An inane urge to scrub the rug and tear those bloody particles out of the soft wool fibers, one by one, gripped me, but I couldn’t move.
All I could do was stand and stare at the grotesque scene in my living room—a room which, not half an hour earlier, had burst with warmth and laughter and love. Now it was cold and lifeless, like the three bodies at my feet.
I blinked, and they disappeared—the lights, the memories, the noose around my neck.
But they’d come back. They always did.
“…You’re the best,” Josh was saying, his grin back now that I’d agreed to take on a role I had no business taking. I wasn’t a protector; I was a destroyer. I broke hearts, crushed business opponents, and didn’t care about the aftermath. If someone was stupid enough to fall for me or cross me—two things I warned people never, ever to do—they had it coming. “I’ll bring you back—fuck, I don’t know. Coffee. Chocolate. Pounds of whatever is good down there. And I owe you a big, fat favor in the future.”
I forced a smile. Before I could respond, my phone rang, and I held up a finger. “Be right back. I have to take this.”
“Take your time, man.” Josh was already distracted by the blonde and brunette who’d been all over me earlier and who found a much more willing audience in my best friend. By the time I stepped into the backyard and answered my call, they had their hands beneath his shirt.
“Дядько,” I said, using the Ukrainian term for uncle.
“Alex.” My uncle’s voice rasped over the line, scratchy from decades of cigarettes and the wear and tear of life. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“No.” I glanced through the sliding glass door at the revelry inside. Josh had lived in the same rambling, two-story house off Thayer’s campus since undergrad. We’d roomed together until I graduated and moved to D.C. proper to be closer to my office—and to get away from the hordes of shrieking, drunken college students that paraded through campus and the surrounding neighborhoods every night.
Everyone had turned out for Josh’s farewell party, and by everyone, I mean half the population of Hazelburg, Maryland, where Thayer was located. He was a town favorite, and I imagined people would miss his parties as much as they missed Josh himself.
For someone who always claimed to be drowning in schoolwork, he found a lot of time for drinking and sex. Not that it hurt his academic performance. The bastard had a 4.0 GPA.
“Did you take care of the problem?” my uncle asked.
I heard a drawer open and close, followed by the faint click of a lighter. I’d urged him to quit smoking countless times, but he always brushed me off. Old habits die hard; old, bad habits even more so, and Ivan Volkov had reached the age where he couldn’t be bothered.
“Not yet.” The moon hung low in the sky, casting ribbons of light that snaked through the otherwise-inky darkness of the backyard. Light and shadow. Two halves of the same coin. “I will. We’re close.”
To justice. Vengeance. Salvation.
For sixteen years, the pursuit of those three things had consumed me. They were my every waking thought, my every dream and nightmare. My reason for living. Even in situations when I’d been distracted by something else—the chess-play of corporate politics, the fleeting pleasure of burying myself into the tight, warm heat of a willing body—they’d lurked in my consciousness, driving me to greater heights of ambition and ruthlessness.
Sixteen years might seem like a long time, but I specialize in the long game. It doesn’t matter how many years I have to wait as long as the end is worth it.
And the end of the man who had destroyed my family? It would be glorious.
“Good.” My uncle coughed, and my lips pinched.
One of these days, I’d convince him to quit smoking. Life had driven any sentimentality out of me years ago, but Ivan was my only living relative. He took me in, raised me as his own, and stuck by me through every thorny twist of my path toward revenge, so I owed him that much, at least.
“Your family will be at peace soon,” he said.
Perhaps. Whether the same could be said of me…well, that was a question for another day.
“There’s a board meeting next week,” I said, switching topics. “I’ll be in town for the day.” My uncle was the official CEO of Archer Group, the real estate development company he’d founded a decade ago with my guidance. I’d had a knack for business even as a teenager.
Archer Group headquarters called Philadelphia home, but it had offices across the country. Since I was based in D.C., that was the company’s real power center, though board meetings still took place at HQ.
I could’ve taken over as CEO years ago, per my uncle’s and my agreement when we started the company, but the COO position offered me more flexibility until I finished what I had to do. Besides, everyone knew I was the power behind the throne, anyway. Ivan was a decent CEO, but it was my strategies that had catapulted it into the Fortune 500 after a mere decade.
My uncle and I talked business for a while longer before I hung up and rejoined the party. The gears in my head cranked into motion as I took stock of the evening’s developments—my promise to Josh, my uncle’s nudge about the minor hiccup in my revenge plan. Somehow, I had to reconcile the two over the next year.
I mentally rearranged the pieces of my life into different patterns, playing each scenario out to the end, weighing the pros and cons, and examining them for potential cracks until I reached a decision.
“Everything good?” Josh called out from the couch, where the blonde kissed his neck while the brunette’s hands became intimately acquainted with the region below his belt.
“Yes.” To my irritation, my gaze strayed toward Ava again. She was in the kitchen, fussing over the half-eaten cake from Crumble & Bake. Her tanned skin glowed with a faint sheen of sweat from dancing, and her raven hair billowed around her face in a soft cloud. “About your earlier request…I have an idea.”
3
Ava
“I hope you appreciate what a good friend I am.” Jules yawned as we tromped across our front yard toward Josh’s house. “For waking up at the butt crack of dawn to help your brother clean and pack when I don’t even like the dude.”
I laughed and looped my arm through hers. “I’ll buy you a caramel mocha from The Morning Roast after. Promise.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She paused. “Large, with extra crunch toppings?”
“You know it.”
“Fine.” Jules yawned again. “That makes it somewhat worth it.”
Jules and Josh were not fans of each other. I’d always found that strange, considering they were so similar. They were both outgoing, charming, smart as hell, and total heartbreakers.
Jules was a human version of Jessica Rabbit, all shiny red hair, creamy skin, and curves that made me look at my body with a sigh. Overall, I was happy with how I looked, but as a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, I did wish for an extra cup size or two without having to resort to plastic surgery. Ironically, Jules sometimes complained about her double-Ds, saying they were hard on her back. There should be a Venmo for breasts that allows women to send and receive cup sizes with the press of a button.
Like I said, I was happy with how I looked most of the time, but no one—not even supermodels or movie stars—was immune from insecurities.
Besides her grievances with her breasts, Jules was the most confident person I’d ever met—aside from my brother, whose ego was so large it could house the entire East Coast of the United States with room left over for Texas. I suppose he had reason to be, considering he’d always been the golden boy, and though it pained me to admit it because he was my brother, he wasn’t bad-looking either. Six-foot-two with thick black hair and razor-sharp bone structure, which he never let anyone forget. I was convinced Josh would commission a sculpture of himself and display it on his front lawn if he could.