“Just another fucked up day in paradise,” I mumble, walking out of my lavish eighty-two hundred square foot beachfront palace overlooking the crystal-clear beaches of the Tampa Bay shores. The sarcasm of my statement dripping with bullshit as I jump into my Aston Martin One-77 and speed off. Weaving through the sunny Florida rush hour traffic, I manage to avoid hitting a pedestrian chasing after a dog running across the street. It wasn’t just luck, though. It’s because numbers are my thing. My brain is fucked up. Constant numbers, calculations. Formation of fractions, equations. Shit, I can go on and on. Science of patterns. My brain never sleeps.

Math is in fucking everything. Orderliness, balance, logic—all the shit I need to do my job. All the mental traits it takes to live.

Therefore, when my brain doesn’t sleep, I don’t sleep.

Picture that cartoon figure walking with the constant bubble above his head figuring out equations. Got it? That’s me. Math prodigy.

I pull into the underground parking lot of my company, Four Fathers Freight, and park in my reserved spot. The one that says Owner. I’m tempted to have maintenance change it to Motherfuckin’ Owner, because when you’re the boss, you can do whatever the fuck you want. But I’m just one of four—four powerful men who created an empire.

I jump out of my car, grab for my phone, and lock her. Yeah, she’s a her. Because she purrs like a kitten in heat when I get her up to a hundred in less than sixty seconds. I wish some of the women I brought home purred as nice as she did. That thought reminds me of one of three voicemails I have sitting on my phone. Some of many fires I have to put out today.

Entering the private entrance, I press my open palm up to the scanner, accessing the elevator designed just for the seventieth floor. When the ding notifies me the ride’s over, it opens just in time for me to witness the usual fucked up shit I try to avoid.

“Morning,” I grumble as Levi Kingston, one of the partners, makes a half ass effort to pull himself away from our receptionist without bothering to remove his hand from her thigh.

Of course, the asshole just smiles at me. “Ahhh, in early I see,” he says, bringing his predatorial eyes back to the girl, not caring he just got caught breaking a shit ton of employment regulations. Not that everyone else in this fucking company doesn’t break rules. It seems as if I’m the only levelheaded one around here when it comes to women. Simply because I stay the fuck away from them.

A reminder of the second message sitting on my phone I have to deal with.

I step forward, allowing the receptionist to hand me the mail. “Good morning, Mr. Blackstone. I forwarded all the calls that came in over the weekend to your personal line,” she stutters, her nerves getting the best of her. Good to know she at least realizes fraternizing with her boss is frowned upon in the workforce.

“Trev, we were just discussing a company team builder. What do you say, a work party at one of your beachfront properties?” I look at Levi, surprised he’s even sitting on her desk. I haven’t seen a wrinkle in his top-of-the-line suit since the day I met him. Two hundred and twelve seconds have passed since I’ve walked into the office, and with the tilt of his lean, add on the abrasion to the fabric, he’s creating seven creases in his pants, three in his suit coat, and one in my forehead at the lawsuit when our admin learns all the heavy shit he’s into and screams assault.

“I’ll have to check to see what’s available. Got work to do.” Waving them off, I head to my office, shut the door, and throw myself into my leather chair. With a swift twist, I face toward the wall of glass windows and stare out into the water.

I love the fucking water.

It’s why I moved to Tampa. Why I forced Eric Pearson, my best friend and partner, to start up Four Fathers here and not in New York. I handle all numbers for the company. I’ve handled them since back in college when starting Four Fathers was just an idea Eric and I conjured up one night while drinking expensive bourbon his father sent for him passing yet another class with flying colors. Little does his rich asshole father know, it was me taking those tests.

I watch a few surfers hit the water, wishing I was on the other side of the glass not dealing with bullshit at work, when my phone alerts me to a new voicemail. Looking at the missed number, a small sigh of relief floods through me. One good thing: my realtor. Hopefully she locked down the last property on Flanders Bay—the last house on the mile-long oceanfront subdivision I don’t own.

First things first, I listen to the voicemail that’s been sitting in my inbox since late last night. I know this isn’t gonna be pretty. I press play, and close my eyes, waiting for the bitching to begin.

“Trevor, this is Susan. You know, the one you blew off tonight, you fucking prick! I waited for almost three hours for you. Hope you choke on your own dick, loser!”

Pretty much what I expected to hear. Maybe I should call her back and tell her she should update her fucking photo on her dating site so her future dates know she looks more like a cow than a high school varsity cheerleader. Christ. Then, when I got to the restaurant last night after unwillingly being set up by my ex, perhaps I wouldn’t have walked right out after seeing what a hot mess she was. I don’t know what it is with women and Botox nowadays. The sight of her lips didn’t turn me on. They fucking scared me. The image of her suffocating my poor cock with those gigantic things had me turning around and running south.

This leads me to the second voicemail. The call I missed this morning from Darlene, my ex. I wish that bitch would stop meddling in my life by trying to set me up on blind dates with women who look like lab experiments. I take a deep breath and hit play.

“Trevor, what the fuck? I just got off the phone with Susan and she told me you blew her off last night! She’s a great gal. Gives great head, from what I hear. You need to start dating, Trev. It’s not good for our son to see you always so closed off. Bringing home random girls doesn’t set a good example for him. Anyway, call her. I think she’d be willing to reschedule. Kiki and I give our love. See you Sunday!”

My dick and I both say no thank you to the reschedule. And Kaden, our son, is almost twenty-one and away at college. He’s old enough to mind his own business. If anyone should be worried about our son, it’s her and the way she swapped for the other team.

Yeah, that’s right. Darlene, after twenty-one years of marriage, went through a midlife crisis, took off to Vegas one day, and came home weeks later in love with a stripper. Female stripper. I thought it was just a phase. I let her ride it out—or ride out the chick twenty years younger she was experimenting with. I told myself I would back off while she snapped out of it. I was always so damn busy with work, I could understand. She was just lonely. Needed the affection. I was glad it wasn’t another dude. It was actually hot, I thought. But then, one night, I was drunk as a skunk and came home to them on the couch eating each other out like fucking carnivores. Tried to get in the middle of that, and her lover punched me in the dick while Darlene just cried, telling me she wanted a divorce.

So, while I ended up with a really sore dick and blue balls, they ended up with my house, alimony, and partial custody of our son.

It’s been five years, so my balls have recovered, but I’m not sure my dick has. When your wife leaves you for a woman, you start to wonder what was so wrong with the big guy in the first place. I wasn’t a cheater or a beater. I didn’t verbally abuse her or step out on her. I may have been absent for a lot of our marriage, but that’s what came with being on top. I worked twenty-four hours a day, and she wanted for nothing. Well, apparently, what she wanted was more pussy in her life.

I delete the message knowing I’m not going to call her back. She’ll have enough to say on Sunday when she comes over with the newest design layout for staging the Flanders property, which is soon to be torn down and built into a luxurious mansion, set to match the rest of the houses on the beach.

Don’t let that statement confuse you. Darlene doesn’t work for me. She didn’t work a single day we were married, and damn if she thought to get a job after we divorced. She gave me some, “What would our son think to see his poor mother suffering in the workforce?” sob story bullshit. I told her he would see a woman earning her keep like everyone else in the fucking world. That also fell on deaf ears. Instead, she spends my money like it’s her fucking job, purchasing anything and everything as if the sky’s the limit. I’m pretty sure I just funded her girlfriend’s new boob job. Luckily for me, part of that spending entails buying shit to furnish and decorate each house I purchase—a task I want nothing to do with.

The first two messages have me pulling out my desk drawer and reaching for my Tums. It’s not even nine in the morning and I’m already calculating the minutes it’s gonna take for these fuckers to dissolve and not fix the stress burn in my stomach. I have a ton of meetings and Eric will be in soon wanting to work the numbers on the new warehouse going up in south Miami.

I decide to avoid the third voicemail and listen to the one that just came through.

“Trevor, Clara Hill. It seems we ran into a bit of a problem with the sale of 1543 Flanders Bay. The owner’s granddaughter is holding the sale ‘til the end of the summer. She refuses, even for a higher bid, to sign off on the contract until then, claiming she’s staying at the residence. Let me know how you want us to proceed.”

“Son of a bitch.” The one call that was supposed to bring some joy to my day. “Fuck!” I’ve been working on the sale of that house for months. The property next door is a shack and in desperate need of a renovation. As in, tear the ugly fucker down and rebuild to match the other houses on the block. When I bought my house, there was nobody living in it. Probably due to the condition of it.

I got the call a few months ago from my realtor saying the woman who owned it was finally ready to sell. My team was pushing for a quick sale, and I was willing to pay way over what it was worth. The shit thing is, she died before I got that damn amendment signed, which left our deal in the hands of her executor of trust—her granddaughter. The end of the summer wasn’t gonna work for me. That woman was signing off on that sale—and now.

I text Clara telling her to handle it and not call back until she has an agreement. I want the closing date to be yesterday. It’s rare anyone tells me no, hence why I have the entire construction set for three days from today. What I don’t need is their little granddaughter trying to work more money out of me and stall my plans.

The anxiety of how this setback will domino effect the rest of the project sends my mind into overdrive. Dropping my phone, I bring my fingers to my temples and press hard enough to bruise. I do as Dr. Winters taught me and begin counting down from one hundred, until the numbers and equations stop swirling around in my head. I need this project to stay on course.

I pick up the phone and hit Eric’s number. I get his voicemail, which doesn’t shock me. He’s been up to no good himself, no doubt putting his dick in someone even younger than the secretary Levi’s after. I leave him a message telling him I need to push back our meeting. I have someone’s granddaughter to threaten.