Page 1 of R Is For Revenge: Part One
CHAPTER 1
BECK
The club is exclusive.
Located not far from Central Park, it’s nondescript, a weathered stone building with reinforced steel double doors. There is no number. No name. It’s what makes it exclusive. There is a mountain of a man who directs traffic in and out. An ex-marine, with an attitude to match his size, which is why I hired him. No one fucks with him and he makes sure members only are allowed inside.
The club used to be owned by a man named Harold Horner. In another world he’s the bastard who knocked up my mother, then tossed her aside like garbage.
He’d given her five hundred bucks to look after ‘it’. This coming from a guy who had at the time, millions. A lot of them. Hundreds of millions. My guess is we didn’t fit into a life that included his wife and three kids.
My mom was already behind the eight-ball. My dad left before I was born and we’d been on our own my whole life. Most folks would have made a play for more money, say ten grand, then taken care of it. But not mine. Mom took that five hundred, hopped a bus, and we left the city. We ended up in bum-fuck Wyoming, in a town otherwise known as High Wind. Like everyother town in any other place, there’s an invisible line down the middle that separated the have, from the have nots. Two guesses as to which side we lived on. But Mom thought it was as good a place as any to start over. She had my sister, Lola, and then we were three.
Life was tough. Mom worked a lot of shitty jobs for shitty pay to keep food on the table. And I didn’t make things easy for her. I grew up with a chip on my shoulder the size of fucking Rhode Island. Who knows where I would have ended up if not for that football scholarship. Prison? Dead? Take your pick.
College was my salvation. A way to leave behind the shit hand we’d been dealt. I played college ball for two years before my roommates and I started a company that became a monster in the world of bitcoin. Our software, our ingenuity, and tenacity paid off. Two years later we went public and became billionaires. The six of us had all been running from something and together, we became the kind of family you don’t quit, because it’s the kind of family you choose.
We cashed out and now do our own thing, but we’ll always be brothers.
Life was good and I finally had the means to focus on a lot of things. Having unlimited funds can open up a whole new world. I concentrated on the one thing that had gotten me through a life that had been, for the most part, shit.
Revenge.
This building was the first thing I took from Harold Horner before I upended his life and took the rest. The house in the Hamptons, the apartment in Paris and the art that went along with it. The estate in Holmby Hills that included twenty exotic cars, as well as a working plantation in Louisiana. The plantation was disassembled (who the fuck holds on to that kind of past) with a new building in place to house kids that needed a better future.
Everything he owned is now mine. The rest of his empire was restructured and sold. Last I heard the bastard was shacked up in a guest house at a cousin’s place in San Francisco. Drinking himself into an early grave. Can’t be soon enough for me and when the time comes, I might even attend. I’d love to piss on his grave. Not gonna lie, seeing him six feet under will make me happy.
Rule number one. Don’t fuck with me or I’ll fuck you up harder. I think of that and smile as my driver pulls up to the curb and I get out. Peter, the mountain at the door nods his head as I take the steps and pause. “Busy tonight?”
“Full up boss. Your boys are inside.”
I adjust the gold cufflinks at my wrist and undo my tie. It’s been a fuck of a day. More meetings than I wanted. I nod to Peter and walk into a world that only exists for three hundred and fifty members and their guests. A world I control. The staff are mine. Loyal and well paid and attractive. The women though, off limits, even for me. Rule number two. Don’t fuck employees. It only serves to muddy the waters and almost always leads to shit that goes sideways.
The house band is playing the kind of blues that matters and I nod to a congressman as I pass his table. The woman with him isn’t his wife. I know this because I fucked her last week at function to raise money for the Arts. His date is a high-priced escort, as are most of the women here tonight.
She winks as I walk by. Licks her lips. I figure if I feel like sex later, she’s top of my list. From what I remember, she was bendy, like a goddamn gymnast and could twist her body in ways that would make a fucking priest sin. The congressman is enjoying the music, the food, the anonymity, and an atmosphere he pays five hundred grand a year in fees to enjoy. Every member of this club signs an NDA, and so do the staff. It’s what makes the place so attractive.
Brent is on bar tonight and lifts his chin as I stop for a second.
“Your private room is stocked; food is on the way and your guests are up there.” He’s been with me since I bought the place and I don’t mind saying it runs efficiently because of him.
“Thanks.” I give a nod and head for the elevator. Less than ten seconds later I walk into the only space in the building that’s off limits because it’s mine. My private lounge and up the stairs, my private residence.
Friday nights when we’re in the city, the guys and I meet up. Tonight, only three of them are here, Braedon, Cade and Abel. Crew, Huxley, and Jack are all out of the country.
“Hey assholes,” I say with a grin.
Braedon nods and smiles from across the room, a pretty blonde with fake tits, fake tan, and the straightest, whitest teeth I’ve ever seen, sprawled across his lap. Fucking Braedon, I think. He only dates strippers, and I use the termdatelightly. The guy goes through more pussy than anyone I know.
Cade and Abel are sitting at the bar, and I cross the room, eyes on a bottle of my favorite tequila. Clase Azul. The only stuff worth drinking.
“You boys flying solo tonight?” I ask as I reach for a crystal tumbler and then the bottle.
Cade nods and tosses back a shot. “Braedon didn’t get the memo.”
“Hey,” Braedon says from across the room. “I brought Candy for all of us.”
“Cindy,” the blonde says, clearly annoyed. “I’ve told you three times.”
