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BRAD
* * *
I slap a wedge of cash in Jeeves’s hand as I pass him, and in return he slips me a keycard. “The suite is suitably stocked, Mr. Black.”
“Good man,” I grunt, hitting the elevator call button aggressively. I pull out my cell and check to see if tonight’s lay has arrived. Some nameless, faceless someone who is going to help me escape. One ordered every day for the next three days.
I step into the elevator when the doors open and hit the button for the twenty-ninth floor, nodding to Jeeves as he discreetly slips the handful of bills into his top pocket. As soon as the doors meet in the middle, I drop my head.
And breathe.
I’m hot. Suffocating. I start to pace up and down in the small box, watching the dial count up the floors.
So fucking slowly.
My heartrate increases.
I close my eyes, leaning back against the back wall. I see Uncle Carlo dragging me out of a hotel room. I see him putting a gun to my head. I see the girl I was fucking running scared. I was twenty-one.
So young.
So fucking clueless.
Women cloud your judgment.
Uncle Carlo only ever had my best interests at heart. He loved my mother. Thought he was saving her. He couldn’t save her. But he saved me. I’ve always hung on every word he said. So did Danny.
Until Rose.
Ding!
I blink as the doors slide open, but I don’t move. Twenty-one. I bite down on my back teeth and push off the wall, pacing down the corridor and entering the suite. I let the door close behind me, seeing a mound of white powder on the glass coffee table in front of the couches. A bottle of Scotch next to it. And, fuck my life, a pile of condoms.
I laugh under my breath and approach with caution, lighting up. Condoms. I pour a drink and neck it, topping it off immediately. I leave the mountain of cocaine untouched and drop to the couch.
My son.
I snort my disgust and snarl around the rim of my glass, taking more Scotch.
Fighting away the memories.
The girl.
Shit.
We were fourteen.
She was the kind of girl who gave it freely and every fourteen-year-old kid wanted a piece. I thought I was being sensible. Laughing under my breath, I remember the clumsy affair. My less than impressive dick that slipped around in the condom like a toothpick in a tunnel.
The girl disappeared a few months later.
No one asked why.
No one cared.
I close my eyes and see me. A kid. Then like some torturous, fucked-up nightmare, my face blends into Nolan’s. I’m slightly darker than he is. His mother was blonde.
He’s mine.
