3. Harrison
3
HARRISON
“T he robots are suspended from the ceiling to do what—acrobatics?” I demand.
Sawyer leans in, looking impatient. “They serve drinks, you pretentious asshole.”
The trendy pub in Brooklyn gave us their prime seating—two low-profile couches and a glass coffee table. Tyler Adams’s security is positioned between this section and the rest of the room, dissuading anyone who thinks of coming over or taking a picture.
Mostly, he’s watching three grown men have an argument.
“They run on a track”—Sawyer gestures to the space over his head—“along the bar.”
“I figured the only club robots were the kind that danced on stage,” Tyler comments.
Sawyer shakes his head. “You can use robots for photography, AI for optimizing what’s captured. There’re clubs in London with interactive walls where you can create your own light displays.”
The man across from me is Sawyer Redmond, cofounder of a major tech and industrial company. He’s one of a few men I’ve met who is taller than I am and wearing a Boss jacket and designer jeans like he doesn’t give a fuck. His long, unruly hair falls in his face every time he moves, making me itch to grab a fistful and saw it off with a butter knife so I can look him in the damned eyes.
I’m here to see Sawyer about business, but when Tyler said he was in town, I suggested we meet. The only time he had free was now, so I figured I could see two friends at once.
“Sawyer and I went to school together,” I inform Tyler. “He was this genius prodigy. Pulling straight As in senior engineering. Hope they kept you warm at night.”
“You mean while you used your accent to fuck your way through the female population? You wind up with any souvenirs of that time in your life? I hear chlamydia’s a bitch to kick.”
“Seems it worked out,” Tyler comments, slinging an arm over the back of the velvet couch.
It did, on paper. Sawyer cofounded his company and is on the way to making himself a wealthy man. I have an empire. One my enemy wants to burn to the ground—starting with Kings last year.
I told myself I could move on and have a future untainted by my past, but Ivanov seems determined to make sure that’s not true.
The police weren’t able to find the man responsible. I know Mischa was behind it, but I can’t prove it.
Since then, his reach has only expanded with new acquisitions fueled by drug money.
I’ve used the time to regroup.
I will get revenge.
That’s the only thing that matters.
Doesn’t hurt that you’ve lost everything else.
A woman comes in the door with a stroller, drawing every eye in the room. She’s young and pretty, her red hair tucked up into a bun on her head. She could be a student.
Tyler turns to look over his shoulder as if there’s an invisible cord between them.
“He’s whipped,” he comments as her security guard offers to take the stroller and Annie waves him off. But the second her eyes land on her husband, a smile curving her lips, Tyler’s off the couch and at her side.
Sawyer and I exchange a look. “Yeah. It’s security who’s whipped,” he comments. “Figured musicians were supposed to play the field.”
Tyler bends to check in the stroller before straightening, pulling his wife against him for a hard kiss.
“He doesn’t. They’re in love.” I refocus on my friend who’s still here, leaving Tyler to fawn over his wife.
“You envy him,” Sawyer scoffs.
“Love is an exquisite diversion from the more brutal parts of life.”
Last year, I didn’t only let myself fall—I practically held the door for both myself and Raegan. At first, I thought I could handle it. Having her at my side felt natural.
Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, it switched from natural to necessary. She claimed me, not the other way around. She brought out emotions I’d never felt before, hopes and ambitions I never expected.
After Mischa burned down my property—the future Raegan and I were building together—I vowed I wouldn’t let him get away with it. But the farther away I put that in my rearview mirror, the harder it is to remember why I left the woman I love.
I was the one who ended our relationship.
I knew I’d miss her. I didn’t expect to lie awake until morning, wishing I knew what ceiling she was staring at.
If she was alone like I was.
If she was lonely like I was.
But there’s no place for Raegan in my mission.
In the last eight months, I’ve doubled down on growing my own business, plus invested in having Mischa and his operations surveilled. There’s been some sabotage back and forth, me trying to provoke him, but I want it to be done.
What I never told her was that I hoped it would be over soon. That I could find my way back to her when it was done, that I could force my way back into her heart.
It was harsh of me to leave her.
It would have been cruel to promise to return with no guarantee I could.
I force my attention back to the man sitting opposite me. “I‘ll take three of the bartender robots.”
“They’re fucking expensive, Harry.”
“And I’m fucking rich, Sawyer.”
He grins. “Fine. But technology’s not your real problem.” He shoves his hair back.
Sawyer has a way of seeing straight to the heart of a situation. It comes from his brutal upbringing—while mine was charmed, at least until I was a teenager, his was the opposite. He scraped by.
He’d say he’s thriving, and few would argue with his track record and accomplishments. But every victory has a cost—a personal one, if not a public one.
I shake my head. “The prick who was responsible for my parents’ deaths.”
They might’ve been ruled overdoses, but it wasn’t their doing. No matter what other ills they were responsible for, they never touched drugs themselves and raised us the same way.
“The police want to nail him for drug trafficking and a raft of other evils, but their timeline feels… infinite,” I go on.
Sawyer’s eyes darken. “You trust a bunch of paper pushers, you’ll be the one bleeding out.”
He’s speaking from experience. But before I can respond, Tyler and Annie and the stroller approach.
“Congratulations,” I say, fixing on a smile.
“Thanks, Harrison.” Annie’s tight-lipped. “You didn’t need to send the stroller, but it’s great. It does everything except handle my calendar.”
My smirk fades when Tyler says, “Would you like to hold Rose?”
“I don’t think?—“
Before I can protest, he presses the sleeping bundle into my arms.
Christ. She’s all pink and soft, and as her weight settles in my arms, she’s not heavy, but precious. She twitches as she wakes, and eyes, dark brown, with little flecks of gold, blink trustingly up at me. Her tiny nose wrinkles, her mouth working. She has a full head of Annie’s red hair, and if she has an ounce of her father’s talent and her mother’s fearlessness, she’ll be a force.
She’s innocent and loved. I hope it’s a long time before she sees the darker sides of the world.
I clear my throat, glancing back up at my friends. “I can see you in her,” I tell Tyler.
“Hopefully not for long,” he says dryly, tugging his wife against his side as I look back at the baby.
A flash goes off.
“For posterity,” Annie says, tucking the phone away as Sawyer and Tyler strike up a conversation.
I’m not sure what she means. “You want a photo of your child with a villain?”
“You’re not a villain. Or if you are, she didn’t call you one.”
Annie holds out her arms. I hand the baby back.
Rae’s probably told her I’m a massive prick for how we ended things.
“What did she call me?” I can’t help asking.
Annie’s gold eyes shine with emotions—a damn rainbow of them. I can see why she’s a capable actress. She hitches Rose higher in her arms. “Rae was at an event last night. In London.”
It feels like a lifeline. “London? But Wild Fest just happened this past week.”
“And you know her schedule.”
I’m caught out. “I want to make sure she’s safe.”
“I was rooting for you guys. Even though it sounds like she’s moved on.”
With a furtive look toward the stroller, she hands the baby off to Tyler, then retrieves her phone again. She taps the screen a few times before holding it out.
The social media account belongs to my brother’s football club, and the date stamp on the post says last night.
The photo on the screen is a kick in the gut.
The woman I love is stunning in a slinky black dress that skims the floor, plunging low between her breasts. She’s gorgeous, glamorous, and unlike the Raegan I met a year ago. Her skin glows in the light from the venue and the flashbulbs, her lips full and painted a dark plum. Her dark hair falls in waves around her shoulders, clinging to her perfect breasts.
But it’s not her body that makes it impossible to look away.
There’s a confidence she wears the fuck out of.
I rip my gaze away from Raegan to take in her companion and get a kick in the gut for my efforts.
Next to her is my brother. His hand rests on her ass and his lips are near her ear, her half smile an afterthought for the cameras given whatever he’s telling her.
I clench the phone hard enough my forearm shakes.
This whole time we’ve been apart, she was still mine from a distance.
Mine when I got off to the memory of her.
Mine when I went to bed questioning whether losing her was worth pursuing the one goal I’ve had since before I was a man.
She doesn’t belong with Ash, not at his side or in his arms.
“Harrison. Are you okay?”
Annie’s voice is far away, and I shove the phone back at her.
I’m halfway to the door when Sawyer calls after me, “Where should I send the robots?”