Six
Legend
The magazine mocks me from the corner of my desk. I only read the first couple of pages of the article before I went off to Q, my best friend of fifteen years and second in command, about how we needed this girl—or someone like her—to come to Legend and bring all their friends with them, or else we’d be fucked within a month.
Exactly the same conversation Bump overheard that caused him to fuck up my entire world.What the fuck was he thinking, kidnapping her?
Fuck me. Q is never going to let me live this down. He’s the one who told me recklessness couldn’t fix this, and we’d have to be patient and smart.
But I’m still more comfortable with recklessness than patience, and look where that got me.
Fuck.
The T-shirt I’m wearing feels too fucking tight around the neck as I look at the clock. Fifteen minutes. That’s what I figure I’ve got before Q’s meeting is done.
Curiosity gets the best of me, and I reach for the magazine again. I flip past the cover quickly, because I don’t need to stare into her perfect face any longer than I have to. Scarlett Priest is shit hot, but I don’t care. Ican’tcare.
It’s one of my tricks—blocking out all emotion. It goes right along with never getting close to anyone new. I keep my circle small for a reason, and I’m not expanding it for anyone. Especially not for a woman who would cross the street to avoid me if we were walking down the same sidewalk at night.
I don’t want a steady woman in my life, anyway. I don’t care if that means I’m stuck spending the rest of my days getting by with hookups and booty calls. It works for me. Caring about someone is the fucking trap of all traps, and one I’ll never get sucked into again.
Flipping to the first page of the article, I skim past the part about her fashion-icon mother and the House of Scarlett brand Lourdes Priest created and sold before she passed away from cancer five years ago. That shit sucks, and I feel bad for Scarlett, which makes me move to the next section even faster.
And then I wish I hadn’t. There’s a picture of Scarlett and her boyfriend.
My fingers clench into a fist, crumpling the paper. I should tear the damn page out. That tool is a fucking douchebag. I don’t have to read a single word about him to know I’m right. The generic smirk he wears as he wraps his arm around her says it all.
She’s his cash cow. His golden fucking ticket. I wonder if she realizes—
No. No, I don’t wonder. Because it’s not important to me.
I sit up straighter in my chair and stare down at Chadwick LaSalle Jr.’s face. He looks like the hedge fund type, but a quick scan of the caption says he’s a VP of the pharmaceutical company owned by Scarlett’s father, Lawrence Priest.
Yep. She’s definitely his golden ticket.
I bet they went to Yale or Harvard together and partied like entitled rich kids do.
Meanwhile, I got my GED when I was twenty-four and made my money with my fists, fighting for my fucking life, before I made enough to start my first club. I couldn’t get a liquor license, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Instead, I paid off the right people, and I was on my way.
Money talks. Something I’m sure Chadwick LaSalle Jr. is well aware of.Fucking douche.
I slap the magazine shut and shove it aside.
That piece of shit doesn’t matter. What matters is saving my club.
Because another thing I learned is that when you’re making all your money illegally, everyone wants a piece of it. I thought I’d be untouchable running my underground club, but I wasn’t. I was exposed as fuck. I made a promise a long time ago to get out of that life, and I’ll keep it, even if it fucking kills me. I will be totally legit, and nothing, not even a fucking shooting during my grand opening night, is going to stop me.
Except, now I have to do what I hate—depend on someone else to rescue me from the hole I’ve dug. And that someone is Scarlett Priest.
I saw the fear in her eyes in my office. That’s not something you can hide from a junkyard dog like me.
But it doesn’t matter. Fear is good. I hope she holds on to it.
A knock on the door interrupts my thoughts, and it opens before I can sayenter. Only two people are brave enough to do that, and one of them is the man standing before me.
Marcus Quinterro, also known as Q.
In his tailored suit and slicked-back hair, the Puerto Rican looks every bit the club owner, which is good, because I don’t fit that mold. From where I sit, it’s hard to believe Q was raised in a scrapyard across the river in Jersey, and narrowly avoided getting locked up for grand theft auto when he decided chopping cars was better money. I can’t imagine how bad Mama and Pop Q had to have thrashed him for that. His three older sisters too.