She breathes out a pulsing giggle. “God, you’re insatiable and stubborn as hell.”
“Stephen!” Libby screams at the top of her lungs.
Dena slams up to sitting. “Shit! He’s here?”
I grab her and pull her back down. “No, he’s not fucking here. She’s having another one of her nightmares.”
“She doesn’t yell your dad’s name—she yells Rich’s, and then she goes into hysterical fits of crying.” She struggles out of my arms. “I’m gonna go check on her.”
“No, you fucking won’t. Stay here. I’ll go see if she needs anything.” I get up, put on some sweatpants without bothering to find some boxers, and then drag on a dirty tee shirt I wore a day or two ago.
“What if he really is here?”
“What if the boogie man and a dingo eats my baby? He’s not here, woman. Calm down and stay here. Go back to sleep if you want, but stop worrying.” I grab her bottle of sanitizer and hand it to her before I take off since I still haven’t let her get up and wash her hands. “No showers while I’m gone. I want that pussy staying slick for me with my come from earlier.”
She groans and gets a squirt on her hand.
I exit our room, shut the door behind me and roam out to the great room.
Libby’s shaking by the fireplace, turned toward the wall and sobbing.
“Libby, what’s wr—” I freeze.
A man, clearly not my father, is standing a few feet behind her with a knife, pointed menacingly in her direction. “I told you he’d come if you screamed loud enough, stupid bitch.”
“Rich,” I say, my voice drifting off in the night air.
He stares at her back, and that’s when I see it—slits across her shirt, seeping blood.
“You cut her?” I hiss through my teeth. My fists crack as they ball up tight at my sides. I stand taller, breathe harder and my vision is clearer than ever.
“Deserved it, the little whore—fucking you and every other goddamn dick in this place.” Rich snaps his jaws at her and approaches her, but before he can get close enough to touch her with that knife he must’ve cleaned because that fucker’s gleaming, I launch myself at him.
He slashes at me from an awkward angle since I’ve already pinned one of his arms behind his back.
I knee him in the balls, and Libby screeches for me to stop. “Don’t—I’ll go with him! Stop, Nick! He’ll kill you!”
“Westin—get your ass in here!” I howl.
Swip, swip, swip!
His knife keeps coming at me.
“This bitch is mine and so are this house and your company! I created your empire! I taught your father everything he knows!” Rich says.
I jab him in the ribs with my fist, and it jerks him around enough he’s able to stab his knife in the air.
My reflexes are quick enough I manage to dodge it. He’s a little slow since I obviously impaired his nuts when I kneed him there.
He breathes hard, his movements are spastic, but he’s stronger than he looks.
I’m not a huge guy, but I’m bigger than he is, yet he keeps slipping out of my grip.
“Rope, Libby!” I snap my head up and stare at my bag in the corner I dropped there last night. “In my pack!”
She stands there, trembling and weeping, looking absolutely terrified. “I can’t,” she whimpers.
“You can—don’t listen to this asshole—get it!” I roll my weight into his back, shove his chest down into the ground and when she moves, I look up to see Westin barreling into the room with Ides right behind him.
They’re both armed.
“Fucking cunt! Get off me!” Rich roars, and then slaaaaaash!
Fire rips through my right thigh, and it sears my entire leg.
“Ahhhhhh! Shit!” My grip slackens, and he pushes me off him.
I clutch my leg, spurting blood, and a rope is tossed in front of me.
Westin approaches with slow, methodical steps. “Drop the knife, Dick.”
Ides grins. Westin never calls Hillcourt Rich. He says it’s not fitting. So, Dick it is for him.
“You won’t shoot. You’re nothing but a weak, college boy that dropped out because he lacked the discipline to study and earn his way into the working world, where men matter.” Rich stands up, pulls a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and brushes the blood from his knife onto it.
“Who the fuck wears dress pants to his own funeral?” Ides asks Rich.
He lunges at Westin, standing in front of her, stabs him in the side and he manages to knock him down.
The next thing I know, Rich is behind her, his knife point up against her back, and he snarls, “Shoot Nick.”
Westin makes this awful piercing sound, then he’s knocked unconscious when Rich kicks him hard in the head.
“No.” Her nostrils flare and her pupils dilate while she stares at me with her posture rigid.
“I said shoot that fucker in the face, or I’ll do it for you! At least you can make sure his death is quick and painless,” Rich tells her, his lips a mere inch from her ear. He pokes the knife harder in her back to make his point.
My insides already feel like he’s gutted me, they’re clamping down violently as I sit here impotent to help her.
In a flash, Rich grabs the gun Dena’s holding, wrapping his fingers over hers, and aims at me, but the gun doesn’t go off.
Just like I knew it wouldn’t.
That’s her gun Westin and I fucked around with. It has my DNA in it, hers, Libby’s, Westins, and any of the other body guards in the house we deal with regularly.
But, it doesn’t have Rich’s.
He lets go of the gun and her hand, then he grips his knife tight and gets ready to slice her open. She spins, points the gun at his chest, and pap, pap!
She shoots.
He collapses to the floor, a few feet away from Westin. She aims at Rich again, and this time, she shoots him in the leg, in precisely the same spot he stabbed me.
He cries out in pain for a few moments, then Rich goes silent and motionless.
I’m bleeding like crazy, and my vision’s blurring, so I grab the rope I’d intended to use on him and tie it around my leg.
“Libby, grab the phone over there.” I point at the side table next to the couch where she normally sleeps. “Dial 911. Tell them there’s been an intruder, and he’s been killed.”
Pop, pop!
Two more shots ring through the air, and when my eyes snap in the direction of the gunshots, presumably Rich’s man, someone he must’ve had outside waiting for him, falls hard to the floor with a screaming thuuuud!
There are retreating footsteps. Someone’s running?
And a second later, we hear a car screaming down the road, away from Dad’s home.
How did I not hear any of them enter the house? How did they even get in with all our security?
“Ides, you . . . shot him!” I stare at her in wonder. “Are you okay?”
Her shoulders roll forward. “I’m fine.” She walks over to me like she’s made of stone, devoid of all emotion. “I thought he was going to kill you, and no one’s taking you from me,” she says, focused entirely on me. She drops to her knees and starts assessing my wound.
“Yes, hi, we’ve had a break in by three men. One escaped, and two of them have been shot. I think he’s . . . Oh, God, I think they’re dead. Yes . . .” Libby pauses on the phone “. . . please hurry. The owner of the home’s been stabbed, too, and his body guard has been as well, so we need an ambulance right away.” She rambles off the address and the other pertinent information they need.
I grab Dena’s hand. “Tell me you’re really all right, because there’s no way you can be good with having shot them.”
A few of our body guards are in the room now, freaking out.
Most of them attend to Westin’s knife wound. They check to make sure the rest of us are okay as well.
They search for a pulse on Westin first out of the bodies lying on the floor, covered in b
lood. He’s still alive, but out of it.
Both Rich and his accomplice aren’t breathing, and there’s no pulse, they report to me.
“Dead,” one of our men says, voice flat.
I look at Dena with my eyes big and my heart filled with some elation I I’ve never felt before. “Fuck, we’re free!”
The guard checks Rich’s pockets, and when he rifles through his wallet, he whispers a few profanities. “You need to see this, Nick.”
He hands me whatever he’s been looking at, and there in this man’s wallet is a picture of my mother and father, embracing, Rich standing next to them, smiling at them. Or more precisely, he’s beaming at my father.
“This is some seriously fucked up shit,” Dena says under her breath. “What the hell is going on?
I struggle up to sitting and my shoulders slump forward. “Yeah, orgies and shit. My dad was into fucking around like that.”
“That’s how I met them,” Libby says from behind, her voice timid and breaking. “We would all swing—participate all together sometimes. I had a big crush on Stephen, but he was married. Rich and I were single.”
“And how did my father fit into this?” Dena approaches Libby.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before, but I figured you were probably already disgusted by me. I’m not proud of myself.” Libby shrinks in on herself as she wraps her arms around her torso, tucks her chin to her chest and sniffs as she silently keens.
Dena moves a little closer to Libby, managing to fight her phobias and pats Libby’s back.
Libby swings her head toward Dena and says, “It was a big old mess. We thought we could handle it, but we were naive. I was obsessed with Stephen. He thought it might be better if we maybe brought more people in, so he told your dad about it. Gregory was . . .”
“He fell in love with you,” Dena fills in the sentence for her.
“No, he didn’t like me. He couldn’t stand touching me. It was Stephen. We all wanted him, including Gregory, but Stephen was confused. He loved his wife, but he loved me, too. I didn’t know what to do.”
“My God . . .” Dena stares at her with soft eyes. “You poor woman.”
“It turned ugly, and the next thing I knew both your mothers were dead, and I was the only one left. I thought Rich could protect me. I sought him out for help. I thought I was next. Gregory went nuts. If I was obsessed with Stephen, he was something else entirely.”
“Thank God you’re okay now,” I say, my leg throbbing, so I loosen the rope some. I don’t want to cut off circulation, just slow down the bleeding.
“But I’m not.” Libby turns to me. “Rich beat me to get to Stephen. He turned out to be every bit as scary and violent as Gregory. And now . . . I . . .” She collapses into the couch behind her and hides her face as she cries with the unmistakable sounds of someone completely heartbroken and shattered.
Dena sits next to her, hugs her, comforts her, and all I can do is lie here bleeding, watching on. And I can’t tell who this is more difficult for—Dena, because she’s purposefully touching someone on her own she barely knows, or Libby, clearly uncomfortable with being touched in a positive way, and even more so, being comforted by someone that actually gives a fuck about how she feels.
We stay that way, frozen in our places until the ambulances and police arrive, making it all seem like a surreal nightmare.
I had no idea I was surrounded by people that were way more fucked up than I was.
Guilt sweeps through me. I won’t be a selfish prick like that ever again. I’ll pay attention to the people I love and protect them from heartache like this.
* * *
Six months later . . . Las Vegas
“Get over here, sexy bitch. I have to have you.” I pull Dena onto my lap as I sit behind her.
“How’s your leg?”
“Good. Stop asking me that. You know it doesn’t bother me when I’m fucking you, woman.” I smack her ass—pull at her waistband. “Why the hell are you wearing so many damn clothes? Strip.”
“Not again. I’ve got a presentation to make in two hours. It has to be perfect. We can fuck afterward.” She doesn’t even look at me.
“A quickie, that’s it. You know it’ll relax you so you’re not all tense and worried about germs.”
She stands back up. “It means I’ll need another shower, and then I’ll really be stressed about being late.”
“I’m coming this time,” I say. “I wanna be there when you’re all beautiful and shit in front of all those fuck-wits.”
“Awesome. I’d love to have you there.” She’s distracted so there’s no inflection in her voice at all.
I lean forward and grope her ass. “This sexy butt needs to take a breather.”
“No time.” She scratches her chin on her shoulder, blows out with a winded sound and goes back to shining the cobra two.
“It’s ready. Jesus, woman. Give that damn thing a break.” I snatch at her and pull her back into my lap.
“Your dad’s in the area. Do you think he’ll be there?”
“Probably, since Libby’s coming along.” I shrug and brush my fingers across her tits, forcing her nipples to protrude.
“If he shows up, will you try to talk to him?” She turns a bit in my lap so she’s facing me a little more.
“I have no fucking clue. I’m not really as mad at him as I was before, but I just wish he would’ve told me all this when he tried to confess before he ran. We were alone in that bank. If he was gonna confess, he shoulda fucking done it completely.” I kiss her lips, and all the tenseness in her shoulders melts away. “The only thing I know today is you’ve got this. You’ll kill it and kick all their asses, even Riot’s. Good luck!”
“You should be presenting this one. This is your baby.”
“We’ve discussed this. I’m only there for support. It’s your turn to do this. And my leg,” I grab it all dramatically and pretend it’s aching real bad, “I just can’t do it. Too sore today.”
“It is not.” She smacks my arm. “You’re doing this to help me get over my fears, aren’t you?”
“Who me?” I smack my lips at her.
“Yes, you, asshole. Who else would I be talking about?”
She kisses me, holds me and I let go of her with a whine. “I wanted to fuck.”
“Yes, you’re breathing, so, yes, you want to fuck.” She stands up and straightens her black shirt. “Maybe I should change. The rest of the women presenting will probably be in skirts and heels and nice blouses.”
“The rest of them can eat shit, because they suck monkey balls compared to you. Wear what you’ve got on. I like it. It’s you, and you’re comfortable, so you’ll be able to relax better.” I pinch her ass.
She pretends to glare at me.
I chuckle.
“I’m coming in, and I’m not closing my eyes, so you better tuck your dick away,” Westin calls out as he enters the work room, his eyes wide open and peering in our direction, of course.
At least he was honest.
“We’re ready,” she says.
“Ides, you shouldn’t have dressed up for the occasion,” he teases.
“Fuck you—she looks hot in her black, tight jeans. She’ll rock this place.” I grab for my cane and get up, following her out of the room, grabbing the one item she forgot.
The ride in the car is filled with snorting laughter as we all morph into leet speak and into our online personas.
When we step inside the bustling conference center twenty minutes later, Fingers calls out, “Ides in the house, yo!”
The entire room goes silent, and they all watch her as she heads to the front table and registers herself.
She takes entirely too long as each of the guys at the table chats her up, and act like a bunch of simpering fangirls as they fawn all over her.
I step up behind her, my walk smooth and without my cane, since I left it in the car on purpose.
My arms wrap possessively around her middle.
“This woman’s not used to this kind of attention, so you guys better watch yourself.” I kiss her cheek and rock her back and forth from behind. “I know it’s hard, but try to keep your hands off her. She doesn’t like being touched.” I squeeze her and hold her tight to my chest all to prove two points.
A: that I’m an asshole.
B: that only I can touch her. No one else.
She pats my hands. “I’m fine. I shake hands, so it’s fine.” She gives me a funny look like I’m being ridiculous.
“Just trying to help,” I offer.
“Yes, I can see that.” She kisses me and turns around in my arms.
Clearly, she’s oblivious to how everyone around her is still gaping over the fact this might actually be a prank. Ides is still a recluse and never attends these conventions.
The men behind the table are already chattering back there, talking about her. The gossip in the room will probably spread like wildfire.
She wanders away from me a moment later, mingling a little, but very selective over who she’ll talk to.
The bag of her inventions is slung over her shoulder.
I smirk as I finger the one I brought along in my pocket.
A moment later, I step over to the table, register myself and her invention she “accidentally” left behind. I also register a surprise guest who should be here in the next half hour or so.
“Hey, Vapor! How are ya? Haven’t seen you here in a while.” An old acquaintance of mine claps me on the back.
I swallow hard when I realize I’ve forgotten her name, and my eyes go wide because for the love of God, her tits are in my face, hanging out of her skintight, bright pink dress.
What the fuck, lady?
She flirts with me, and when I glance over at Ides to see how she’s doing, she’s staring at me, looking sallow and disturbed by what she’s seeing.
“Will you excuse me?” I say absentmindedly, not even sparing a glance at this bimbo in front of me.
I don’t even know what the hell she was talking about—some gibberish about how she’s presenting someone big today.
Who the fuck cares?
“Hey, sweetheart, you okay?” I brush Ide’s hair over her shoulder. She left it down today.
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