Chapter 8
A cool, damp cloth rests on my forehead as I blink my eyes open to find Onyx’s concerned face above me, his embrace a haven of warmth and comfort.
He scoops me up in his arms and takes me to a booth seat, resting me down.
“What the hell, Onyx? What happened,” I ask him, confused as fuck.
He looks me over as if he’s checking for signs of damage.
“You passed out, trouble.”
Rubbing my head, I can feel a dull ache on the side where I must have hit it during the fall.
“I’m calling Ricky to take a look at you.”
“No, don’t bother him. I’m fine.” Trying to prove my point, I force a smile even though I’m not feeling it.
“Sloane, you hit your head with force.” The look in his eyes tells me it’s more than that.
He’s really worried about me.
This isn’t the first time I have passed out lately.
It happened last week as well.
“I already called him,” I hear Jagger tell Onyx as he approaches us.
Fucking great, just what I need today.
Ricky asking way too many questions.
Cruz places an icy cold water on the table in front of me and slides in beside me.
“Drink it,” he demands .
He’s such a bossy shit.
“Just because you were born a couple of minutes before me doesn’t make you my boss,” I snip as I take the water and drink it down.
“She’s fine,” he tells Jagger.
“Bitchy as ever.” He smirks at me playfully, trying to get me to smile back.
“Happy birthday, little sis.”
“Happy birthday.” I offer a half smile, as much as I can muster.
“Cruz, don’t bullshit me. What the hell is going on with Romeo owning part of my business?”
His head drops, and I know it’s true.
Romeo is about to take over a chunk of my business.
“How can this happen?” I whisper, my head going into overdrive with all the possibilities.
His arm comes around my shoulder and he pulls me into him.
“You need to talk to him about it.”
I glance back at him.
“I want to talk to you about it.”
“I don’t know the details, Sis. Jagger knows more, but he won’t say anything until you’ve had it out with Romeo. If it were up to me, he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near you, but this shit goes back generations. Jagger says I can’t fix it with my fists.”
Sickness fills me, and I stare back at my brother, feeling helpless and out of control.
“If Romeo fucking Moretti thinks he can march in here and take over my club, he has another thing coming.” Bitterness drips off my every word I’m so damn angry.
“That’s the attitude,” Cruz agrees with me, hugging me a little tighter.
But he doesn’t know the half of this situation.
Romeo tricked me, used his charm to find out my secrets then get me into bed.
I’m an idiot. I’m supposed to be smarter than this.
I went nearly twenty-five years without letting a man corrupt me.
One moment of weakness and now what.
Oh God, I can’t even think about it.
Dizziness consumes me as my head begins to spin once more.
I grip hold of the table.
“Sloane, you okay?” Cruz takes hold of me, pulling me into his chest. “Hey, you’re okay,” he tells me.
But I’m not. Yesterday I fucked up, and today, staring down the barrel of my bad choices isn’t pretty.
How did I let this happen?
“Can someone get her some food or some shit? She’s about to pass out again,” Cruz calls to the rest of them.
While my brothers wait for Ricky to arrive, I slowly snack on the California Crunch wrap they brought me, listening to their hushed conversations while they think I’m not paying attention.
But I am. I can hear every damn word they say, and I don’t like any of it.
Romeo has left, but he expects me to have some fucking fancy dinner with him tonight to discuss the details of our joint ownership.
Joint ownership! It doesn’t make any sense, how can he be making a claim on the club I built from the shithole it was when Syd died?
This club was nothing back then, a seedy brothel and strip club where their women were treated like shit and all the profits went into his drinking habit.
I won’t let Romeo take it from me.
“Sloane.” I hear Ricky’s voice and glance up to see him smiling down at me.
“You want to go to your office so I can take a look at you?” he asks kindly.
I push off my seat to standing, and Onyx comes to help me.
“I can walk on my own,” I snap.
He backs off, and I walk with Ricky through to my office, not missing the way they all look at each other as I do.
It’s just Sloane being bitchy again, I’m sure one of my brothers is about to say.
But what they don’t get is I have to be like this just to survive alongside them.
You’re born a dude and you walk into a room, people pay you respect just because you have a dick and balls.
Me, I had to fucking earn my balls through blood and sweat and making sure every fucker around knew if they messed with me, they would be dead.
Yeah, I have a lot of blood on my hands.
Maybe even more than my brothers.
But this is the life I was born into, and I’m not giving it up because some asshole wants to control me.
When I’m settled on the sofa in my office, Ricky closes the door and comes to sit beside me.
“Are you okay if I listen to your heart?” he asks.
“Sure.” I shrug, not caring either way.
“My brothers are fussing over nothing. You know how they are.”
He chuckles lightly, and I know he agrees with me.
“Better to be safe than sorry.” He pulls out his stethoscope and places it on my chest, listening.
“Oh God, do you know how old you sound when you say shit like that?” I smile at him so he knows I’m teasing, anything to distract me from this awkwardness.
He moves to my back, checking there as well.
“I am old. And so are you today. Twenty-five. Happy birthday, sorry we didn’t get to celebrate much with you last night.” I don’t miss the way his brow raises in question as he says the words.
I know what he’s asking: what did I get up to with his cousin?
I bet Harley told him to ask me, she must be dying to know.
“Thanks. Some birthday, passing out and hitting my head.” I rub the spot that is still sore.
He looks me over, concerned.
“Yeah, after I check your blood pressure, I will take a look at that.” He shows me the arm cuff he needs to put on my arm to check my blood pressure, and I nod, agreeing.
He slips it on and pumps up the pressure thingy, making a sound I don’t like.
An uhmm. What the fuck does that mean?
Waiting for him to enlighten me, I shoot him a piercing glare, but he just takes off the cuff and places it back in his bag.
“Show me where you hit your head. ”
I lift my hair so he can take a better look at the side of my head.
He feels around. “Are you still feeling lightheaded?”
“Not right now.”
“That’s good.” He pulls out a little flashlight.
“Can you look at the light for me? I just want to check a couple more things.”
I nod, and he instructs me on where to look, flashing the bright light into my eyes.
“Are you on any prescription medication at the moment?”
“Nope,” I say a little too quickly.
Ricky looks me over.
“Are you taking medication that wasn’t prescribed to you?” he asks a little more slyly.
I sigh heavily. Lying to a doctor is probably bad karma or something, but I don’t want him talking shit about me to my brothers.
“Can you swear whatever I tell you will stay between us? You can’t even tell Harley.”
“Doctor-patient privilege, your secrets are safe with me.”
I stand up and walk over to my desk drawer, retrieving the bottle of Xanax one of my staff had stolen for me, and hand it to him.
He scans the bottle, his face growing more concerned as he reads.
“How many of these are you taking, Sloane?”
I twirl a long strand of hair through my fingers, trying not to meet his piercing gaze.
From the tone of his voice alone I know he’s not happy with me.
“Just the odd one when I’m feeling extra stressed.”
Rising to his feet, he moves until he stands directly in front of me so I can’t look away from him this time, his eyes intense.
“How many did you take this morning?” he demands.
I glare back, the unspoken truth hanging in the air.
“How many, Sloane?” He raises his voice to a scary tone I haven’t heard from Ricky before .
“I had a stressful morning, alright? I took a couple,” I admit, knowing I sound stupid, but he doesn’t know the shit I have to deal with on the daily.
He looks unimpressed, a slight frown furrowing his brow.
He rummages through his bag before pulling out a crumpled prescription form.
“This is the wrong dose for you. Especially if you take two or more at a time. You have low blood pressure, and that could be caused by the medication, but I would like to monitor you for the next few weeks just to see. In the meantime, go and get this filled. It’s the correct dose for you to start on. We can up it if you really need to, but let’s start you off and see how you’re feeling.” He takes the other bottle and places it in his bag.
I glance over the prescription for Lexapro, wishing it was that easy.
“Ricky,” I call him back.
He turns back to me, his eyes narrowed in thought.
“Thanks, but I can’t go get that filled.”
“Why?”
“My life is so public; I do anything, the whole fucking world knows about it. My bodyguard, my brothers, you get it, right? I can’t be the crazy bitch who has to be medicated. It’s a fucking sign of weakness to them.”
He stares back at me, and I can see him thinking it over.
He knows I’m right. “I’ll get it sorted for you.”
“Thank you.” I offer him a half smile, really appreciating his help with this.
“You’re lucky I owe you a favor for looking after Harley when she needed it.” He smirks, and it makes it all the way to his boyish dimples.
We both know he would have done it for me either way.
He’s one of the good Morettis .
“Ricky, can I ask you something?” I nibble my lip, wondering if this is a terrible idea or not, but I have to know what I’m up against, and he’s his cousin, so he must know something about him.
“Anything.”
“What is the go with Romeo?”
“You got a thing for my cousin?” He chuckles playfully.
“No,” I snap in disgust. I may have had a thing for him a couple of hours ago, but that thing dried the fuck up the moment he tried to mess with what is mine.
“He’s trying to fuck me over. I want to know what I’m up against.”
His face grows more serious, and I know he knew nothing about it until this very moment.
“Fuck you over how?”
“That’s what I want to know. You boys brought him here last night, you must have known he had an agenda.”
He runs a hand through his long hair.
“I’m sorry, Sloane, I really didn’t. He’s staying at the Moretti mansion while he’s in town. He said he had some business debts to follow up for his papa. He didn’t mention anything about you. We all just assumed you took an instant liking to each other last night.”
“Okay. Thanks then.”
“How bad is it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I sigh, wishing I had more details.
“Drop by our apartment on your way home and I’ll have that bottle of pills for you. I’ll see if the others know anything about Romeo as well. But if he gives you shit, you come to us, and we will deal with him. He might be our cousin, but we don’t know him all that well, and you’re Harley’s girl, so we will back you all the way.”
“Thanks.” I smile, so grateful.
Knowing I might just need to take him up on that offer; he and his brothers have a lot of sway around here.
“I’ll see you later. ”
He offers a wave as he walks out the door, closing it behind him.
I slump down in my office chair feeling lost, knowing my pills are no longer in my drawer.
I pour myself a whiskey from the decanter and turn on my computer.
The first thing that flashes up on the screen is the camera footage for room six of my private rooms. The room I was staying in with Romeo last night.
That motherfucker! Onyx is the only one with the key to my office, so he must have been here last night watching us via the security footage.
I could fucking kill him.
Happy birthday, Sloane.
Your bodyguard stayed up all night watching you with your one-night stand, and your fucking one-night stand has turned out to be the lay from hell who wants to steal the business you have spent your entire life building.
Twenty-five is going to be one hell of a year.