Dakota

by Vicktor Alexander

  “Master Moore? I know that you are home. Your car is in the drive and I heard your footsteps in the home,” Glover, his parents’ butler said from outside the door. Nimo groaned and opened the door.

  Standing outside, blanketed by the darkness, dressed in his usual uniform of a black tuxedo with snow white shirt and black bowtie, was Glover Williams, his parents’ longtime butler. The man stood only a few inches taller than Nimo, was thin as a rail with gray hair that was consistently brushed back, his pale face always looked pinched into a perpetual scowl and his arms were invariably folded behind his back. As they were now.

  “Yes, Glover? How may I help you, and how in the fuck did you find me?”

  “Well, Master Moore, it is not as if you hid your tracks from your parents when they disinherited you. You did not change your name, nor did you leave the state, or even the city,” Glover stated, without a trace of emotion on his face or in his voice.

  “No, I did not, because with all that I suffered, I earned the name Moore, and my job is here and I was not about to give that up,” Nimo stated firmly. “So again I ask you, how may I help you?”

  “Master Abraham and Mistress Georgia-Anne Moore would like to see you,” Glover said.

  “Well you can tell Mr. and Mrs. Moore that I said that until they want to see my son, their grandson, as well, that they can kiss. My. Ass.” Nimo stepped back to slam the door when Glover spoke again.

  “They wish to see the child as well.”

  Nimo froze, his hand hovering over the doorknob. “What did you just say?”

  For the first time in his life, in all of his thirty-one years, Nimo saw a flicker of emotion cross Glover’s face. It wasn’t compassion, sympathy, empathy, or anything like that. It was a smirk. Glover smirked at Nimo before his face once again went into an expressionless mask.

  “Master and Mistress Moore would like for you to bring the boy to their home tomorrow night at seven for dinner,” Glover said.

  Nimo’s eyes lowered. “Why?”

  Glover merely looked at him. “Master and Mistress Moore have had a change of heart in regards to your offspring and wish to convey that to you personally. They would also like you to invite your partner, Dr. Dakota Sevion with you to the dinner, as well as Dr. Sevion’s parents, Mr. Decebal and Mrs. Adelina Sevion.”

  A feeling of unease filled Nimo’s being and he wondered what his parents possibly knew about the Sevions that he didn’t. He knew that as soon as Glover left he would be looking into the Sevions further, with some help from his friend, Griffin McKeon, who was a computer programmer. If anyone could find out everything there was to know about the Sevion family, it was Griffin. While he could ask Dakota, he knew if his parents were involved it was something his mate wouldn’t even have thought of, or something he didn’t know about. His parents were the masters at discovering information about people’s family history that they had no idea about. Griffin could find it, however, and Nimo would use all the resources at his disposal.

  “Fine,” Nimo said. “We’ll be there. But let Abraham and Georgia-Anne know that if I get one whiff of anything shady going on we will be out of there so fast that their heads will spin.”

  “I will inform them of your restrictions, Master Moore,” Glover stated with a bow, before spinning on his heel and walking down the steps. He climbed into the awaiting limo and drove away. Nimo watched for a moment before stepping back into his house and closing the door. He couldn’t help the feeling that he was about to step into a battlefield and it wasn’t one of a physical nature, but a psychological one.

  Pulling out his cell phone, Nimo called his friend Griffin. “Hey Griff, sorry I’m calling so late, but do you think you can come over? I need some help.”

  “I’ll be right over,” Griffin said, not asking for any information, for which Nimo was very grateful. He hung up and walked into the kitchen, starting the coffeepot. Griffin was addicted to coffee and drank it at all times of the day and night, especially if he was going to be doing any type of work. As the coffee brewed, Nimo thought about why his parents would possibly have had a change of heart. He also sent a text message to Dakota telling him that they needed to talk.

  Four years before he’d gone to an office party, brokenhearted after catching his then boyfriend in bed with their personal trainer. He’d gotten drunk and wound up sleeping with one of his friends, Iyleena Rochet. Iyleena had been a gorgeous girl with beautiful chestnut hair and hazel green eyes with a smattering of freckles across her nose. She had a big smile and an even bigger heart. Iyleena had been an orphan and she and Nimo had connected almost instantly over their shared love of sci-fi and mythology. Iyleena was a professor of Statistics with a passion for history and religions. She’d spent more time with Nimo and his friends than she had with her own. So when Nimo had woken up the morning after the office Christmas party, naked and in bed with her, he’d been embarrassed, devastated and relieved all at the same time. When Iyleena had laughed it off and said they would never speak of it again, Nimo had readily agreed and they never had. Iyleena had known that Nimo was gay and they both knew that their night of sex had been a result of way too much eggnog.

  But, when Iyleena got sick and discovered, eight weeks later, that she was pregnant, Nimo had vowed to step up and do the right thing, even though Iyleena had told him that she didn’t want to saddle him with a kid. They’d begun making plans, legal and financial for how to raise the baby when Nimo had gone to his parents to tell them.

  Abraham and Georgia-Anne Moore had been surprisingly accepting when Nimo had come out to them as homosexual. They had joined PFLAG and had introduced him to the other gay sons of prominent members of society that they hob-nobbed with. But when he told them that he was having a baby with a woman who had no family and was a professor at the university, they had told him in no uncertain terms they would not accept the child. Nimo had been shocked and had walked away.

  When Iyleena had died in childbirth, Nimo had shown up on his parents’ doorstep with a newborn Zay in his car seat, hoping his parents would take one look at their grandson and change their tune. He’d been shown into the drawing room and made to wait for two hours before being told that “Master and Mistress Moore were not receiving guests at the time” because they were “mourning their son’s untimely passing.” Nimo had sat there in shock, his son peacefully sleeping in ignorance, wondering if his parents were really going to tell people that he had died, when the servants began to bring down boxes of his things and place them by the front door. Nimo had risen from his seat, grabbed his son’s carrier and walked into the entryway. His mother’s voice had stopped him.

  “There is a family who is more than willing to adopt the little boy, Nishon,” Georgia-Anne’s cultured tones drifted down from the top of the stairs. “If you choose to allow him to be adopted, your father and I will be more than willing to allow you to return home and will return you to our will.”

  Nimo had turned to glare up at his parents. His father was a tall black man, with skin the color of a paper bag, or at least that was how his mother had always described his father’s rather light skin coloring, stating that was how she knew he was “acceptable.” His father had straight black hair, gelled and brushed back away from his face, and he had been wearing a black, three-piece business suit with a baby blue button down shirt and black slim tie, as he stood with one hand wrapped around the top of balcony railing, the other one pushed down into the pocket of his suit pants, the very epitome of sophisticated, urbanite. His mother stood beside him, a tall, statuesque beauty. Her skin was the color of mahogany, her black hair swept up into a French twist, diamond hair pins decorated throughout. Her makeup was flawless, as always, and she wore a silk, baby blue gown that trailed behind her on the carpet. His parents always looked as if they were dressing for some type of ball or formal meal, and even to disinherit or to snub their only child, their son, they’d treated it as some grand to-do.

  Nimo had shaken his head at them and felt disgust r
oll through him. “I would never treat my son as if he was not good enough for me as you have done. I understand what being a parent actually means. What being a family actually means. I’m sorry you don’t get it. But I would rather be disinherited, live on the streets, beg, borrow and steal every dime and scrap of food than to give up my son just so I could live here in this mausoleum that you call a house.” He cast a disparaging glance around the entryway. “Good bye, Abraham and Georgia-Anne. Please, forget that you ever had me. I know I will.”

  And he’d walked out the door. There had been a moving truck outside with all of his boxes being put inside of it and Nimo had suddenly felt as if he were on the set of a Tyler Perry movie. He’d strapped Zay’s car seat back into his car and led the moving truck to his apartment, then he’d supervised the movers where to place all of his boxes. After they’d left, he’d called his friends, who’d come over and cried with him.

  His parents hadn’t contacted him at all in the years since. They’d missed every birthday and holiday that Zay had ever celebrated and when Nimo’s grandfather, his father’s father had passed away, Nimo hadn’t been invited, he’d only found out because it had been reported on television. He, Zay, and his friends had had a memorial service right there in his home. And now suddenly his parents were summoning him? Something didn’t smell right. Not at all. But years of conditioning, and verbal commands from his grandparents, pastors, parents, and even teachers, telling him to always answer when his parents called were hard to ignore. As was the small kernel of hope that perhaps they’d changed their minds and would finally accept his son. He knew that wasn’t what was going on, but he couldn’t help the initial leap in his heart. It had only been three years. It would take much longer than that for him to break free of their hold on him. It sucked, but he knew he was going to go. Fuck and dammit all to hell.

  There was a soft knock on the door and then a key in the lock before the door opened. All of Nimo’s friends had a key to his place, though they only ever used it when he was expecting them and they knew he would be too distracted to open the door. Griffin stepped in and Nimo looked at his friend before offering him a wobbly smile.

  “My parents have summoned me.”

  “Abraham and Georgia-Anne? Whatever the fuck for?” Griffin asked.

  “I don’t know, but they invited Zay, Dakota, and Dakota’s parents,” Nimo told him, pouring Griffin a cup of coffee.

  “And Dakota is the doctor, right? The new, Mr. Everything, in your life?” Griffin teased as he accepted the mug of coffee from Nimo and began to add cream, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to it.

  “Yes,” Nimo said, adding brown sugar, cilantro, cinnamon, and a dash of cayenne pepper to his coffee.

  “What made them do that?” Griffin questioned him.

  “I have no idea, but that’s where you come in.”

  Griffin’s eyebrows rose. “You want me to see if your parents need money?”

  Nimo shook his head. “No, my grandfather put six million in a trust for me to get when I turned thirty, ten million for when I had my first child and another ten for when I got married. My father got three times that. They are not hurting for money. Especially not with their different companies doing so well. This is about something else.” Nimo nibbled on his bottom lip. “I want you to look into Dakota’s family. Check out the Sevions. Find out why my parents are suddenly so okay with Zay and why they want to meet Dakota and his family. The Sevions must be someone special and important if my parents want to meet them.” He knew his parents. If they had any clue or hint about Dakota and his family’s biggest secret, about them being vampires, then everyone would know, because his parents would portray themselves as concerned citizens looking out for humanity when they turned the Sevion family in. No, this had to be something else. He didn’t think that Dakota and his family just went around exposing their true nature to everyone, if Dakota hadn’t told him, Nimo wouldn’t have ever known.

  Griffin nodded. “Gotcha. And when do you need this by?”

  Nimo grinned sheepishly. “Six hours? The dinner’s tonight. I’m not sure if Dakota and his parents can even come. I haven’t asked them and I’m not sure if I should, but if they can come I want to know why my parents want them there.”

  Griffin’s eyes widened. “We’re going to need a lot more coffee for this.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I found it!”

  Nimo startled awake and fell off the couch right on his face. He grunted and let out a moan of pain. Rolling over onto his back, Nimo rubbed his face and hissed at the burn in his nose. He must have bumped it when he fell on the floor. Sitting up, he shook his head and looked at Griffin when his friend hurried into the living room from the kitchen and froze, his head tilting to the side.

  “Did you sleep on the floor?” Griffin asked.

  Nimo shook his head. “No.”

  Griffin’s eyebrows lowered and then he shrugged before he turned his laptop around to show Nimo what was on the screen. Nimo gasped at what he saw and he crawled on his hands and knees to get closer to Griffin. Griffin laughed and walked over to Nimo then sat down on the couch, balancing the laptop on his knees where Nimo could sit on the floor in front of him and read the information.

  King Carol I of Romania was distantly related to the Sevion family though his relationship was not widely broadcasted due to the fact that the Sevion family was widely powerful and influential not just in Romania but around the world and did not always agree with the king’s laws. The Sevion family, however, does have many ties to the monarchy in Romania, and is highly regarded as one of the most powerful families in existence as well as being one of the wealthiest. There are rumors that suggest the earliest known Sevion ancestor sold his soul to the devil in order to keep his family in power and wealth, though this is just conjecture. However, in Romania, the name Sevion is highly regarded and feared.

  Nimo’s eyes rose to Griffin’s and he swallowed nervously. “I knew they wanted something,” he said softly.

  Griffin merely nodded but said nothing. Nimo shook his head and stood. He began pacing, his mind raced as he wondered why his family would need ties to a defunct monarchy. Then again, they wouldn’t really need the monarchy; they would only need to be able to tell people that their son was married to the son of the Sevion family that was once Romanian royalty. That would get them all the gasps and oohs of wonder that they wanted. Nimo’s stomach churned as he realized his parents’ constant need to climb the social ladder was now going to drag his son and his new family into all of the social poison that his parents had been so enthralled with.

  Shaking his head and knowing that he’d have to talk to Dakota about it, Nimo looked over at Griffin, he offered his friend a small smile. “How are the quads doing?”

  Griffin smiled widely. “They’re doing good. My parents are watching them right now.”

  Nimo sobered. “How’s Charlie?”

  Griffin sighed before he answered with relief evident in his tone. “Right now he seems to be doing pretty good.”

  Griffin was a single father of two-year old quadruplets that he’d had by surrogacy. Chaela, Charlie, Chanel, and Chauncy. They were the most adorable kids in the world. Next to Zay of course, and looked so much like Griffin that it was scary. Griffin was all arms and legs at five foot eleven. His hair was a golden bronze, which complemented his tanned skin beautifully. His full lips were always pink and swollen as if he’d just been kissed, even though Nimo knew it came from Griffin’s habit of nervously biting his lips when he worked or drove, or damn near did anything. Griffin had sapphire blue eyes that people were always remarking on whenever they went out. Griffin was a self-made millionaire, though he’d grown up poor. His father had been a bus driver and his mother had worked at a retail giant when he was a kid, but Griffin was a whiz at computers and when he was fourteen he’d sold his first internet company for a million dollars. He’d wised up and sold his second internet company for eight million and just kept doing things like th
at for years after.

  When at the age of one, Charlie had been diagnosed with choroid plexus carcinomas, Griffin’s world had been rocked. He’d immediately taken his son to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital for treatment. Charlie’s doctor had suggested surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, which Charlie had just completed. Nimo felt guilty that he was so relieved that Zay was healthy and had never had to endure anything like that, but he couldn’t help his thoughts and emotions. He did know whenever he had that sentiment he made another donation to St. Jude’s.

  Looked like he would be pulling out his checkbook again.

  “That’s great, Griff. You know Zay asks about his little buddy all the time,” Nimo said.