by A. Zavarelli
And all she’s ever done is refused it. Thrown it back in my face.
I’m not about to forget that. Even when she’s sitting right next to me, smelling like heaven. Her skin soft and dewy, pure and porcelain. There is a sensuality about her in everything she does. Even the simple act of her leg brushing against mine has my cock sawing at the seam of my jeans. Desperate to break free and plunge inside of her.
She’s feminine. Inviting. And no doubt deadly as hell.
Because Scarlett doesn’t feel anything. She doesn’t show any emotion. She’s colder than a fucking ice cube even though she looks anything but.
And I need to remember that. Even when she’s looking at me the way she is right now. Like she’s missed me.
Fucking Christ.
There’s a shuffle of movement as the entire church stands up, and I’ve missed the last half of the ceremony. Scarlett stands up too, only managing to meet my chest at eye level in her heels. She’s petite and curvy, and everything inside of me wants to yank her out of this church and drag her back to my cave to fuck the ever-loving hell out of her.
Instead, she leans up on her toes and touches my face.
“Hey, old sport” she says, almost shyly. “Miss me?”
I’m not about to drink that Kool-Aid again.
“How goes the battle?” I redirect.
“Why don’t we skip the pleasantries.” She smiles. “I found a coat closet on the way in.”
I indulge and play her game, even though it pisses me right the fuck off.
“In a church, Scarlett?” I ask. “Ye really must be the devil.”
“Never said I wasn’t.” She leans up to whisper in my ear, her hand brushing down my arm and feathering over my fingers. “And maybe I want you to do unholy things to me.”
“I won’t say that I’m not tempted,” I whisper back into her hair, inhaling her as I do. “But not today.”
She falls silent, as she usually does, and I know I shouldn’t, but I drink the fecking Kool-Aid. Again.
“Go on a date with me.”
“Fuck me,” she counters.
The distance between us is only a few inches, but it may as well be miles. I’m hungover, I’m knackered, and I’ve had enough of this game.
“I won’t allow ye to hate me,” I finally say.
She blinks up at me, rattled by my observation. It’s all been fun and games until now. Most people don’t think I have a whole lot of sense, being loafed in the head all the time. I’m always cracking jokes, having the craic, always up for a laugh. But not today. Not now, and not with her.
“It’s what ye want, isn’t it? You want me to fuck ye so you can lump me into the bad pile and say I’m just like the rest of them.”
She shifts her weight and moves her gaze over my face, sharp and cutting now. But not as sharp her words.
“Oh, Rory.” She brushes her hand over my cheek, and it’s cold. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I already hate you.”
I take a deep breath and repress the urge to lash out at her. To say something equally venomous, which is exactly what she wants.
“Don’t take it personally.” She retreats into her own space again, and my lungs start functioning, again. “I hate everybody.”
“Bailing already?” I find myself asking as she slips further away.
“You know I don’t do the whole family thing. I just came for the ceremony.”
I reach down and grab her hand to stop her. But the words I’m after don’t find me. There’s always a part of me that wants to tell her to never come back. But there’s another part of me that worries about her.
Scarlett senses that in me, I think.
My warring hatred and want for her.
I never know which one is going to win out until the words spill from my lips.
“Come out to lunch with me. No date, just food. Everyone needs to eat.”
She smiles, that soft and deadly smile. Sadness seeping ever so slightly into her features before she masks it with charm. She leans up on her toes and kisses my cheek.
“I can’t be your Daisy,” she says. “So, don’t ask me to.”
“Cut the shite,” I tell her.
Scarlett’s always talking in riddles. Too smart for the likes of me or anyone else in this room, probably. But she doesn’t show that part of herself often. Only in quiet moments like these.
And I’m like a schoolboy, waiting on tenterhooks to hear her explanation of the inner workings of her mind. If I’d ever been blessed enough to have a teacher like Scarlett in school, I may have actually paid attention.
“The Great Gatsby,” she says. “I would say the book, but the film has become the thing as of late. Ever watched it?”
“Nah,” I tell her.
“She was the destruction of him,” she tells me. “Of Gatsby. A void of moral decay. An empty husk driven by materialism and social status.”
“Scarlett.”
Sometimes her riddles are cute. At times like these, they annoy the bleeding feck out of me.
“You should really read the book.” She pulls away. Not for herself. She is doing it for me.
Because she thinks she is rotten to the core.
And before I can tell her otherwise, she’s gone.
Same as always.
Two
Scarlett
Some girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Some are made of venom and sin. When you open the chambers to their hearts, you’ll find- absolutely nothing within.
My eyes are locked and loaded and the target is in my sights.
Trick rolling is an art. It isn’t as simple as picking the easiest client. It’s about digging deep. Getting your hands a little dirty while you wade through the dime a dozen losers that frequent these types of bars. When I’m bored, and not looking for a certain blue-blood that’s on my list, it all boils down to something simple.
I make up my mind before I ever walk in. Tonight’s challenge is to find the guy that’s leering at everything with a vagina in a ten-mile radius.
It happens before I can even enjoy my first drink.
This guy is a douchebag of the highest order and he definitely has the leering thing down. He wears his entitlement like a crown and looks out over the sea of women like he is a King amongst peasants. In the ten minutes I watch him, he’s already grabbed two asses and dropped three gag-worthy pick up lines.
You’re so hot, baby. You’re too hot to be in this bar alone, baby. I’ve got a suite upstairs. Want to enjoy a taste of luxury?
Two of his potential victims blow him off before he can really get fresh, and the third- a girl from Ohio- is too polite to tell him no, so she endures his hapless attempt at getting her into bed for a full ten minutes before she bounces too.
If this were a theater, it would be called The Encore, because I see this same show every night. It’s a tale as old as time. The upper class fucking over anyone beneath them. Sometimes, it serves a purpose, but mostly I think it’s just because they can.
These men… these stock brokers and financiers, lawyers and marketing executives. They all think the same.
They are the bread and the butter and the whole fucking cake. With sprinkles on top.
The thing about cake is it gets old after a while. The party has lost its thrill. And that sugar rush? The high I used to get from devouring their souls? It’s not really present anymore. It checked out a while ago.
But like any addiction, I can’t be freed from these binds. Even though the thrill grows dimmer with each trick, it’s still the only thing that thrills me.
As I sit here and watch the man across the bar- sans excitement- I have an odd realization. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen his face. In fact, I’ve met with him before. His name is Rix. Yes, seriously. And he thinks it’s cool, and he thinks he’s cool and his parents were friends with the Carringtons, so I was certain he must know Alexander too. But torture him as I tried, he never gave it up.
Lesson never learned, I guess.
I really did a number on him too. I recall there being a very elaborate scene with a wig and makeup and everything. But the problem with him was he was legitimately off social media. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Insta-lookatmeandmylavishlife- accounts whatsoever. So, I had to forgo the most important step. Shaming him where he lived and breathed.
I won’t make that same mistake again this time.
I do a quick check in the compact mirror I always carry and then it’s off to the races. My rules of engagement are very simple, and my affairs with clothing, as basic as it gets. Men live for two colors. They don’t want skirts with pineapples or that houndstooth jacket from the fall catalog. They want the LBD.
Little black dress.
The only exception to that rule is the little red dress, which men associate with one thing.
Red equals sex. Red equals hell in the sack. Wild. Untamed. Red screams bad girl.
And I’m as bad as it gets.
I don’t wear disguises, and I very rarely change anything about my hair or makeup. Hair is wild, like I’ve been rolling in bed already. They eat that shit up. Eyes are smoky and black and lips are red.
This look is classic. This look never fails.
Of course, there’s always a chance one of these dopes will sprout a brain cell and that this one in particular might even remember me. If I’ve done my job right, he should well fucking remember me. But it also depends on what type of drugs I used to knock him out.
With any good scheme, there’s always a bit of a learning curve in the beginning. It took me a while to sort out what worked best. And if memory serves me right, this guy was one of my experimental guinea pigs.
Normally, if I bump into a former client, I will just walk the other way. It doesn’t happen often since I rarely visit the same locations twice.
It’s risky and reckless.
But the longer I play the game, the more the reckless side appeals to me. The adrenaline rush in need of a chaser. A need to shake things up. Which is why I’ve temporarily placed my revenge on the back burner to attend to a more urgent matter.
Like the man who left Kylie in a vegetative state. Machines breathing for her and a brain that will most likely never recover.
Kylie and I weren’t particularly close. Given that I don’t like people in general and the list of people I trust remains at zero, I don’t have many friends. Mack is the only person I’d ever consider using the term with, and that’s just because I’ve known her so long and she hasn’t screwed me over yet.
But Kylie and I saw each other every day on the street. She was a working girl too. Of course, her job wasn’t nearly as much fun as mine. She actually had to fuck her filthy clients. I just like to fuck them up.
She was a sweet girl. Typical story. Runaway. Abusive home. She’s too young for her life to be cut so short.
And I’ve taken it upon myself to do right by her.
Because who the hell else is going to?
I’d do it whether I knew her or not. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays. But when her friend told me what the john looked like, the game changed for me.
A crescent shaped scar above his lip, she’d said. I’d almost lost my shit, certain she was fucking with me somehow.
But no.
The more she described him, the more in my heart I knew it was true.
Alexander is in Boston.
I still don’t want to believe it. Even after everything that I know to be true. When you add two and two together, it always equals four. And the sky is fucking blue because it just is. And Alexander was bad, even if I never wanted to accept it. Even if I still don’t.
The stale soundtrack plays on inside my head.
He wouldn’t have been bad if it wasn’t for them.
It wasn’t his fault.
We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.
Because a lie is sweet, and the truth is often bitter. And I’ve never had a pill so bitter as Alexander fucking Carrington.
His back-story is as typical as it gets in the old world. Trust fund kid with daddy’s money. Prestigious schools and fast cars and soft hands because he never had to work a day in his life. That’s the world I grew up in. Those are the people I associated with. And now those are the people I hate more than anything.
I told myself he’d be last on my list. Because I couldn’t have myself doubting five years of meticulous planning.
One by one, I’ve watched the dominos fall.
Ethan’s affairs, exposed. Quinn’s empire crumbling before his eyes. Duke’s bitter realization that his longtime girlfriend had been fucking his brother all along. And Trip, well he was easy. I didn’t even have to set fire to his perfectly constructed world. He lit the match himself with his numerous addictions.
But Alexander is another story.
He’s the one I’ve held out for. The one I haven’t been able to find. It’s like he vanished into thin air after his father’s scandal.
I was beginning to lose all hope.
Until Kylie’s friend mentioned that crescent shaped scar on the john.
It can’t be him.
I still don’t believe it, and yet here I am, prowling the same bar for the fifth night in a row. I am powerless against it. The fixation has grown inside of me now, infecting my mind like poison.
I need to find him.
And I need to decide once and for all if this warpath I’m on is really that. If I’m willing to do battle and bloody myself up in pursuit of my revenge.
Until then, I will settle for the pawns. Like the one I’m now standing two feet away from. He only has to turn his head, and then he will notice me. Of that, I am confident.
Will he remember me?
I sit, and I wait. I flag down the bartender.
By the time he makes it down our way, dopey will be asking if he can buy me a drink.
Of course, I’ll tell him. And then when he’s not looking, I’ll slip him the benzos. Five minutes tops, and I’ll be suggesting we find somewhere quieter. Like my room upstairs.
That’s how it usually goes.
Only tonight, it doesn’t.
Because he doesn’t notice me. Even when the bartender comes down to ask me if I want a drink. And when I turn to see what could be so blindingly fascinating, I find exactly what I don’t want to see.
She’s across the bar, in shadow. Tonight, she wears a short black wig and the only weapon she needs. A wicked smile and a crook of her finger, and she’s got him. Hook, line, and sinker.
I wouldn’t exactly call her my nemesis. Or even my rival.
I don’t get possessive of my territory. Except when someone’s bringing heat down on it. Which is exactly what this girl has been doing since she showed up two months ago.
She goes by the street name Storm, but names are like purses to her. She has a different one for every day of the week, to go with her disguises.
Bitch is crazy. Even crazier than me.
And she’s making my game look like child’s play compared to what she does to her toys. There is something about her that scares even me a little. I’ve watched her work before, and there is no flashy sales pitch on her part. She keeps it simple, and it works. It works so well she never even gets close to her targets before she lures them in.
Standing in the shadows, tossing coy glances over her shoulder. That really is all there is to it. There’s a mystery about her that even I can’t deny. And I won’t say that I don’t admire her skill set because she’s got a natural talent for what she does.
But respect is a two-way street.
Like I said before, I’m not a fan of people. So usually, I mind my business.
But tonight, she is crossing the line. And she knows it too when she meets my gaze and smiles.
Dopey gets up from his stool and walks directly to his doom like a puppy chasing after a bone. I follow five steps behind him.
Storm has been using the same hotels that I do on a regular basis, so I’m not surprised when she tak
es him into one of the rooms upstairs.
I grab my knife and a credit card, prepared to deal with the lock, but there’s no need. She left it cracked open for me.
By the time I open the door, she’s already got dopey unconscious on the ground. She meets my gaze for a second and quickly dismisses me before she goes to work on cutting off his clothes.
If I didn’t know any better, I would think she’s been studying my playbook.
“That one was mine,” I tell her.
“Really?” She doesn’t move her focus from her current task. “Because I’m pretty sure he came back here of his own free will. Don’t think he even noticed you tonight. No offence, dollface.”
Well, she does have a point there. But still, I’m not about to let it go.
“I’ve already visited with him once before.”
“Then I guess you didn’t do a good enough job,” she says. “I’ll make sure to do it right this time.”
“I didn’t have his address.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’ve got it. Along with the name of his wife and kids at home.”
The way her lip curls when she says wife and kids reveals exactly what I wanted to know about her. We all have a trigger. Something that makes us tick, or makes us sick… whatever. This is where her rage stems from. It’s the cheating that does it for her.
She’s young, maybe twenty-four at most I’d guess, but hard. Hard as fuck. And I’d venture a guess that she’s been married before already.
It’s all very fascinating, really. But I’m no Freud, and I find myself caring a little too much, so I shake myself out of it and get down to business.
“I get that you’re new here,” I say. “But I think we need to come to some sort of understanding. You’re drawing too much heat. The guys I fuck up run back to their penthouses with their tails between their legs and live out their days with regret and paranoia. But yours are actually going to the police. And now the feds have been sniffing around here too.”
She pulls out a duffle not dissimilar to my own and retrieves a tattoo gun. She’s all business and in the zone and I’m not even sure she heard me when she snaps on some latex gloves and swipes his chest with an alcohol pad.
