by Dukey, Ker
My hands shake when I come to a page with my last name written at the top.
MASTERS
A list of our family tree written beneath and a log of all businesses owned by family members.
How can a society have so much information on everyone?
My stomach bottoms out when my eyes read over a declined stamp in big red letters next to each person printed there.
Declined from what?
“Rhett, let’s go man, we got rubber to burn.” God barks at me and snatches the book from my grasp stuffing it back into the safe.
Present.
My name wasn’t in there. I only pray my name has been added now and an acceptance stamp gets printed next to it. I’ve never seen the book since.
When Four returned from his trip he was told of God’s antics, driving through the town in a car owned by only a few men in the entire world.
It was hard to deny we stole the car for a joy ride.
Four upped his security system and we’ve been locked out ever since.
I’m convinced God’s name will show up on that list, and I want to be on it with him.
Since losing my potential football career, I’ve become obsessed with The Elite. But there is little information out there about them. All we really know is only seven members are initiated each year, and those members are to be the best of the best—members who can become an asset to society—and this mission tonight is to solidify my name amongst those seven.
A rumor surfaced that a document of proof that The Elite exists is going to be leaked to the local press. A manila envelope containing damning details has been posted today to the press office.
Most people have rolled their eyes at this gossip, but I think it’s a test.
The Elite is testing new potential recruits to see if anyone will try to retrieve the letter.
I’m going to do one better.
I suck the pipe and spit out the gas as it fills my mouth. Sticking the pipe in the can, I grin as it fills.
Sorry, Mrs. Barnes. We need the gas more.
I move from her white sedan to the other neighbor’s truck. It only takes the two before the can is filled to the brim.
“That was gross.” I spit a few times to clear the residue from my gums.
Jogging down the road to God’s car, a blood-red Ferrari Pininfarina Sergio—flashy son of a bitch, we jump in and drive in silence along the back roads to keep off the radar of cameras or law enforcement.
I get him to drop me off a couple blocks down from the sorting office.
All mail ends up here, ready to be delivered, and working times are four a.m. to ten p.m., so the building will be empty.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” God asks, pulling the car to the side of the road next to an old abandoned factory building.
“Nah. Just meet me back at my house and we can hit up Winter’s party. Get an alibi for the night.”
“Sounds good. Be careful.”
Slipping behind the structures, I stick to the shadows, making sure the hood of my jacket covers most of my face in case there are cameras on any of the buildings.
When I reach the sorting office, I do a lap around the block. It’s past eleven, so the place should be empty, but double checking puts my mind at ease. No lights are on inside, and no cars litter the parking lot.
Unscrewing the cap on the gas can, I begin pouring a barrier around the building. Once I’ve done a full circle, I stuff a rag in the end of the bottle, light it, and send it hurtling through one of the windows.
A whooshing sounds, and then the smell hits my nostrils. It’s not long before a crackling of flames licks up the windows.
I light the trail outside the building, and within minutes, the entire place goes up like kindling.
Smiling, I make a run for it, ignoring the dull ache shooting up the side of my leg from my old foot injury.
I make it four blocks, then my stomach bottoms out.
Blue lights flash and a cop car pulls over.
Fuck.
Staring at my old man, I focus on his lips moving, but I stopped listening to him once he said he was relaying my mom’s message because she didn’t want to see me to tell me herself.
“Are you listening to me?” he barks, and I’ve honestly never felt this disconnected, lost. I need him to fuck off so I can get out of here and escape in liquor and women.
“Sorry I missed that last part.” I rub a hand over my face before crossing my arms over my chest.
Rolling his eyes, he pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales an exasperated breath.
“Terms of your enrollment is you’ll see a guidance counselor once a week.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been acting out since your brother’s death, breaking bones and burning down buildings!” he shouts.
Slouching back on the couch, I shrug a shoulder.
“There was no proof I started that fire. No charges were brought against me.”
“Yet,” he corrects. “You’re lucky you’re best friends with a Goddard.”
Getting to my feet, I pull on my jacket and swipe my keys from the table.
“Until then, I’m innocent.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” he snaps. I hate the look in his eyes: disdain and regret. It wouldn’t be so bad if his eyes weren’t a reflection of my own.
“Out. Going to celebrate getting into college.” I smile tightly.
Snatching my keys from my hand, he chucks them back on the table and walks around me, stating, “By the skin of your teeth and the graces of your family ties—that’s what got you into college. There’s nothing worth celebrating about that.”
The ribbon keeping my temper together fragments and tugs away, until it completely unravels. “Fuck you,” I growl.
He turns sharp, his dark eyes penetrating mine. Marching toward me, he stops a foot away. His chest is puffed out and shoulders are back, but there’s wariness in his approach that wasn’t there before this moment.
Our height is equal these days. I’m topping just over six-foot, and my frame is slightly slimmer than his due to all the running for football, but I’m packing all muscle. If it came down to it and he threw a punch, I know I could take it and deliver one back just as powerful.
“Tread carefully, Rhett. I could take all this away just as quick as it was given.”
His threat is menacing and hits me harder than a punch ever could.
Fuck him.
I’ll walk to God’s and we can party there.
It wasn’t the plan for me and God to end up at the same college, but it’s a fucking bonus worth celebrating nonetheless.
Loud drumming pounds all around me. The room is filled with bodies jumping up and down to the beat. Everyone is shouting, throwing themselves into each other like idiots. I have no fucking clue how I ended up here.
Walls plastered with posters close in on me, and red cups litter the holey couch I’m sitting on.
Some female is gyrating on my lap, making my cock jump in my pants while she chants along to some lyrics being yelled into a mic.
I can barely make out God across the room joining in with the weird jumping around shit. We’re not used to or interested in this type of music, yet he’s acting like he is.
This is typical of God. He has more money than sense and a cocksure attitude that makes most normal people quake. That’s his dad in him—the “I rule the world” attitude.
Coming to a party like this is entertaining to him. His family is no doubt richer than all these peoples’ families combined, and slumming it with the basic folk amuses him. He has a sick sense of humor.
A voice growls into a mic, and the atmosphere spikes. Beer rains down on us as drinks are sloshed around.
The music cuts off, and someone’s voice echoes through the room.
“Thanks for coming out to support us tonight. Make sure you buy a CD before you leave. Only five dollars.”
Where the fuck a
re we?
“You want to come back to my house?” the girl on my lap asks in a sexy, deep southern drawl.
Scanning my eyes over her, I take note of a pixie haircut with a rainbow of color through it.
Nose and lip piercings draw my attention, and I grin down at her.
“What else you got pierced?”
Her giggle is carefree and light.
“You’ll have to come find out.”
Slipping off my lap, she takes my hand, helping me to my feet and dragging me though the crowd.
I look over to see God disappearing through a side door with two women. Never simple with him. Everything he does is in excess.
“Where do you live?” I wrap an arm around the chick’s shoulder and lean down to nibble her earlobe.
We exit the room into a fresh breeze and more bodies partying in the streets.
“Just there,” she breathes, leaning into my lips. It’s then I realize we were in someone’s garage a few houses down from where this chick lives.
I don’t recognize this part of town, or how the fuck we got here, but that’s not unusual when you’re friends with God. It’s like he finds the seediest shitholes just to spite his father.
We topple through her front door, and she tosses a set of keys down before turning around to face me. She walks backwards, pulling me with her.
“You want a drink?”
Fuck yes.
“What you got?”
She bites her lips, pondering my question, then pushes me into a living room.
“Go make yourself comfortable. I’ll get us something.”
A large orange couch dominates the room, calling me to it. I shrug off my jacket and collapse down, laying my full length across the cushions. It’s itchy as shit, but I’m lacking the drive to move just yet.
The chick appears upside down above me a few seconds later, and I’m grateful I didn’t close my eyes. Robbie waits for me there, and its too painful.
“Vodka?” She grins, holding out a glass for me.
Shifting into a sitting position, I take the glass and down the contents, savoring the chase of fire down my throat.
“Whoa, slow down, stud.” She takes the empty glass and places it on the coffee table before sliding herself onto my lap.
She’s a petite little thing, wearing a pair of tiny jean shorts and a band tee.
Her small tits don’t offer even a handful, but the confidence dripping off her is hella sexy.
My cock stirs, and I try to blank out the voice whispering from the dark corners of my mind.
“Where were you, Rhett?”
When she notices my distracted state, she goes for my belt buckle, but I place a hand over hers, stopping her and moving her from my lap.
Large green eyes expand and her smile falters as I chip away at that confidence.
“Everything okay?” she asks, her voice meek. It makes me feel like a douchebag causing her to question herself.
“Yeah, everything’s real good. I just want to look at you.” I slide my hands beneath her top and draw it up over her body, tugging it over her head.
Pale skin decorated with color expands down her chest, ending at her tiny pink nipples that peak into little pebbles. Leaning up, I take one in my mouth, swirling my tongue over the bud, then sucking her entire tit into my mouth before releasing it with a loud pop.
I jerk open the buttons of her jean shorts and yank them down her legs.
She’s not wearing underwear and has a small patch of hair she colored pink.
What the fuck?
She grins at me. “Never had pink pussy before?”
A real laugh barks out of me, and I fall back amused. Damn, she’s refreshing.
Laying down, I tell her, “Sit that cute, pink pussy on my face, sweetheart.”
Raising her leg, she straddles my shoulders, her little tits lifting up and down with her heavy pants of anticipation.
I haven’t even touched her yet, but know she’s going to be a firecracker. I can already tell by her eager moans.
Just as she drops her hips and I flick my tongue up to meet her, the door opens and a scream rings out through the room.
The colorful chick scrambles to get up, toppling over and falling to the floor.
I look up to see who joined us, finding a blonde woman staring down at me with her mouth agape.
“What the hell?” she breathes. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her in my intoxicated state.
“Nicky, what the hell are you doing?” the woman asks, directing the question to my little rainbow friend.
Nicky?
“Do you know who this is?” She points a finger at me.
Wait, me, what?
“I met him tonight. Why, who is he?” my girl, Nicky asks, grabbing at her clothes and pulling them on.
“That’s Mr. Masters son,” the blonde informs her.
Mr. Masters? I snort a laugh, and my head spins, the vodka doing its job.
“The boss you were boning?” Colorful girl, erm …Nicky! Squints.
Hold up, what did she say?
“What?” I ask through the haze of alcohol, making my lips form the question tugging at my brain.
“The boss who fired me after his wife caught him fucking me, yes,” she snaps, flipping on a light switch, flooding the room in bright white.
Fuck.
It takes a few beats for my eyes to adjust, but seeing her in the light, I do recognize her from Dad’s office. Melissa something or other. God, and I just called her fat lips because she has the biggest lips I’ve ever seen.
She’s sexy as hell, older than me, but still young and fuckable.
Shit, I have a one tracked mind, what did she just say?
“Get out. And tell your father I’m filing a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal.”
Snorting, I drag my ass to my feet and saunter past her.
“Tell him yourself, sweetheart. I ain’t telling that prick shit.”
“Hey, he doesn’t have to go. It isn’t his fault his dad’s a dick.”
“Nicky!” the blonde growls.
“It’s fine. I’ve lost my appetite anyway.” A smirk tugs up my lips as I wave goodbye.
I don’t know where the fuck I am, but I start walking, letting the knowledge sink in that my dad’s a cheating piece of shit and my poor mother knew.
Shit, not only knew, but caught him in the act.
No wonder she left us. We both failed her.
Waking up on the front lawn just outside the gates of our house, I groan at the headache forming in my skull and the fact that I’m fucking shoeless.
What the hell?
I don’t even remember getting back here.
I force myself to my feet, every muscle in my body protesting the movement. I’m a sweaty mess with drool down my chin.
Sensing eyes on me, I take a quick look around, then blow on my hands to remove the debris from them before waving to our neighbor across the street out collecting his newspaper.
“Morning, Mr. Denzel,” I rasp at the old fossil.
He looks over at me, a frown marring his wrinkled face.
“You’ve been there since I woke at four a.m.,” he croaks.
Damn. Fucker could have tossed a sheet on me or woke me up. I could have been eaten by wildlife.
The walk up the drive feels like the green mile, my bones mimicking those of an eighty-year-old.
The front door is open when I test the handle, and the chill from the AC blasts over my skin, stinging my flesh. I’m going to need a shower to clean the sticky dew off my skin.
I move through the foyer and come to a halt when I see my dad sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. His head is in his hands as he looks down at what looks like paperwork.
Sensing he’s not alone, he looks up through his lashes at me standing in the doorway.
His brows pinch together, and he exhales a ragged breath.
“You look like shit. Where the fuck have you been?” He picks
up a glass of what looks like freshly squeezed orange juice and takes a hearty gulp.
My mouth waters at the sight of it. I need some of that.
“Out.”
He grits his teeth, his jaw ticking with annoyance.
Placing a hand on the papers in front of him, he slides them across the counter in the direction of where I’m standing.
“Your mother wants a divorce.”
He says divorce like it’s a curse word, beneath him.
“Robbie’s death ruined us,” he adds, and a ghost hand slides up my spine, making me shiver.
Anger, raw and volatile, burns inside me.
“Or could be the bitch she caught you fucking?” I grunt. His mouth gapes as I turn and take the stairs two at a time.
I need a shower and to get out of here.
I scoop mash on to my plate, then look over to a bored looking God, who’s checking his cell phone, ignoring his father talking to him.
“Once a month, I ask for dinner,” Mr. Goddard aka Four scoffs.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” God grins over the top of his cell phone.
Rolling his eyes, Four turns his attention to me. There’s this air about him that makes my back straighten.
He holds an authority in his posture alone, and his tone commands the room. Despite being a huge-ass motherfucker who weighs in at three-hundred-plus pounds and can barely move, there’s something about him that demands respect. I think they call it money.
“Tell me, Rhett, how is your mother?” he asks before sucking the meat off his chicken bone. Grease slides down one of his chins, and I suppress a shudder.
Fuck. I didn’t know he was going to ask me that, and it throws me off.
Gathering my thoughts, I lay my fork down and wipe my mouth with a napkin.
“We don’t speak much, sir. But I hope she’s well.”
Scowl lines crease his forehead, and he leans back in his seat, the creak loud as it protests against his weight.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I bumped into her while I was in New York on business. She seems well. Considering everything she’s been through.”
Stab to my gut.
“She mentioned college. You’ve decided to go into law?” He sips straight whiskey from a glass, and smiles over at me.