Glamour
Page 36
“Hey,” I said, following him inside. It was so quiet; had everyone else left? This was becoming a weird habit of mine. “Everything okay?”
His office was all sharp edges and hard colors; black trim, rich red rug, a desk bigger than some people’s beds. He stood in front of it, hands behind his back and his smile rather coy. “You tell me.”
Shit, he did notice. “Listen, Callum—”
“Call me Mister Big.”
I stopped short. He only asked for that when he was genuinely furious. “Okay. Mister Big, I didn’t mean to show up late. I’m always on time, surely you can overlook this.” The club had a penalty system; being tardy cost two hundred dollars. It was a steep price, I’d never faced it before.
“What were you so busy doing that you lost track of time?”
Unsure how to answer that, I hesitated. That was my first mistake. “Cena had trouble going to sleep.”
“Liar,” he spit. “Try again.”
Sweat warmed between my shoulder blades. He was acting strange; what was going on? “I’m not lying. It’s what happened.” And there was my second mistake.
Sighing, my boss swayed closer. He was fast for such a large man. “Then we’re going this route.”
“What route? Callum—”
The back of his hand landed solidly on my cheek. I didn’t fall, but only because he caught me by the throat with a meaty palm. Each finger sank in, holding on as I scraped at his wrist in surprise. “It’s Mister Big, you lying bitch,” he snarled. “I know what you did today. I know you went to the bank to take out money, I know you went to the airport to buy tickets for you and Cena.”
The cells in my brain had to be dying, because otherwise, what he said made no sense. “Wrong… that’s wrong.”
His smile was so sweet it was cloying. “Thought you’d take your sister and run. As if it wouldn’t be as simple as me calling the police on you. We’ve been over this before.”
“No,” I wheezed. “I wasn’t…”
“You’re as stupid as your mom. She thought she could leave me, too.”
My brain jump started—hot sickness invaded my guts. She’d tried to leave him? I’d never heard that before. I’d never even guessed she was unhappy until I’d found her body. It was then that I’d readjusted my understanding of the world.
I’d seen her growing silence… her fading health… and known it was because Mister Big was in charge of her life. I’d blamed myself for introducing them. I’d blamed myself for her suicide.
His grip constricted on my throat. Thin lines of black began to crawl into my vision. In one swing, he knocked me into his desk, sending everything on top tumbling to the ground along with me.
“She thought she could take you and Cena away. But I had men following her, just like you. Watching. I knew the second she looked up plane tickets for you girls on her fucking laptop. She’d even sent herself copies of the photos I had of you from the dressing rooms, trying to blackmail me.”
Like a terrible dream you remember after you wake up, everything he said began to flow together. I’d met Callum when I was at a middle school pageant. He’d “discovered” me, given me his card, and I’d brought him to meet my mother. I mistook his hungry eyes for excitement at my skill. Not attraction to my teen body. I was young and innocent.
Like Cena.
“No one seems to understand me,” he said against my scalp. His fist knotted there, holding me still. “No one gets the thrill of being so much bigger than those young girls. I feel like a giant. How can that be so terrible? And Cena.” Fuck, when he said her name, my heart broke in two. “She’s starting to look just how you did when you were fourteen. She’s maturing so quickly.”
The flickering defeat inside of me found a waft of air. My terror… my righteous disgust for my little sister… it gave me strength.
Callum forced me to the floor. My cheek was crushed into the maroon rug of his office; the fibers burned my skin, then I suddenly didn’t feel it. All I felt was the way my shoulder was stretching to its limit, reaching for one of the pens that had rolled off his desk.
He whispered, “I can’t stop thinking about you, how I never got to have my way. Photos… all I was allowed was to look. So I looked, Harper. I watched you so long I didn’t see your mother watching what I was doing.”
My mother had known. She’d tried to save us.
It wasn’t suicide. He murdered her.
“Harper,” he said thickly. His cracked lips stroked my earlobe. “Stay like this, let me—FUCK!”
In a great thrust of my body I’d stabbed the pen into his cheek. Callum roared, pulling away, giving me enough room to scramble backwards towards the wall. He was between me and the door.
Standing tall, he threw the once silver but now red pen onto the rug. “You stupid slut,” he snarled. His palm clasped his face; blood dripped between his fingers, across his teeth and chin. “You’re going to die now. Understand that? It won’t be nice or quick, either.”
The click of a gun came from behind him. I stared over his head, my face morphing into surprise. Jack was in the doorway, his frame so wide he blocked the hallway out. The handgun he gripped was aimed calmly on Mister Big. “Move,” Jack said. “Back up.”
Callum did as he was asked, shifting so his back was to the desk, facing his attacker. He swiped at his own hair; blood smeared on his forehead, sticking in the brown strands. “Who are you?”
“A dead man,” Jack said, shutting the door behind him. “One that you buried long ago.”
Screwing up his face, he studied Jack, the gun, then he glanced at me. Mister Big saw my triumphant smile, and it amazed me that his voice came out so smoothly. “I buried a lot of men. You’ll have to be more clear.”
Jack laughed, the sound like an old house falling to the ground. It gave me goosebumps. He placed the tip of the gun to Callum’s bloody cheek. “I’ll remind you with a story. One that begins with a cruel giant taking advantage of a small boy.”
His eyes shot wide. “Jack?” he whispered.
“The very same.”
I swallowed, slowing rising to my feet as my stepfather watched me. “I’m glad to see you’re whole. I always wondered what happened to you.”
“Bullshit.” Lifting his shirt with his free hand, he displayed some scars that were worse than the small ones he’d made me feel on his face. “Your guys did a number on me. Guess you didn’t count on me being saved by an angel.”
That went over Callum’s head. Or at least, he didn’t seem to connect that I’d been the one to save Jack so long ago. He was busy giving his attention to the gun in his face. “Jack,” he said, and the bastard smiled wide. “Let’s talk. You’re here because you want something, right? What is it, money? I’ll happily give you that.”
“I don’t want you to happily give me anything.” Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a few thick squares of paper. He dropped the photos onto the desk; all of us looked. I rocked to one side when I spotted myself in one of them.
Mister Big’s chest rose as he began to panic. “What are those?”
“You know what they are,” Jack growled. “Your little camera set up was pretty slick. Running the feed to your unlocked laptop was bold, though.”
“It was in my penthouse, how did you…” His mouth snapped shut, he was glowing a furious red.
“Hector might throw a mean kick, but he sucks at his job.” Jack’s head swung side to side. “Left his station more than long enough for me to snatch a master key card to your place. I’d say you should fire him, but when we’re done here, you won’t have that kind of power anymore.”
I couldn’t find him because he was right above me in the penthouse. I picked up some of the photos. Each had a time stamp on them; most were from the last week, a couple were from months ago. Way before I’d met Jack… and before he’d entered my home. The camera really didn’t belong to him.
“It was off when I found it,” I said, looking at Jack. “You turned it
off. Why didn’t you tell me? You could have said Callum was filming us, I would have…”
“Believed me?” He adjusted his grip on the gun. “Maybe. But I didn’t have proof, not until I accessed the server and downloaded the photos from that camera’s feed.”
My foot touched the bloody pen; it rolled away from me. “You were coming here tonight to confront him. Jack, if you hadn’t, I’d be dead.”
“Tsk,” he said, ending my dark ramble. His attention went back to the oddly silent owner of the club. “It’s pretty obvious that these photos will ruin you, Callum. I didn’t bring the worst, but thousands of pictures of your own underage daughter exist. Pictures you took. You own that server, you placed that camera.”
Mister Big waited, his eyes closed now. “Get to what you’re after.”
“Sign over the club to me. Then you’re going to quietly accept jail time for creating child porn. Don’t lawyer your way into a smaller penalty, don’t fight it. You’re going to bow your head and take the title of fucking pedophile with pride,” he spat. The tendon in Jack’s neck bulged. His grip on the pistol tightened, then loosened; he was struggling with an urge that deeply wanted to murder this man.
Jack said, “You’re also going to stay out of the custody situation between Harper and her sister. No cruel words or mud-slinging, she’s the best person to care for Cena, and you know it.” He inhaled sharply, bending near Callum so I almost couldn’t hear his next words. “If you don’t do this exactly as instructed, your fate is simple: I’ll shred you up bit by screaming bit. You see, I’m not scared of jail or death. I’m going to hell just like you are, and if I have to drag us down together, arm in arm, I will.” He watched me from the corner of one eye. “I’d just prefer to wait a bit before I cross those gates.”
The gravity of his admission kept my feet stuck to the rug. He’d bluntly said that he expected to be welcomed to Hell with open arms. But somewhere between our fated meeting in an alley and our kiss in my home, he’d made a decision. He wanted more time—with me.
Mister Big finally opened his eyes. “I don’t have much choice. I’ll sign whatever you want.”
Jack didn’t remove the pistol. “One more question. I know who bought the house and the farm, but who did you sell my mother’s necklace to? The one with the three bean shaped emeralds?”
My stepfather stared, apparently searching his brain. “I don’t know what happened to that.” His attention slid my way. “I gave it to her mother long ago. I looked for it after she died, but…”
“Think harder,” Jack said. He fingered the trigger.
“Wait.” One of my feet glided over the rug; a half-step, enough so I could rest my fingers on Jack’s shoulder. The man was all steel, but under my touch, he started to melt. “He really doesn’t know. But I do.”
Nodding, Jack kept his weapon on Callum and tossed me a roll of tape. “Tie him to his chair. We’ll call the police so he can make his confession.”
I moved quickly, rolling the thick tape around my stepfather’s wrists. He didn’t struggle, he just stared straight ahead, his skin a sallow cheese color. “Harper,” he said under his breath. I didn’t slow down, the tape squeaking. “Harper… listen closely. That man’s insane. I didn’t take those pictures. I—”
Slapping a chunk of tape over his mouth, I turned the chair so he was facing me. “She was beautiful, amazing, she risked everything to try and save Cena and I from your twisted shit. This whole time, I blamed myself for her death. How could you kill her?”
With his mouth sealed he couldn’t answer. That was fine; nothing he could say would satisfy me.
Jack was talking on his phone in the doorway. I caught the words, “Child molester.” And also, “Ready to confess, tied him up so he won’t change his mind.”
There was blood on my hand from where I’d stabbed Callum. Scrubbing my skin on my jeans, I gestured for Jack to come with me. “The police on their way?”
“Yeah. Said they’re sending a car now.”
The second we entered the hallway, the door cracked just so it lit up the dark walls, he pounced on me. Fingers grasped madly for my face, my hair, my hips; Jack kissed me with such heat I forgot my own name.
This is real. This isn’t a dream.
“You almost died,” he gasped out. I saw my reflection in his glistening stare. “When I saw you on the rug in there, the bruises on your throat…” I touched my tender skin as he mentioned it; how bad did it look? “Harper, I had all these plans. Clear, factual pieces on a map. But the second I saw how he’d hurt you… fuck, I nearly shot him. It would have ruined everything but I came so fucking close.”
“But you didn’t.” Holding his head steady, I made him look at me. His eyes were rabid. “You didn’t kill anyone. Jack, you got your revenge. Beyond that, you saved me and Cena. I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m the one who needs to thank you.” His fingers flexed in my hair; open and shut. “I nearly kidnapped a kid. How the fuck could I be such a broken monster?” His head hung low, voice stirring the air between us as my chin rested on his scalp. “Harper… I hate that man in there for so many reasons. But I almost became just like him.”
“You’re nothing like him, Jack.”
“I said almost.” When I tried to pull him up, he fought me. “I nearly hurt a kid. Just like that piece of shit.”
“Jack!” Grappling with his jaw, I forced him upwards. He let me this time, or maybe I was finally strong enough. There was a shine in his eyes. I worried he’d cry, because my heart would surely crumble from the pain. “Callum did something unforgivable. There’s no reason to do what he does.” Those damn photos. I had the urge to go back inside and kick him in the teeth. “Kidnapping Cena would have been wrong, but you had a reason, and what matters is you didn’t go through with it.”
“It was because of you that I stopped myself.” His arms circled me until I lost all the air in my lungs. His kiss was the only source of oxygen. The only beam of life-giving light. “I love you,” he whispered, the words tattooing on my soul. “I’ve loved you since the day you saved my life.”
Then there were tears. The salt burned my eyes, it tasted bitter as we kissed, somehow savory and addictive. If this was what love tasted like… felt like… I was content to become a glutton. “I love you too, Jack. It’s not been long, it makes no sense—”
“Love never has to make sense.”
“—But it’s true. I love you with everything I have, all my broken bits.” I imagined if you took all our pieces, you could glue enough of the good ones together and make something whole… maybe something beautiful.
We held each other as the sirens grew in the distance. “Promise me something,” he whispered.
“Anything.”
“Callum is gone. There’s no reason not to sing again.”
I tightened up like a cannon ready to fire. “It feels strange. Wrong, to think I could do it out in the open again.”
“It’s not like before.” He brushed the new tears from my eyes. “Hell, it wasn’t ever like it seemed. It wasn’t your fault that your mother met Callum. Your talent isn’t a curse, but not using it surely is.”
Thinking it through brought me pain. Old scars split open, spitting out memories I’d stowed away to make it easier to live each day. Singing with my mother when I was just four… learning the words to Christmas songs… harmonizing with the most stunning woman I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing, and who Cena reminded me of each day.
I linked my fingers with his. “You have to promise me something, too.”
“The world, the moon, all the treasure in existence.”
My smile felt like I’d never worn it before. “I’ll sing, but you’ll have to be there to listen.”
Jack’s laughter rumbled through his chest and into mine. It created buttery heat, a sensation in my mouth like I’d eaten too much cream. It was addicting. “I’ve waited seven years to hear you sing again, Harper.” His lips tickled across mine unti
l I shivered. “I won’t miss another musical note if it means I have to tie myself to you by the hip.”
And I knew he meant it.
Epilogue
Harper
“Do you think this will grow into anything?” Cena asked, gently pouring dirt over the hole.
Jack scrubbed sweat from his brow. “What do you want it to become?”
My sister tapped her chin, eyeballing the clouds. “Hm. A rose bush. Or a huge beanstalk! Or… some moon flowers. Did you know those only bloom at night?”
I laughed into the back of my hand, spreading more soil and patting it down. “Jewels don’t normally grow like seeds.”
“True,” Jack said seriously, “But this necklace is special.”
“Special how?” she gasped.
He crouched next to her, his wide, strong hand gently brushing over the gravestone beside us. “The woman who wore this had a dream about prosperity. She wanted nothing more than to keep her son happy and alive. That emotion went into the necklace. Emotion can create magic.”
Cena was caught up in his tale. Sitting on her heels, she took extra care when scraping her small shovel over the dirt mound. When it was finished, she ran towards our car to get paper towels to wash herself off.
I watched her go, loving how light she moved—how her hair flipped in the sun. “Do you really believe that?” I asked.
Standing up, he stretched with a groan. “That emotion can create magic? Of course I believe it. I’ve experienced it in person.”
He looked at me intently. Blushing, I darted my eyes back to the ground. “Your mom would be very proud of you.”
“Yours, too,” he said, circling a forearm around my middle. It fit perfectly. “Do you need to do anything tonight before your show at the Golden Goose?”
Biting the inside of my lip, I watched Cena running back towards us. “It feels weird to invite her to my first real performance.”
“It shouldn’t. That place isn’t the same anymore. Plus, she’s excited.”
I hadn’t fully wrapped my brain around taking my sister to the former strip club. But Jack was right; after all the renovations, the new club was family friendly. It even served as a singing school during the day. I taught there, a fact I delighted in.