by K. M. Scott
My hand clutched the handle of my duffel bag tightly in my palm. Meet some people? I didn’t even look like they’d let me on the property to be the goddamned gardener who made hedges into animal shapes and now he wanted to introduce me to some people?
That feeling of insignificance morphed into one of pure discomfort. I didn’t belong there, no matter how much he wanted to parade me through the place, and whoever he wanted me to meet would know that as sure as I did.
He led me into his office, a room even bigger than the entryway and as dark as that was light. This room had dark green walls the color of a pool table and a dark wood floor. Floor to ceiling bookcases held books with names I’d never heard of and sculptures I guessed cost more than my life was worth.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he announced before leaving as I continued to look around in awe.
Seconds later, he came back with two females and ordered them into his office. Neither one looked like him, but something about the way they acted told me they weren’t servants or people he’d just basically bought, like me.
They stopped dead at the sight of me standing there in my old gym pants and black t-shirt and the one I figured was older spun around to look at him in disgust.
“Who is this?”
“Girls, this is Ryder. He’s going to be living here, so treat him like family.”
Robert’s proclamation infuriated her, and she shook her head angrily. “What, like a brother? You go out one night and get us a brother? Is that how it goes, Dad?”
He ignored her outburst and turned his two daughters to face me. “Ryder, the one who can’t stop talking is Janelle. The other one is Serena.”
“Hi,” I mumbled, unsure if I should say anything.
They both stood staring at me like I was some foreign thing that needed to be removed and fast. The one named Janelle had short dark brown hair, and although I couldn’t be sure since her eyes were flashing so much hatred, I thought they were brown too. Thin, she wore jeans and a tight blue shirt and heels that gave her at least three inches on her normal height.
The other one, Serena, had lighter brown hair that fell to below her shoulders in soft waves that reminded me of what mermaids looked like. Dressed in jean shorts and a white t-shirt that both showed off her tan and toned body, she stood barefoot next to her father and stared at me with big brown eyes that didn’t have hatred but something else in them.
Disappointment?
As Janelle returned to complaining about my very existence, I heard Serena say in a pained voice, “You said you knew where she was. You promised you’d find her this time. Where is she?”
I imagined that’s what that guy with the pleading eyes would have sounded like if he begged me not to beat the shit out of him. The way she said those words made my chest hurt, and I didn’t even know who she was talking about.
But Robert was unmoved by her pleading. Waving off her questions, he said, “Maybe next time, honey. For now, I want you two to welcome Ryder to our home.”
He put his arms around both of them, but Janelle slipped out of his hold and stormed off without another word. I didn’t have to guess how she felt about me. Serena said nothing more about what was obviously so important to her and simply looked at me with that pleading in her eyes that hadn’t worked on her father.
With a nudge from him, she finally said, “Welcome to our home. I hope you like it here.”
And with that, she quietly left without another word to her father about whoever she wanted him to find.
Robert walked behind his desk and sat down in his chair as I watched her walk away, her sagging shoulders signaling how defeated she felt. Clearly, it didn’t affect her father at all.
“They’ll get used to you. Janelle is a little temperamental, but I guess that’s to be expected from a girl, even one her age. She’s a lot like me, though, so at least she has that going for her. Serena is the polar opposite. She’s like her mother. Don’t worry about her. She’ll take to you like every stray she brings home.”
Not that I didn’t know I looked like some stray dog compared to them, but the way he said it brought the reality home for sure. In a hurry to get out of there and to wherever he kept the strays he brought home, I said, “Well, if you can just point me in the direction of where you want me to go, I’ll get out of your hair.”
He shook his head as that crocodile smile spread across his face again. “Not yet. First, I want you to know what I expect of you. So sit down and relax.”
Dropping my duffel bag, I sat down in a chair in front of his desk as he’d ordered and listened to hear just what this whole arrangement would involve.
He steepled his fingers in front of him and began. “You’ll continue to fight as you did tonight. As I said before, I expect you to continue to win. When you do, you’ll get paid, despite the fact that you won’t need money as long as you live here.”
“I won’t need money?” I asked, confused what kind of world this guy lived in that didn’t require cash.
Lifting his chin, he shook his head. “No, you won’t. Your room and board, along with all the food you want and clothes you need, will be provided. I have a state of the art workout center you’re to use to make sure you’re in the best shape possible. So you see, you won’t need money.”
I didn’t know if I should question this whole situation that sounded too good to be true, but I asked, “And if I don’t win a fight?”
His face grew dark. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I have very few rules, other than you performing in fights like I’ve seen. No drugs and no romantic attachments. I don’t care who you fuck, but don’t get involved. I remember being your age, so I don’t expect you to live like a monk, but no relationships.”
I wasn’t a fan of having so much of my life dictated, but assuming I got a room even as big as a broom closet on his estate, maybe it wouldn’t be too much of a tradeoff. I wasn’t exactly looking for a relationship anyway and I didn’t do drugs. Hoping he wasn’t about to announce that I had to double as a stable boy or something like that, I smiled.
“Okay. I can live with those.”
“And you aren’t to tell anyone here what you do. Is that clear?”
“Sure. But if I’m not here as a fighter, what am I supposed to say if someone asks?”
“They won’t,” he said with a confidence I guessed came from being the boss.
“Got it.”
“Good. I’ll have my housekeeper take you to your room. For now, you’ll have the spare bedroom on this floor.”
A short, dark haired woman he called Josephine appeared a few seconds later, so I stood from my chair and grabbed my duffel bag to go with her. I felt like there were a lot more questions I should ask Robert, but he didn’t seem interested in talking anymore and picked up the phone to call someone, so I smiled again and moved to leave.
Just before I reached the door, he said, “Oh, Ryder, one more thing.”
There it was. The one thing that would make this whole situation unbearable. I slowly turned around and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Don’t even think of doing anything with either of the girls. In that respect, I do care who you fuck.”
I thought back to how much Janelle hated me already and easily put the idea of fucking her out of my mind. And Serena? I wasn’t sure if she was even legal, and I didn’t need that dogging me. An angry father was one thing, but prison was an entirely different story.
She was beautiful, though. There was something about her I could definitely like, if things were different. But no matter how beautiful she was, I wasn’t touching that.
“No problem,” I answered with confidence, hoping that was the worst thing about living at Erickson’s house.
If it was, this would be the best thing to ever happen to me, even if it meant I had to keep fighting. Maybe freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be anyway.
Chapter Two
Serena
Turni
ng the knob on Janelle’s door, I found it locked, as usual, so I knocked hard to get her attention. I needed to talk to someone about the fact that our father had once again gone back on his promise to find our mother.
From inside her room, my sister barked, “Go away!”
“It’s me, Janelle,” I pleaded, hoping it would be enough to get her to let me in.
She said nothing, but a few seconds later I heard the familiar sound of the latch coming off the door. I opened it and saw her sitting on the bed cross-legged and smoking.
“You know what Dad said would happen if he found you doing that again.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped as I closed the door behind me and made my way over to the window to open it.
Waving the smoke out, I said, “Do you think he even looked for her?”
Janelle took a long drag off her cigarette and shook her head as curls of smoke lifted from her lips. “No, I don’t. What’s the point anyway? She left and if she wanted to see us, she would have found a way, Serena. You have to give up this dream of her ever coming back. He doesn’t want her back.”
I turned away toward the window and inhaled a deep breath of warm night air into my lungs. “I don’t think it’s that simple. What if she wanted to come back but he didn’t let her?”
“Then it’s a waste of time to keep asking him to look for her.”
My sister had a way of being able to end a conversation with just a few words. So much like my father, she seemed to have a heart of steel. She’d been nearly eight years old when my mother just disappeared from our lives one night, and it was like she’d never cared to know why she left us or where she went. To Janelle, she was just gone.
Out of sight, out of mind.
I wished I could be like that sometimes. Ever since that night, I’d wondered where my mother could be. Did she leave because of something I did? I’d replayed that night and the days preceding it a million times, and nothing seemed to make sense. We were happy, or at least I thought we were.
But then suddenly she was gone and all my father told us was she’d disappeared. No more details than those ever came. I didn’t know if he looked for her or not. He said he did, and two years ago on my sixteenth birthday when I began to ask him to find out where she went, he claimed he would.
Two years later and still nothing.
I didn’t want to talk to Janelle about this anymore. It served no purpose.
Turning back to face her as she snuffed out that horrible habit of hers in an aluminum pie plate that worked as a makeshift ashtray, I broached the other topic I knew was on her mind.
“What did you think of that guy Ryder?”
Her usually delicate features twisted into an angry look full of hate. “What do I think of the piece of shit our father has brought into our house clearly to marry one of us? Not much since he’s at least two social classes below what we deserve.”
Horrified by her idea, I sat down on the edge of her bed. “What? Marry one of us? No way, Janelle. You’re way wrong on that one. There’s no way he wants either of us to marry that guy.”
My sister’s brown eyes opened wide, like she couldn’t believe I didn’t understand how obvious my father’s intentions were. “What other reason would he have to bring a man here? And don’t kid yourself. He’s a man, Serena. If our father wanted us to think of someone like a brother, he wouldn’t have brought someone like him around. Did you see the size of him? He’s like a fucking bull.”
I thought back to seeing him standing in my father’s office for the first time and had to agree. He wasn’t like any of the guys I’d ever been around. He seemed rougher, like he’d had to deal with life more than they had. And he was definitely built better than any guy I’d ever known. He didn’t look much older than me, but something in his green eyes told me he’d seen way more of the world than I had.
“That guy has one purpose. Stud.”
“Stud?” I asked, knowing the meaning of the word but misunderstanding how he could be a better choice for either of us than someone who had money and status.
Janelle laughed in my face. “You’re so naïve, Serena. He’s here to marry one of us so our father can finally have boys to pass on his business to. He’s here to breed one of us.”
“We aren’t farm animals, Janelle. Daddy isn’t just going to throw one of us into bed with Ryder and want him to make a baby.”
“Fine, then if it makes you feel better, he doesn’t see us as farm animals. He sees us as sperm receptacles. Not that this is a surprise. I just can’t believe he thinks someone like him would be what either one of us should end up with. We’re Robert Erickson’s daughters, for God’s sake!”
Ignoring my sister’s comments, I tried to focus on reality. “But I thought he was going to bring you into the business. He’s always saying how similar you are to him. I just figured that meant when the time came you’d get the business and that would be that.”
Rolling her eyes at my apparently ridiculous idea, she lit another cigarette. “I don’t have the right stuff for the business. I don’t give a damn about it, in the first place, and in the second place, I’m not a male. No, our father wants a man to take his place, so he’s brought us a fine stud to give him grandsons.”
I thought about what she said for a few moments and saw she could be right. “I’m sorry about that for you. I mean, he’s not ugly or anything like that, but he’s definitely not your type. You’re not usually into muscles and tattoos.”
“He’s got both of those in spades too. I don’t even think long sleeves would cover those tattoos. They go all the way onto the back of his hands,” she said with a sneer.
“They weren’t that bad. They looked sort of cool, actually.”
She smiled that way my father did when he wasn’t so much happy as pleased at something. A sinister smile that always made me feel uneasy. “What makes you think I’m the one who’ll have to fuck him?”
“You’re older and more like Daddy. Why would our father want him to be with me? I might give him a grandson like me. Then where would he be?”
Lifting the cigarette to her mouth as her smile faded away, she took a drag and let the smoke float out of her mouth as she said, “I’m not going to be some baby maker for our father, Serena. Not with the likes of that Ryder guy. The only way he gets with me is if he holds me down, and even then I’ll be kicking and screaming.”
As the thought of Ryder doing just that to her settled into my mind, I shook my head. “Well, it won’t be me. I’m going to college and getting away from here.”
She sneered at me. “I wouldn’t count on that. I was supposed to be in school by now. You see how that worked out.”
Janelle had planned to go to school in the northeast and escape my father and everything that made up the Erickson world that surrounded us. She applied to some great schools and got accepted, but once my father heard about it, he stopped everything and threatened to cut her off if she left. College was nothing compared to the money he gave her each month, so she never left.
Now she was twenty and spent her time shopping and drinking at her friends’ places in the afternoons and out with guys who were bad news most nights. So much for dreams.
I stood from the bed, tired of this conversation. My father may have been able to bribe my sister into living a life entirely dependent on him and his money, but he wouldn’t do that to me. I’d already been accepted to the University of Virginia, and come hell or high water, I was going to be a college freshman in a little over two months.
“Well, it seems like our father is going to be disappointed when it comes to his stud because I’m not sleeping with him either. It’s been a long day, so I’m going to my room.”
She shrugged like she didn’t care what I said. I left her there sitting on her bed smoking and hoped she wouldn’t burn the house down some night.
On my way to my room I changed my mind and instead headed down the stairs to find my father. Janelle might have been fine with sitting
in her room, smoking and stewing about this new person my father had brought home, but I wanted some answers about my mother.
I found him sitting behind his desk in his office like usual. He wore a look that told me my timing wasn’t terrific, but I didn’t care. I needed to know the truth.
“Daddy, I’d like to talk to you,” I said in my sweetest voice.
He looked over toward the door where I stood, and for a second, my words didn’t seem to register. “What, Serena?”
“I’d like to talk to you, if you have a few minutes. It’s important.”
His face seemed to fall and then he turned back to look at his computer. “This isn’t about not finding your mother, is it? If so, I don’t have time to talk right now.”
I knew a dismissal when I heard it, but I also knew how to get my father to talk, so I walked into the room and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. If he didn’t want to explain to me why he hadn’t found my mother this time, maybe I’d be able to get him chatting about our new houseguest and then be able to slip in my real questions.
“No, it’s about that guy, Ryder.”
My father’s head popped up. “What about him?”
“I’m just wondering what he’s doing here.”
“He’s here because I want him to be. He works for me,” he said with a smile I knew meant he wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
“What does he do?”
His smile grew so it spread nearly across his face. Leaning back in his chair, he said, “I don’t think you’ve ever been this curious about any part of my business, Serena. This is a change for you.”
“A good change?”
My father remained silent for a moment studying me. “I’m not sure. Let’s just say he’s here for the benefit of you and your sister, in addition to me, and leave it at that.”
“What do you know about him? He doesn’t look like the kind of person you usually have to dinner parties, Daddy.”
My questioning quickly irritated him, and I saw I’d overplayed my hand as his smile slid down into a frown. “I would never bring anyone dangerous into this house, Serena, so you don’t have to worry. In fact, you don’t even have to speak to him. Just pretend he’s not here. Now I have to get back to work, so give me a kiss and scurry off.”
