He nods, and we both know that under normal circumstances, if the club were doing what it’s supposed to be, I’d be working until four. But given the minimal number of people who will likely show up tonight, there’s nothing Zoe can’t handle.
Q gives me a chin jerk and leaves me alone with my thoughts in my office.
Fuck.This isn’t how today was supposed to go. Not one damn bit.
I lean back in my chair and grip the wooden knobs at the end of the padded arms. Zoe said the chair was perfect for conveying power and prestige. Which means right about now, I feel like I’ve got no claim to be sitting in it.
I had plans, big plans, and they were all leading tothis.Every sacrifice I made. Every meal I missed to stash the cash instead. Every punch I took in the ring. Every mouthful of blood I spit out. It was all forthis.
My dream. I huff out what is supposed to be a laugh, but I can’t even fake humor under these circumstances.
Guys like me aren’t supposed to have dreams. We’re supposed to be living hand to mouth, scraping rock bottom, pretending we’re gangsters until we catch a bullet with our name on it. That’s the life I was born into. The life I nearly died with. Instead, I got free of it. Left my bad decisions and the people who’d just as soon shoot me as shake my hand behind in Mississippi after that bitch Hurricane Katrina tore my life apart.
I thought getting out of Biloxi meant I’d be someone else, and hell, I am. I left my last name there to die and became Gabriel Legend—first on the streets of Jersey, and then in the ring.
I release my punishing grip on the chair and stand. I know exactly what the hell I need tonight—to go back to the gym and remember who the fuck I am.
Because Gabriel Legend doesn’t let anyone take something from him without a fight.
When I whistle, my baby girl, Roux, comes trotting into the office with her brindle coat shining under the lights. She comes over to me and rubs her massive Cane Corso head against my leg.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here. Time to beat the shit out of something.”
Seven
Scarlett
The cab slows to a halt in front of the four-story brick building that has been one of my favorite places for most of my life. I pay the cabbie and slide out, my gaze going directly to the letters carved into the stone over the main entrance.
House of Scarlett
Every time I read it, I feel a pang of grief for my mother. Even five years after losing her, it hasn’t faded much. It’s duller than it used to be, but always there. Just as I feel like she’s always here with me. After all, this was her favorite place too—the headquarters of one of the world’s most iconic fashion houses where my mother was founder, CEO, and creative director, at least until she made the decision to sell it after receiving her cancer diagnosis. The new owner moved everything to LA, and the building came to me after she passed.
My mother spent almost a decade as a runway model before she met and married my father, something I still don’t understand to this day, given their incendiary fights and legendary divorce when I was eight. My dad thought House of Scarlett was a silly little project that didn’t mean anything and gave up all rights to it in the divorce settlement. Only, he would have been better off with House of Scarlett than his family’s pharmaceutical company, which has been facing massive lawsuits for the last decade from selling drugs the company knew were tainted ... but didn’t recall or warn the public about them.
I choose to believe I get my business sense from my mother and not my father.
A feeling of being watched shivers down my spine, and I spin around to scan the street behind me.
Nothing but people who look completely normal, going about their business. But, then again, maybe I’m not the best judge of what completely normal looks like, because I didn’t notice the guy whokidnapped meonly hours ago.
Is he following me?I back toward the door as I continue my assessment of the potential threats on my block.
The woman with a watering can, trying to extend the life of her impatiens as the petals fall with the cooling temperature. Mrs. Wanstein, I think? And then there are the three girls in plaid uniform skirts and white blouses, who must have already started school. A man walking a greyhound. Someone trying to parallel park poorly.
All normal. Right?
I turn back around and jam my key into the first lock, noticing the large flower pots bursting with rusty red and orange mums out of the corner of my eye. Amy must have switched them out today, so we’d be ready for tomorrow’s appointments.
Two more locks and I’m inside. Even the familiar fresh citrus scent of my sacred space doesn’t dispel my disquiet—at least, not until the door is bolted shut behind me. I lean against the wooden panel and drop my head back against it with a thump.
Home. Safe.
Also better known as Curated. My baby.
Critics have called my social media staging store brilliant, simply elegant, and forward-thinking. Then there are the others who’ve called it shallow, vain, and adding to the problem of millennial vapidity. That last one stung.
But I don’t care what the critics say. I don’t do this for them. I do it for me. Because it makes me feel good to help level the social media playing field. Not everyone instinctively understands how to curate their surroundings to help create a great feed, and I can help. So I do.