. Aren’t you forgetting someone else that we all know, too?”
Unnecessarily, I do a quick roll call in my head. The only other people we have in common are Hope and Blaire. One of which has become a big fan of Julian and the way he takes care of me. That only leaves… “Seriously? Good God, man!” I throw my hands in the air. “How is it that you manage to bring my sister into every argument or serious conversation we have? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you have a hard-on for her.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then what is it? A man just died and I can’t even get a minute to process it because we’re arguing about Blaire. How is that fair?”
“A man didn’t just die. A piece of shit was killed, and if you expect me to feel sorry about that, or think I understand why you give a fuck, then you’re mistaken. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t do it myself.”
“You’re so heartless sometimes,” I say, saddened.
“I’m not heartless. I just choose to save my heart’s energy for the people who deserve it.” Julian shrugs, his eyes screaming “I don’t give a shit.”
Well, he should. If he doesn’t give a shit about Stretch, he should at least care about what I have to say next, what seeing Stretch brought to mind. “Do you know one of the first things I thought when I saw the body?”
“Oh shit my man’s a murderer?”
“No. I thought, ‘Oh, thank God that’s not Julian.’ Then I thought thank God it wasn’t Quincy. Then thank God that’s not Rocky, or Pierce, or fuck that could have been me, or Blaire, or—”
“Sweetheart, stop.”
“No, I won’t stop because this
isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t want to be like you.” I wave a hand in his direction. “I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing a dead body, and you? You’re acting like you just happened to see some random roadkill on the highway. Stretch might have been a piece of shit, but he was also somebody’s something. And newsflash…” I fan my hands in front of an imaginary marquis. “You’re not exactly an upstanding citizen your damn self.”
Julian jabs a hand to his chest. “Are you seriously comparing me to him?”
“You to him? No. But the situations? Yes. Someone’s going to get a call tonight that their husband, or dad, or brother was found dead behind a strip club. What kind of call am I going to get when your shit finally comes back for you?”
“Come here.” It isn’t until I let Julian pull me to his chest, do I realize how hysterical I’d started getting.
“Julian, I’m scared,” I admit in a whisper.
“You have no reason to be.” His voice reeks of his usual confidence, but it does nothing to calm me down.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because there isn’t anyone after me—this isn’t some message. I would know. And…”
“And?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“About?” I unfurl myself from his grasp, bracing myself.
“I promise not to bring her up again, and you should not be hearing this from me, but I have to tell you the truth about how I met your sister.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It’s the pleading in Julian’s voice that stops me from losing my shit on him for bringing Blaire up again. “I’m listening.”
“When Chantel first introduced me to your sister, she said her name was Bryn Moore.”
I nod, recognizing the name since “Bryn” is Blaire’s go-to alias. But then the first part of his sentence hits me. “Chantel introduced you?” I guess I hadn’t thought about her and Blaire knowing each other separately from the guys. It’s not that far-fetched. Still, I slide down the wall and settle on the floor, somehow knowing I’ll need to be sitting for whatever’s about to come next.
“Yes, she did,” Julian answers, sitting to lean against the wall across from me. “We have rules.” The skin between his eyes pucker, but I’m the confused one here.
“Rules about what?”
“We don’t do business with chicks. I know how that sounds.” He raises a hand to stop me when I open my mouth to talk shit. “But it is what it is. No chicks. No elderly.”
“And by business you mean you don’t exchange money with them,” I conclude.
He nods but doesn’t elaborate.
So I ask, “Why not? Everyone’s money is the same green, right?”
“True, but the way we make sure we get it back…” Julian shakes his head. “We all have our thing, but none of us are going to smack around a woman or threaten someone old enough to be Pops’ dad.”
“Honor amongst thieves.”
“Something like that.”
I roll my eyes. It doesn’t matter how he spins his tale, or what rules he and the guys put in place to clear their conscience, there is no honor in what they do. I’ve tried to convince myself I can handle being a part of Julian’s life, and the spoiled part of me can. What tonight—finding Stretch—has taught me though, is that I can’t. Lying dead behind a club is the exact thing that happens to men like Stretch, Julian, and the rest of the guys for that matter. Greed consumes them. Power poisons them. In the end, karma always comes back for them.
“So, what’s everyone’s ‘thing?’ Yours is clearly hanging CEOs over hotel balconies. What about everyone else?”
“That was a rare situation. It’s not often I have to intervene like that.”
I think back to Julian’s face, his posture, even the ease at which the guys hung back and all acted like what they were watching was an everyday normal thing. “You looked more than comfortable intervening that night.”
“Is this… are you seriously still pissed about that?”
“Yes!” I sound hysterical again. “Seeing your old boss’s lifeless body behind your boyfriend’s club tends to bring back some bitter feelings. Sorry if I’m not handling my first murder properly enough for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Julian whispers out an apology I hadn’t expected.
I nod, accepting. “I still need you to answer my question.”
“Which one?”
“Your thing. You and the guys.”
Julian hesitates, making my nerves ramp up all over again. “Are you sure?”
“No, but I need to know. Start with Quincy.”
“Quincy’s quick with his hands. He’ll break your nose just as easily as he’ll break your neck and won’t even flinch.” Shit. I knew that to an extent, what with his nickname and all, but the way Julian words it… “Rocky,” he continues with a frown. “Is into pyrotechnics. He won’t put his hands on you. He’ll just torch your shit to prove a point.” My stomach clenches and I’m almost sorry I asked, but Julian presses on, oblivious to the resurfacing of my nausea. “Pierce is our last resort. He takes a sick pleasure into bringing people pain. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Yes, let’s.” I don’t even want to know anymore.
“Chantel—”
“Chantel too?”
“She’s been around us for a long time. In the beginning, before we learned from our mistakes and came up with our rules, she spoke to the people we didn’t want to.”
“And by spoke, you mean she broke girl’s necks, burned their things, or tortured them like the guys do?”
Julian hums and readjusts the position of his body. He’s still sitting, but now one leg is bent at the knee. “Let’s say her and Pierce have a lot in common.”
“Splendid. What about Hope?”
“What about her?”
“I don’t know, Julian. Shit, maybe she’s a secret assassin for you guys! I can’t keep up.”
His lips twitch, clearly amused at my outburst. I would be too if my pulse wasn’t racing at the one person he left out.
“And what about you?” I ask.
“Me? Personally, I’m not into that other shit.” He locks eyes with me, pausing for nearly a whole minute before focusing at a spot on the wall over my head. “I try to keep my shit clean and just on the right side of the law. And contrary to what you may think, I don’t take pleasure in causing another person physical pain.”
“Even if you did, you have psychotic minions to do it for you.”
Julian’s facial expression hardens. “I wouldn’t call them that, but okay.”
“What would you call them then?”
“My friends.”
I gulp, coming close to feeling bad. Sometimes I consider them my friends too. It doesn’t change who they are though.
“I might not always be down with the way they handle things,” Julian says. “You could fuck up someone’s life just as easily without the theatrics, but who am I to judge?”
Our eye contact connects for a few seconds before Julian averts his gaze again.
“So what does Blaire do?” I finally find the nerve to circle back to what started this conversation in the first place.
“She doesn’t do anything. What she did, however, was borrow money from me.” Balancing his palms like a scale, he adds, “Well, I wouldn’t say borrow so much as I would say downright fucking stole from me. From us.”
“Fuck my life.” Taking a deep breath, I push myself off the floor. Julian scoots away to allow me room but doesn’t reach out to me. Smart man. There’s a churning deep in my gut. I know whatever he’s about to tell me is going to destroy me, and when he does, I won’t want to be within ten feet of him, let alone in his arms.
I sit on the edge of the bed, looking over my shoulder at Julian who remains standing at the door.
“Finish your story. My sister. The money. Did she ever pay you back?”
“Yes, but only recently.”
“So
, I don’t get it. What happened?”
He scratches the side of his neck with his thumb. I’ve only seen him do this a handful of times, on the rare occasion when he’s nervous or, even rarer, hesitant.
“It’s a little complicated, but the long story short of it is—”
“I don’t need you to shorten the story for me, Julian. I also don’t want you to water it down to spare my feelings. It’s too late. You already told me I’m not going to like what you have to say. So just say it.”
He strides into the room. My eyes follow him as he walks to the window, then back to the door, before deciding to stand against the dresser. It’s pacing meets stalling meets indecision. All things that aren’t doing shit to put me at ease.
“Julian, just tell me.”
“I’m the one who’s scared now.”
“What are you scared of?”
“That you’ll hate me, or that I’ll lose you.”
I’m not naïve enough to ever think he couldn’t do anything that would make me hate him, but I do know with the way I feel about him, I can love him through it.
“When Chantel introduced us, it was clear the plan was for me and your sister to hook up.”
Panic sets in immediately. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Nothing happened,” he rushes out. “Never even came close.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. The two of them hating each other is one thing. No way would I survive if they had fucked.
“Because Blaire, at the time Bryn, introduced herself as some sort of investment expert, Chantel thought we’d be good together.”
“When did you find out her name was Blaire?”
“Right before I walked into your party. She didn’t know I knew her real name until I walked up to you guys.” I remember the fire in her eyes. I thought she was pissed because he was being rude to me. “Up until that moment, I don’t think she had any idea how cool we all really were. Whenever we had dealings with money, it was me, her, and Chantel in the room.”
“Okay, so who told you her name? As far as I can remember, Chantel wasn’t at my party.”