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That’s what I thought. This business is stressful enough already without trying to stay sober all the time. Sometimes, even in the earliest hours of the morning, you need a goddamn drink. A nice scotch in a thick crystal glass usually puts me at ease.
I pour a double for both of us, handing one to Pasha and taking mine up to my bedroom. I undress before drinking any, leaving my dirty clothes in a pile near the closet and sitting on the bed with my glass.
I swirl the golden liquid as I think about what Pasha has revealed to me, but all I can consider is the fact that Oakley is now in danger. Pasha might not think that Stone would go after her, but I know how evil men think.
I am one.
Stone would go after the only person who I care about the moment he found out about her, and he’d make sure whatever time she had left on this planet was as painful and humiliating as possible.
I drink my entire double shot in one gulp, breathing out loudly from the bite of alcohol. It splashes into my stomach, burning hot in my gut.
I’ve rarely felt fear, but the idea that something horrible could happen to Oakley makes me want to throw myself off my balcony in a selfish effort to spare myself from witnessing her fate.
I know I will have brought it on her. If it wasn’t for me, she’d never have to fear for her life. I could’ve let her walk away, but instead, I pulled her into my world, and there’s no going back. She won’t be able to escape.
The only way out is through death.
I get up to turn off the light. The room is cold, but I barely feel it. The warmth inside me is growing, and I feel sleepy for the first time in twenty-four hours. Maybe I will be able to sleep, but I know it’ll be far from peaceful. My dreams are always nightmares.
I lie down in bed, lacing my fingers together on my solar plexus and staring up at the ceiling. I reach for my phone after a few seconds, unable to put my mind at rest and refusing to give myself the chance to fall asleep.
The voicemail plays again, and my heart feels like it’s dangling by a string in my chest as I hear Oakley’s high, syrupy voice moaning again.
Fuck, I’m your whore!
Yes. Yes, you are, my darling Oakley.
The only thing that finally puts me to sleep is the repeated recording, playing over and over again until my brain sinks into the sound of her voice, the divine nature of a woman’s pleasure.
Finally, I can rest.
16
Oakley
The soreness is a welcome sensation, an aching reminder of the intimacy Savva and I shared last night. It almost feels like a dream, but I’m glad I have a sign that it wasn’t.
This Saturday is the first day in a while that I didn’t wake up with a hangover. I slide off the couch in the office, brushing my teeth in the small bathroom across the hall and wandering into the main area of the bar for breakfast.
I keep most of my food on the bottom shelf in the fridge, and I’ve instructed Kimberly to make sure nobody touches it. In a way, it’s nice to have my business and personal abode mixed together. It feels like having guests over every night, and there’s no commute. I can see why Angus preferred to live this way.
I cook something for myself quickly, not wanting to waste the time that I’ve saved by not sleeping in. I have a mission today. I’m going to search through Angus’s belongings more closely and try to find out as much as I can about him. If my mom isn’t going to be much help, and Savva only knows a few things, then it’s up to me to uncover the rest.
Angus had a couple of storage units around the back of the building that I haven’t been in yet for fear of scorpions and snakes. I hear they get pretty big out here, and I’m honestly more afraid of them than I am of spiders, and that’s saying something. Spiders terrify me. What gives them the right to have so many eyes and eight legs?
Eight! Why on earth would any creature need more than four?
And snakes don’t have any, but they’re still able to move quickly and sink their little fangs into your ankles while you’re sorting through boxes in a storage unit. Out here, an ambulance would take longer than attempting to bicycle my way into town.
But, with all the risks I’ve taken and the dangers I’ve managed to sidestep, I’m willing to take on a challenge today. The bar won’t be open until four, and that means I have all morning and afternoon to look through the things Angus left behind.
Perhaps I’ll find the missing pieces I’ve been searching for.
I have to break the lock off the door of the first unit, smacking the rusty mechanism a few times with a shovel until it breaks into pieces and falls to the ground with a metallic jingle. I feel like I’m busting into a box of buried treasure.
Maybe there will be money in here. I heard Angus never kept any in the bank, and I didn’t receive anything other than the bar when he died.
The door creaks open as I pull it, hinges groaning as the rust flakes off, then falls like ashes to my feet. Angus must not have opened these containers often.
