A Double Dose of Billionaire: Part Four Read online

  Copyright ©2014 by Rachel Ellis

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  I curled under the blankets, hiding myself from the rest of the world.

  “Come on, Scarlet,” Kristie said, trying to tear the sheets off. “You’ve got to snap out of this.”

  I snatched a tissue from the bedside. “My life has come to ruin. Leave me alone to die.”

  “I’m not taking any more of this.” She pulled on the blanket with all her strength. I let my guard down, allowing her to remove it from my hands. It slipped down my bed. Stubborn and refusing to face reality, I shoved my head under my pillow and covered myself with its safe warmth.

  She shook my shoulder. “You’ve been having nothing but smoothies for the last week. Your whole house is a giant elephant of a mess, and you stink. Come on! Get the hell up.”

  I sat up, like she asked me to, and groaned. “Why can’t you just leave me be?”

  “Because I’m me and you’re Scarlet. Go take a shower, darn it. You smell and look like crap. When was the last time you combed your hair?”

  Absentmindedly, I brought my fingers to my hair. It had bundled into a frizzy mess of oiliness. “Three days ago. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Three days? Seriously? Stop being disgusting. Keep yourself together, sweetheart, and forget about those assholes.”

  Her mentioning Ryan and Riley made me want to hide under the blanket again. I hadn’t heard a sound from them since last week. The last time I heard from them was when I was at their place, shortly after they found the pictures. They were kicking me out at that time. At the office, they had found some strange pictures of me making out with their business partners on their desk—nothing of that sort had happened. How that came about continued to be a mystery.

  The twins put it subtly when they asked me to leave, saying they needed time to breathe. Without much of an explanation, they got their helpers to pack my things. They said I could keep Tyrone’s services for as long as I wanted, and deposited some money into my bank account after abruptly laying me off. I haven’t checked how much yet, but probably some exorbitant amount. They offered to get me a new apartment to get away from the paparazzi, but I declined. I didn’t want to be thrown into somewhere so unfamiliar.

  What scared me the most was that I could possibly never see them again.

  What if that was it? Asking me to leave was their way to tell me they were breaking up with me. The more I thought about it, the more real it felt.

  I blew my nose into the Kleenex. “Fuck those assholes.”

  “Yeah, screw them,” Kristie agreed, placing both her hands on her hips.

  I nodded. “Yeah. We should forget about them.”

  I held back a cry, but not for very long. Within a few seconds, I was bawling into the tissue. Breakups totally sucked. And what did we break up for? Some fabricated lie backed up by false, yet convincing, evidence? It wasn’t worth it. Not one bit.

  “I’m going to call them,” I said, taking out my phone.

  She snatched the device away and threw it to the side of my bed. “Nuh uh.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and gave me a disappointed look. “Did you forget what you said one minute ago? Forget about them. Get active. Do something to get yourself to stop thinking about those jerks.”

  I glanced at the phone and sighed. “Like what?”

  “I’ll take you out for lunch. We can go watch a movie, or visit the casino. Whatever works.”

  “The casino? Now you’re talking.” I wiggled my eyebrows. I hardly gambled, but that sounded like a fun idea. I hadn’t been there for a few years. “Give me thirty minutes to get ready.” I shouldn’t let my life revolve around them.

  “Oh, shut up, gorgeous. You don’t need any time.”

  “Are you serious? I look like Soviet Russia nuked both my eyelids.”

  ***

  The stakes were high.

  I pushed all my chips to the center of the table. It always looked cool in the movies, and felt even cooler when I did it for real. “All in.”

  Kristie made a soft gasp next to me. “Seriously? That’s five freaking thousand dollars.”

  “Don’t worry, I got this.” The Luck God apparently favored me, because I drew a straight flush. What were the chances?

  I had been on a lucky streak all night. When I went to the ATM to draw some money, I found out the twins had deposited thirty thousand dollars into my account. I drew out a thousand to spend, deciding to act against reason. After that, it was winnings after winnings. That thirty thousand was stingy, for billionaires, but enough, at least until the child came.

  I still wasn’t going to abort it, not after having grown attached to my baby after an entire month. I might have to fight for child support, since finances were tight. Thirty thousand wasn’t nearly enough for a kid.

  The rest of the table folded, and it was just the dealer and me. A confident middle-aged fellow who didn’t change his facial expression. “All in.”

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I stood a chance. Haughtily, I revealed my cards, thinking I had already won.

  I saw the dealer smirk for the first time that night, and it made my blood churn. It sent nausea to my head. He’s calling a bluff. But then, what reason did he have to do so? The time ticked by twice as slow when he laid his cards onto the table. My stomach sank. Tonight’s winnings and my initial one thousand dollars—gone.

  Bastard got a royal flush.

  That was nearly four months’ worth of rent.

  It was only in my mind, but I could almost feel the condescending stares of everyone in the casino on my back.

  Kristie threw a hand onto my shoulder. “Oh, no. How in the world did that happen?” She left her mouth gaping open in disbelief.

  Still in mid-shock, I responded, “I don’t know.”

  The smug woman sitting next to me let out a soft chortle. I eyeballed her, ready to punch her till her nose bled. I was in the worst mood I’d ever been in in my life. Strangling her till she choked nearly sounded like a valid option.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Kristie said, pulling me away by my arm. “I think we’ve had enough gambling for the night.”

  I had alloted one thousand dollars to spend, and with that gone, I had to go. “I thought I’d won.”

  Kristie had burned her fingers at the slot machines, losing fifty dollars—a reasonable amount compared to my losses. “I know, sweetheart, but these things, you can’t control them. Try to play it safer next time.”

  We walked to the parking lot with me practically dragging my feet against the ground. I was wrong about the Luck God after all. He, or she, hated me, and couldn’t wait to crush me like an insect. “Maybe this is all karma. Why the hell did I decide to steal my neighbor’s mangoes when I was younger?”

  Kristie laughed. “Are you getting superstitious? I thought you weren’t into that crap.”

  “First, the twins dump me for some stupid reason, and now I lose five thousand? What’s next? My apartment catches on fire? I’ve been down on my luck all this time.”

  She patted my back. “Don’t think too much about it, sweetheart. Think about the five thousand as extra. It was really only one thousand, and that was money you were willing to spend.”

  I scoffed, “Yeah, like that makes it any better.”

  “The casino was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Alcohol?”

  She frowned. “Not tonight, young lady. That’s enough destructive behavior for one day. Think about your baby. You’ve got to start taking care of yourself.”

  “Probably. I can’t stop thinking about Ryan and Riley, you know? They’ve been stuck in my h
ead all this time. I’m on a downward spiral, Kristie. I try to tell myself that if I get into enough shit they’ll start to care, and maybe if they love me enough, they’ll put those stupid pictures behind them.”

  “That doesn’t sound…”

  “It sounds stupid, that’s what. Irrational bullshit. But I can’t help it, you know? I’m an emotional train wreck now. It makes me want to keep making bad decisions over and over again.”

  She sat me down on the sidewalk and wrapped a caring arm around my shoulder. “Let it out, girl.”

  “I’m lost, damn it, so damn fucking lost. And I shouldn’t be. Aren’t the twins and I supposed to have a baby together? Shouldn’t they care more, instead of kicking me out without even talking it through? I trusted them more than that. They repeated ‘I love you’ so many times. I thought they actually meant it. Turns out it’s all a scam.” I clenched my fists. Rather than just getting sad again—I’d been drowning myself in that emotion way too much—I got angry and sad at the same time.

  “It’s normal. You’ll get over it.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m afraid I won’t. It’s like I’m cheated. Betrayed.”

  “It’s a typical breakup, deary. Breakups suck and hurt like hell, especially if the relationship ended like the way yours did. You will forget them.” She stood up and offered a hand. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home. I’ll even make you a smoothie.”

  ***

  “Feeling better?” Kristie asked, walking me down the corridor. I’d die without a friend like her. Without her by my side, acting as a godsent angel and sticking it out with me every step of the way, getting through my thousand-and-one breakups would be ten times more painful.

  I wiped my face with my tissue. “Much. Thanks for letting me bawl to you in the car. It really helped.” I told her most of what had happened. How perfect things seemed, and our little quarrels. I skipped through the racy bits, filling them up with some white lies, replacing the stories of physical abuse with emotional ones and leaving things vague. She didn’t press much. Instead, she acted as a listener. She knew she didn’t have to keep talking. She only had to let me get my frustrations out.

  “You ought to be thankful,” she joked. “Half the tissues in my box are gone.”

  I rolled my eyes and grinned. “Sorry about that.” As I took out my keys, Kristie got a call.

  She picked it up within the third ring. “Hey, what’s up? Oh… okay. I don’t know.”

  “Who is it?” I mouthed.

  Covering the phone’s mouthpiece, she whispered, “Keith.”

  Keith was Kristie’s new boyfriend. They got hooked up back when I had just met the twins, and from what I’d heard, their relationship was hitting off better than a home run.

  She continued talking to him as I awkwardly stood at the doorway with my keys, wondering whether I should open the door or not. As she hung up the call, she flashed me a guilty look. “So…”

  “You need to go.” And there was the evil Luck God again, raining down on my parade.

  “Yeah, Keith forgot his house keys and he needs me there to open the door for him.”

  My jaw dropped slightly. “The both of you have already moved in together? Since when?”

  Cringing, she backed away and fiddled with her fingers. “Kind of. I stay at his place sometimes. I’ve got his spare keys.”

  “Oh.” I tried to shrug Kristie’s departure off. Her presence helped to calm my nerves, but I couldn’t get too dependent. “I guess that can’t be helped. I’ll see you around?”

  “Work has been busy lately. Being Deputy Director isn’t as awesome as it sounds.” The twins managed to get Kristie promoted a few weeks back, right before I found out I was pregnant. She chewed her lower lip. “I might not be free til this weekend.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll handle myself.” Not.

  Kristie flashed me a mocking smirk. “Sure, I believe you. You’re the worst at handling breakups. Call me when you need someone to talk to, okay? Meetings can wait.”

  “I’m not that bad at handling breakups.”

  “That guy before Damien. What was his name?”

  Darn. That was a one-time incident. I didn’t like her bringing that up. “Brad.”

  “I had to get you out of his apartment after you hit him and nearly knocked his door down.”

  I grinned playfully. “Hey, I kicked the shit out of him.”

  “A black eye doesn’t mean that you did.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Well, if anything pops up, call me.”

  “Whatever.”

  She glared at me.

  “Okay, okay, I will.”

  “Good, now take care of yourself. Don’t be stupid.”

  Why was Kristie starting to sound like my mother? “I will.”

  “Yep, I still don’t believe you.”

  My shoulders sagged as I watched my best friend walk down the corridor and turn the corner. She left me all by myself again. Time to wallow in my self-pity and overdose on smoothies. Maybe I could watch another movie, or play some online poker, embracing more self-destructive behavior. I thought about my losses today and decided against it. I’d be avoiding poker for a long time.

  I turned the door knob and stepped into my apartment. Oddly, my lights were on. Did I forget to turn them off?

  Rubbing my eyes, I set my keys onto the counter. As I whipped my head around, I caught sight of somebody I hated. Really hated.

  Kelly, the girl who Damien cheated on me with, was sitting on my sofa. She wasn’t doing anything else but look at me with a smug expression, her head tilted up in a challenge.

  “Why the hell are you in my apartment, you bitc—”

  Before I finished my sentence, something was thrown over my head—a sack, presumably. It blocked my vision, effectively blinding me. My assaulter wrapped his or her filthy hands around my waist.

  A hard object smashed against my skull. I heard a faint clank sound before blacking out.

  When I came to, the most painful headache I’d ever had was pounding in my ears. I groaned. My hands were tied behind a chair by some coarse ropes. The ropes had begun to bite and tear into my skin. I recognized the place. I was still in the same apartment. My apartment. I had always felt safest in my own home. It never crossed my mind that I’d be ambushed there.

  My cloudy vision cleared. The man standing at the other corner of the living room became recognizable.

  Damien.

  What the fuck? Why would he tie me up like this? He didn’t act like the kind who had enough balls to do things like that. No relief came to me after I spotted Damien. He was idiot, and idiots tend to do dumb shit, including dangerous and brash things.

  “Is she awake?” a girl’s voice sounded. Kelly appeared from the corner of my eye.

  Damien looked up from his phone. “Is she? Oh, shit, how are we doing this?”

  Doing what? They weren’t planning on murdering me, were they? Because judging from the way Damien talked, what they were about to carry out seemed serious. But why would they want to kill me? My first conclusion was they were trying to get some money out of me. Damien did mention the loan sharks and how they couldn’t get away from them. I should have reported these two to the police long ago.

  “I’ll handle this.” She was chewing gum. That annoying movement of her lips grated on my nerves. Why did people like to chew gum? It made them look like cows. But I had more worrying things to concentrate on.

  From the looks of it, Kelly had planned my whole kidnapping. Damien was simply her henchman, out to do the dirty work. Studying her stature, I couldn’t fathom why my ex-boyfriend would cheat on me with her. She was too skinny, to the point where I could see her chest bones and her thighs wrinkled and sagged. Her teeth were a horrible shade of yellow. She should have been around the same age as Damien, since they went to school together, but she looked ten years older than she actually was. She bent down so her face leveled with mine. “I think you know what we want.” The
smell of cigarettes wafted to my face. Was she a drug user? Because she carried that image pretty well and beside my couch was a bong. She was actually smoking pot in my house?

  “No, I don’t, bitch,” I lied. “And I probably don’t have whatever you need.” I tried to wriggle free from the ropes so I could claw the skin off her face. She dared steal my ex-boyfriend, manipulate him, break into my house, and then make him bind me up? I didn’t want to have any more of that.

  She beckoned to Damien with her index finger. “Come here.”

  “Do we have to do this?” he asked, reluctantly strolling to her side.

  “It’s thirty thousand dollars, hun. They’re not going to let us go. We need that money.”

  Her words triggered the memory of Damien showing up at my workplace’s lobby weeks ago, begging for cash. How Kelly managed to convince him to go through such lengths puzzled me. Considering she had sex with an attached guy, gambled too much, and plotted a kidnapping, her personality wasn’t exactly peachy either.The woman barely had any breasts or butt. Her face was a mess too, with dark circles around her eyes and a horrible spotted complexion.

  My jaw clenched. “Thirty thousand? No, I don’t have that kind of money. And Damien told me it was five just last week.” I did have that in my bank account, but if I gave it to her, I would barely have any left over. I’d be kicked out by next month, and even grocery money would run low. I wasn’t quite ready to be homeless yet, especially not because of these two.

  She sneered, “Five is too little. The twins should have more. And, as if I’d take ‘no’ for an answer. Damien, pass it over.”

  “I don’t think we should—”

  “Just hand it over, stop chickening out.” He reached over to his back pocket and pulled a black, metal object out. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was, but once I did, I nearly screamed and wet myself.

  They had a gun.

  On screen, they showed scenes like this all the time, so much that common folk like me get desensitized to them. Kelly pointed its barrel at me. I had an actual gun to my face, a trigger away from getting killed. The instinctual need to survive kicked in and my body went into a flight or fight mode. Adrenaline rushed through my veins and my senses bucked into overdrive. “Put that thing away!” I lurched backwards. The chair nearly tipped over before I regained my balance and slammed it back down onto the floor.