I’ve never been innocent. Innocent was Sara Jane and Chad. I try to avoid the spiral of self-loathing, but at the end of the day, I know I’m guilty. From the moment I set my eyes on Sara Jane that rainy Tuesday over four years ago, I took and took from her.
I fucked around in prep school—smoking, drugs, sex, partying. That’s what we all did. I wasn’t unique. In a school full of spoiled rich kids, the guys wanted to be my friend and the girls wanted me to fuck them. Among the wealthy, Kingwood reigned supreme in business and social circles. I wasn’t oblivious to the attention, often told how much I looked like my dad and my mom—both considered striking amongst the most beautiful. My mom. She had striking blue eyes. I was a fool for believing I was her son based on a similar trait I heard so often.
Friends came easy. Girls came when I let them. Power made me blind to what I was becoming—empty. Until Sara Jane. Which is why I couldn’t stay away.
Quincy pulls his keys from his pocket. “Don’t even think about them. They’re grasping. They’ve got jack shit on you, Alex . . .”
“Yeah. Jack shit.” I barely hear a word he says.
Quincy pats me on the back. “Don’t stress. You’ve given your statement, so let me worry about them. If they harass you, call me. If they come to the house, call me. Don’t talk to them. I’ll schedule her formal statement and see if I can get it taken at the estate instead of downtown.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Don’t let Sara Jane talk to them without me being present though. Got it?”
“Got it.” I shake his hand and we get in our cars.
I open the door to my new Mercedes AMG GT S, admiring it. Quincy says, “Nice car.”
“A present for myself.”
“What are you celebrating?”
The right side of my mouth lifts high. “Becoming a billionaire at twenty-three.”
His casual attitude disappears. Rubbing his chin, he says, “Guess that’s worth celebrating.” He walks to his car. “Congrats are in order, I guess.”
Nodding, I dip down into the sleek leather seat and close the door. I know what he’s thinking. I sound callous, but I’ve earned this money from the death of my father.
I didn’t kill him.
He made that decision.
He chose me to carry the Kingwood torch. He chose how to live his life just like he chose his death. Quincy doesn’t know when my father looked at me, disappointment was obvious in his eyes. He doesn’t know how jealous my father was for my mother’s affection and made me compete for her attention. Or that he stole me from a woman he fucked and left for dead. No, he doesn’t know when Alexander Kingwood III stared into my eyes, his only son, his only flesh and blood, he only saw his own failures through the death of my mother. He treated me with such disdain that almost three months after his death, I spent his money on something as shallow as he was. I stroke the fine leather of the steering wheel and the craftsmanship of the gearshift.
What Quincy and everyone else now knows is that I’m the sole heir to a huge empire, an empire I’ve spent the last two months selling off much like Nastas’s car—sold off for its parts.
I shift and accelerate, weaving through traffic because fuck those cops. Fuck Nastas O’Hare and Connor Johnson. Fuck them and the hell they came from, the hell I plan to send them both back to.
Calling Cruise on Bluetooth, I wait until he answers before I start in on my laundry list of stuff we need to follow up on.
“What’s up, King?”
“Where do we stand with Connor?” He’s quiet, withholding information. “What did you find out, Cruise?”
“O’Hare and Johnson were texting right before the attack. There was also one phone call between them.”
“They were waiting for her. How did they know she was coming back?” His sigh fills the car. “Tell me,” I say, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel.
“Just like we found her, they found her. One of their guys saw her at a gas station and called Johnson. It was just bad timing. The worst fucking timing. Johnson texted O’Hare her ETA. O’Hare didn’t even have to wait an hour.”
My gut twists. If Johnson had gotten to her . . . Jason didn’t see this guy coming. Fuck. “Either way—”
“She was always going to be their target. What was the last text?”
“Johnson texted O’Hare when she passed the train tracks. A few minutes later it went down around the bend in the road.”
I’m seething. Firefly was coming back to me. She was coming back to me with our baby and these fucks destroyed her innocence, her intentions, her good inside. I slam my fist on the wheel. “Fuck!”
“Jason tailed Johnson home. Wife. Two kids. One son. Fifteen. A daughter.” He pauses then says, “Nineteen. Goes to university with us.”
Red is all I see, but I also see an opportunity to destroy him just like he tried to destroy me. “Where is Jason?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get hold of him and meet me at the penthouse.”
“Not the manor?”
“No. I’ll be on Lexington Boulevard in ten.”
When I reach downtown, the sun has ducked behind the tallest buildings, but peeks out as I drive through intersections. I pull into the garage and park in one of my assigned spots. The elevator drags, but when I reach the penthouse, the doors open and the light shines in through the wall of windows.
I expect to see Chad at his desk, typing on the computer. Shelly should be flitting about—carefree from worries. Cruise should be by my side or already waiting on the couch. But they’re not.
It’s quiet here. Too quiet.
I walk to the window and cross my arms over my chest. It used to make me feel powerful to stand here, to have a crew supporting my every move, helping me strategize my next. But after all that’s happened and talking with Firefly about power, I’ve lost the high I once felt. The absence of the lives that filled this room is overpowering.
Chad is gone.
One of my best friends is gone.
Because of me.
Because I didn’t answer my damn phone.
He was good. Through and through, he was good. Never asked for anything other than a steady job so he could afford a better life for him and Shelly one day.
The ring comes to mind.
I ribbed him over it. Teased him, not because it was small. Nah, I know that doesn’t matter. Being the assholes we are, Cruise and I teased him for wanting to be married so young, and now he’ll never marry at all. I’ve pushed away these feelings, putting my thoughts, my efforts into Sara Jane. But standing here, in this space, his space, it finally sinks in. Squatting, I press my elbows into my knees and drop my head into my hands, allowing myself the five minutes of silence that I need to recognize this new reality for what it is.
Chad is gone. Forever.
Shelly is alone. Forever.