Authors: Courtney Lane
“What favor?”
She opened her mouth, and I could tell from the glint in her eyes she was going to either lie to me or speak in circles.
I took matters in my own hands. “She’s an OB/GYN? The only reason she’d need to be here is for me…why would she need to see me?”
She slowly smiled. “Now that—that’s a very good fucking question, Simone.”
-18-
B
EST
D
AYS
Past August
Deana put down the bag of candy I purchased to help me through the work I was forced to take home. Leaning over my bed, she shut my laptop and plucked it away. “You’ve been doing that dragon lady’s work all night. It’s a fuckin’ Saturday night and you’re not doing her job for her while earning less than what she gets to sit on her ass. You are coming out with me.”
“I have to have this done by Monday,” I told her, smiling at her as she played a game of give and take away. The expression on her face held a mock seriousness that opposed the core of her personality. “She’s going to fire me if I make one more mistake.”
She held my laptop out of reach and wagged her finger at me. “On Monday, and then our dick of a father will change her mind on Tuesday. It’s Saturday, Simone.”
Sitting back on the bed, propping myself up on my elbows, I squinted at Deana’s gorgeous face. She never went without a full face of makeup. She often had a jump start on the ready to wear line straight off the runway before it hit the boutiques. Her mother was in the fashion industry; she owned a small chain of boutiques financed by Michael. Deana had very little interest in taking over her mother’s fashion business like her mother and Michael wanted.
Deana often stressed her frustration over wanting to be a part of Michael’s businesses. She was adamant about it now since she’d recently turned thirty.
I credited her with teaching me to embrace my femininity. Having been raised mostly by a man all my life, and thrust into Michael’s oppressing regime that prevented me from embracing it as well, she gave me a crash course. She taught me how to do my makeup a few times, and brought me more when Michael had one of his bodyguards take it away.
“You don’t know what you could be missing.” She taunted me, throwing her hands on her hips as she scooted toward me on her knees. “You could meet a very delicious guy who won’t just take your cherry, he’ll rock your fuckin’ world.”
“Yes, because waiting for the right guy is a stupid idea,” I joked with her.
“You know who the right guy’s going to be?” She sat back on her knees and fiddled with the edge of my fraying T-shirt. “It will be someone Michael picks for you. With the way he is about wanting to put a chastity belt on you, you could be waiting until you're thirty. Do you really want that?”
I folded my legs and allowed my head to droop.
“Hey, come on.” She draped her arms over my shoulders pulling me closer. “I’m sorry.” She lifted my chin and moved pieces of my hair away from my face. “Saturday also means something else. It’s the no-talking-about-Michael day. Deal?” She held up her pinky.
I linked my pinky in hers and frowned. Fear was the biggest detractor. Michael wasn’t happy about me getting to know Deana. She had told me what he was capable of when I thought the worst he could do to me had already been done. I didn’t want to test the limit and see if he would treat me as badly as he did her at times, and his treatment of me wouldn’t have been considered as anything remotely good. Between shaving my head when I was eighteen, hurting the people I cared about, being an all-around dictator who kept me locked away, and all the unknown things he did with what he called his “garbage business,” he was far from a good man.
“I’m not in the mood for a party,” I told her.
“Is this about what those fuckheads said to you last time I took you out?”
I remembered the derogatory terms I wouldn’t dare repeat. “It’s about Michael.”
“Don’t worry about Michael. According to my mother, he’s out of town. I have your back, and you have a mean right hook. If anyone says anything, we’ll kick their dicks in. Deal?”
I sighed, shutting my eyes and massaging the twinge of pain forming behind my eyes. “I have a feeling if I go, you’ll get me into trouble.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
*
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During the drive to the party, Deana goaded me into drinking a concoction she made up in an iced tea bottle with the label intact. She told me to drink to calm my nerves. Having never touched any alcohol before, it affected me quickly.
“All the important women in the three families will be there,” she said. “You’re one of us and you should be there, too. Fuck what my father or those old assholes say. You’re family.”
I was two sheets to the wind by the time we made it to the party at a mansion.
We danced and I held Deana back from engaging in a fight with a woman who said she should watch her back. In the between time, I was introduced to many women from the family. Too numerous to remember their names, I called them by the name of their costumes in my head to keep track of it all.
While we ate food in the kitchen, a woman in clown makeup approached Deana. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy, crazy. Scat.” Deana pointed to the nearest entrance and shot a pointed look at the clown.
“It’s about our deal. We have to talk about it…now.”
Rolling her eyes, Deana turned to me.
“Who is she?” I asked, keeping my voice low and waiting for an introduction.
“No one important.” Deana shot a look at the woman who seemed hurt by Deana’s delegation of her lack of importance. “I have to set this girl straight in private. Go mingle, okay? If anyone messes with you…come find me.”
*
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An hour became more, and the alcohol swirled in my stomach. I wandered around, finding myself on the second floor of the house in a very dark hall. I passed an open room with a man in a Zorro mask. Only his profile was seen. His cell phone was in his hands and his fingers moved a mile a minute as he typed a message. He paused, standing motionless. Leveling his gaze at me, he cast a sexy smile my way.
I gave him a subtle wave, mouthed an apology for impeding on his private time, and moved down the hall.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Kyle said from behind me. As I turned to him, he tipped his fedora toward me and leered at my breasts. If I had to guess, his costume was meant to emulate the gangsters in the ‘20s. Kyle was Deana’s boyfriend. Deana told me it took a long time for Michael to come around to the idea. It wasn’t until Kyle became a made man that he allowed them to see one another.
I didn’t care for him. The few times I met him he caused me discomfort. Since he had been made, his sexual overtures toward me became more blatant.
“Are you going to tell?” I slurred.
He checked up and down the hall. “One of the rooms might be empty.” He tried to touch me but all his hand met was the air.
The swift movement sent the world spinning a little faster.
“Don’t be that way. If you come with me, I might get a little amnesia.”
“You’re a dick.” I held my hands out to the wall to guide myself back downstairs.
“Where are you going, sweetness?” He imprisoned me against the wall, halting my escape.
My movement slowed. When I tried to punch him in the throat, he caught my hand and shoved me back. I lost my balance, hit the back of my head against the wall, and fell to the floor.
“You’re about to pass out.” He roughly handled my body, compelling me to stand faster than my brain could catch up with the motion.
The fluid burning and churning in my stomach threatened to escape.
Kyle looked down the corridor again. “There’s a room open. Why don’t we go in there and see how soon you’ll pass out?”
“The lady is indisposed,” came from a hoarse, low, and soft voice behind Kyle. “Take my very strong advice and stick your dick in a more willing woman. But, granted, you probably have issues finding one willing, and that’s why you need to resort to using someone whose judgment is skewed.” It was the man in the Zorro mask. His body was made for the black suit he wore, sans tie.
“Fuck you, punk.” Kyle waved at the man and turned back to me.
I blamed it on either my drunkenness or my modern Zorro’s speed for the reason I wasn’t able to see what happened. In the aftermath, Kyle was on his knees, gasping for air, and holding his throat.
“Don’t you know who the fuck I am?” Kyle coughed and choked, struggling to expel his threat.
“I do, and you know what? I don’t care.” Drawing back his fist, Black Mask hit Kyle with a punch to the side of his jaw. A hollow echo resounded, and I almost felt it as brutally as it was heard. Kyle’s eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the floor.
“Whoa,” my modern Zorro grabbed me on the brink of me falling to the ground.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled.
He immediately shuffled me down the hall and carted me into a room with an en suite. He set me down on the cold tile floor. I crawled to the porcelain bowl with haste. The masked man held my hair up and away from my face as the alcohol got the best of me.
“Better?” he asked, after I had expelled my entire stomach.
I shook my head, rubbing the rawness out of my torso. “Who are you supposed to be?” I kept one hand steady on the bowl and pointed an unsteady finger at him. “Zorro?”
“And who are you?”
“Lolita Pulido,” I said with a grin I’m sure looked ridiculous.
His smile broadened. “The assumption makes sense.” He leaned down next to me and I couldn’t help what I thought. Even with the eye mask, the man was gorgeous beyond words. “I’m not sure your costume fits.”
I grumbled as I felt it come up again, this time I missed the toilet.
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The light in the bathroom had begun to change, darkening with the passing hours. The vibrations I once felt through the floor, along with the noise from the boisterous party in session downstairs, had begun to change as well. Finally feeling well enough to lift my head, I discovered I was alone in the room. I peeled myself off the bathroom floor and ran the shower. I wiggled out of my soiled costume, leaving it on the floor, and locked the bathroom door.
I assumed Black Mask was gone by the time I washed the scent of vomit off my skin. I wrapped myself in a towel and peeled back the shower curtain. Scanning the floor, I noticed something missing: my costume.
Holding the towel tightly around me, I plodded into a large den that might’ve once been a bedroom at some point—the en suite was a blaring indicator.
Sitting on the edge of the desk, waiting for me was the man in the black mask. “Feel better?”
“The room sort of stopped spinning,” I told him, tightening the towel around me. “I think I have my senses again.”
“I picked this up for you from downstairs.” He plucked up a bottle of water and something wrapped in a napkin from the desk.
“I can’t eat.” I paused in front of him and couldn’t help ogling his body. Even incognito, he was in general, a very hot place to lay my eyes.
“You need something to soak up the alcohol in your stomach. It’s bread, it shouldn’t agitate your stomach any further.”
I checked my towel to make sure it was secure and took the items from his hands. Taking the smallest bite of the bread, I chewed it slowly, worried I’d get sick when I didn’t think my stomach could handle much more.
Black Mask moved his arms out of his jacket and placed it over me. I stared at his hands as they rested on my shoulders, and pulled the lapel of the jacket over my breasts to give me modesty.
“You didn’t have to stay with me, but…thank you.”
He stepped apart from me, leaning his lower half on the desk. “I wanted to make sure the asshole didn’t get any ideas about you when he woke up. He was promptly escorted out of my home when he gained consciousness.”
“Your home?” I angled a brow at him in disbelief.
“A rental. I never stay in one place for long.”
“Then…this was your party?” I looked around the room with a grin. “You’re one of the good guys, huh? What are you doing associating with some of the people downstairs?”
“This is the nicest I’ve ever been to anyone.” He touched my chin and gave me a wink.
Every word he said and every gesture made me feel more at ease. I was drawn to him physically and mentally, and it showed. I stepped forward until my breasts mashed against his chest and left him cornered against the desk. It could’ve been the lingering effects of the alcohol, or it could’ve been the constant feeling that wouldn’t leave me, telling me this might’ve been my last night of freedom.