Wizard (Satan’s Angels MC #13)

Chapter 1

Esme

The bay is quiet tonight. Alki beach is lovely.

A strip of heaven right in the city. Tonight it’s a black velvet paradise, city lights shimmering and undulating along the flat surface.

I remember the first time I stood here. James took me for lunch in the Junction—a little artsy restaurant surrounded by artsy shops dotting artsy streets.

Every other building had a mural painted on the side.

Some were old. Brick. Full of character.

The people that flowed down the street all seemed so vibrant.

Seattle’s skyline is beautiful during the day, but at night, it’s something else.

From the water, it almost looks like one big castle, all the lights and forms jutting and flowing into each other.

It somehow seems so small. Usually it’s the other way around.

I’m the one who is tiny. Insignificant. Alone.

I stared at the ceiling for hours tonight.

The house was perfect. Too perfect. A dream.

Everything I wanted since I was a little girl.

It was too quiet, like my unhappiness had settled into its foundation and was slowly seeping up, creeping into the air, filling up my lungs until I suffocated.

I finally rolled out of bed, tugged on clothes, grabbed my keys, and hurtled into my car.

I sat on the driveway for a moment, panting like I was being chased, but there was nothing.

No one. Only the still, quiet peace of a prestigious neighborhood at one in the morning.

I parked and walked down to the beach.

I walked down the sand, studying the skyline from the water, trying to inhale some of that peace that I craved so badly earlier.

My breathing hasn’t settled much. I sink down onto the sand and draw my knees up.

I wrap my arms around them, uncaring that I could ruin a three hundred dollar pair of pants, or that I should have grabbed jeans and not dressed like I was going to the office.

I wore heels too. They were the first thing I saw when I opened the closet.

They’ve fallen on the sand beside me. I carried them from the grass and let the cool sand tickle the soles of my feet as I walked.

I look out over the water. Even in summer, it’s cold. Elliot Bay belongs to the Puget Sound, which is part of the Pacific Ocean. During the day, the salt waters are host to all forms of life. People even swim here.

At night, it’s silent. The waves lap the beach like tender kisses. They’re drowned out by the dull hum of the city. Of life happening even in the middle of the night. My eyes find the horizon, where the black sky and the dark water meet.

Alone out here, I can admit that it’s over. It’s been over since it began.

I was so determined to hold it together with the neat stitches of my unfailing love. The glue of my determination. I gathered up the tatters every time, the broken edges, smoothing them out and clamping it all up together with patience.

I just turned thirty. James treated my birthday like the beginning of the end.

Like I should be entering into my crisis as a woman era.

He joked that it was fillers and compensating from here on out.

I don’t know why he even pretended to care.

He’s not interested in having children, so it’s not like my biological clock matters.

What does it even matter what I look like when he’s never cared about that either?

Never fully noticed me, or listened to me, or even wanted me?

I was just there. The girl others wanted, so of course he had to have me. To the world, we’ve always been perfect. The cheerleader and the quarterback. Rags to riches high school sweethearts. Soulmates and lovers who set each other on fire and grow old together.

It’s all bullshit. It always was.

I scramble upright. It’s harder to get a footing in the sand, but I do. I abandon shoes that cost over a grand. Who’s out here to take them anyway?

I hurtle toward the water’s edge and I don’t stop when I reach it.

The water is shockingly cold. It numbs my skin immediately.

The wet sand shifts beneath my feet. The water appears so calm on the surface, but underneath, it’s always moving.

Down here, there is so much life. Unseen.

Unknown. So many mysteries and creatures the world probably doesn’t even know about.

I walk out further, the salty waves soaking my pants, ruining them.

It numbs my ankles, then my calves, then reaches my knees.

I don’t stop.

I walk until the water is waist deep, until the current pulls at my legs, until it sucks and licks and tempts me with seductive little slithers.

What if I just kept walking?

I mean, I know what would happen. Eventually, the ground would give way and I’d float. I’d swim.

I don’t want to die.

This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve truly wanted to live.

My birthday was the beginning of an end.

The end to a fifteen-year-old girl who thought the world stopped because James Avery looked at her.

The end of a sixteen-year-old who would do anything to be liked.

The end to every version of me every day after who has been obsessed with perfection, because perfection meant not being like my parents.

The end to the me that stopped feeling, stopped caring, stopped hoping.

The end to the me that fell out of love with a man who hasn’t ever once treasured me the way I should be.

The end to a woman who believed that she deserved nothing more, because she already had everything that people said mattered.

I wrench the diamond ring off my finger and let the weight of it settle in my palm.

Forty thousand dollars. This ring costs more than a car.

I want to hurl it, to send it flying into the dark waters and let it sink lower and lower, let it return back to the earth, but the girl in me who grew up listening to her parents screaming about money, and all the parts of me that clawed, tooth and nail to end up here, stops me.

Maybe it’s just common sense.

Even if I don’t want this ring, someone else would. I could sell it and someone else could use the money. A shelter. Families. Children who are hungry. Women escaping from violent men. People who have a world falling apart around them.

Even though my heart is still racing, I tuck the ring into my pocket. I turn and trudge slowly out of the water. Sand coats my feet and my pants, inside and out. It rubs against my legs, chafing them raw as I gather up my shoes and walk barefoot back to the car.

I’ve lost my fear of the night. I’ve lost my fear of all of it.

Leaving. Leaving behind this life that mattered more than anything.

Leaving a man who has been anything to me but faithful.

Leaving a house that never felt like home.

Maybe even leaving a job that I’ve thrown myself into just so that I could find a shred of purpose.

This isn’t a life of gold. It’s always been pyrite. Shimmering. Glittering. Worthless.

I grasp the wheel for a moment before I push the button on the dash.

I pull out of the parking space and head home.

Four days. When James is back, I’m going to tell him.

We’re not getting married. We’re not staying together.

We can split the assets we have. It’s not going to be much, given that everything is on payments.

If he wants it all… whatever. He can have it.

I’ll sell the ring tomorrow. Before he can ask for it back. I’ll donate the money.

My phone buzzes when I’m halfway back to the house. It’s sitting, facing away from me, in the cupholder. I snatch it up, knowing that it’s not James. He wouldn’t call me in the middle of the night. Not when he’s with someone else.

And he always, always is with someone else. I’ve done nothing. Never called him out. Never told him that it’s wrong, that it’s hurtful, that it’s slowly destroying me. He knows. He’s done it anyway. I’ve let him.

I pull over quickly and tilt the phone to me.

Private Caller.

At nearly three in the morning?

I don’t answer. I let it go to voicemail, but of course, whoever was calling doesn’t leave one. I sit there in my seat, the air conditioning blasting from earlier in the day, my bare, sandy feet like ice, my pants sodden and filthy.

The hysterical urge to laugh bubbles up my throat. I almost give in.

My phone rings again. The same display flashes across the top.

My heart kicks so hard that my chest aches. What if it’s the police? Something could have happened to James. I know something is wrong. Sense it with a deep certainty in my bones before I pick up the phone and answer.

“Hello?”

“Esme Bly.”

My name in that cold, hard voice shakes me.

“Y—yes?” My pulse spikes. Goosebumps pebble my skin under my thin blouse.

“Your fiancé owes us. He seems to have disappeared, which means that you’re on the hook.

He has three days to pay us back. You find him or we will.

If we get to him first…” A sick laugh crackles into the absolute stillness of my car.

“I’m going to send you an address. Money or Avery by Friday at midnight, or I can promise that he has no chance for an open casket funeral.

Should one or the other fail to appear, the debt will become your responsibility. ”

He hangs up before I can ask a single question.

A second later, a text lights up my screen. A local address. In Seattle.

As if that should be reassuring that whatever James has done, whoever he owes money to, aren’t international thugs.

That man didn’t have an accent, but organizations like the Bratva and Mafia still exist in Seattle.

My mind spins as my heart hammers at the same bone crushing, frantic pace.

That would be the worst-case scenario, but there are plenty of other bad ones.

Gangs. Organized crime. Loan sharks. Even legal ventures like casinos must have some kind of measures for people who don’t pay.

I don’t know why I think of casinos immediately. It could be something else. Drugs. Illegal substances. Stolen goods.

The weight of my ring in my pocket feels as though it’s going to drag me right through my car down to the pavement beneath.

Gemstones?

There’s a small chance that I’ve seen one too many crime thrillers. I don’t read them, but I do watch them. James never did. He calls it a sick obsession of mine. He bugs me ruthlessly about them.

Maybe if he’d watched a few, he wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid.

That’s not true. James has always done whatever he wanted. He’s always been entitled. He thought the world belonged to him. Since he was thirteen and became nothing less than Hart’s football savior, he’s believed he was untouchable.

A second text lights up my screen.

The whole world grinds to a standstill at the amount.

Two point three million dollars.

I power off my phone immediately. Like that’s going to help.

It might be shock, but my brain is already running quick calculations.

The ring. The house. The car. My savings.

Even if I was able to sell everything on short notice, the car would maybe have a couple of grand left over after the loan is paid back.

The house is fully mortgaged. There’d be ten or twenty grand of profit, that’s if we got lucky.

The ring, maybe I could get twenty thousand for it—half of what James spent.

My stomach clenches and a wave of nausea climbs up my throat. I swallow it back down, forcing myself to breathe. My blouse clings damply to my body. Beads of sweat trickle down my temples. The car is stiflingly hot and frigid all at once.

A thousand questions want to shatter my brain apart. A thousand feelings want to gnaw at my flesh and dig their way down into my bones.

There will be time for all of it later. Questions. Speculation. Falling apart.

I can think of only one right thing to do.

One right person.

Gravitating to him has always been the most natural thing in the world. With him, I could always be truthful. He saw everything. He’d always been there. Quiet. Faithful. Kind. Unshakable. Just.

All the things his brother wasn’t and isn’t.

Wizard might be able to help me. Not with the money, but maybe he can find James.

He’s good at that. The best, actually. Even if he can’t, he’s still the only person I want to talk to right now.

I can already hear his voice, deep and soothing.

Elemental. Ancient, even though he’s the same age as me. Wise.

Maybe this time, I’ll listen to what he has to say.