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“Loni!” he called for Jake’s sister, who’d been sleeping off her five margaritas in the backseat. She’d been pouting all night because Sly hadn’t paid attention to her. She was always begging for his attention. He couldn’t see her now, though. He couldn’t see anything.
“No, no, no, no,” he murmured maniacally, “this can’t be happening.”
“Sly….” A soft voice mewled from somewhere beside him.
Jake?
Sylvester froze, blinking into the ever-growing smoke, his eyes burning and watering, his lungs on fire, and his body broken.
A disembodied cough gurgled wetly. “I’m not going to make it, Sly….”
“Yes, you are! Hold on!” he screamed, his heart galloping, racing, then nearly blasting apart in his chest. “Hold on, Jake!”
“Sly…p-please…take care of Loni….”
This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not ever! “Of course, I will, Jake. But you’ll be just fine. You can take care of her. She’s your sister, Jake. You need to stay alive for her, man. You have to!”
A void where a voice should be eclipsed the agonizing silence until, finally, a voice he loved, a voice he’d cherished, rose as weightless and intangible as the smoke gathering to choke him.
“Ungh…not gonna make it, Sly. Take…take care of Loni. P-promise…” the voice of his best friend, his bond brother, pleaded.
Bright, white stars danced behind his eyes, distracting him, drawing him into a haze he never wanted to leave…but he couldn’t allow himself to succumb just yet. Not yet. He had to save Jake…right?
Save Loni.
“Yes! You know I will. I promise, Jake,” he murmured, the ability to talk diminished by the suffocating fatigue wrapping him in i’s arms. “I promise, Jake. I’ll take care of Loni. I prom…ise.”
Silence rupturing screams jetting hotly from his throat, Sylvester flew up from his bed, staggering into the dark bathroom to collapse on the floor in front of the toilet, where he emptied his stomach in wretched, sobbing heaves. He didn’t know how long he knelt there, his heavy head pressed against the hard toilet seat, his arms embracing the coolness of the bowl, and his legs aching in their forced, pinched position. He only knew that the dream had come again. The nightmare. The memory. The blooded accountings of wrongs he’d committed. It had been years since that dream had haunted him. Since the first days of his marriage to Loni. Almost as though the vows of marriage had provided him a clean slate. A tabula rasa on which he could write the brilliant story of a new life.
What a crock of shit.
He’d been a hopeful idiot to think his marriage to Loni was what had kept the harrowing, heartbreaking, soul-shattering memories of his wrongs at bay. But…for a while, it had worked. Had marrying Jake’s grieving twin sister given him enough relief from the guilt that the dreams had stopped, offering a surcease in a time of personal war?
If only.
Shaking himself, he slowly stood and dragged his sweaty, shuddering body to the sink. Brushing his teeth, washing his mouth out took the last vestiges of his energy. But the bed wasn’t a welcome, comforting place for him anymore.
Blinking at the clock on his nightstand, he saw that it was only 3:17 in the morning, much too soon to go into the satellite office of WEC and attempt to get any work done.
But he could hit the gym in the basement; he was already a sweating, trembling mess anyway. What difference would two hours of punishing his body make? He deserved punishment. Needed it. Another piece of his penance. He could hit the heavy bag until his arms were spaghetti. He could run on the treadmill until his legs were jelly. He could exercise until his lungs bled and his muscles tore, and his mind finally went blank. But it wouldn’t do any good. He would still be that arrogant, drunken murderer who’d escaped with his life when his best friend had died. He would still be the man who’d married his best friend’s twin out of guilt and then hated himself for five years. He would still be the callous asshole who fucked a gorgeous, fiery woman then disappeared the next morning—and then put his foot in his fucking mouth in a spectacular display of pure male posturing when he finally saw her again.
“Shit,” he groused, breaking from his self-pity party to grab his sneakers from the closet. With nothing else to do until the office building’s doors opened at 7AM, exercise was the only thing he had to keep his mind occupied. Sure, he could go over the figures from Harris Construction again, but the thought of staring at numbers while his brain was still jumbled made him grumpy.
He was already pissed at himself enough.
Three hours later, he was dressed in a bespoke light gray Tom Ford suit, crisp white button-down, lilac-colored tie, black Gancini belt, and shiny black Tramezza dress shoes, both from Ferragamo. In all, he was dressed in clothes that cost more than a month-long trip to Paris. That was him, though. The billionaire with more money than sense, right? The king of east coast real estate. The sexy mogul that millions of women wanted. The failed husband, failed best friend, failed human. That was him, alright.
Sneering at himself, he sat in his desk chair and booted up his laptop, eager to do something other than malingering in things he could not control.
It was another three hours before he surfaced, his secretary, Maeve, sending a reminder that he had a lunch meeting in downtown Jackson Key with Blaze and AJ. Sighing, he waved goodbye to Maeve, whose sweet smile never seemed to leave her endearingly round face, and headed out to his tango red metallic Audi RS7. The growl then purr of the performance engine brought a grin to his face.
It took ten minutes to get downtown from his office, but the two men were already waiting for him in a booth by the window inside Crosby’s, a burger joint known for their sweet potato fries, ostrich burgers, and all-you-can-drink homemade sweet tea.
Blaze stood to welcome him, grabbing his arms and bringing him in for a half hug, half back slap. AJ shook his hand, his expression shuttered.
“The party was a hit, yeah?” Blaze remarked, raising his hand to flag down the waitress. “Anna came sober and left shit-faced, but I didn’t mind. That woman could use some loosening up.” He chuckled.
“From what I saw, people from both Harris and White enjoyed themselves. The food was delicious, the location was beautiful, and at the end of the night, it felt like we were a cohesive team,” Sylvester said, his answer both honest and bullshit. After Sallina had left the party—more like sauntered out, her banging curves snaring his gaze and his cock—AJ had cooled toward Sylvester. No doubt the other man had noticed something between him and his sister, had taken note of the negative vibes in the air, and put the blame squarely where it had belonged. On Sly.
