Property: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Loki Renard

  Chloe

  The wind is blowing through what is left of my hair, making bright red strands flutter around my face.

  I’m driving a very old, very clattery Camaro. I didn’t have to steal it. I did what the young men called a ‘straight swap.’ This car is older and doesn’t have air conditioning, but it also isn’t traceable in any way that I can think of. I’ve picked up a brand new cheap burner phone, and I’m back on the highway, heading up to San Francisco, where my father has another stash point or three.

  I can do this. For a moment, I faltered, but my confidence is returning. Darko might be looking for me, but I am a very small needle in a very large haystack, and no matter how many resources he has, there are still ways around them.

  “You can go fuck yourself, Darko,” I shout to the wind. “You and your friends can go to fucking hell! Oh... shit!”

  Screeeeeeech! The brakes complain as I stamp my foot on the pedal. The traffic ahead of me is crawling to a halt. An accident, maybe. I almost slammed into the back of a Volkswagen with a pink fuzzy toy suspended in the rear window and had an accident of my own.

  After a few minutes of crawling along I see that there’s no accident. There’s a road block slowing traffic. The highway has been filled with cops, checking vehicles. It looks like they’ve set up a border patrol in the middle of the road. That can’t be safe, and it can’t be standard procedure, but they’re doing it anyway.

  Could this be on my account?

  Of course it’s on my account.

  It’s too damn coincidental not to be.

  My heart slams in my chest as I struggle to maintain composure. There’s no way off this highway. Concrete barriers on both sides mean driving off it isn’t going to happen, and there’s no way I can pull over and leap out without drawing attention to myself. I’m going to have to go through this fucking road block.

  Hand shaking, I put sunglasses on and slowly start to brake. There’s a line of cars ahead of me being looked at, so I have a couple of minutes to compose myself.

  “It’s okay. I’m going to be okay,” I breathe.

  They’re looking for Chloe Parker-Baskerville, stuck-up heiress to the Parker-Baskerville empire. They’re not looking for Tina Parker, bombshell redhead with the gaudiest red lip color to ever be painted on a human being.

  “Well, hello, officer,” I beam. “How can I help you?”

  “License and registration, please, ma’am.”

  “Of course! Of course!” I pull out my fake ID and thrust it into his hand. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have registration in my name, I’m borrowing a friend’s car, will this do?” I grab a sheaf of papers from the glovebox and thrust them at him.

  “Who are you looking for? Has someone escaped from prison? Oh, my god. Has a murderer escaped? Oh, my god! Has a mass murderer escaped? Oh. My. God. Why isn’t it on the news that there’s a murderer going around chopping people’s heads off?”

  “It’s not like that,” he says as I let hysteria flow. I took a few acting classes in college. Now I get to try them out in a real-world, high-stakes situation.

  “I’m going to tweet this out! I’m going to let people know that there’s some kind of murderer out here on the highway, you all got road blocks like Bundy went for a run out here. Oh, my god! Is it Bundy?”

  “Bundy is dead, ma’am, and you can go.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I say. “You can’t have people like that just running around the place...”

  “Move along, ma’am.”

  “Oh, yes, right, of course. Thank you, officer! Thank you for your service!”

  He waves me on impatiently. It’s a hot day and I’m sure he’d rather be anywhere other than the highway looking for some girl. I wave to him and I accelerate to freedom, trying not to grin too wide just in case any of the other law enforcement people see and somehow recognize my smile or something.

  It’s a full six-hour drive to San Francisco. I have to keep filling the car up, it’s like the thing has a gas leak. Four hours in, I decide to pull off the highway and into a rest stop, grab some food at a diner. I’ve seen places like these on television shows, but never stopped in at one myself. Before now, I would have considered a place like this beneath me. I’m too good for eateries where the floor has mystery sticky spots and shrieking kids run around either playing or threatening each other’s lives.

  I grab a booth and a portly waitress comes over and pours me coffee. I don’t even ask for it, but she gives it to me anyway. Yeah, why not.

  “You look like you need some fortification,” she says. “What’ll it be?”

  “You got any waffles?”

  “Yep.”

  She doesn’t ask me how I want them, she just trundles back to the kitchen and yells the word waffles, almost like she’s a witch who can conjure food just by shouting it into existence.

  I sip the coffee and find that it’s not bad. Not that I’ve ever been able to tell the difference between good and bad. Coffee is like wine. It’s all fine. You’d just destroy industries if you ever let on.

  There’s a game on television. Baseball. The announcer is talking in soothing sporting terms and I feel myself settling into the background of this tableau. The other people in here are tourists and truckers, vagrants seeking refuge from the road. None of us have ever seen each other before, and we never will again. It’s funny how this place feels so transitory. There’s no sense of community, unless you count the skeleton crew behind the counter, the waitress and the cook, yelling at each other, their grumping barely audible over the television and the various offspring sharing their opinions with the world.

  “Mommy. That dog is brown,” some small person pipes up in the booth behind me. I look out the window, and sure enough, there is a brown dog going through the trash. Kid has good observational skills.

  The waitress brings me my waffles. I usually stay away from carbs but right now, fuck it. Putting on a few pounds would only help my situation. There’s no disguise like weight. I dig into the stack, chewing delicious buttery syrup-loaded waffles like they’re my salvation.

  “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a breaking news alert,” a formal news-y voice cuts into the game. Several of the truckers at the counter grunt and swear at the interruption. “Chloe Parker-Baskerville, inheritor of the Parker-Baskerville estate, is missing. Any sightings of this young woman should be reported to law enforcement immediately.”

  My picture is on the screen, my face blown up on that fly- and dirt-speckled television. I stop chewing and stare, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Yeah, like we give a shit about some rich bitch,” a trucker cusses. “Get back to the game!”

  “There is a reward for any information leading to her recovery,” the announcer continues. “A five million dollar amount will go to the person or persons who provide reliable information which leads to her return.”

  Holy. Shit. Darko just put a fucking bounty on my head. He just turned me into a fugitive from all society. Every pair of eyes is now going to be dangerous for me. Fuck. Fucking. Fuck.

  I chew angrily as the game comes back on. The truckers don’t seem to care about the score anymore. They’re talking about what they’d do with five million dollars. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

  It’s time to get out of here. I leave my waffles half-finished, push a twenty under the plate and stand up to leave. As I do, one of the kids running around grabs me by the leg.

  “I found the lady! Gimme the monies!”

  “Timmy, let the lady go!” his mother shrieks. “You can’t touch people. We talked about touching people, didn’t we, Timmy?”

  A few eyes swing in my direction, but none of the adults see what the kid did, if the kid recognized me at all.

  I leave the rest stop shaken up and very much un-rested. The Order is bringing their pawns into play. First cops on the highway, now there’s rewards for my capture. I have no doubt that there will be private bounty hunters looking to make a buck now too.
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  Getting into my car, I try to think. I try to fucking breathe, but I can’t. I’m so damn angry and scared. I feel as though a net is closing in on me. I feel hunted. Cornered. No matter where I go, they’re going to be following me. And when they find me? They might very well kill me. Just like they killed my father. This news alert could go one of two ways. Either I’m found, and I become Darko’s captive again, or I’m not found and they declare me dead. I can’t show my face in the boardroom. I can’t trust cops. They have rendered me so powerless that to all intents and purposes, they’ve already killed me off. They just don’t have the body to show for it yet.

  Losing hope is a strange thing. I thought I’d lost it when my father died, but that was just grief. This is something far deeper and more powerful. This feels like a complete absence of self. I am hollow to the core. And I know what must be done.

  I start the engine, pull out of the rest stop. And I turn back toward Los Angeles.

  Chapter Ten

  Chloe

  I remember the building I landed on. I remember how careful and scared I was taking the stairs down from the roof, hoping I wasn’t found by any of the Order. It didn’t occur to me at the time that they had made their biggest mistake yet by landing there. It’s a residential building. It has a penthouse suite, and there is a non-zero chance that this isn’t where one of the men whose helicopter I just hitched a ride on lives.

  I drive my shitbox car right up to that building and park beneath it. I get in the elevator and I ride it as high as it will go without personal entry keys and that sort of thing. Then I get out and take the fire stairs to the penthouse, where I knock on the front door.

  It opens. Some low level servant gives me one look. “I don’t think so, ma’am,” he drawls, making some bullshit judgement just because I’m dressed like trash.

  He starts to shut the door again. I have to put my foot in it to stop it from closing completely.

  “Tell your boss Chloe Parker-Baskerville is here to see him.”

  That name, my name, is like a talisman. The door opens immediately. Suspicious eyes settle on my face.

  “Come in.”

  I do as I am told.

  A man appears, the same one I was introduced to on Darko’s island. I don’t remember his name. I do remember his face. It’s round and sweaty even when it’s cool. He has deep set dark little eyes and lips that look rubbery.

  “What do you know about Chloe?” He doesn’t recognize me. This disguise is good.

  “I know she’s standing right in front of you,” I say, pulling the gun from my bag. “You killed my father. And now you’re going to die too. Every. Single. One of you are going to die by my hand, just like he did.”

  “Oh, no,” Rubber Lips starts to smirk. “Chloe. Put the gun down. This is too dangerous a game for you to be playing, little girl.”

  I thought I’d have a longer discussion. I thought I’d make him beg for forgiveness. I thought I’d maybe use him somehow to get leverage over the others. But it turns out the trigger is more sensitive than I thought it was and the slight squeeze I give it in anger as he dares call me a little girl makes the gun go off. There is a very loud bang that makes the world squeal in the aftermath, a kick that sends the gun back toward my own face, the barrel striking just beside my nose.

  In an instant, the man worth mega millions is nothing more than meat, lying on the floor and I am clutching my hand to my face. It feels like I just got punched hard. The swelling is immediate and I think there is blood, though I can’t tell because my vision is blurry.

  His servant has disappeared. I don’t blame the man, though I had no intention of killing him. He’s probably gone to call the cops. I’m probably going to be put in prison for this, or worse. I don’t fucking care.

  I shove the gun back into my bag and I start going through the apartment. I’m looking for two things: money and names. Rubber Lips’ phone is on his desk. I grab that, run back to him, use his thumbprint to unlock it, and then remove that protection so the phone is always unlocked. This is a goldmine, I just know it. He has money on him too, a thick roll of hundreds that are now mine.

  And then I run. Back into the stairwell, back down to the parking garage. Back into my car.

  I’m several blocks away before it sinks in. I just killed a man. And it was easy. Far easier than I thought it would be—way easier than I ever imagined. My face is fucking throbbing, but aside from that, I feel fine. If there’s guilt, I’m numb to it right now. Revenge is running through my veins. I want another one. I need another one. There’s only twelve or so of them. I can do this. I can wipe them out. I can... is that blood on my hands? I didn’t notice that before. Looking at the steering wheel, I suddenly become hyper-aware that both my hands are covered in blood. It is caked beneath my nails, and as it dries it is starting to crust on my skin. Something is rising in me. Bile and sadness and rage.

  I just barely manage to pull over before I throw up all over myself.

  “Ugh. Jesus. Gross.”

  Maybe this wasn’t as easy as I thought it was. Maybe I wasn’t as hard as I thought. I try to clean myself up, but I’ve made a huge mess. I need a fucking bathroom. I need a priest. I need... I need my daddy.

  I start to cry, hysterical sobbing tears that have been pent up inside me since his passing. They are ugly, just like the rest of me, just like my soul now that I am just as much an animal as any of the men who made me their prey.

  The phone rings.

  The dead man’s phone.

  I wipe my hands on the upholstery and answer the call without saying anything. The caller has only dead air to speak into. The voice is familiar. Rich and accented and so calmly powerful.

  “Oh, Chloe,” Darko says mournfully. “What have you done?”

  I can’t answer. I gasp something incoherent and try to terminate the call, but I can’t because the screen isn’t taking input from my blood-smeared finger right now. He’s still on the line as I sit there, sobbing in the middle of the city. There are that all around me, but I am hidden by the cloak of night and their disinterest in anything which is not immediately relevant to themselves.

  Not a single passerby has any idea what is inside the car next to them. Nobody detects the stench of depravity, or the weight of death. I need to get the car going again. I need to get cleaned up. I need to get a grip.

  Something dark and sleek pulls up beside me. My door is opened, and I am pulled from the interior of the car, plucked from it like a disgusting filthy flower.

  It’s Darko. Unlike everyone else, he recognizes me right away. The disguise that kept me safe from the eyes of the world does not work on him.

  Held in his arms, I brace myself for his anger and his punishment. I steel myself for harsh, stinging words and the rage that I know he must feel toward me. I escaped his island. I killed his friend. And now I am as filthy a mess as anyone can be. My stench fills his car as the driver sweeps us into the night.

  “You can kill me,” I say, my face hurting with every word. “I don’t care anymore. You can kill me. I want to see my daddy.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says thickly, his Serbian accent making an appearance in the presence of death. “I’ll keep you safe. It’s okay.”

  But it’s not okay. He was right all along. Revenge has done nothing to make me feel better about my father’s death. It has multiplied tragedy and it has made me less of a human. Part of my soul is gone, and I can feel in the very core of me that I will never get it back.

  We drive somewhere. I don’t know where. Everything is a blur now. He pulls me out and he strips me down and he puts me in a shower, and the world is all warm and wet and I don’t care because some part of me is forever gone.

  Maybe Darko speaks to me. Maybe he doesn’t. I am beyond listening or caring. My world has become very small and disoriented. I am captive, waiting for death, which must now surely come. At least now, I deserve it.

  When my legs give way beneath me and refuse to carry me anym
ore, Darko sweeps me up in his arms and carries me to the roof of a tall building where another helicopter waits. I used to adore these things. I own one of my own, with my father’s logo emblazoned on it. I’ll never ride in it again. I’ll never see sunrise again. I know what he is going to do to me. I know what he hast to do to me.

  A pilot is standing by to fly us to my final resting place. Darko cradles me next to him as we rise into the sky. I don’t know where he is taking me. I don’t care. I press my face into his side and I close my eyes against the world and the terrible things I have done.

  Chapter Eleven

  Darko

  I was too late. Too late to save the part of her I know must have fled the moment she pulled that trigger. Too late to stop the biggest mistake she’ll ever make. I knew her father’s death had left her hurt and bitter; I had no idea that it had turned her into the little beast who is now curled beside me. I am deeply concerned for her. I should have protected her more completely. Her escape was my failing, and this... this has to be borne on my shoulders too.

  This time we’re not heading off shore. This time we’re heading to my country estate. A hundred hectares of rolling bush and mountains. It’s remote enough to remind me of the world before I came to America. Forests and wilds, they have a sameness even when they are very far away. It’s why I like my island. I need the remoteness. Chloe needs it too. She needs to be away from the world to grieve and to heal.

  She was so full of fire when I first took her. She was rebellious and strong.

  Now she seems hollow.

  She barely takes any of her surroundings in as we land, and I carry her away from the helicopter, which takes off once more and leaves us alone in the middle of nowhere. I take her into the cabin and put her down on the couch.

  We haven’t spoken about what happened. She hasn’t been capable of speech. She has cried several times, often silently. She cried when I washed the blood from her in the shower, and again when I pulled her into my arms. She is crying softly now as she curls up on the side of the couch and she wraps her arms around her knees, staring off into the distance. I give her silence and peace. There are no words in moments like these. There is no way to make what has gone so completely wrong, right.