by Shen, L. J.
“We monsters do what we have to do. You know that better than I do.” I shrugged.
“You’re no monster,” he hissed.
“You have no idea who or what I am.”
“What was your objective? One fuck?” he seethed.
“One? No. A few? Sure, depending on your attitude,” I replied noncommittedly, starting for the door.
He could deny me all he wanted, but when we were on that pool table, he’d looked at me like he did at the carnival. With a hunger that told me he was going to devour me and leave nothing for the man who came after him.
“Aisling,” he barked when my hand found the door handle, about to push it open and leave.
I stopped but didn’t turn around, my heart rioting in my chest.
“If we fuck—and that’s an if, not a when—that’s all we’ll be doing. Every single thing you were born and bred to achieve—a respectable husband, children, a family, a Labrador to complete your Christmas photo—I rejected before you were even born. It will be just that. Fucking. And no one could ever know about our arrangement, for obvious reasons.”
We both knew what the obvious reasons were, and neither of us dared to utter them aloud.
He was offering me something. A start. I knew the rest would be hard-earned. Sam Brennan was a broken man, but not beyond repair. I believed that with my entire heart even and maybe because of the things I’d witnessed him do over the years.
He had gotten my family out of trouble countless times, saved my older brother from losing the family company, and doted on me from afar.
He may not have known it about himself, but he did have a moral code, and rules, and hard limits.
I was going to make him see himself the way I saw him. Then maybe, just maybe, he could see me for who I was. A woman worthy of his attention.
For now, I was willing to take what he was willing to offer, even if it was just carnal, angry sex.
Oui. You officially lost your mind, mon cheri.
“What do you have in mind?” I propped a shoulder on his doorframe, exhibiting the nonchalance of aged goat cheese.
Sam rubbed at his jaw, thoroughly annoyed with the entire situation.
“Well, we can’t fuck around in your place since you still live with your parents—what the hell is that all about, anyway?—and I never let anyone into my apartment, so I guess you can meet me here tomorrow. Same time.”
“Why not there?” I shot out.
“Huh?” He looked up from his screen, already done with the conversation.
“Why don’t you let anyone into your apartment?”
“Because I hate everyone,” he said inhumanly slowly, looking at me like the answer was crystal clear and I was a perfect idiot. “Why the fuck else?”
“So no one’s ever been in your apartment?”
“My parents visited once or twice. Sailor knows the address but is not allowed to come there. Why do you still live with your parents?” He threw the explosive question at my feet. I hitched one shoulder up, feigning calmness.
“I don’t see the point of paying for a place when I basically live at the hospital.”
“Don’t act like living in your own apartment would require you to wash a mug. You’re too rich to do shit yourself, and you and I both know that. Why are you still hiding behind Mommy and Daddy?” he repeated sternly.
The truth was complex, surprising, and worst of all … unbelievable. He would never buy it. Even if I told him. Which I did not consider doing since the truth was embarrassing. I was a puppet. A pawn in my parents’ game. Nothing to be proud of.
I shook my head.
“Does that mean I’m no longer banned from Badlands?” I asked.
“Oh, you’re still banned, missy. I don’t want to see you partying with these losers. One of the bouncers will show you through the back door when you get here tomorrow, but you’re not allowed at the bar or any of the card rooms.”
“See you tomorrow, Monster.”
“Nix,” he nodded his goodbye.
I all but made it back home in a tornado and Googled his nickname for me, elated and terrified and pleased and joyous.
Nix: A water being, half-human, half-fish, that lives in a gorgeous underwater palace and mingles with humans by assuming a variety of attractive physical forms (usually as a fair maiden).
Nix was a female monster.
Sam still thought of us as the same.
Dark, unpredictable creatures, lurking in plain sight.
Now that he let me in, I was going to destroy every single one of his walls and finally make him mine.
Ten hours after being balls deep inside Aisling Fitzpatrick, I got a call that Catalina Greystone, AKA Mother Dearest, had finally (and uneventfully) kicked the bucket.
“Just thought y’all should know. What with the fact that they’re gonna knock the whole thang down next week. Not that the property’s worth a dime, mind you. But I thought, why not let her son know?” Cat’s neighbor, Mrs. Masterson, munched on something crunchy in my ear via a particularly annoying phone call.
Because I don’t care, I was tempted to reply.
Catalina’s death was new to me but not something I was interested in finding out more about.
She caught me at my personal trainer’s, flipping a truck tire that weighed almost as much as I did. I put her on speaker, tossing the phone on the foam floor as I continued flipping.
“How’d you get my number?” I grumbled, not mentioning the special code it required to get through to my line.
“Your daddy gave it to me. Troy somethin’.”
So Troy knew she was dead, too. I was surprised he didn’t show up at my door this morning with a bottle of champagne.
“Well, I appreciate the heads-up, but I can’t imagine there’s anything in this house of value to me.”
Other than my fucking long-lost childhood and memories of drug and alcohol abuse.
Cat had tried reconnecting with me over the years since dropping me off at the Brennans’ with nothing but a duffel bag and bad memories, but the truth of the matter was, I’d rather get fucked by a cactus—raw—than exchange a word with her.
Hell, I’d marry the goddamn cactus if it meant never seeing her wretched face.
Fortunately, being the garbage human that she was, Cat hadn’t gone through extreme lengths to try to reach out. She sent me letters periodically and tried to call every now and again, especially when she had money troubles, which—cue the surprise act—was fucking always.
As if giving a fuck was on the menu for me. By the address on the letters (that went straight into the trash—unless it was wintertime, in which case straight into the fireplace), I figured she spent the last half decade on the outskirts of Atlanta, sucking soggy cock to fund her drug and designer bag problems.
One especially slow night at Badlands I even Google-mapped her address and wasn’t surprised to see she lived in a place I wouldn’t even store my shoes. A rickety wooden thing any wolf could blow over and knock down.
If I cared enough for revenge, I’d have gone there to do exactly that. Made her homeless. As it happened, not enough time had passed for me to think of her as an afterthought, let alone an enemy.
“Aren’t you gonna ask how she passed away?” The woman on the other line continued nagging. My trainer, Mitchell, a man who looked like a rock (not to be confused with The Rock), handed me a fresh towel, offering me a what-the-hell look.
He wasn’t used to me giving strangers the time of day.
“Air bike and ropes next. You’ve got sixty seconds to recover, Monster,” he mouthed, offering me a fist pump I refused to reciprocate on the grounds I wasn’t fucking five, before scurrying behind a black curtain to allow me some privacy.
“Hello? You still there?” the Southern woman on the other line demanded, her nasal voice grating.
I picked up the phone from the floor.
“Listen, Mrs. Masterson, I appreciate your motherly concern, but to say Cat and I weren’
t close would be the understatement of the fucking century. There’s nothing I need from her place. I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to go down to Georgia.”
But I had every fucking intention of going down on Aisling tonight, and that was a problem. A pleasant shiver prickled my skin. Who would have thought little Nix had it in her? To con, deceive, and weasel her way into my club—into my pants—and give me the fuck of a lifetime?
Not me, that was for sure, but I was happy to give her a replay and finally get her out of my system. See all the tricks she picked up in med school and mar that pale, milky skin of hers with my nails and teeth. She was swan-like. Elegant and aristocratic. And it made fucking her so much more pleasing than my usual flavor of pointy long nails, botoxed lips, and ass implants.
There was something simply not as exciting about being buried in a woman that had already seen more dicks than a urologist. Experienced or not, I could tell by the ice princess’ touch she didn’t give it out so easily.
She couldn’t have.
She was hopelessly fucking obsessed with me.
And fuck, for the first time in a decade, that little fact made me proud rather than annoyed.
“Drugs. She had an overdose. That’s how she passed away,” Mrs. Masterson continued, unconcerned with my lack of interest in the conversation. “Poor thang. Girl Scouts found her. Came to try to sell her some cookies. Would you believe? They looked through the window. Saw her lying on the floor and called 9-1-1. Poor children. No one ought to see somethin’ like that, let alone kiddies. They say she’d been like that for days. Maybe a week. No one came to check on her. Her phone log said no one even called. She was a lonely woman, your mother.”
I was hardly surprised. Cat was about as lovable as an SS soldier and just about as endearing. When she was younger, she had her looks to save her. Once her beauty had faded, she became just another haggard junkie, and life tended to be harder on those people.
“Look, I know you two weren’t exactly thick as thieves…” the old woman on the other line sighed “…still, son, you should be here.”
“I’m not—”
“Boy, I don’t know how to be clearer than I am. There’s something of hers you should see,” she cut me off briskly. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we? She told me you were a rich man. That means you can afford to take the time off work and get your ass down here, mister. I know I’m old, but I ain’t stupid. I don’t mean you should come here to pick up some Walmart china or family albums. There are some things you need to see.”
I started to hate her less despite myself. “Like what?”
“I ain’t tellin’.”
“You’re an infuriating woman, Mrs. Masterson. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“All the damn time.” She cackled, and I could tell by her cough she was a heavy smoker like me. “So, is that a yes, little Greystone?”
“Brennan,” I corrected, clenching my jaw, staring at an invisible spot on the wall. The same wall I looked at day in and day out when I did my hundred chin-ups five times a week.
Should I or shouldn’t I entertain my fucked-up, morbid curiosity about Cat’s life or whatever was left of it?
The answer was simple. No. She was a complete stranger at this point. Twenty-six years had passed since I’d last seen her. And still, like a fly to a pile of shit, something compelled me to get a closer look at the mess she’d created for herself. That, paired with the idea of relishing Cat’s failure at the most basic human thing—survival—was something I wanted a front-row seat to.
“I’ll be there by tomorrow morning.”
“Smart move, boy.”
I hung up and called my travel agent, giving him the details. I heard him typing away on his keyboard.
“There’s actually a flight going out of Boston Logan Airport in a few hours. Better catch that one, ’cause there’s thunderstorms rolling in tomorrow and there could be delays.”
“Book it,” I ordered.
I was going to stand Aisling Fitzpatrick up, but that wasn’t a problem. If there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that Nix—little monster—would never turn me down.
She would be there next week. And the week after that.
To be used, abused, and devoured.
She’d always been mine.
That was what made her so dangerous and why I stayed the fuck away all these years. The fact that she was at my disposal. Just one horny mistake away from calamity. An unconditional woman was nothing foreign to me, but they usually wanted something. My money, my power, the glow of being under the dark wings of Boston’s underground king.
Aisling, however, I couldn’t figure out. She had more money than she knew how to count. She was more of the reforming type than the women who wanted the bad boy, and her motives always seemed disturbingly genuine.
I didn’t know what her angle was, and it didn’t matter.
Her family was my biggest client, and I wasn’t going to fuck up my job for any woman, not even one as sweet as her.
Mitchell sauntered back in. His beefy body in that small gym top gave the appearance of trying to stuff my fat cock into a normal-sized condom.
“Ready?” He raised his fist for another pump.
I ignored it, once again, sauntering toward the ropes.
“Always.”
Hours later, I was standing in Cat’s living room or whatever the fuck you wanted to call the small, dingy rathole she used to occupy.
Mrs. Masterson gave me the key, but not before feeding me a questionable apple pie and sweetened iced tea that tasted suspiciously like the store-bought Costco brand.
Cat’s house was about the size of my spare room back in Boston. Most of her furniture was hand-me-downs and crap you’d drag from a street corner’s curb. Her bathroom cabinet had enough prescription drugs to restock a fucking pharmacy. The house exhibited all the usual signs of a shitty life: plastic bags full of useless things strewn everywhere, outstanding bills pinned to a board, half-full beer cans scattered about, and a bunch of used condoms in her bedroom’s trash can.
She died a hooker. It probably should have saddened me, but it didn’t. She lost all pity privileges when she made me an alcoholic and cocaine user before I knew how to wipe my own ass properly.
I rolled up my sleeves and got to work immediately, peeling wallpaper to see if there was something interesting hiding behind it, sifting through the hoarder-type garbage, and opening every cabinet and drawer in the damn place. I flipped the house upside down, even yanked out the leaking faucet from its place, but for the life of me I couldn’t find that thing Mrs. Masterson was talking about that would make it worth my while to visit.
I knew asking the old hag was pointless. She’d just shove more half-frozen apple pie down my throat and tell me Cat wanted me to find it for myself.
You could always count on Cat to make things harder for me, even from the fucking grave.
Usually, I was good at extracting information in not-so-nice ways, but even I had my limits, and I drew them at physically attacking eighty-five-year-old women who were half deaf and possibly fully blind.
I decided to call Sparrow, whom I considered my de facto mother. True, she hadn’t pushed me out of her vagina, but she sure as shit was there to get me out of trouble while I was at school. She fed me, fought my battles, and celebrated my wins.
She loved me more fiercely than any mother would her child, but the damage had been done. My soul was broken, my eyes were open, and my heart was frozen.
“What’s up, Sam?” Sparrow asked on the other line. I could practically imagine her rolling dough in the kitchen, red hair snaking everywhere like medusa, an apron with a witty phrase wrapped around her waist—which was still boyish and slender.
“Sparrow. I’m at Cat’s place in Georgia. She died of an overdose.”
“Troy said,” she answered quietly, and I could sense she was about to launch into her condolences, so I talked fast.
“I think there’s something
here I should see, but I’m not sure where to find it.”
I was good at raiding places, but I usually found weapons under the mattresses and between cracks. Cat’s secrets, wherever they were, weren’t anywhere obvious.
The good thing about Sparrow was that she thought like a criminal. Maybe because she married one. So instead of asking nagging questions, she said, “Check the nightstand drawers or the little nooks in her closet. That’s where women usually stash their secrets.”
“Done, and also duly noted. Nothing.”
“Ripped the carpets and floor up?”
“Every inch of them,” I answered, flicking books off the shelf by her bedroom window. All four of them. “Any other ideas?”
“Are there any pictures hanging there?”
I looked around, about to say no, when I found one.
Cat always had one picture hanging up everywhere she lived.
It was in the bathroom, of all places. A lone sole picture of Troy Brennan, my adoptive father and Cat’s ex. Catalina Greystone had never gotten over Troy Brennan, and I couldn’t blame her. No one else could measure up to the man so feared and loved his name was whispered on the streets of Boston.
“One,” I said distractedly, refraining from adding who was in the picture.
“Rip it. It’ll be behind it,” Sparrow said with conviction.
“This is why I don’t trust women.”
“That’s okay. We don’t trust men right back. Oh and, Sam?” she asked before I hung up.
Here we go.
“Mmm?” I casually flicked the picture to the floor. Sure enough, there was a square-shaped hole in the wall behind it. Just big enough for me to shove my hand into.
“I’m sorry for your loss. And I know you don’t see it as a loss, I do, but I cannot find joy in knowing the woman who created you has passed away. Because at the end of the day—she gave me you. And I love you so very much, son.”
An unpleasant shudder ran through me. Sparrow wasn’t the emotional type, but she sure as shit had her biannual little speeches that made me want to vomit.
I hung up and pulled the shoebox Cat had stashed inside that hole, ripping it open.