by Lindsey Hart
Such as thoughts about spilling all of Raiden’s past secrets. I know a few good magazines or newspapers that would probably give me quite a nice chunk of cash to get them. Maybe I can convince him to forget about me the way he has for the past eighteen years.
Before I can ruminate and plot any further, Raiden stalks back into the room, two glasses in one hand and a bottle of premium, expensive whisky in the other. He grins at me, and as his blue eyes sparkle back at me, a terrible, sinking realization settles in my gut.
Raiden might be able to forget me after I quit, but I’ll never be able to. Never. Ever.
CHAPTER 5
Raiden
The atmosphere in the room is tense, even negative to say the least. I think there are real words for all the hate and pissed off vibes radiating from Zoe, but I’m not really into new age terminology, so I’m not sure what they are.
Zoe jumps up when I enter. I walk lazily toward her and thrust a whisky glass in her direction with a suggestive lift of my brow. There’s nothing a good whisky can’t fix. It delighted me to no end to learn that Zoe is a whisky girl. Well, of course she is. She always loved a challenge, and she also had good taste. I remember that her dad enjoyed a whisky now and then. He probably taught her how to drink, savor and enjoy it.
It just so happens it’s one thing we have in common.
The rest of the ground might be shaky, the waters shark-infested, but hey. It’s a start. And sometimes, swimming with sharks can be fun.
I didn’t get where I am by not taking risks.
Even if those risks were not the kind that involved my dick. It’s times like this that make me realize I should give the bastard a name so I can give it commands. How about Sparky? Down, Sparky. Stop that, Sparky. No, Sparky, that’s not appropriate. Sparky, she’s your ex-stepsister. Goddamn it, I said down! Sparky, you’re an asshole.
Not that I’d name my dick Sparky because that’s just weird. Weirder than wanting to name it just so I can order it to stop getting hard at the mere thought of Zoe.
And I’ve been thinking about her a lot.
Constantly.
Ever since I set eyes on her yesterday.
Zoe reaches out and takes the glass so gently that it’s almost like passing it off to a gentle breeze. If a gentle breeze had hands, that is. I already opened the bottle in the kitchen, so I tilt it towards her glass. “Two fingers or three?” It’s something her dad used to say, and she can’t help her sentimental expression that I remembered.
“Two.”
She waits until I pour, then jerks the glass tumbler away so fast that the whisky just about sloshes over the side. I have quick reflexes, so I manage not to spill a single drop of the fifteen-hundred-dollar bottle of whisky on the floor. I pour myself a drink, and since I haven’t gotten around to purchasing much of the furniture I need even though I’ve lived in the house for a few months already, I set the bottle on the floor. I walk over to one of the couches and sit down before staring pointedly at Zoe until she sits too. I know I’m making her uncomfortable, but I feel like looking away first makes me the loser in the creepy stare off we’re suddenly in.
“So?” She tips her glass, and without looking away, downs the contents in a single gulp. She doesn’t so much as wince when she swallows the whisky.
“I thought you wanted to savor a good whisky. If I knew you were going to shoot it, I would have pulled up a twenty-dollar bottle.”
“Pulled up? You mean like from the wine cellar? Or maybe you have your own special cellar for every different kind of alcohol. Maybe for dead bodies too.”
“No. Just a basement with a bar, unfortunately. It’s not nearly as interesting, I’m afraid.”
Zoe sets her tumbler down on the floor and smooths her hands over her legs. She has really, really nice legs. The green dress she has on, which is almost the exact shade of her eyes, only makes it obvious that she has many more nice things to be appreciated. These jeans will only hide so much, so I concentrate on enjoying the complicated and complex flavors of the whisky.
“Why did you really ask me here?” It’s clear Zoe is running out of patience. I’m still quite surprised she showed up.
“I wanted to talk about old times. Like what you’ve been doing. It’s been almost two decades.”
“Are you sad I never looked you up? Offended? I should remind you that you never looked me up either.”
“I’m easier to keep tabs on.”
“And much harder to get a hold of because of it. You live in a gated community, and I seriously doubt anyone could just call to set up an appointment with you. Not that I was keeping tabs on you. I just couldn’t help it, as I said. The whole city knows who Ruthless Raiden is.”
“Since we’ve been over this, we should just skip it and the angry, resentful, bitter emotions that conversation might evoke. I’d like to talk about happier times.”
“You never even tried to contact me,” Zoe says evenly, but by the hard set of her jaw, I can tell she’s pissed. “You had all the resources in the world.”
“That didn’t come until later. And it’s pretty hard for a fifteen-year-old kid to hire a private investigator to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. Plus, there was always the fact that I didn’t have a cell or computer of my own yet, and my mom didn’t want to have anything to do with your dad, which we both know was probably for the best. And I didn’t have a car. We couldn’t afford that. So, you’ll forgive me if I had zero resources at my disposal up until after college.”
“Yeah? What was stopping you then?”
“The fact that you never contacted me either, and it had been ten years by then, and I thought maybe things were best left alone. I doubted I’d receive the warmest reception.”
“You’re such an asshole now. You know that?”
“I rest my case.”
“No one says that. This isn’t a courtroom, Your Honor. Or maybe it’s Your Highness now. Maybe it’s Mr. Vanstone.”
“Whatever you like.” With a smirk at her, I continue to sip my whisky, even though my blood pressure is rising. The best way to deal with angry people—as I’ve come to learn—is to diffuse the situation by not rising to it. Calmer heads often prevail. It might be cliché, but it’s often true.
Zoe mutters something under her breath that sounds like ‘shitfart,’ but she glances down at her empty glass and pretends like she didn’t say anything at all.
I get the hint. The world might think I’m smart when it counts, tech-wise, but I’m actually smart in other ways too. I do sometimes pick up on signals and cues and whatnot. Sometimes. This is one of those times. So, while my ex-stepsister stares daggers at me and is probably doing some silent voodoo stuff that can make my dick shrivel up and fall off, I shove off the couch, grab the bottle of whisky, then sit down hard right beside her.
Judging from her gasp and the extreme look of disgust she gives me, she didn’t expect that, but I let the whisky make up for it. I fill her glass with quite a bit more than two fingers. I have my own glass too, so I fill it, and not to be outdone, I toss at least half of it back.
If looks could kill, I’d be dismembered a hundred times over right about now. Zoe never could pass up a challenge even when she knows she won’t win. I can remember at least a dozen times—which in reality is probably closer to twenty times because those memories would spark other memories, and maybe those memories would spark some others too—where Zoe acted like a crazy person just to make a point. She used to try arm wrestling all my friends and me, and even though a twelve-year-old kid isn’t that much bigger than a ten-year-old kid, we were still bigger and stronger, and she still tried just as hard, even after losing over and over again.
We had thousands of thumb wars.
Probably even more rock, paper, scissor battles.
A few times, we even tried toe wrestling.
It’s a true testament to what a shithead I am and just how in control the beast in my pants is because right now, I’m sitting here, and
I can’t even claim that the whisky has kicked in yet, and all I can think about is giving tongue wrestling a go.
“So?” I raise a brow as Zoe does indeed down the whisky in a single gulp. I lean over and refill her glass. She scowls at me. “What have you been doing for the past two decades?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she snaps. Her eyes flash, and her lips curl in distaste. Her face looks so beautiful and so fearsome that it causes a massive twinge in my chest.
“I would. That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because you’re on some weird power trip.” Her eyes flash again, but this time with sudden inspiration. She looks so fearsome that my dick probably more closely resembles a tree trunk than it does actual human flesh. “You seem like you’ve turned into the kind of asshole who loves to make deals, so I’ll make one with you. I tell you what I’ve been doing for eighteen years, and you let me quit. No strings attached.”
“I can’t let you do that. You’re planning on going to the competition and ruining me.”
“I won’t. I’ll find something else to do, somewhere else.”
“Or I could give you the training and tools to succeed right where you are.”
“That sounds like bribery.”
“You’re the one who said I liked making deals.”
“Deals aren’t bribery.”
“Aren’t they?” I toss back the rest of the whisky. Now I’m feeling the burn. My head is warm, my chest is warm, and other things are heating up too, aching and acting strangely. I don’t think it’s the whisky as that thing was acting up even before that.
Zoe stares a few more lethal daggers at me. If she could cut me, I wonder what she’d go for first. Probably the throat. The jugular. Or maybe the major artery in my thigh. No, definitely the jugular.
“Do you want to know or not? Do we have a deal?”
I hold out my fist in front of me. “Rock, paper, scissors, and we’ll see. Best of five.”
“For what?”
“If you win, you can quit. You can go wherever you like. No repercussions even though I think it’s a poor decision. I’ll let you make it, ruin your career, whatever you want.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then you tell me what I want to know, and you keep working for me. At least for a month. Give it an honest try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“If by pleasantly you mean extremely unpleasantly, then I guess you might be right.”
“So?” I give my fist a shake. “What’s it going to be?”
Zoe bites down hard on her bottom lip, which makes my cock twitch so hard that I could probably slice my own jugular with it. Maybe the whisky is finally kicking in because what kind of a mental image is that?
“Fine. But if I win, I also want you to give me some money so I can restart my life. I would have been fine if you hadn’t walked into it and messed it all up. It would technically be your fault I have no job. And I have mouths at home to feed.”
“What?” I nearly drop my empty glass.
Zoe grins wickedly. “You should see the look on your face. No, I don’t have children. Cats. I have three cats.”
“Why the hell do you have three cats? Isn’t one enough?”
“Maybe I wanted to turn into a crazy old cat woman. I hit thirty this year, so I thought now would be the best time.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s fucking with me. I also realize I’m not going to get any more out of her. Maybe she does have cats. Maybe she doesn’t. If she had kids or some sort of significant other, I don’t think she’d be here. She wouldn’t see it as appropriate, and she would have either brought them all just to rub her domestic bliss in my face, or she would have sent me an email telling me to go eat poop by myself. Or a text. That’s more Zoe’s style.
At least, it used to be her style. I’m not sure what her style is anymore. We’re no longer kids. People grow up. People change. People can change a lot, even in a few years, and it’s been a few and a few more, and a few more years on top of that.
“How much are we talking?”
“Ten thousand. You can easily afford it.”
I snort because I thought she was going to come up with something quite a bit better than that. She could have asked for a million or a hundred thousand, making it worth her while even mentioning it, but no, she asks for something sustainable. The actual amount it would probably take to cover her rent and bills while she tries to find another position.
Zoe always knew who she was, even when she was ten years old. That was one of the things I admired most about her. She was never lost like I was though I hid it well. She never had to bother trying to hide it because she never felt like that. She was always confident and proud of who she was. She never felt empty, ever. She was the younger one, but I remember how much comfort I took in sharing a room with her. We had bunk beds because our house was really small, and I always slept better, knowing she was right there in the same room as me.
“It’s a deal.”
Fine. She tosses back her whisky again and doesn’t look at me. “You count.”
“Rock, paper, scissors.”
Our hands fly out at the exact same time, showing identical paper signs. Our fingertips almost brush, but she jerks her hand away just in time. My insides turn into a wild, twisted mess when I feel the heat of her hand. So. Close. To. Mine.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” I count again.
This time, Zoe outsmarts me. She was always way better at this game than I was. And no, there’s no way I want to let her win. She pulls paper again, and I choose rock, just because I thought she’d think that I was going for paper again and choose scissors. In this game, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock.
Zoe lets out an exclamation of surprise, but her game face doesn’t crack. She’s concentrating hard. She really wants this, wants to get away from me. That’s why she showed up tonight. I’m not sure why she dislikes me so much. No, it might even border on hate. I’ve never done anything to her. Maybe I really am a shithead because I do think about the fact that maybe that’s exactly why she detests me, but I dismiss it just as quickly.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” I count again.
Zoe pulls out rock while I pull out scissors.
Damn it. Now I’m down two nothing. Shit is getting serious.
I count again, ready to face defeat. I’m already trying to force myself to think two steps ahead and come up with a game plan for when it happens, but it’s hard, given my head is starting to swim from the whisky. I don’t drink the hard stuff. Ever. I never had a taste for it, which is why there are currently thirty-seven unopened bottles in my wine cellar downstairs. Gifts from clients. All of them.
I have no choice but to count again. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
This time she chooses paper, and I choose scissors. I let out a grunt of triumph while Zoe’s nostrils flare in annoyance. She hates losing, especially to me. She might be the only person on earth who could rival me for a competitive streak.
I count again, and I go for paper since she probably thinks I’m going to choose scissors again. She goes for rock, so now we’re tied.
Zoe squirms nervously on the couch. She has that look of total concentration, which hasn’t changed over the years.
I count one last time, and when our hands make the signs, I can’t believe it. She chose scissors, and I chose rock. I actually won!
“You cheated!” Zoe yells. She leaps off the couch, her eyes blazing fire, one finger pointed roughly in my face. “You…you…”
That’s as far as she gets before the lights flicker once, twice, and plunge us into total darkness.
CHAPTER 6
Zoe
No one beats me at rock, paper, scissors. No. One. I am literally the rock, paper, scissors queen. And Raiden never beat me once. Okay, rarely. It’s only rarely, but now, when it really counted, this asshosoris rex just took me down.
It turns out divine retribution or karma o
r just bad universal energy or whatever it is out there is swift and just because the whole house plunges into immediate darkness.
I don’t know much about Raiden anymore, but I do know he has always had this irrational and crippling fear of the dark.
I can tell that, in about one point eight seconds flat, the asshosoris rex starts having a meltdown. He used to do this when we were kids, and I seriously thought he would have grown out of it as an adult, but I recognize the heavy breathing. I can practically hear his nostrils opening and closing as they flare wildly, the sucking sound of indrawn breath filling up the room.
I’d think Raiden was playing me if his fear didn’t have an almost acrid smell to it. It’s real, and it’s vulnerable.
I could use it to my advantage, but I’ve never been the seedy, mega-asshole type of person. Instead of pressing Raiden’s buttons or just up and telling him I quit and leaving him to the darkness and the rest of his overcompensating life, I bend forward, dig in my purse, and grab my phone. One quick swipe across the screen and I have my phone’s flashlight up and running.
When I sweep the beam of light over Raiden’s annoyingly perfect face, he relaxes visibly, and his nostrils stop flaring. His breathing hitches a little but then goes back to normal. His shoulders deflate as all the tension seeps out. There’s this evil part of me that makes me think I might indeed have some lurking assholeness hidden away somewhere, which makes me want to comment on the fact that Raiden is a grown, thirty-two-year-old man, and the dark shouldn’t be so scary in his own house, but thankfully, the good parts of me win out. I’m not someone who likes to make fun of other people’s insecurities, and not just because it’s rude or because I wouldn’t like it if someone did it to me. I just think it would seriously be a dick move, and dick moves aren’t cool.
At this point, I barely think dicks are cool. The anatomy, I mean. Hmm, on second thought, maybe Raiden’s dick might be cool. Okay, STOP. Not going there.