by Nigel May
‘Well, this is hardly Velvet, The Spotted Pig or The Standard, is it?’ smiled Nush, naming three of the city’s famed celebrity hangouts. ‘I feel decidedly overdressed. Maybe a day-glo vest, gold teeth and a stare that could rival Medusa would have been more befitting, given the lot in here.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ giggled Nikki. ‘I see we’re not the only Fashion Week lovelies who have decided to rough it for the night. Isn’t that Genevieve Peters talking to that guy who won season four million and one of America’s Next Top Model over there?’
‘I do believe it is,’ remarked Nush, making a mental note that the famed UK fashionista and the male model were looking decidedly comfortable in each other’s company. Maybe there was a story there. But right now, it was time to drink. ‘As long as the cocktails are good, then I’m happy. Shall I get them in?’
The two women spent the next couple of hours enjoying each other’s company. They were both from equally rich backgrounds and with a shared love of fashion, fine dining and fitties, the conversation flowed freely, eventually turning to the as yet unannounced news that Hatton Eden would be defending his world title at Nikki’s father’s hotel in Barbados in the summer.
‘Now he is fit,’ slurred Nush, the effect of more than her fair share of cocktails taking hold.
‘Well, when Daddy has announced it all to the press, you must come to the match. Stay at the hotel on me. We’ll try and track Hatton down after the fight to soothe his aching muscles.’
‘You’re on,’ replied Nush, again making a mental note to try and bag an interview with the boxer. Perhaps some kind of exclusive. The shrewdest of gossip columnists was never off-duty. She checked her watch. ‘Listen, I had better make tracks. I’ll order a cab for us. You heading back to Velvet? Thank God for Uber NYC, I wouldn’t rate our chances of grabbing a cab safely around here.’
‘No, you go ahead, I’ll phone one of the Velvet drivers to come out and pick up the Lexus and take me back to the hotel.’
Ten minutes later a cab had turned up and a slightly tottering Nush Silvers climbed into the back of it after giving Nikki one of the biggest girly bear hugs she had ever experienced. Nikki watched her car speed away from the kerb outside the bar. She liked Nush, a lot. Now, it was time to get herself sorted.
She glanced across the street. The Lexus was still where she’d parked it earlier and the hub caps were still in position. Now that was a result. Nikki reached down into her Fendi handbag and located her phone. As she pulled it from the bag she stared at the screen and saw that it was dead, the battery exhausted.
‘Of all the freakin’ times to run out, 2 a.m. in Harlem is not the best,’ she murmured, maybe a little louder than planned.
‘You having a problem, lady?’ The voice came from behind her on the kerbside. It was deep, rasping and belonged to a man she had seen propping up the bar earlier. His attire was scruffy and his face had definitely seen better days; he was knocking fiftyish, she guessed. There was something about his appearance that made Nikki feel very ill at ease – his tattered jacket and stained shirt were definitely not New York Fashion Week. The appearance of two guys behind him, both a bit younger, both sporting the neon-vest look that Nush had commented on earlier, put Nikki even more on edge. The last thing she needed was trouble, especially when she was out of battery and seemingly out of luck.
‘No, I’m fine, just waiting for my man to pick me up. He’s a boxer, Hatton Eden. You know him?’ embellished Nikki.
‘Bullshit.’
It was not the response she was expecting or indeed hoping for.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He’s not your boyfriend, and if he is, then you’ll be waiting long enough to catch pneumonia as he’s on a tour in Australia right now. You obviously don’t watch the sports news.’
Nikki knew she’d been caught out. ‘Okay, lads, you’ve got me. My man is not Hatton Eden but he is built like him and he is on his way.’
‘Is that your motor?’ said the man, an avaricious smile spreading across his face as he pointed to the Lexus. ‘Bit out of character for around here.’
‘No, that’s not mine. I told you I’m being picked up.’ The conversation was really beginning to freak Nikki out.
‘Strike two! You’re lying again. We saw you arrive in it,’ snapped the man.
Nikki was trying to weigh up her options. Should she go back into the bar? She’d have to force her way past the guys to do so. Should she just run as fast as her heels would carry her? Or try and leg it to the Lexus and speed off? Away from the backstreet, away from the three men and away from the danger closing in around her? The fear running through her veins was much stronger than any alcohol content in her system that she should have been thinking about.
‘It’s not mine. It belongs to my friend, the woman who just left. I was just driving it to try it out.’ Nikki wasn’t sure why she was lying, but the words fell easily.
‘And you’re done. Third lie! You’re Nikki Rivers, that other posh slag inside said you were. I overheard her. And a quick Google search proves first off that is your Lexus LFA and that secondly, you are one minted bitch, who obviously thinks we’re not worthy of the truth so I suggest you compensate us for your rudeness, don’t you?’
The two younger men reached into the pockets of their baggy camo pants and pulled out what Nikki realised with horror were weapons. One carried a knife, a flick of the wrist revealing a long sharp blade. The other had a small gun. Nikki thought about screaming but decided not to. Her heart beat out of her chest as she considered her options.
The man spoke again. ‘Now, Nikki Rivers, we’ll have every cent you have on you, your jewellery and your car keys, please.’
Nikki’s brain snapped into decision mode. The car and her money she’d happily give them – but the jewellery, no way! She was wearing a ring that had belonged to her grandmother, Tilisha, a woman she had never met but who had meant so much to her mother, and by association now meant so much to Nikki. The ring was pretty worthless, Tilisha not being a woman who had any money, but there was no way she was handing it over to some loser of a stranger and his two-bit cronies. Something inside her told her to run, but not just yet.
‘Let me find my purse…’ Nikki reached down into her bag again and found her make-up bag. It was small but with the weight of her beauty regime inside it was fairly heavy. She wrapped her hand around it and continued to look her aggressor in the eye as she did so. Maybe it was the alcohol giving her a false sense of bravado but something was telling her that the two cronies wouldn’t use the weapons unless they really had to.
With the swiftest of movements she threw the make-up bag towards the older man. The force of it hit him squarely in the face. Now was the time to run. As quickly as she could, Nikki headed towards her car. Her keys were in her pocket and as she pressed the button on her key fob the lights flashed, signalling the door was now open.
‘Fucking get her!’ shouted the man who had taken the full brunt of her MAC cosmetics.
Nikki couldn’t look behind her as she ran towards the car. She waited for a gunshot, the sound of her demise, but nothing came. The slicing of a knife… That too failed to materialise.
Reaching the door of the Lexus she climbed inside, locking the door as she did so. The men were now halfway across the road. She turned on the ignition and revved the motor into action, ready to speed off. The older man, now having reached the car, banged on the window as she did so, attempting to smash the glass. One of the younger men stood in the middle of the road. He was the one with the gun and he pointed it at the vehicle. A sense of deep panic taking hold, Nikki sped the car into the street. The man holding the gun leapt out of the way at the final moment, his gun still unfired.
Nikki slammed on the brakes as she realised that the direction her car was pointing was a dead end. Her chance of escape was still there but she needed to turn the vehicle around, or put it into reverse. Given the width of the street she decided that reversing would be a
swifter action. Switching the car into reverse she saw two of the men in her rear-view mirror: the one with the gun and the older man, who also had something in his hand. Was it a weapon? Nikki wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t prepared to wait around long enough to find out. If she moved now, she could make it. The tyres of her car screeched into a high-pitched, smoking squeal as she reversed back down the street.
Everything seemed fine until she heard that noise: the dull, final thud of the back of the car hitting something. Or someone. The car jolted as something passed underneath the undercarriage of the vehicle. Nikki slammed on the brakes again as she saw the body of the third man, the one carrying the knife, roll out from underneath the car, a bloody, lifeless mess. How had she not seen him? Where had he come from? How had he not managed to run out of the way? She didn’t have any of the answers she needed.
Her mind burned with the thought of what to do next. Should she exit the car, see if the man was as dead as she thought he must be? What about the other two men? Would they want revenge, an eye for an eye? Her life wasn’t supposed to end like this. She was Nikki Rivers, heiress to a fortune, not some deadbeat about to lose her life in a low-rent part of town.
Without giving herself the chance to change her mind, once more she sped the car up, reversed around the corner and drove off into the night. Even though the men were out of view, she could still see the bloody mess of the lifeless man embossed onto her mind.
Nikki had hoped that that would be the end of it. That her tortuous drive back to the hotel that night would signal the finale of the evening’s horror. That when the sun rose over New York the next day she would realise the night before had been nothing but a bad nightmare. But the nightmare was only just beginning as she found out later that day when an envelope was left for her at the Velvet hotel reception.
Nikki Rivers, unless you want my phone footage of you killing my friend going online today and putting you in prison for a long time then I suggest you start coughing up some of that money we wanted from you last night. In fact, a hell of a lot more. And I’m sure the footage of you in the bar drinking a shitload of fancy drinks won’t help your cause either if that hits YouTube. Drunk drivers go down for a long time when it comes to murder. Half a million in notes to begin with should do it.
An address was written at the bottom as to where she was to deliver the cash. Nikki started to panic. The phone footage? So that was what he was holding up – his phone. He’d filmed her killing the man. There was no escape now – and no choice. She would have to meet their demands. The amount virtually cleaned out her bank account – Nikki was a woman who loved to spend – but after an emergency meeting with her New York branch she withdrew the cash and delivered it to the man who had filmed her the night before. She hoped this would be an end to it but being Nikki Rivers brought many things, and a never-ending supply of money seemed to be one of those things expected of her, at least as far as the criminal was concerned. A few weeks later, his initial payment spent, he sent her another demand, this time through the hotel in Barbados (he’d seen she was there online). Another $100,000. If she didn’t pay, the footage went viral. It was then that she started to steal from her father via Julian.
She now knew every inch of that criminal’s face: every blocked pore and every dangling nasal hair. He was as vile on the outside as he evidently was on the inside. But as Nikki shut the door on the apartment where she had just delivered her latest cash deposit, she prayed it would be the last time she would have to see his ugly face. But she knew that it wouldn’t be. This was a nightmare not even a member of the lorded Rivers’ dynasty could escape. But then as a killer, maybe she didn’t deserve to.
13
Sutton loved the way the cotton fabric of a shirt stretched tantalisingly across the proud bicep of a muscled man as he moved his arm. It was one of those things that she had always found a major turn-on in a member of the opposite sex. Which was why her emotions and thoughts had been dancing around each other for the last thirty minutes in a choreography of anticipatory desire and sexual heat. Her inner temperature had been steadily climbing ever since Hatton Eden had slipped off his Tom Ford jacket at the end of their three-course meal and placed it over the back of his chair. He had loosened his tie and undone his top two shirt buttons as well as rolling up both of his sleeves, revealing a stretch of tattoo as he did so on one of his arms. Sutton couldn’t help but take in the outlines of the muscles, evident beneath the material. No wonder he was one of the top sporting stars in the world. He was sheer perfection, made for destruction in the boxing ring and, if she had her way, seduction in her hotel suite.
Not that she had been finding the actual practice of trying to seduce the boxer particularly easy. He wasn’t exactly submitting to her attempts at producing a killer knockout move to make him fall headfirst for her persuasive charms. It wasn’t often that Sutton actually set her sights on a man. She certainly wasn’t leaping into bed with any passing stranger as Sheridan seemed to, but once in a while someone came along who really intrigued her, and there was something about the red-headed Bulgarian that was totally irresistible. The way his ginger locks arced across his forehead, the way he’d let his stubble grow and a slight beard to form across his lower face, his steely gaze penetrating Sutton across the table. They all made for an intoxicating mix. She could feel herself flush slightly as a ripple of heat spread across her body as she considered her licentious thoughts.
But Operation Seduction had not been going to plan. Their first course was spent talking about the upcoming fight in Barbados, Sutton insisting she would ‘personally make sure’ that Hatton’s every need was catered for. It wouldn’t be down to her, as it would doubtless be for Sheridan to deal with and Kassidy to execute, but the hunk ploughing into his healthy yet ultimately dull salad opposite her – sauce on the side so that he could administer the merest drizzle if required – didn’t need to know that. Hatton had been attentive to her every word and her heart had morphed into a million fluttering butterflies because of his killer smile on more than one occasion, but there had never been an air of sexual suggestion emanating from him. And Sutton Rivers was certainly old enough to recognise that when it came her way.
By the second course, for Sutton a delicious combination of artichoke, spinach and prosciutto flatbreads with a spicy honey glaze – for once calories the last thing on her mind – and for Hatton a specially prepared bowl of fresh tuna and rice for another protein high, the conversation had moved on to a more personal level. Sutton’s words were fuelled by the two glasses of Chilean red she had already knocked back during the starter, adding to the champagne she had ordered prior to Hatton’s arrival.
‘So you know all about me, Hatton. You’ve met my family already, but what about you? Tell me a little about your life away from the ring. Brothers, sisters, mother, father…’ Sutton had paused deliberately to run her finger across the rim of her wine glass before finishing her inquisition. ‘Girlfriend?’
Hatton, who had been drinking water all night, despite Sutton’s attempts to steer him towards alcohol, assuming his armour would become a lot easier to penetrate, was abrupt with his answers.
‘No family and both my parents are dead.’
‘And a lady in your life? Looking like that and being The Main Man, I’m sure you must be very much in demand. Surely every female from here to the other side of the globe must want a piece of the Hatton Eden action? And we ladies can be very persuasive in bagging our prize if we set our minds to it.’
There was a slight curling of Hatton’s lips before he answered. Sutton wasn’t sure whether to read it as confusion at what she had said or knowledgeable confirmation of her assumption.
‘There is no special lady right now. It would get in the way of my training and my progress as a fighter. My goal is to keep being the best and that means maybe sacrifices need to be made in certain areas.’
Sutton was like a dog with a bone, determined to shake the conversation in her favour.
&n
bsp; ‘But there must be times when a man as powerful and famous as you has to let down his beautiful red hair and enjoy the pleasures of life outside of the boxing ring? You’re a red-blooded man with a man’s needs, surely? I’d find it hard to believe any woman could resist your charms, especially your physical ones. I know I wouldn’t.’
Sutton had given up on subtle. She wasn’t sure whether it was the slight language barrier or the age difference between herself and the boxer but she was certain that this was one man that she would definitely have to spell it out loud and clear for if there was to be any chance of taking the rendezvous beyond the dessert.
‘My needs are to be the number one at what I do. To fight like a machine.’
‘But every machine needs oiling to make it work to perfection, don’t you think?’
‘And that happens, believe you me. I am dedicated to what I do and I will make sure my body and mind are in the best physical state when I enter the ring. I can never settle for anything less than the best.’
‘A trait we have in common then, Hatton,’ Sutton purred. ‘I too like to make sure that the best things in life come my way. And as you say, you are the best, are you not? World titles don’t just fall into your lap, do they?’
It was at that moment that Hatton had taken off his suit jacket and hung it over the edge of his chair. Sutton stared at the shape of his muscles underneath the fabric and raised her eyebrows in appreciation, or at least as high as her recent batch of Botox allowed. Was he showing off to her, flaunting himself? She wasn’t sure but both the wine and her own desire made her hope that perhaps Hatton was giving her the green light.
