Chapter 13
Parker
Hunched over the mildly chaotic and partially disheveled island in my kitchen, I’m shoving my face full of delicious two-day-old Chinese food, while in my fuzzy pink knee-length robe and bare feet.
To be fair, this, my lived-in home, bothers others more than it bothers me.
I thrive in anarchy and suffocate in organization. This is my natural habitat.
Rays of sun peek around the surrounding buildings and through the long windows of my apartment.
My eyes squint at the evasion. I allow pieces of my long untamed hair to fall forward, acting like a visor for my eyes, while slurping a chow mein noodle between my lips.
Excess sauce sprinkles on my nose and cheeks, and fuck me, this shit is good.
Taco has called a meeting of the minds to present his findings on my dearest neighbor.
With food in my mouth and muffled words, I call this meeting to order.
“Okay, Taco, what do you have for me? I want it all. I want to make him tick with paranoia.” Dammit, I wish I had a gavel. I’ll need to acquire one immediately.
Before Taco can respond, I am already distracted by the idea of it.
Scrolling my phone with intent to purchase a wooden mallet, another wickedly seductive creature catches my little eye.
It’s a video of a baby donkey lying on a kitchen floor, and this adorable angel baby is filling my screen.
Immediately, my heart melts inside my chest. I can feel my face morphing.
The giant doe eyes come out, followed by the quivering lip and baby voice.
“I want one.” This is a very ‘mommy please’ impulsive moment and I will never shy away from them, and own it.
“One of what?” Connor asks, bringing even more emotion to this moment. He never cares. This is monumental. Dare I say kismet?
Still being all cutesy, I shyly respond, “A baby donkey.”
O, without missing a beat, jumps in. “Good lord. She’s moving on to bigger animals.”
“I think it’s admirable. To have dreams. Not everyone has them,” Connor encourages. I can hear his smirk with every word spoken. I am so privileged to be living during this time of his self-discovery. Major walls are being broken down between us. We cannot ignore this.
“Shut up,” O interjects, and my face contorts with worry.
She’s a spicy one today. “Connor, you just want to see her attempt to sneak a baby fucking donkey into the building with no one noticing. Then… Then! Have a video of her being caught trying to explain her way out of it.” Wow, she is really projecting here.
“And! Donkeys don’t stay babies. You all know this, right?
” Her long-winded speech begins to bore me.
My ears turn off and I drift away into a daydream about all the possibilities.
Imagine the baby donkey being accepted by my fictional baby raccoons and possums. Dreams really can come true.
Connor’s deep voice catches my attention. It’s like he’s in my mind with his response to O and her tangent. “A man can dream.”
Picking up on his momentum, I jump back in. “And when Connor babysits, he could bring all the babies to the yoni steam place he goes to. They would be on their best behavior for Uncle Conbon, I just know it!”
“Har-har-har. Wait, excuse me! Conbon?”
He isn’t wrong. It’s not good. “Sorry, it sounded way cuter in my head.”
Taco, who has been strangely quiet, bursts into laughter. Finally.
I was starting to worry we had lost him to the dark side. The voice of reason.
“As much as I love this. Because I do, trust me. I really need your attention for five minutes. Can you give me that?”
It’s only fair. He has been scouring the internet for the past forty-eight hours collecting everything he could on our newest hunt.
Slurping back on another noodle, my eyes roll into the back of my head, this feeling, right here, right now, could never be duplicated.
My nipples perk and my kitty tingles in a way no man could ever make this happen.
I fucking love a hunt and these noodles.
“Go for it, Taco Bell. Give me everything you got.” And with that, the meeting is declared commenced. Note the time is thirteen hundred hours and some odd minutes. Dammit, I really need that gavel.
“Thank you, booossss-arker.”
Throwing my head back in a dramatic cackle, I say, “Nice save, Taco Man.”
Clearing his throat, Tac continues.
“Everything I am about to share will also be reflected on your monitors. Draw your attention to them, please. Parker, I will also broadcast it to your phone out of fear of your scrolling powers.”
“Wise,” I commend.
Looking ahead, all the monitors have our subject appear on them.
The previous photo shared was horrible. It was from a dated CCTV, grainy and impossibly boring.
This revised photo has pizazz, spunk, and character.
Yet it still doesn’t do his sharp jawline justice.
A piece of his thick black hair has fallen over his forehead, beautiful dark eyes surrounded by those long, curled lashes pierce through the lens of his thick-framed glasses which are complemented by his signature expressionless demeanor.
What a prick. What a sexy, sexy prick. Ew, no Parker, stop that.
My face contorts in disgust and my throat wants to gag, but resist the urge, not wanting to bring attention to the intrusive thought.
“Holden Hammer Hughes. Age thirty-five. Born April twenty-ninth.”
I immediately interject, slamming my palm down on the hard counter’s surface.
“I knew it. Taurus. Stubborn prick dickhead. His symbol is a bull. It’s like he was pretending to be in the streets of Spain when he bulldozed into me that evening, leaving me for dead.”
“Let’s not get carried away. Nobody was on the brink of death in that scenario.” O scoffs.
Whatever. She wasn’t there.
“Holden, who was raised by his grandparents, the infamous Hughes family. He dropped the familiar last name the day he came of age at eighteen. Now strictly going by his given and middle names now, Holden Hammer. This is fitting, considering what they accuse him of doing. Which, if you are patient and don’t interrupt, will be revealed in a matter of minutes. ”
Dropping my leftover box of noodles before me, I lower my head in pain and impatience. “Can we please get on with it?” Briefings are incredibly helpful and informative, but I get bored waiting for the punchline sometimes.
“His parents were both addicts. Mom relinquished all parental rights over to her parents, the Hughes, shortly after his birth. Holden was also born an addict according to hospital records. Miriam, the Hughes’ daughter, used drugs throughout her pregnancy.
Within days of being born, Holden’s withdrawal set in.
Her parents hired the best of the best to help aid him back to health.
CPS was immediately involved. They gave her two options: jail or give up her child.
She chose the latter. Once released from the hospital, Miriam Hughes continued her ways.
Miriam’s parents always kept a watchful eye thanks to an investigator kept on the family payroll. And they raised Holden like their own.”
Lifting my head slowly, I’m shocked. Dazed eyes blankly stare out of the window. I take a moment to absorb it all. Hushed words follow the brief pause. “Shit. That was heavier than I expected.”
Tac continues. “Holden’s father, James Gavin, a nobody from Hell’s Kitchen, died within a year of his son’s birth, an overdose from a combination of party drugs. No funeral or celebration of life. His parents had him cremated.
“Mr. Hammer attended the most prestigious and private of schools the Upper East Side could offer. He is a legacy. The Hughes name and wealth go as far back as the Vanderbilts and Astors. They were early investors in the rail and the ports. It’s all generational wealth and investments now.
When his grandparents, Alan and Celia Hughes, passed shortly after his twentieth birthday, they willed all their assets to Holden.
He was the sole heir of the entire Hughes estate. ”
Pictures of brownstones and estate houses in the Cotswolds in England flash on the screen, along with a couple vacation properties, including a house in the Hamptons and some tropical paradise.
Priceless heirlooms also slide through the deck on the screen.
All of which are impressive, but uninteresting to me.
“I know. But what about Miriam?”
Tac can read my mind better than I can sometimes.
“Her fate was the same as his father. The family investigator lost track of her by his fifth birthday and by seven, they found her dead in an alleyway next to an abandoned warehouse by the water. Needles surrounded her. Toxicology says it was a lethal dose of heroin and fentanyl. She gave herself a speedball. Homeless and with nothing to live for or lose, she ended it all. Miriam was only twenty-three.”
Fuck. How heartbreaking.
“His mother and father were never in his life. He was raised with love and anything and everything he ever wanted. But Holden was also on a tight leash. He was, and still is, by blood, a Hughes after all. Charity functions, mindless fake dating of heiresses, a clean record, never getting caught embarrassing the family and if something went down, you bet your ass they cleaned it up. It’s classic rich people.
Because this guy pre-eighteen is pretty clean. ”
“Okay, Taco. So we know his history. But what brought him here, on our radar?”
Tapping of keys followed by a photo of an older gentleman, approximately late forties if I were to guess, fills the monitor next.
“This man went missing days ago.” My eyes narrow and my palms rub furiously together. Here we go.
“This next image is a full picture of the CCTV photo captured of our man, Holden. And if you squint really hard, you can make out the facial features of the man being thrown into his trunk as our missing person. Holden was captured on camera abducting him.”