Chapter Six
“What were you thinking, Rex? They say you’re doing drugs. On your fucking birthday and the celebration of our inaugural cruise, no less.”
Maxwell tosses a pile of newspapers and tabloid magazines onto the coffee table in the two-story library at the Anderson Estate, our family home, where he now lives with his wife Belle and their toddler son, Levi.
He’s clearly pissed off, and I don’t blame him. We Andersons pride ourselves on keeping our reputations clean. Our ancestors were dukes and marquesses, and those manners had been hammered into us since before we could talk.
My copy of the perfection gene must be defective.
“Look, I’m not speaking to you as the CEO who’s worried about the cruise venture. I’m talking to you as your brother. You’re spiraling, Rex. What’s going on?” Maxwell leans forward and levels his penetrating gaze at me.
My head throbs. Casey and I may have hit the bar too hard last night. I barely slept because the damn nightmares kept me up again. And when I finally did, I had another blackout.
Woke up in my tub this time, water up to my chest. I could’ve drowned.
That would put me out of my misery. I snort.
But hey, it’s not sleepwalking. I drift back to my appointment with Dr. Kingston, a somnologist, two weeks ago. He’s the tenth doctor I’ve seen over the years for my random symptoms—intense insomnia, blackouts, random trembling and shakes, feeling my heart will give out at any moment.
This time, we did a sleep observation. According to my brain activity, I was apparently awake during my blackouts. Another diagnosis ruled out.
“See a neurologist and check out brain functions,” was his recommendation. The mole at the corner of his right eye sneered at me. He had an incessantly annoying habit of clicking his pen five times between every sentence.
I’m losing my marbles, literally.
Damn HSAM and photographic memories.
Fuck, I’m tired.
“Come on, lighten up. Now that you old farts are all tied down and enjoying domestic bliss and shit, someone’s gotta party it up on your behalf, right?” I chuckle. This usually works—deflecting, making jokes. “Save the death glare for the boardroom, bro. At least let me put on some armor first.”
The room falls silent. My pulse kicks up.
They aren’t falling for it.
“Rex? Talk to us. We’re your family,” Maxwell says.
They won’t understand even if I explain. They’ll just repeat what they told me all those years ago when Mom died—that it wasn’t my fault.
“Fuck. You couldn’t have done this at the gentlemen’s club? Or my apartment? You had to drag me up at the crack of dawn and haul me over here as punishment?”
I close my eyes. Even the dim morning light streaming in from the stained-glass windows worsens my headache.
“Did you miss the press camped outside The Orchid? Or all the nosy patrons?” This voice belongs to Ryland. The twins—always siding with each other.
“We’re worried about you,” Steven Kingsley murmurs. He’s a close friend and my brother-in-law now, since he married Grace two years ago.
“That’s what Casey said,” I mutter, my eyes flickering open.
Maxwell clears his throat, side-eyes Ryland, and the duo share one of those mysterious silent twin messages. I wonder what it’s like to have someone understand you without saying a word.
Must be nice.
Ryland nods. “Casey…still talking to him? I thought you guys—”
“Who’s Casey?” Steven asks.
I swallow and look at him. Steven has only been part of the inner circle for the past few years, so he doesn’t know about Casey. “My best friend. You’ve never met him. He has social anxiety like Maxwell.”
Steven scrunches his brows and shrugs. “Everyone’s worried about you, then. And if Ethan and Alexis weren’t doing another one of those bucket list items today, they’d be here too.”
“Leave them alone. Let them enjoy their newlywed bliss.” My brother, the yearner of the family, finally married the love of his life and our good friend, Charles Vaughn’s younger sister, recently. “Fucking interventions—I can’t believe you guys did it again. Completely overreacting.”
I shudder, thinking about last month when Ethan rounded us inside The Menagerie, a specialty cocktail bar within The Orchid, and grilled me for an hour. Apparently, I resembled a walking zombie with dark circles under my eyes.
“Then how do you explain these photos?” Maxwell picks up a tabloid and practically breathes fire onto them.
“Fucking Greg Masters. These headlines will sink our cruise before it leaves the dock. ‘Party Prince’s Desperate Striptease—Rex Anderson’s Fall from Grace’ and ‘The Orchid Cruises—Front for Drugs and Debauchery?’”
I gnash my teeth together, which only makes the pounding in my head worse. Fuck Greg Masters and Gossip Times, the biggest tabloid in the country, which has taken an obsessive interest in our family.
Feeling like a bomb is about to go off inside my chest, I snatch the offending papers from him and scan the articles.
The dates range from a week ago to as recent as yesterday.
Normally, I don’t read these things. They just piss me off and goad me into making a scene, which has always been the paps’ game all along.
“What the hell!” I hurl the papers onto the ground.
“Easy there. Just bad press. We’ve all been there.” Charles picks them up. “Let’s fix you first.”
“There’s nothing to fix!”
I stand and hiss as pain ricochets inside my skull. Perhaps Casey’s right. I party too much and am throwing my life down the drain.
But what choice do I have? It’s better than feeling empty all the time.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Gritting my teeth, I take it out, fully intending to power it off before chucking it across the room.
Then I see the text message.
Every molecule inside me freezes.
My feet move toward the door before my mind catches up.
“Where are you going?” Ryland hollers.
“Be right back. Need to take care of something important.”
Something that may save me.
Twenty minutes later, I’m pacing in the rose garden, my mind chaotic as I reread the text message for the thousandth time.
Elias
You asked me to contact you if I ever needed your help again. I’m moving someone, a target of The Association, to safety, and The Orchid cruise is the perfect cover. Your shot at atonement, even though I think it’s unnecessary. Don’t make me regret asking you.
My chest tightens, a cocktail of fear and adrenaline swirling inside me. Elias Kent, a mobster who’s helped my family out of a bind a few times, doesn’t mince words or ask for favors lightly. If he needs my help, he’s exhausted all other options.
Atonement.
The dark hole inside me. The constant guilt and hollowness nothing could snuff out—not Velowake, not parties, not women.
Not my work at Fleur, including heading up the massive cruise project for Maxwell.
But this. To save another woman.
A life saved for two lives lost.
I think about Raya—what she made me promise before she died—and Ava and Cora in Monaco, motherless and trying to make it on their own. They’ll be on the run from The Association for the rest of their lives.
Anger surges up my spine at the thought of the criminal organization that tried to rope my family into its twisted web in the past because adding the old-money Andersons to the mix could only expand their power. I’ll never forgive them for what they did to my siblings over the years.
Then I think about Mom, her body broken at the foot of the staircase, marbles scattered around her.
Will anything atone for those deaths?
Can I do it right this time, or will I just add another body count to my list of failures?
My stomach churns, and I fist my phone. Sweat drips off my forehead.
“Fuck!” I pace some more.
A sharp pressure forms at the base of my neck, my head throbbing now. I pop another Velowake into my mouth. My ribs constrict and I can’t draw in a full breath.
Can I do this?
I don’t know, but I’ll die trying. I’ll do anything rather than feel the way I do now—half alive.
The pressure suddenly lessens, and oxygen floods into my lungs.
Yes. This is the only way out.
With trembling hands, I unlock my phone and type a response.
Rex
I’m in. And…thank you.
Completely absorbed in my message, I barely notice the soft footsteps coming my way.
“I’ve been tasked with dragging you back inside. What’s the emergency?”
I look up, finding Lana narrowing her eyes at me.
“Work stuff. You won’t get it.” Quickly, I hit send and stuff my phone into my pocket.
She scans my face and I hold still, hoping my sister doesn’t pick up on anything. Lana is sharp, but you’ll never hear me tell her that, because riling her up is a hobby of mine.
“Hm. Okay,” she murmurs and waves me back toward the house. “What are you waiting for? Meet your executioner. Shoo. Go back in there. We aren’t done with you yet.”
Groaning, I follow her back into the house, but this time, I feel a little lighter.
Atonement. Elias’s favor. The cruise.
Yes, this is what I need.