Caroline happened. Or more precisely, Evelyn did.
My entire body goes numb with the realization. Caroline probably gave Randall some bullshit crocodile tears because Evelyn went to the house. And I told her I wasn’t dicking her anymore. The spoiled rotten little bitch. What I can’t believe is Randall caved to his young wife’s little temper tantrum because her favorite toy was being taken away.
Granted, he doesn’t need this. This venture was more of a fun distraction for him. To me, it was my future. My brass ring. My goddamn ticket out of here.
My plan was to organize all-inclusive vacations for the elite. There’s a small island off the coast a couple of hundred miles away that I mentioned to Randall in passing at one of his parties. I gave him this whole scenario where his parties would be taken to new heights, beyond the watchful eyes of the neighbors. No one would have to hide, and things could get more creative.
The fucker bit hook, line, and sinker.
By the time I’d have gotten out of college, construction would have been completed on the facilities, and I’d would have rolled right into the General Manager position. I was going to set myself up for life.
Until Caroline. The spiteful cunt.
That’s fine. I’ve made other connections, there are a shit ton more bored rich assholes who get off on kink and young pussy. And young dick.
I’m so far stuck in my own head, I don’t notice Storm until she’s sitting at the table.
“I’m not going anywhere like that again,” she slams the envelope on the table.
I grind my teeth together so damn hard, I swear they’re going to break.
This was a job for Caroline, and I’d bet my ass that little bitch pulled some shit because she knew I was meeting with her husband, and she fucking knew I had to send Storm because she couldn’t wait until I was done.
“What happened?” I grind out tightly.
Because, despite being a cold, heartless bastard with a black soul, I didn’t get Storm involved to put her in danger. I’m the only one who can fuck with her, and I’ll ruin anyone else who tries.
She falls against the seat and tilts her head to the side, thinking. “It wasn’t what, but more who.”
My fucking blood boils. I had a feeling Caroline was going to pull something, that’s why I told Storm to leave if she felt something wasn’t right. “What do you mean, who?”
“The guy who answered the door…,”
What? “What do you mean, guy?” I cut her off.
“Yeah, the guy, he was very strange. He wouldn’t even open it, so I couldn’t see him, he just stuck his hand out. The dude really needs to cut down on the cigarettes. He sounded terrible,” she waves her hand.
Hell no! That was supposed to be a pick up for some of the girls Randall uses regularly for his parties.
My eyes fall on the overstuffed manila envelope sitting on the table between us. Suddenly, the inconspicuous package feels like it’s a bomb ready to detonate, I can practically hear it ticking with each passing second.
I slide my eyes to hers. I can imagine how much rage she sees in them, I can feel her flinch from here, “Leave.”
Her face falls as shock washes over her. “What…what did I do?”
“I said get the fuck out,” I jerk my head toward the door.
She clamps her arms across her chest while her eyes throw razor sharp daggers at me. She’s angry and confused, and ready to fling another cup of coffee at me, along with the cup. “Screw you, Lucas. I did what you asked. Frankly, it sucked, but I did it for you. Because you said you had something really important to do, and this was important, too.”
I know I asked you to fucking do it, that’s why I want you to get the fuck out of here!
I pull my wallet from my pocket and slap two hundred-dollar bills on the table. “Here. Maybe you can pay someone to listen to your little sob story. There’s a little extra for your sorrow, go find someone who gives a shit,” I hurl the hurtful words at her, my tone cold and bored. Like always. I’ve got to get her out of here. Fast.
I watch as her eyes begin to glisten with unshed tears and her face flushes. This time, however, I hate the color on her. It’s all wrong.
This whole fucking situation is wrong.
“You know, Lucas, I don’t know who hurt you, but they killed something inside you.”
No they didn’t. I thought they did. I thought that shit was dead and buried a long fucking time ago. But you found it, dragged it from the cold, dark place I hid it, and breathed fucking life into it.
“Really, Storm? Aren’t you being a little melodramatic, even for you?”
She shakes her head, and when she does, a tear slides down her cheek. That thing she said was killed inside me, it’s not because it’s annihilating me right now. “Jesus, Lucas.”
“Just Lucas for you, Evelyn. He’s never coming out for you. Ever. Again.”
I’m wielding a double edged sword, and right now, it’s gutting me and her together, our blood pouring out and pooling on the floor beneath us from my cruel words. I need her gone. Right the fuck now. I thrust the blade a little deeper with the final blow. “And thanks for the V card, it was a great addition to my collection. Told Preston to hit you up now that you’re broken in.” I grin at her. Grin like the fucking pig I’m trying to make her believe that I am.
She jumps to her feet and slaps me, fucking hard, and I let her. I sit there and I let her, because I deserve it. I deserve that and so much more.
“I hate you,” she hisses as her tears make long tracks down her cheeks. My mouth waters to lick them off, my body hurts, craving to devour her pain, hating that I gave it to her.
But this pain is better than what I think that envelope is going to bring.
I force a callous smirk. “Don’t you realize that’s exactly what I want?”
The irony is my words couldn’t be any truer. I need her to hate me and leave. Now. And never come back. I need her to forget me and all the shit I bring with me.
I know all eyes in the restaurant are on us because of the commotion happening at our table.
My eyes are glued on Evelyn, and hers on me.
The room goes quiet and from my peripheral, I see six cops walking through the front door, their guns drawn and walking straight toward us. My fucking heart stops.
NO, SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GONE!
They surround us, all with their guns pointed right at us. Instinct blasts through me, pushing me to react and pound every one of these fuckers. Logic, thankfully, holds my ass in my seat.
“Lucas King, you’re under arrest for the murder of Franklin King. Put your hands where I can see them,” I hear the officers order through my internal screams of rage. When the reality of his words hit me, shock pierces through my haze of fury.
My eyes haven’t left Evelyn’s face. As I watch horror replace her anguish, then seeing it all mix together in some kind of toxic death poison, the poison I gave her, for the first time in my life I wish I was dead. For a fraction of a second, I entertain the thought of acting like I’m pulling out a weapon so the cop would put a fucking bullet in my head and put me out of my misery. But I squash it because I don’t want to add that trauma to all the shit I’ve already put this girl through.
Slowly, I raise my hands. “Let her leave peacefully.”
Through the sea of faces I know are watching us, one sticks out the most. Amanda. She’s sneering and staring right at me with hate bleeding from her eyes. Her lips move as she mouths the words, ‘I told you so.’
Cunt!
Another cop reaches over and snatches the envelope from the table, probably trying to prove he’s Officer Over Eager, and tears it open.
I think my heart is going to explode as I hold my breath and wait for him to announce what’s inside.
“Well, look at what we’ve got here, boys,” Officer Eager snickers.
Jesus mother fucking Christ!
I almost puke right the fuck there when he pulls out stacks of cash.
And drugs. If I’d have to bet, it’s meth and heroin. Evelyn’s eyes bounce from the package to my face, and I swear to fucking God, she’s going to pass out. I wouldn’t blame her, not one fucking bit.
Oh my God, I’ve completely destroyed her! I’ve ruined her life because I’m such a selfish prick!
Officer Eager grabs Evelyn’s arm and drags her from where she’s transfixed across from me in the booth.
“Hey fuckface, leave her alone,” I snarl, barely containing my rage with the way he’s handling her. “She was about to leave. She doesn’t have anything to do with any of this shit.”
“Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit,” Officer Eager laughs. Then he punches me with the free hand he doesn’t have a chokehold on Evelyn’s arm with. She falls on the floor, probably because her legs gave out from the horror show that is now her life. The mess that is me.
I absolutely lose my shit.
I jump across the table ready to lay the son-of-a-bitch out. I’m stopped mid-flight with a blow to the back of my head with the butt of gun. Through the excruciating pain in my head and my blurred vision, I watch as he bends Evelyn over the table and cuffs her. I think I’m making some kind of unintelligible sound, a grunt crossed with a garble, if I could hear it, I’m sure it’s sounds like a dying animal. I can’t hear anything though, or feel anything, except the blaring pain and ringing in my head. I barely register the same thing is being done to me as they’re reading us our rights. I don’t take my eyes from Evelyn as they lead her out the door and stuff her into the back of a police car, then push me into the one behind hers. It’s not until I lose sight of her that I come undone.
I don’t think about the fact I’m being arrested for killing my father. I don’t think about Caroline or how she set me up. Set us up.
The only thing filling my head, the only person my heart is screaming for, is Evelyn.
I did it. I destroyed her.
Dear God, what have I done?!
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
There is a huge difference between living and being alive. The ironic thing is most people never live.
I was one of them.
My heart was beating, and I was breathing. I felt nothing, my brain seemed to have shut down because I don’t recall much during that time. I existed. I was the ice princess entombed in nothingness where nothing could hurt me. It was nice.
Until the ice melted and I began to thaw. The pain rushed in like a tidal wave, crushing me with the weight of everything that had been held at bay for so long, shoving me into reality and all the truths that came with it.
I screamed, and cried, and wanted to crawl back into the nothingness where I couldn’t feel anything. Where memories and reality couldn’t haunt me. Where my heart wasn’t shredded. Where all I cared about was Lucas and if he was okay. Even after what he’d done and how he’d treated me.
Lucas King was my downfall, my biggest mistake, and the man I loved. I was ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but my heart hurt so much for him. I knew I loved him because I was willing to do whatever I needed to so that he would be okay.
The truth is the day I met Lucas King was the day I started living. The day he left was the day I ceased to exist.
Lucas’ father had been murdered the night of the party. The night I went with Lucas to his place. The night he showed me who he really is. I just hadn’t realized it yet.
Through the fog I’d lived in for weeks after we’d both been arrested, my mind existed in a surreal dimension. During that time, I believe I saw Lucas for the person he really is, not the cruel villain he wanted me to believe he was. I saw him, the real him, when he tried to save me, when he tried to take full responsibility for the drugs and money we’d been set up for. I knew that’s why he tried to get me to leave, that’s why he’d insulted and practically threw me out the door.
He was a beautiful, broken, fallen angel covered in scars of the hurt this cruel world has punished him with, marring his soul and blackening his heart.
Maybe I’m a stupid romantic, maybe this is my mind telling me something I needed to hear so that I could survive. Maybe I needed to believe this truth that I’d made up because it was just too unbearable to believe the other.
The reality that he really did send me somewhere that would get me thrown in prison and destroy my life forever.
That he really did hate me and I was just a means to end, a tool to be used for his own selfish gains.
In the grand scheme of things, what Lucas was to me didn’t matter, not to the world. And if I was smart, not to me either.
As it turned out, I saved Lucas. According to the coroner’s report, Franklin King was murdered between midnight and two in the morning. The time Lucas and I were together.
Although my father was the District Attorney, he couldn’t represent ‘The People’ because of the conflict of interest of me being his daughter. Of course he represented me, and Lucas because we were kind of a package deal under the circumstances, even though I knew he wanted to murder him. And probably me. Lucas’ murder charges were immediately dismissed because I was his alibi, but they would never be forgotten. He would always be branded the guy who killed his father.
Frankly, people had already accused him of murdering someone, now they had a name to put with it.
The possession of drugs and intent to sell was an entirely different story.
My fingerprints were all over that package, but not Lucas’. He hadn’t touched it, but his reputation preceded him. They wanted to fry him. The people who’d used him, the ones who’d called him when they needed something, they turned on him and wanted to burn him at the stake, even though he had nothing to do with it.
I told my father the whole truth. I told him how I’d starting working for Lucas running errands after I’d gotten fired, and that he could speak to Judge Hollowell to corroborate it, which he did. I couldn’t care less the judge most likely didn’t want his name dragged into the whole mess. I also told him about Caroline Stevenson, (a knife still twists in my gut when I recall the day I’d walked up and found them both practically naked).
The lives of two innocent people who were balancing on a tight rope, on one side destruction, on the other a bad nightmare.
I’d testified that I was given an address to pick something up at and described the man who’d given me the package. I couldn’t tell them much because I never saw his face, just his arm, and the smell that came from inside the house. The police investigated the dwelling, but of course no one was there. They were able to tell that it had recently been occupied by someone, there were full dirty ashtrays and empty beer cans and pizza boxes in the trash. Thank God the Dominos driver’s testimony was similar to mine about the guy who’d been at the house. Having another person’s statement match mine helped to save my ass.
Thankfully the charges were dropped for both Lucas and I because of lack of evidence. My father argued that we’d been set up, and he won. But it had taken almost a year. A year where I hid from the world, except to go to court or to the police station. A year where every day, my heart hurt for Lucas.
I never saw him again outside of the court room. We sat at the table next to each other, but there was a thick wall between us, one that neither of us could tear down. On the last day when the verdict was read, the last thing I saw of Lucas was his back as he walked out of the court room.
I was relieved it was over. I hated I knew I would never see Lucas again.
He took a huge piece of me with him that day. I felt it being ripped from my chest and felt the blood pour from me from the wound. The pain was excruciating as I watched him go, I still feel it whenever I think of him.
I forgave him. For everything, and I just wanted him to know.
As time passed and I went through the motions of moving on, it was time to leave for college.
This part of the campus is brutal. The wind feels like it’s slicing through me, and today it’s ice cold and punishing. No different than any other
day, each one is filled with pain.
Still.
I didn’t want to stay in the dorms with strangers, I couldn’t bring myself to be forced to be among people, not yet. There was solace in hiding among the masses, in blending into the background of crowds. But I needed a place to hide at night when there wasn’t the distraction of lectures or cafeteria lines or book stores. I still couldn’t open up. To anyone. Not yet.
As I unlock the door to my apartment building on the outskirts of the campus, I stop at the mailboxes. Letting my backpack fall to the floor, I pull off my gloves and unlock my box. Pulling out the stack of junk mail, I flip through them out of habit.
My heart stops as a jolt of electricity explodes inside me.
Scrawled across a plain white envelope is my name in a familiar penmanship, one I’ll never forget.
Lucas!
Gingerly, I trace my fingertips along the letters, trying to feel him. Then I stop.
There’s no return address, no stamp, nothing. This was hand delivered.
With my fingers still hovering over the envelope, I turn my face slowly toward the door, my heart pounding against my chest, to look for him. Hungry to feel those glacial eyes burning into mine, to hear him say, “Have a nice day”, just to see his wickedly beautiful face one more time.
My body tingles as I scan the scenery outside. I can almost feel the ghost of his presence, the same one I felt every time I was near him. But I don’t see him, just the same scene of people rushing to wherever they’ve got to go. Disappointment crushes me all over again. I look back at the envelope.
But he brought this.
Slowly, I open it.
I paid a guy a hundred bucks for this table. It has the perfect view into Evelyn’s apartment building from the coffee shop across the street. I’ve been stalking her like a psycho creeper for a week, (I grin sadly because that’s what she always called me).
Honestly, I didn’t have the balls to face her after the hell I put her through.
A better man would have left her alone and let her move on with her life, especially after the shit show I rained down on her. The whole fucking world knows I’m not a better man.
The Making Of A King: The King Duet, Book 1 Page 11
