Rook and Ronin Box Set: The Complete Alpha Billionaire Series (Books 1-5) Page 3

  I peer through the window and enjoy the view. It's spectacular and looks out onto a busy street. There are a few tall buildings nearby, but it's mostly small businesses contained within old historic buildings—various stores, restaurants, and bars. I watch the people below, going about their lives. I watch the women in particular. How many of them have lived with abuse? I try not to think about it really. It's over now. It's behind me and I'm sorta moving on. There have been a few incidents at the shelter with some of the druggie men, but I have a knife. I cut one guy across the arm when he touched me in my sleep. Since then they've left me alone.

  I hate that place though. And all these women over on this side of town seem happy. I'm sure there are plenty of them who suffer abuse and are good at hiding it like I was, but from this vantage point, it seems unlikely that they are anywhere near the type of situation I was in back in Chicago.

  Jon and I met in high school. Well, I was in high school, and that's only on a technicality because I never actually went to school. He was five years older. I realize now that lots of abusers look for young girls because they are easier to control and scare into silence, but at the time I just thought it was cool that an older guy liked me. He thought I was sexy, he told me things no boy ever told me. He treated me like a woman even though I was a girl.

  I liked it at first. That he was tall and strong. He had his own place, a car, a job, a brand new college degree. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for me. A way to escape my stressful life and let someone else think about all these things people require for survival for once. No teenager should have to worry about living day to day the way I did.

  So I let him take care of me. And maybe for a little while I could fool myself into thinking his strange obsession with controlling everything about me was normal, or a way to express his love.

  But then his fists got involved, and by that time I was so dependent on him there wasn't a chance in hell I could make it on my own any more. He never lifted a hand to me at first, but slowly, over the course of several months, he alienated me from the few friends I had, asked me to quit my job, and moved us out to the country where he had access to a small family home that was sitting unoccupied.

  And that's when it all changed. He spied on me, he monitored things like gas and groceries. Weird shit. And I was just too stupid to figure it out. Or just too young maybe.

  Life in Chicago was the only life I knew before coming to Denver. It started out better than it ended up, that's for sure. I used to have a family. A mom at least. But she's been gone for a while now. I have nothing left of her, not even a picture. So the image of her burned into my memory is all that I have.

  I'm pretty sure that memory is a bit skewed. For example, I picture her in a dress with an apron, but I'm almost positive that I'm thinking of one of the moms on RetroTube at night, and not my mother.

  My mother didn't bake pies, she smoked crack.

  But that's what happens when all you have left is a memory. Things change over time, other memories and images invade and reshape it.

  You forget things.

  And mostly you tend to forget bad things and I find that to be dangerous. Because if you forget the bad things, chances are those bad things will come back to get you again.

  I try really hard to keep my memories of living with Jon fresh so I don't forget.

  And I don't even care if this is healthy or whatever. The counselors at the shelter hinted that it's best to let the past go, but I don't agree and it's my life, my death. So I'm the one who gets to make the final decision.

  I feel satisfied at that because I love making my own decisions.

  Like today, for instance. I walked out of that job after they accused me of stealing. They did fire me first, and I could've stayed and groveled, but I didn't. I walked away.

  Now I'm homeless, jobless, and broke. But at least I'm not scared and at least I'm not broken and at least I'm not letting people who know nothing about me dictate who and what I am. Even though I spend my nights with drug addicts and criminals, and probably rapists and maybe even murderers—I am less afraid in that shelter than I was at home with my ex-boyfriend.

  The noise of a camera shutter snaps me back to reality. "No, don't move, Rook. You're perfect right there."

  I take my attention back to the window and the memories, ignoring Antoine. If that's what he wants, then fuck it. What do I care? This whole thing is probably a set-up anyway, to get me to do porn movies or something.

  The shutter continues to snap, but Antoine becomes more and more chatty. Directing me to move my arm, or tilt my head, or close my eyes, or frown.

  I do it all just like he asks. Just like Elise told me to.

  And I never once smile.

  And he never once asks me to.

  "What are you thinking about, Rook?" Antoine says later, when he's fussing with his camera and everyone else except that Ronin guy has left.

  I look over at Antoine. He's tall and thick. Not fat by any means, just thick. His hair is dark and his eyes are blue, like mine, like that Ronin guy. He's wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt, and for an older guy, late thirties maybe, he's handsome. Not hot or cute, but definitely handsome in a chiseled jaw and scratchy face kind of way.

  I can see why Elise is his lover.

  "None of your business," I answer him after my pause.

  His reaction is lost on me because I turn back to the window.

  "Do you enjoy modeling?"

  I shrug. "It's a job."

  "Do you have a book?"

  I have no idea what that means so I just say, "No."

  This time his reaction is not lost on me because he bellows out a laugh. "No? If you're a model you have a book. Show it to me." He pulls out a card and offers it. "Here is my e-mail, send me your photos."

  I take the card and meet his eyes this time. "I am not a model and I have no book, whatever that is. I just need a job. The invitation card said $100 an hour. I just need the money."

  "Test shoots pay in pictures, child. You don't get paid for today, but I'll give you a CD with your images, just give me your address and I'll send it when it's ready."

  I'm the one who bellows out a laugh this time. "Pictures? I don't need any fucking pictures! I need money!" I walk back over to the style station and Elise is watching me with a nervous expression. "Where's my bag? I'm leaving. What a waste of time. Pictures!"

  My hoodie is still in the little changing area and I whip the tank top off and pull the thrift store bargain over my head. When I come out from behind the partition I thrust the shirt at Elise. "Here."

  She accepts it and I grab my bag and walk out the door.

  Pictures!

  What a load of shit! I just wasted my whole day, I'm on the wrong side of town, I'll never get back to the shelter in time to get a bed, and I have no money to even take the bus because I needed a ten-dollar coffee from freaking Starbucks!

  I descend the stairs as fast as I can and when I get to the bottom I just stand in front of the heavy oak door, unsure of what to do next.

  I collapse on the bottom step and start to cry.

  Chapter Five - Ronin

  Her name is Rook. She's wrecked, those were Elise's words. She and Antoine are fighting over the TRAGIC campaign. Elise says no way, Antoine says she's the only one that can do it. With one look out his door, he picked her. He fell in photographer love with her.

  I smile to myself thinking of his words, because I knew it.

  We need her.

  But Elise has power in this house. Elise, no matter what Antoine says, wears the pants in their relationship because if Elise is unhappy Antoine cannot live with himself. He falls to pieces when they fight.

  So we work on her for almost half an hour inside the office. We wear her down, we make promises. We will watch Rook, we promise. We won't push her, we'll be careful. We promise all these things if Elise will let us keep this girl.

  We want her that bad.

  Of course, for very diff
erent reasons. Antoine wants to shoot her, I want to keep her. Antoine wants to take pictures of her gorgeous body and her fragile face, but I want to peel away her layers and see what's underneath. Antoine wants to make her famous and I want to hide her away in my room, under the covers of my bed, under me.

  By the time we get Elise to agree to our plan, I'm half afraid the girl might've left, but as soon as we open the door she's there, next to the window where Elise left her. She's looking outside, so deep in thought she hears nothing. Not the dozens of workers who mill about in her immediate vicinity and certainly not us as we extract ourselves, full of longing (Antoine), pity (Elise) and desire (me).

  We walk up behind her and still her gaze remains fixed on the people down below. You can just see she's not with us, that her thoughts are spinning and her life is chaos. It's written all over her face and Antoine sighs as he sees it too. I can read these girls almost as well as he can by now—that's my job. To get them worked up—to make these girls feel things—to bring those feelings out. Paint those feelings on their faces so when Antoine lifts his camera he's not capturing the body, but the mind.

  That's why he's famous. It's not the body or face, it's the emotion. The emotion I make them feel.

  I want to touch her right now but I hold back with Elise as Antoine starts shooting. The noise of the shutter snaps her out of her daze and I expect her to say something.

  Anything—like Am I doing it right? Is this what you want?

  But she says nothing. Antoine whispers to her, giving her small directions. She tilts her head when he asks, letting the light from the window fall across her face. It's late afternoon now, so the light is low and hazy. It bounces off her raven hair and her head turns in just the right way to catch some dying rays of sun, making her eyes sparkle. And that's how she's burned into my mind. The blackness of her hair, contrasting with the gray light behind her, and her bright blue eyes.

  She catches me staring and I hold my breath. But neither of us turns away. We stare, unabashed, until Antoine's direction pulls her back into the shoot and she's lost again—guarded and unhappy, frowning and resigned. She's a blackbird sitting in a tree staring out at the world, daring the wind to come and knock her off the swaying bough.

  She is wrecked, Elise is right. But she's not down yet. The look on her face is defiant.

  When I look over at the clock it's well past five. Antoine has been shooting her for almost two hours. Elise left a while back but whether she's still here in the studio or up in her apartment, I have no idea. I lost track of her because my eyes are only on the girl.

  Antoine does pretty well until the end. It's clear he's finished shooting and the girl is starting to look uncomfortable when he asks her what she was thinking about during the shoot.

  I cringe. No, you don't ask them! You make them want to tell you, you idiot! I want to pull him aside and stop the crash and burn that's coming, but it's too late. She snaps at him and he pulls back when he realizes his mistake.

  He turns the conversation to business and this is where it really gets interesting. She tells him she's not a model and has no portfolio. I'm just about to laugh when she starts yelling about pictures as payment.

  I look back towards Elise's station and realize she forgot to explain the terms to her.

  We are so off our game today. One tragic girl has disrupted all the carefully laid plans and protocols we've had in place for years.

  The tragic girl storms off yelling. Antoine walks over to me and we wait together as she rants to Elise.

  "You better fix this, Antoine," I say calmly, but inside I'm screaming too. "Pay the fucking girl, she needs the money."

  He snorts like a fucking Frenchman. "I do not pay for test shoots."

  "This," I say, turning to face him, "was no test shoot and you know it. You've got hundreds of shots in that camera. Pay her and make sure she comes back or I won't do the contract. I want her. I've put up with hundreds of stupid girls over the years for you and I've never asked you for a favor like this. I want this one, or I won't do it."

  He fishes through his pocket and pulls out the cash that Clare never earned.

  The studio door slams and we are all reminded that two models have walked out on us today.

  "Elise!" Antoine calls, thrusting the bills out at her. "Catch her, pay her, and invite her back on Monday."

  Elise grabs the money and flies out the door.

  "We're in trouble, Ronin. She is trouble." He turns a little to look me in the eye, something he rarely does unless he's serious and wants me to consider his advice. "You should stay away from her, keep it professional. Or it might get messy."

  I shrug. "I'll do what I want. And staying away from her isn't even in the top million things I want to do with that girl."

  "Elise will hurt you if you ruin this one, Ronin. She won't tolerate another Mardee."

  Fuck you, is what I think. But I don't say it, I just sigh and we wait in silence for Elise to come back.

  Chapter Six - Rook

  My crying is not pretty, in fact, it borders on blubbering. It's a sobbing ugly cry, except I'm trying to be discreet so it comes out in weird half-silent gasps, in between hiccups and long draws of air.

  When I hear footsteps I pull myself together, wipe the tears, and scoot over so whoever it is can get by. Instead they sit down next to me.

  I look over at Elise and she holds out some money. "Here. He really doesn't pay for test shoots, Rook, but he likes your look and would like to extend another invitation." I take the bills and see that on top there is another little white card. I know I shouldn't, but I count the money as I sit there. Four hundred dollars in twenties. One hundred dollars for every hour I spent here today.

  I look at her and start to cry again.

  I know I should get up and just bolt out the door with my money, just make a quick getaway and leave this day behind, but Elise grabs my arm before I can stand up and I just don't have it in me to fight. I collapse back against the stairs and wipe my face frantically.

  "Do you need help?" Elise asks after giving me a few moments to stop the tears.

  I do. I mean, I really do. But I'm ashamed to have to ask for it. "No," comes out automatically.

  She rubs my arm and lets out a small laugh. "OK. Well, would you believe that I am actually looking for someone to help me in the studio salon?"

  I raise my tired and burning eyes up to her in surprise.

  "Yes," she nods at me. "I am desperate, Rook. And I realize this is forward of me, but you did say you got fired today, so I was wondering if you'd like the job?"

  "A job?"

  "Shampoo girl. It's not much and it pays very little, but it does come with a small apartment out on the roof terrace."

  "An apartment?"

  "I know what you're thinking. Is the apartment nice? But I'm afraid, no, it's not. It's tiny really, and filled with old furniture. You'll probably hate it and I'm embarrassed to even offer it, but I figured you might take pity on me and accept the position and the apartment."

  I just stare at her.

  "What do you say?"

  I cry.

  She wraps her arm around me and laughs. "Just say yes, Rook. And we'll go back upstairs and you can go settle in that terribly ugly and small living space and try to forget this whole day." She stands and takes me with her and we begin to climb the stairs. "Except for the part where you got your hands on that invitation card and met us, of course. Because maybe tomorrow you'll see this was a stroke of luck for you."

  She knew all along that wasn't my invitation, yet she pretended to remember me when I gave her my name. "Why are you doing this? I mean, I'm grateful and I want the job and the apartment, I really do. But you don't even know me."

  "I've been you, Rook. I don't know the details, but we've all needed a twist of fate at one time or another and Antoine was mine. More than twelve years ago now. So today, I'll pay it back and be yours."

  "Thank you."

  "And one day, you'll
be in my position and you'll stumble upon a lost girl, and you can help change her fate. And when you do, and she asks you why, you'll tell her about me."

  We walk up the rest of the stairs in silence after that and when she takes me through the studio door we come face to face with Antoine and that Ronin guy again. Elise says something in French, and then they are all talking in French. But Elise does not wait for them, because she walks me around the other side of the salon wall and takes me through the massive glass doors that lead out onto the terrace.

  It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Somehow, even though this is a rooftop terrace, there are two small groves of blooming cherry trees on either side. There's even grass on the ground under the trees. "How is there grass up here?" I ask as we walk past the trees and head towards a small brick building on the far side of the terrace.

  "My Antoine is clever," she snickers. "It used to be a lap pool on one side," she points to the east where the sky is already getting dark, "and a family pool on the other." She points west now, towards the mountains and the setting sun. "Some developers bought this building from the city and made it into apartments back in the Seventies, but when we bought it more than a decade ago, the pools were a disaster, so instead of filling them in with concrete, we filled them in with dirt and planted those cherry trees and grass. We add something to the landscaping every year, usually another fruit tree."

  It's like Mary Lennox's Secret Garden. Except it's on a rooftop in a trendy Denver neighborhood instead of the English countryside. I feel a little sad for a moment, because of all the people living in this city, only a handful of them will ever get a chance to walk through an orchard four stories up on the top of an old building.

  Elise stops at the small apartment and punches in a number on the keypad. "All our doors have keyed locks. I'll bring you a code to use for the outside building after hours, but the garden studio apartment is all ones. Just five ones."