24 Olivia
June 7th, 2022
I shot a glare at my phone as it lit up for the 6th time in the last hour.
Mom wouldn’t stop calling me. Over and over again. Never leaving voicemails, just texts that kept getting nastier the longer I waited to text her back.
I ignored it once again and finished off another glass of wine. My third since I sat down to write.
I got another chapter done and emailed it to Katie to keep her off my back. I didn’t think it was great, just something to stop her from bothering me for the time being.
The thing was I couldn’t stop thinking about Everett and what he had done to me, and I hated him so much for it. For burrowing his way into my mind like the rat-shit he was and taking up a home.
I didn’t want to keep paying this goddamn debt.
When my phone lit up once again, I slammed my laptop down, hit ignore and instead called the landlord I had been emailing with over the last four days that my realtor had put me in contact with.
“This is Maxwell.”
“Hey, Max, it’s Olivia. I want to buy the house. Can I move in today?”
Papers started shuffling loudly and chaotically in the background as I kept my hand over my mouth and kept my voice low. I didn’t know if the cameras he installed had audio, but what were the chances they didn’t? I hoped that all of my precautions would get me out from under his radar for a while, but I knew he would eventually find me.
I just hoped I could have some peace of mind before then.
“Um, let me see, let me seeee,”
he sang. “Annnnnddddd,”
a flutter of paper sounded. “Yes! Yes, you can! Just swing by with a pen, we can finish the paperwork and you’re good to go!”
I nodded. “Perfect, see you in 20.”
I hung up and called the movers. “Hey, it’s Liv, we’re moving today. I want my art, my books, my clothes, and all of Lucy’s things, that’s it.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I hung up, grabbed my purse and scarf, leashed Lucy, and headed out the door. Fuck Everett and fuck his stupid debt. He could go eat a curb for all I cared.
And I desperately hoped he would.
I stood on the sidewalk outside my new house, knowing this should be a good thing. I should be happy.
Instead, I was pulling at the sleeves of my dress, irritated that I had to wear a long-sleeved one in the first place, and a scarf, to cover up the bruises that still dusted my body. Luckily for me, the weather was cooler this morning.
It was a beautiful little one-story cottage-type. It had three bedrooms, white with blue shutters, a nice yard with a tree and flowerbeds, and a nice porch for the size of it.
But I was bitter.
Bitter about my entire life. I didn’t feel pity or ‘woe is me’, I just felt angry now, and it was getting harder to swallow as the days went on.
“Good morning.”
I glanced over, Lucy immediately stepping between me and the man who was walking up to us.
I tightened my grip on the leash, ready to let go if need be. “Guard,”
I said under my breath. “Morning,”
I greeted, hoping he wouldn’t see the scars on my face under the makeup I had thrown on before leaving.
They were more or less healed now, angry and brick red. The lines were just on the larger side of a 1/16th of an inch. I knew this because I measured them. A 1/16th of an inch wide and almost 4 inches long on both sides. I hoped they would fade with time, but for now, this was what I had to deal with.
Lucy’s ears went back, her head lowering, a warning growl leaving her chops. She had become more protective since I came home smelling of blood and sweat. I wasn’t going to blame her if she lunged without an order, but I had my doubts that she would.
The man chuckled nervously, glancing to the dog and back, his eyes were filled with light. “Just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood,”
he said, stopping a few feet away. “You just bought the Lancaster house. It’s a good place, beautiful interior.”
He had a light accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. I glanced to the house and back, eyeing him warily, but didn’t say a thing. He knew the inside of my house and the previous owners, which was already a little unsettling. What else did he know? Why was he being so friendly?
Was this someone Everett sent? Some guy they thought would butter me up so I’d keep making willing payments? Because that was never going to happen. Sorry, Everett, but my nerve is far greater than yours.
His expression shifted to one of uncomfortableness when I didn’t reply. “You’re coming from the city, aren’t you?”
My eyes narrowed.
He nodded, his shoulders relaxing a bit. He slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “You city folk are all on edge. It’s to be expected with all of the noise and hustle and bustle. Things are much calmer in the ‘burbs.”
My face twisted. “Nobody actually says that.”
He shrugged, a smile touching his lips. “Got you to talk though.”
I pressed my lips together. It did. Shit.
I eyed him carefully. He looked around Jake’s age, maybe younger. Kind watery green eyes, dark hair, strong jaw. Normal. Just a normal guy in a normal striped shirt and light windbreaker with normal eyes and a normal face.
I worked my jaw and turned back to the house. I had to try and make some friends if this is where I was going to live, right? God, this is why people lived in the city.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to him. “Relax.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “I am relaxed.”
I shot a glare at him. “Not you, Lucy.”
Lucy straightened, but her ears remained back, her body tense.
He looked at the dog and back. “Lucy? She’s well trained.”
“In most cases,”
I muttered, walking up to him. I held out a hand. “Liv.”
He took it, eyeing the dog again. “Wade.”
I shook it once and took my hand back. “Yes, I’m just moving in. My dog and I. Needed a change of pace.”
The air was fresher out here, but I recognized nothing. I had lived downtown for the last three years, there was no point in coming this way. Out to the ‘burbs, as he said. Why would there be? Everything was so…similar. And cohesive. There was nothing chaotic or unpredictable, just the same things everywhere.
Exactly what I needed after…well, my entire life.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Liv. And you, Lucy.”
She growled.
“She’s protective,”
I told him when he took a step back. “Where do you live?”
I flinched. Shit, I didn’t want to come off as some creep. I’ve had enough of those in my life, I didn’t want to become one. “Am I allowed to ask that?”
He chuckled and turned, gesturing to a place across the street. “Two places down. I moved in a couple of weeks ago.”
My brows furrowed as I studied the place. “You knew who lived here though? You know what the inside looks like?”
He shrugged. “Everyone talks and most of these houses are built exactly the same, something to get used to. We know everything. For instance, Ms. Berry, who lives two houses that way,”
I followed his finger, “just got her cat back from surgery. The cat ate a doll sock. Mrs. Dahlia sells her Oxy on the side just to earn some nail money, if you ever wanted something for fun. And Mr. Hass,”
he gestured with his chin in a general direction, “divorced his wife three years ago, but sneaks her in and out before sun-up so the people on the street don’t start talking.”
I frowned, finding his eyes again. “We are talking.”
He laughed and nodded as if it were some inside joke we should have shared. “He failed.”
I felt too tired to smile, to bring attention to the scars. But I did appreciate his observation. It was one of the biggest parts of my job, observation. The only way to be a great writer was to observe, read, and research. I excelled in those as much as I could, but I wasn’t perfect at it, clearly, or else I would have noticed some man in a mask studying me as well as Everett had. “Okay. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a cop, and you?”
Goddammit. “A writer,”
I answered nonchalantly. “I write books.”
A fucking cop? Deep breath. This could be a good thing. If Everett came around, I could just scream really loud, and Wade would come running. Perfect. I could use that to my advantage.
“Oh? What kind of books? Maybe I’ve read them.”
I really didn’t think he’d like them. Not many people I met in real life did. “Um…”
I shook my head. “Psychological thrillers.”
His lips curled, but guilt filled his features. “Not my genre.”
Thank God.
“I live in that, I don’t need to read about it too, sorry.”
I held up a hand, grateful that I could still keep some decorum with the neighbors. “Don’t apologize, I wouldn’t have told you the names anyway. I write under a pen name so people won’t find me.”
He nodded, a glint in his eyes. “Smart, especially with the genre you write. I gotta get going, my shift starts soon, but if you need me, there is an envelope under your welcome mat with a list of everyone’s number. Customary,”
he smiled at my grimace. “Never know when you need help.”
Right. “Thank you. It was nice to meet you, Wade.”
“You to, Liv.”
He gave me a warm smile, his eyes falling over me as he turned away.
I suppose he wasn’t that bad to look at if I did ever consider making a move. Steven was dead now, and Everett had made it clear that I was just a debt to be collected. Even if he didn’t make that clear, it wouldn’t have been rational of me to get involved in something like that, so maybe now, for the first time in my life, I could just have some fun. Besides, if I could prove to myself that I could reach the kind of end I had with Everett with someone else, maybe I could really just focus on ‘paying the debt’ rather than getting my next fix.
I glanced down at Lucy who was watching me with her ears perked only to fold them back and huff.
I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. “I don’t need that right now, okay? So judgmental. Where do you even get it from?”
She looked back at me and barked.
I shot a glare at her, but kept my mouth shut. She was too smart for her own good, I swear.
I headed up the stairs and unlocked the door only to pause and look down on the threshold at the matt under my feet.
I stepped off it and crouched down, picking it up and finding that envelope just where Wade had said it would be.
I stood and glanced back down the street. He was almost to his house now. A list of names and numbers just in case I needed something.
You would never find anything like that in the city.
With a sigh, I turned back to my door. The movers would be here in less than an hour, so for now, I’d take my time to explore the place before—
I stopped when I opened the door, finding the place fully furnished.
Fully furnished. Couch, chairs, coffee table, carpets, kitchen appliances, everything. Even plants.
I loved plants.
I let the door fall open, my heart thudding anxiously. Max said it didn’t come with anything. Maybe he just got it mixed up with another house. Maybe I was forgetting something. I was always forgetting things.
Even so…
I unclipped Lucy’s leash. “Search.”
She ran through the house, nose to the ground.
I walked into the living room slowly, inhaling deeply. It smelled like a new house. Or what I assumed a new house would smell like. Clean and fresh, unlived in.
I just got it wrong, that was all. Max was so chaotic, I just forgot. I always forget about the most important things, I knew that. This was just one of them, I was sure.
But just as my shoulders finally relaxed an inch, something on the coffee table caught my eye. A letter with a rose sitting just above it. A deep red rose. Beautiful and full.
I walked over to it and snatched it up.
Hello little writer,
Sneaky of you to think you could use emails and talk under your breath to keep me from finding out what you were doing. You can’t escape me or your debt. You’re not smart enough. Nobody is.
I took the liberty of furnishing your new place. Azrael helped, as did Evelyn, and, surprise surprise, so did my father. You’ve already met him. Malachi Kingsmen. He loves your taste in art, he was admiring it the other day when I told him that we would be helping move your things.
See you soon
The rage boiling under my skin felt like a cyclone of molten lava. I crumbled up the paper and snarled, throwing it across the room only to freeze when the words truly registered.
Malachi Kingsmen?
That’s who I had been meeting with? That’s who…
I tore out my phone and called my mom, my breathing labored, my hands shaking in rage.
She answered on the second ring. “How dare you ignore me,”
she said in way of greeting. “I am your mother. I could be dying, in the hospital, bitten by a rat. It could have been an emergency and what? You were just so busy writing your books that you…”
I let her go on as I walked out onto the porch, hand on my hips, pacing. Never seeing Everett again was too soon and now I would have to see him in less than an hour? It was such bullshit. But on top of that, what was mom doing? She went to a guy like Mr. Kingsmen for a loan? I should have known, but I was so wrapped up in whatever drama was going on in my life, I didn’t even consider it as a possibility. We never met with bankers when I was growing up. Certainly not at a restaurant. Why didn’t I think of that? Why hadn’t I been smarter?
“You’re pathetic, Olivia,”
I heard Steven taunt. “You have never and will never be the smartest person in the room, that’s why people like me have to think for you. It’s exhausting. You’re exhausting.”
I closed my eyes and grabbed my temples, trying to will the voice away. He was dead. He was never coming back. Ever.
“What do you have to say about your actions?”
she finally finished. “Because I would love to hear what perfect little Olivia has to say about ignoring and abandoning her dear old mother in a time such as this.”
I dropped my hand and stared out across the street. All of the houses similar enough to suck any ounce of individuality from the street without trying. Wade was probably right about every layout being nearly identical.
Why did builders do this? Why did they all have to look exactly the same? Couldn’t anyone have any ounce of individuality at all anymore?
“Olivia,” she bit.
I sucked in my lip and straightened, chewing on it. My anger had always been my worst trait, she said as much, but God, it felt so good, addicting, I would say. All my life I had been forced to swallow it, to wrap it up and shove it down and completely ignore it. With the cameramen, the paparazzi, the interviewers, my parents, Steven. Every single person in my life forced me to swallow it. All of them.
All of them except for Everett.
Fucking dick. He made it impossible to swallow. No, he nurtured it, put gas to it, taunted it like a prowling wolf would taunt a deer.
And what I learned was how tired I was of holding it in, of swallowing the words I wanted to say, of being a little stupid cookie cutter, silver-spooned, whore that just took what she was given and never said a goddamn thing about it.
Lucy walked back out, her tail wagging, watching me carefully. No, she wouldn’t have smelled a threat in the house. She would have smelled her friend.
Her friend.
I dipped my head and grasped the bridge of my nose, my heart racing, the anger welling and crashing against my bones, willing me to just…just…scream.
“I know you’re still there; I can hear your nasally breathing. I see you never got that nose job I set up for you. Typical.”
I heard a vehicle pull up and I looked up to find a giant white box truck sitting outside my house.
Oh, this was just perfect.
I straightened, watching as Evelyn hopped out of the passenger side, Everett the driver’s side, and despite everything, my heart skipped a beat like the traitor it was.
He stormed up the sidewalk, his mask back in place, his eyes blazing as if he had a reason to be upset with me. As if he had some sort of right.
I stormed over, stopping at the top of the steps, forcing him back. I met his eyes evenly as the sound of the back of the truck opening filled the air. “You want to be movers?”
I asked, my voice as cold as ice. “Then move.”
His eyes narrowed to slits.
“If you damage a single thing, I’ll ruin you,”
I stated evenly.
His lips flicked up at one corner of his mouth. “You can’t order me to—”
“Look at yourself,”
I interjected in disgust, taking him in. “I already have. I own you today. My money, my orders.”
“Who are you talking to? Where did you move? You never told me a thing!”
His lips curled in a vicious snarl, but before he could get a single word out, I held up a finger and turned away from him, mainly to keep him from seeing how badly I was shaking. “Mr. Kingsmen?”
I asked, walking down the porch, my voice filled with such rage, even Lucy stopped in her excited greeting with Everett to turn to me.
“Malachi Kingsmen?”
I asked angrily.
“Yes? What about him? Are you moving?”
“You went to a loan shark, mom? A loan shark? What have you done to the company?”
She was quiet a moment. “You don’t need to know that.”
I felt my eye twitch. “Actually, I do. I get to know it. I own a third of that company. You and dad shut me out of every decision since I moved here—”
“You made that choice, not us.”
I closed my eyes, trying to retain some semblance of control. “You really don’t want to interrupt me right now, mom. I’ve had a bad life and it’s all coming to a precipice right now. So, if I were you, I would be very careful of how you speak to me.”
She went silent, and I could just imagine her working her jaw, pursing her lips like she always did when I did something she didn’t like. “We needed the money,”
she explained carefully. “You are too young to understand—”
“I will bet you any amount of money you want that I know more about this company than you do, seeing as how you destroyed your part of it. What? Did the banks not want to give it to you?”
I asked and then shook my head. “No, that’s not what I need to know. Why do you need the money? The company has been overly profitable since long before I was alive and now you need money? What did you do?”
“Your contract kept us from using your third,”
she explained. “So, when we ran out, we had to do something else—”
“You shouldn’t have run out,”
I said evenly. “That’s the problem, mom. You shouldn’t have run out. The oil comes and comes and comes, and we sell all of it. All around the world, mom. Everybody needs oil. It’s the one business you can’t fuck up even if you tried.”
“Language.”
“Don’t lecture me on language,”
I snarled. “You don’t get that privilege right now. In fact, you don’t get any privilege. We are not mother and daughter. We never have been, but especially right now, you are talking to your business partner—”
“Business partner?”
She laughed. “You are a child!”
I worked my jaw, my heart steady, that anger raging.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “Mr. Kingsmen!”
“Behind you.”
I spun around, my dress spinning with me, to find him sitting on my porch swing just a few feet away.
He smiled, his blue eyes bright. “I don’t move things. You’re doing very well, keep going.”
I straightened, slightly relieved and thankful for his encouragement because I thought I was letting the anger control me too much. I didn’t want it ruining what I wanted to say because I couldn’t control it. “How much did she get from you?”
I could pay that debt off to Malachi, not his son. I could pay everything off, revive the company, and—
“4 million.”
My eyes widened, the air leaving my lungs. I put the phone to my ear, turning away from him. “4 million, mom? What are you doing?”
“We would have been able to save it if we had access to your share,”
she said through her teeth.
“I’m glad you didn’t! We would have lost the company. We would have lost everything. We would have been the laughing stock of the entire industry.”
“We have lost everything,”
she snarled. “We had to sell the house, the cars. We’re living in squalor, baby.”
I sneered. “We didn’t lose everything. You did. You lost it.”
I grasped the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the roaring in my ears. I remembered the contracts. I remembered going over them meticulously with the family lawyer. I remembered everything.
4 million.
She had borrowed 4 million from Malachi. And I had my suspicions that she would spend most of it within the year due to her lifestyle. 4 million dollars. I could barely breathe.
After a few seconds of focused breathing, I straightened. “I’ll take it,”
I told her.
She released a breath of relief. “That is so kind of you. I don’t think they actually sold the house yet, the—”
Of course they didn’t, she had to have bought it back by now. She was lying through her teeth about living in squalor because I very much doubted that she had given anything back to the company. “No, mom. I’m taking the company. You forgot. You must have. Why else would you keep this from me. There’s a stipulation in every single one of our contracts stating that if one party bankrupts their portion of the company, the others absorb it all, leaving the party with nothing. You get nothing, mom. You and dad lose it all. I get it. I get the debt, the employees, I get everything. All of it. Which means that if you don’t send me back whatever you have left of that money, you’re fucked.”
“Olivia,”
she warned. “Don’t do this. I will ruin you.”
“You can give it your best shot. While you’re doing that, I’m going to need you to send over everything regarding the company to my new address, I’ll send it to you now. And if you can’t seem to find everything, then don’t worry, I own Martin too. I’ll send him over to safeguard anything you deem unworthy to send my way.”
I quickly texted her the address.
“You fucked a prostitute addicted married man,”
she told me when I put the phone back to my ear. “You’re a goddamn whore.”
I froze, staring at the sidewalk, seeing nothing but blinding white rage. “You knew?”
I breathed out, my heart pounding.
“Who do you think sent him out to find you. I spent the last three years relishing in the fact that you were fucking him. Fucking some lowlife cretin and I loved it. I loved knowing that I was destroying you. That one day, you would find out, and it would ruin you. Shatter your mind like you shattered mine.”
Something soft touched my leg and I instinctively threaded my hand through Lucy’s fur, squeezing tight, my teeth grinding.
“I never wanted a daughter. I wanted a son. And your father never gave me one, so I went out and adopted one. Steven was 6 when I got my hands on him, left him with his father, paying them month in and month out, raising him from afar, and he didn’t give a damn. Us women,”
she laughed. “Men always think they’re in control, but the truth is, we run the game. We do. Having a daughter was perfect for the cameras. Perfect for the photos, but I wanted a boy to take over the company. I needed a son. One I could manipulate easily and raise to be my perfect little prodigy. But I needed you out of the picture.”
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
“So I told him to either fuck you up enough to kill yourself or marry you so he could get the company. He took his damn time, but I think it’s time you understood who you’ve truly been letting into your bed these last few years.”
And then I laughed.
I had no idea where it came from or why the sound made shivers run down my spine, but there it was. Loud and evil and dark.
“What? What are you laughing at? You’ve been having sex with a disease ridden boy!”
It was pathetic how weak she sounded. How hysterical. Driven to madness because I didn’t break like she wanted. All those years she must have spent planning, giving money to that man, building Steven into this perfect little demon to take over a company that wasn’t even hers to give away. It was…it was satisfying knowing that I didn’t shatter like she wanted me too. All thanks to Everett, but I wasn’t in the mood to give him any kind of props for that.
I nodded. “I know,”
I told her, the line on the other end going silent. “I know, and guess what? Mr. Kingsmen’s little goon fucking slammed his gun into his head. And then,”
I went on the laughter dying, “he disassembled him like he was a doll. Right in the middle of his kitchen floor. Isn’t that just perfect? Your perfect little dream, disassembled and scattered across God’s holy country.”
She was silent for so long that I would have thought she hung up had she not been breathing in a whimpering, pathetic way.
“What is wrong with you?”
mom finally shrieked. “You’re a psychopath.”
I pulled the phone to the front of my face, my lips nearly touching the screen. “I get it from you,”
I hummed and then put the phone back to my ear. “Send everything over or I know a very bad man who just realized you never had any intention of paying him, and I doubt he’s happy about that. Maybe he’ll disassemble you. Maybe he’ll send any one of his many sons to capture you and torture you and show you why you never get in bed with sharks. Maybe your snake oil spitting tongue will finally cease to be. Sleep with both eyes open, mom. You think you’ve met the devil? I’ve fucked him.”
I hung up, turned, and walked over to the porch swing, falling into it with a huff. Suddenly exhausted but worked up all at the same time.
I could feel Malachi’s eyes on me, cool, familiar. I scratched behind Lucy’s ear and stared out across the too quiet street while Everett and Evelyn carried my things in from the truck. “I’ll do what I can about the debt,”
I assured him.
4 million dollars. What was I going to do?
I swallowed. “What are you going to do?”
I finally asked, my voice quiet.
“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes the best way to scare someone is to leave them be. Let them sit in their own fear. You did a good job at threatening her. Sounded like one of my very own. How do you feel?”
I inhaled deeply and exhaled, glancing over. “Tired.”
He chuckled, tapping my knee. “Anger will do that to you, dear.”
I searched his eyes for a second, my tongue flicking over my lips. “When did you find out?”
“My son came home some time ago in a rage. His anger is worse than Jack’s, but not as volatile as Azrael’s, thank goodness. It’s different, hard to handle sometimes. When he cooled down, we spoke. It didn’t take us long to realize that the woman I was meeting with and the woman paying off her boyfriend’s—ex-boyfriend’s debt, were in fact the same person.”
I frowned, turning back to the street. “I’ll pay them both, I promise.”
“We can work something out.”
He was quiet a moment. “You wouldn’t consider selling me the company, would you?”
One corner of my lips flicked up for half a second before dropping. “I don’t think so. Why?”
I asked, looking over. “You want to get in on the oil game?”
He chuckled. “Oh, no. No, oil is nasty business. Too dirty for my taste. No, my daughter, the one that just became engaged to my son, she sold me her company at a benefit just a few months ago.”
I saw the love glinting in his eyes and felt a sort of jealousy at seeing it. “What’s her name?”
His smile grew. “Emily. Emily Glass, a publisher now. She’s marrying my son Greyson, and my other son, Jack,”
he nodded as if I should know the name, “he signed papers with his wife about a year ago now. A little over a year. They are quite a team. They travel a lot, doing assignments while they wait to take down her father for what he did to her.”
My brows furrowed, my interest piqued. “What do you mean?”
“Parents,”
he sighed. “Always doing their children wrong whether intentional or unintentional. Rae was trained like my boys were, but for far longer. However, something happened, and her father decided it would be beneficial for him to erase her memories of her past life and replace them with new ones. Don’t you worry,”
he said when my lips parted. “She’s okay now. Fierce and unstoppable. A fire in this world, truly. She works well with Jack and his sister Zo. Emily picked another route, staying behind while Greyson does his assignments, although he’s slowed down quite a bit, focusing mainly on where they live. They have a good life.”
Questions burned on my tongue. Assignments? What happened to Rae? Did Emily’s parents fuck her up too? How many children did he adopt? Who was he?
But they all died on my tongue. I was exhausted, and I was just a means to an end in this family. If I asked too many questions, I might end up the same way Steven did.
Although there was no guarantee that wasn’t already my future. My life was on borrowed time with the Kingsmen’s. I should probably sleep with two eyes open too, but what was the point? I would most likely die by their hands, there was no reason to waste what time I had left stressing about it.