Revenge: The Complete Series (Erotic Rock Star Suspense Romance)

by Mimi Strong

  Caleb follows me into the kitchen like a puppy.

  I’m not hungry, but I pull out my bread and peanut butter anyway, because it’s my comfort snack. I’m so glad I picked up a few groceries yesterday. I’m broke, but I won’t have to starve until payday.

  “What happened to your eye?” he asks.

  “I got mugged,” I tell Caleb. “About five blocks from here.”

  He takes a seat on one of the stools along the counter and rests his elbows on the surface. “Jess, that’s not normal for this neighborhood. Nobody gets mugged around here.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Don’t be so defensive. I’m trying to be a friend. I want you to know you’re pretty safe around here. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  We’re interrupted by my skanky roommate coming into the kitchen. Her eyes are squinty with suspicion. “I thought I kicked you out,” she says to Caleb. “Leave Jess alone. She’s sweet and innocent. Not like you, pervert.”

  “Um, thanks?” I say to her, my voice lifting up at the end so it sounds like a question.

  She reaches into my bag of whole wheat bread and grabs two slices without asking. I don’t protest, because I know the rules. We keep our stuff in our own cupboards, but we all share, and it’s supposed to work out. There are three of us roommates, all girls.

  She pulls open the cupboard with the word Queen Bitch scrawled on the door. Her name is actually Amanda, but either she or someone else crossed that out and wrote the other thing. The more I get to know Amanda, the more I think it was her.

  She’s wearing a pink track suit, slung low across her hipbones. The edge of her tattoo is visible, but it’s not a mystery to me, since I saw the whole thing in all its naked glory this morning. The tattoo is a flower, a lily colored in with yellow. It’s pretty, unlike the one on her lower back. She’s got a tramp stamp of a snake biting its own tail.

  Amanda has, by the looks of her roots, brown hair that she bleaches blonde. She’s the same height as me, five foot seven. We didn’t measure our heights or anything, but when I stand in front of her, my eyes look straight into hers.

  Amanda’s eyes are mostly blue, with one little pie-shaped segment that’s darker and greener. I’d like to ask her why her eyes are like that, but I don’t want to be rude. I’m sure if my brown eyes had a different-colored chunk, she’d have no problem asking me.

  She slathers my bread with a layer of my peanut butter, and then a layer of Nutella. She rolls the bread into a tube and says, “Hey, Caleb, what’s this?” She pretends to deep-throat the whole thing.

  I can feel my cheeks flushing as I blush with embarrassment.

  I could probably be friends with Amanda, if she wasn’t so profane and vulgar all the time. It’s really hard to believe she’s the granddaughter of Nan’s best friend. Amanda is nothing like her family. Her father is a minister back in my hometown. He’d be horrified if he knew how his second-oldest daughter was living. I just hope Nan doesn’t ask me too many questions, because I don’t know if I can lie to her.

  “Tell me about this alleged mugging,” Amanda says. Instead of taking a seat on the other stool, she elbows her way onto Caleb’s lap. He looks surprised, but lets her settle in, shooting me an apologetic look.

  “I was just taking out my wallet—” My throat tightens, cutting off my voice. I have to start again, this time with my voice pitched lower and deliberately calm. “I was just taking out my wallet to donate a few dollars to a street busker, when this dude came out of nowhere and snatched the wallet from my hands.”

  Her lips smack as she chews the rolled-up bread. “Who punched you?”

  I rub my eye, which actually seems less swollen already. Maybe it won’t even turn black, which would definitely make showing up for work tomorrow easier.

  “There was a big crowd,” I say. “I fell backward, and I think someone’s elbow smacked me by accident. It’s not a big deal. Seriously, you guys. I’m not going to get weird PTSD and sleep-murder my roommates.”

  Amanda laughs with gusto, bits of food spraying out of her mouth onto the counter between us. A fleck lands on my arm, on the bare skin just below the rolled-up jacket sleeve.

  I flick the food off. “On the other hand, I may get PTSD from people’s chewed food spraying onto me. I know we’re supposed to share everything, but some things I’d rather not share. Like spit.”

  She covers her mouth with her hand this time and says, “I’ll be damned. It’s got a sense of humor.” She cranes her neck back and kisses Caleb on the forehead. “It’s got a sense of humor,” she repeats to him.

  I don’t like being referred to as it, but I suppose things could be worse. I stand by the sink to eat my sandwich, away from Amanda’s spray zone.

  She feeds the other rolled-up piece of bread to Caleb, cooing at him like he’s a baby. I have to wonder if she’s always this insane, or just overdoing it to make an impression on me.

  Caleb seems to know her better than I’d expect for some random dude she picked up last night. They seem cozy together, and I wonder if he’s her boyfriend. Yesterday when we met, she said she was celibate.

  At least now I know how to tell when Amanda is lying. Her lips move.

  She finishes feeding Caleb and says to me, “That mugging doesn’t sound right. They wouldn’t do it in a crowd of people, because it’s much better to pick-pocket in a crowd.”

  Caleb chuckles. “Is there something you want to tell us, Miss Criminology?”

  Her eyes widen. “I did study criminology, before I dropped it.”

  I’m annoyed by her doubts, but try to play it off with a casual shrug. “Whatever.” I pull out my wallet to check that my ID cards are still in there. “I know I didn’t punch myself in the face, or throw away all my money, because that would be—.”

  Crazy.

  That would be crazy.

  I stare at the contents of my wallet in disbelief. The inside pocket where I keep bills isn’t empty at all. My money is still there. And on top of that, there’s extra money in here. I didn’t have any hundred dollar bills this morning, but now I have three of them, plus the original cash.

  Amanda snaps her fingers at me. “What?”

  I close the wallet and pull the olive green jacket tighter around me. There’s no way I’m going to tell her that my mugger made a huge donation to my wallet. Then she’d think I’m the liar.

  “Nothing,” I say casually. “Just a little shaken up.”

  She slides off Caleb’s lap and points at me, grinning. “Stay out of trouble. Don’t go wandering around without me until you know the neighborhood.”

  “Okay.” I nod obediently.

  She tugs on Caleb’s hand and pulls his skinny body off the chair. “Come with me,” she says. “I have a shelf in my room that I need a man to help me put up.”

  He follows along behind her, out of the kitchen. He says, “That’s what you said last night, but there was no shelf.”

  I shake my head and smile, even though my cheeks are flushing again. How can someone talk about sex right in front of their roommate?

  Eventually, I’ll get used to Amanda in all her Queen Bitch glory. I hope.

  Now that I’m alone in the kitchen, I open my wallet again and carefully count the cash.

  My money has magically doubled.

  I know how it happened. Either the mugger or the street musician must have put money in here.

  That’s the how, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

  Chapter 5

  It’s Monday morning.

  I could hardly sleep last night, because I was worried about my alarm clock not working. I kept waking up to check the settings.

  Aside from the lack of sleep, the day starts decently enough. My skanky roommate Amanda hasn’t come in to share the bathroom with me.

  Mainly because I locked the door.

  My injured eye is only slightly swollen. I’m able to cover the bruising with makeup. I change outfits three times, which isn�
�t too bad, then I leave the house.

  The sky is blue and the weather is nice, the same as yesterday. I still can’t believe it’s winter back home. California is amazing.

  There’s a spring in my step as I walk to the bus stop. The bus I plan to take shows up right on time. The way people talk about LA being such a car-oriented city, I was expecting the buses to be much worse, but the one I get on is just fine.

  I arrive at the building twenty minutes early for my first day as an intern.

  Unlike Sony, Universal, and the Warner Group, my employer isn’t big enough to have its own building.

  Morris Music is one of the so-called independent labels. If you put all the indies together, they make up a good chunk of the music industry. I’d love to work for one of the big guys some day, but everyone has to start somewhere.

  I walk up to the big, glass doors, and prepare to meet my destiny.

  Walking inside, I frown at what I find. The lobby is different from how it looked on the company’s website. In the photo, I saw marble floors, a huge open space, and a grand staircase curving up to the second level of the lobby.

  What I see before me in reality is a big wall of security and metal detectors. This is like what I went through at the airport on my way to California.

  People in suits push by me from behind. They’re annoyed that I’m standing in their way like a country hick who’s never seen anything like this, except on TV.

  I approach a man in a uniform and ask, “Who should I see about one of those keycard pass thingies?”

  “Thingies?” He looks at me warily and pulls out a tablet.

  “Yeah. Um. Keycards?”

  “Keycards.” He taps his screen, holding the tablet at an angle so I can’t see anything. “Nope. You’re not on the list.”

  “But I haven’t even told you my name.”

  “Miss, I very much doubt you’re Harold Chow. He’s the only one on the visitor list for this morning.”

  “I’m not a visitor, though. I’m an employee. Well, technically, I’m an intern. But I am getting paid, so that makes me an employee of Morris Music. They take up five floors of this building.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. His upper lip twitches from side to side, making his mustache move in a comical way that almost makes me laugh.

  “I’ve heard of them,” he deadpans. “One minute. Wait here. Don’t touch anything.”

  I wait.

  Time passes. Ten minutes, and then twenty.

  They haven’t forgotten about me, because I glimpse Mr. Mustache occasionally, and he nods my way.

  I’ve got a bad feeling about today.

  Now I’m late for my first day on the job.

  A grouchy-looking man with an even bigger mustache than the first guy comes up to me.

  “You should have come in last week,” he says.

  “Last week, I wasn’t even in California. I just flew in Saturday.”

  “We’re here on Saturdays.”

  “Listen, Mr. Security Guy. Do you want me to cry? Because if you’re trying to make me feel terrible, it’s working. I’m supposed to start my new job today. Five minutes ago.”

  “How old are you?” he asks.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Are you a singer?”

  I let out a light laugh. “I’ll sing you a song if you’d like, and if it will help me get a keycard faster. But I’ll warn you, I’m not much of a singer. I’m way more interested in the business side of music than I am in singing.”

  He nods. “You’re not here to crash an audition?”

  “No, sir. I swear. I’m an intern. They’ll probably put me in the mail room.”

  “A girl like you? You won’t be in the mail room for long.” He withdraws a keycard from his back pocket. “Here. You can use this one for now. Third floor is Human Resources. If anyone in a uniform asks what you’re doing, tell them your name is Harold Chow. Then keep walking and smiling.”

  I grin up at him. “Thank you.”

  He may or may not be smiling under his big mustache, but his eyes twinkle. “Get going,” he says, nodding for me to walk through the metal detector.

  I start walking as fast as I can. My new shoes aren’t exactly broken in.

  Following the man’s instructions, I take the elevator up to the third floor to report to Human Resources.

  I’m nine minutes late, and sweating.

  The girl at the third floor reception desk looks me over, scowling. “You’re late.”

  I try to explain what happened in the lobby, but she returns to typing on her computer keyboard and murmuring responses into her headset.

  I take a seat in the sparse waiting area. I think about cashing in my ticket home, for the second time this morning.

  Just when I’m about to bug the receptionist and ask if anyone’s coming for me, the elevator dings. A guy with multiple face piercings emerges from the elevator and comes right up to me.

  He’s skinny and wearing nothing but black. His many piercings are distracting.

  Remembering my training, I stand and reach out to shake his hand. The first thing I learned in business school is to shake hands. Nobody wants to do business with a stranger. Once you’ve shaken hands, you’re no longer a stranger.

  Ignoring my offered hand, he stares at a space about two inches in front of my eyes. In a flat voice, he says, “Maggie sent me.”

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  His facial expression doesn’t change.

  Behind me, the receptionist practically screams with laughter.

  I guess I should know who Maggie is.

  Once the receptionist calms down, she says sarcastically, “Maggie Clark is only the vice president of the company. That’s all.”

  I try to stand up straight, despite my mistake. “Of course. It’s just that I’ve mostly been emailing back and forth with—”

  The guy with the piercings cuts me off by holding his hand up, palm facing me. “Fired.”

  I close my mouth and try not to look as horrified as I feel. My only contact person at the company has been fired? The person who hired me? That explains why security didn’t know about me.

  I stammer, “Do I even have a job here?”

  The piercing through his lower lip wiggles for a moment. He says, “I don’t think Maggie’s wave of revenge firings got as far as you, so I’ll be doing your orientation today.”

  “You know who I am?”

  Ominously, he says, “I know who everyone is.”

  His words seem even more spooky because he’s wearing tight-fitting black from head to toe, and eyeliner. I hardly noticed the eyeliner at first, because of all the piercings. He crooks his finger as he turns and walks back toward the elevator. “Come.”

  I follow him into the elevator, happy that I’m at least moving.

  He swipes his keycard across the panel twice and presses a button set aside from the floor buttons.

  The elevator moves down, enhancing the feeling I have of my heart rising up the back of my throat.

  “How flexible is your neck?” he asks.

  I’m so caught off guard by the question that I ask him to repeat himself.

  He stares at me like I just fell off a turnip truck. He repeats himself, his face still expressionless. “How flexible is your neck?”

  Just when I think my day can’t get any more weird, it does.

  “I don’t know.” I turn my head to test my neck flexibility, stopping with my chin over my shoulder. “About this flexible,” I say.

  “Super,” he says in his monotone voice. “But you can’t walk around like that, so you’d better find someone else to watch your back.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  Is he joking? I stare at his face for a sign of anything at all. Have the multiple face piercings caused nerve damage that prevents him from smiling or frowning?

  He doesn’t explain, so I straighten my neck and stare ahead at the numbers on the elevator’s panel. We’re moving down, down, down. We’r
e going to a floor that isn’t even on the panel.

  I think about quitting, for the third time this morning.

  There was a Help Wanted sign up at the cafe I visited yesterday. I could probably get a job there with my experience. Thanks to my new certificate in Business Management from my community college, I’m qualified to run the coffee shop. In theory.

  What I’m not qualified for is working at a music label. I would never have applied here, not even as a long shot. You could have knocked me over with a feather when someone from Morris Music contacted me.

  Now here I am. Riding with Casper the Unfriendly Goth down to the pits of…

  The elevator doors open.

  “Welcome to the archives,” he says, leading the way out.

  I follow him, past tall, industrial-looking metal shelves. He pauses to press a green button on the wall. There’s a creaking sound, then a machine-like whirr, and suddenly the shelves themselves are moving, sliding along a metal track on the floor.

  “That’s cool,” I say.

  His eyebrow lifts for a second, betraying a look of surprise. “You’re not scared of big motors and intern-crushing shelves?”

  “I grew up on a farm. Have you ever seen a thresher up close?”

  His eyebrow lifts again and stays lifted. I’ve passed his test.

  “I’m Nick,” he says, extending his hand.

  “Jess.”

  “I know.” He squeezes my hand with more power than I expected. “Jess, brace yourself for excitement, because I’m going to show you all the ins and outs of the archives floor. You think you’ve seen it all, but we’ve only just begun. Hey, why are you wrinkling your brow at me?”

  “You guys have physical archives? Isn’t everything digital? Shouldn’t this all be on computer servers?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” he says, his voice sounding robotic, like a recorded message. He begins a long speech about how they’re still moving content they’ve acquired over to digital storage.

  Unlike the boxes and files around us, the digital files are kept off-site, on secure servers. After a few minutes of his speech, I realize he’s telling me about the grunt work of digitizing and file conversion because this is what I’m going to be doing.