Chapter Three - OLIVER
“Your fucking sister, man. You need to rein her in.” Corporate says those last few words with staccato emphasis, like he’s on edge.
“Which one?” I sigh. Fucking sisters. And then I press send on the video I just made, sitting back in my chair, enthralled with the idea that Katya Kalashova will be watching it very soon.
“Ariel,” West says, throwing up his arms and then walking across the room to slump down on the couch placed against the far wall. “How in the hell does she insert herself into my life like she’s been there forever? Did you know she and Tori are suddenly BFFs?”
“Hmmm,” I say.
“Right? No good, right?”
Weston Conrad might look a little panicked. But… well, I can’t blame him. My sisters are what most people would call… wild. Even Belle, who is the tame one, has a very unusual dark side.
“Are you gonna try to tell me this has nothing to do with what went down a couple weeks ago? Because if so, I’ll save you the trouble. I don’t buy it. Victoria is obsessed, man. Fucking obsessed.”
“With Ariel?”
“No, you dumbass. With my parents.”
“What? Why?”
“They called me up the other day, said they were coming for a visit and they want to meet Ethan. Said they might never get another grandchild, so they’re all in for this adoption thing. Tori threw a fucking fit.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. Your dirty parents, blah, blah, blah. Buying children, blah, blah, blah. Over my dead body. Etc., etc., etc.”
“Well, why doesn’t she tell you what she really thinks?” I laugh, rubbing my hand down my face.
West shoots me a look that makes it very clear he does not find this funny. “So now we’re in Fort Collins. Staying at your sister’s house, Oliver.”
“For how long?”
“Until my parents back off, she said.”
“How long’s that?”
“I dunno,” he snaps. “Do I look like I know how long I’m going to be held hostage in Shrikeville? You need to tell Ariel to talk her down for me, OK? You need to ask her to—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, holding up my hands. “I’m not getting involved in your bullshit. Fuck that. I don’t even like you.”
“Scared?” West says, unsmiling.
“Uh, yeah. Dude, I don’t fuck with my sister’s plans. We get along because I keep my mouth shut and let her do whatever the hell she wants.”
“Well, that certainly worked with Cindy,” he says, half laughing. “Mysterious swooped right into your territory and took over.”
I sneer at him. “Like I could stop that after the fact.”
“Look,” West says. “Do you really want Tori hanging out with Ariel? Can you even imagine the trouble they will cause? I mean, I get you know what your sister’s capable of, but you have no clue how crazy Victoria Arias can be.”
“I have an idea,” I say. “Maybe we weren’t close after that shit went down in college, but Pax filled me in about the two of you. If she does something crazy—”
“She will, Oliver. They are planning something, I just know it. And you’re the only one who can figure out what it is so we can put a stop to it. Do you understand that? I mean, can’t you talk to her? Just a quick, ‘Hey, did you know Victoria is kinda psycho? Maybe you should send her packing and save this town some trouble?’”
“Right.” I laugh. “I say that to Ariel and she becomes even more interested. I don’t think you know her very well. Cindy is the calm sister in this family. Belle is a hard-ass like you’ve never seen before. She took lessons from my Uncle Ford. Who, by the way, is Five’s father, just to give you an idea of what that means. And Jasmine spends her days tattooing bikers with my batshit-crazy uncles. We just better hope Ariel doesn’t get them all together because things will go down.”
“This is all your fault.”
“My fault?” I laugh. “Victoria is the instigator in this whole mess. Don’t pass this off on me.”
“Pass what off?”
Corporate and I both whirl around to find Tori and Ariel standing at the top of the stairwell.
“Yeah,” Ariel says. They both step forward into my office. “What are you talking about?”
“Just how long you guys are gonna be in town,” I say, directing that statement to Victoria.
She hates me. But I don’t take it personally. I think she hates everyone but Weston and the new kid they’re adopting.
“As long as necessary,” she replies, narrowing her eyes. “If Weston’s parents, and I use that word to be polite, think they’re going to get their claws into my child, they’ve got another thing coming.”
“They just want to meet him, Tori. For fuck’s sake.”
“Why?”
“Why?” West asks. “Because I’m adopting him. We’re getting married. They’re my parents. They love me.”
I wait for an explosion from Tori. I do kind of agree with her on this. The Conrads are suspicious as hell. I’ve tried to look into their past, but it’s nothing but photographs in the society pages of the Boston Globe and board meetings on the long list of charities they fund.
Everyone has dirt. So when you can’t find it easily, red flags abound.
“I know they love you,” Tori says, playing it cool. Her beautiful face—and there’s no denying this woman’s beauty—lights up with a smile as she walks over to her man and entwines their arms together. “But I don’t love them. I don’t trust them, or like them, or want anything to do with them.” She blinks her violet eyes innocently as she gazes up at West. “Sweetie.”
“Whatever.” West sighs. “They’re not coming here, so no need to dwell.”
“Hey, you know what?” Ariel says, a devious glint of mischief flashing in her eyes. “There’s a house for sale on Mountain Avenue, right down the street from mine. You should go look at it, you guys.”
“No—”
“Oh, man. I love that street,” Tori pipes up.
“Houses never come up for sale,” Ariel continues, undeterred.
“No,” West repeats. “We’re not buying another house. I just paid off the one we have in Burbank, Tori. We don’t even have the money. And who the fuck needs a headhunter in Fort Collins, Colorado, anyway?”
“Oh, we have lots of million-dollar tech companies down in the metro area, Weston.” That’s Ariel. And now I see what West was talking about. These two are definitely up to something. “And FoCo airport isn’t far away. You guys have that jet, right? You don’t even have to drive down to Denver International to get out of here. You can fly anywhere you need to go.”
“Did you put her up to this?” West asks Tori.
Another innocent batting of her eyelashes from Miss Arias. “Me? Why, no. We’re just good friends. Don’t friends want to live close to each other? And besides, Ellie and Mac already live in Colorado too. I bet Cindy comes home.” Tori looks at me. “Don’t you think Cindy will move home, Oliver? And that Pax, he’s smitten with her. He’ll live anywhere she wants.”
“No,” West says, determined.
“We could sell the Burbank house. It’s worth a lot more than the houses here, for sure.”
“Tori, no.”
“What’s going on?” Every head turns towards the stairwell where Cindy and Paxton are walking into my office.
“Shit,” West and I say together.
“Look!” Tori says. “See! I told you!”
“Oh, my God,” Cindy says. “I feel like I haven’t been home in forever.” She runs over to Ariel and they hug, like they didn’t just see each other two weeks ago.
I glare at Pax. He glares back. “What the fuck happened to you?” I ask, motioning towards the black eye he’s sporting.
“Um—” Pax says.
“Dad got a little crazy this morning,” Cindy says, her shuffling feet giving away her apprehension about the encounter.
I can’t help it. I laugh. “Is that why he was outside waving his arms around like a maniac twenty minutes ago?”
“That would be correct,” Pax says, walking over to the little makeshift bar I have set up in a corner. He pulls down a glass, gets some ice from the mini fridge-freezer, and then drops it in with a clink. He reaches for the bourbon and pours.
“You do realize it’s not even nine AM?” I call out to Pax. He ignores me.
“I think the meet-and-greet went really well,” Cindy says, nervous smile all over her face. “It was over in like ten seconds.”
“Ford pulled him off.” Ariel laughs. “Belle called me.” And then she deadpans a look over at Pax, who is too busy gulping down his liquor to give a shit. “You had that coming, Mysterious.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, refilling his glass. Cindy walks over and starts making an ice pack for his eye as I picture that fight in my head.
I smile and feel sorta satisfied that my big, bad friend got slugged by my big, bad father. “Did you hit him back?” I ask, wondering.
Pax shoots me a disgusted look over his shoulder, then goes back to his drink.
“Anyway,” Tori says. “Isn’t it great that we’re all here?”
“You know what would be even greater?” Cindy calls from the bar. “If Ellie came up too.”
“Right?” Ariel says. “And Ivy. Oh, let’s go call Ivy. I’m sure she could use a nice vacation from all the stress.”
All three girls are suddenly on the move and a few seconds later it’s just me, Pax, and West.
“We’re in big trouble,” West says.
Pax slumps down into a chair in front of my desk, drink in one hand, other hand holding the ice over his eye. He sighs. “I got a call from Liam Henry just before we left California.”
West and I shoot each other suspicious looks. Then direct our attention to Pax.
Pax stares at me for a few seconds, his expression unreadable. His gaze tracks to West. Eyes red and bleary. Filled with fatigue, like he hasn’t slept in a while. “Says he’s gonna tell me what’s going on.”
“Yeah?” West says, that one word laced with suspicion. He narrows his eyes at Pax and I start to get a very bad feeling about all this.
“Yeah,” Pax says, swirling the ice around in his glass. “Says all I gotta do is finish the job I started and every question about that night will be answered.”