“How are you feeling?” Darren asked as he led me to his underwhelming office. The thought occurred to me, for the first time, that Darren designed everything around him—himself included—to come off as unthreatening and harmless. A red alert started flashing inside my head. Ding, ding, ding.

He never wore expensive suits.

Always stood crouched, his chin down.

His lips. His offices. His relationships. He was almost conveniently weak.

“Please don’t pretend like you give a fuck.” I dumped my wallet and cell phone onto his desk, taking a seat. “Life’s too short for that.”

“Fair enough.” He watched me carefully, making his way to his seat. This time he didn’t offer me a drink, or a cigar, or his left lung. He offered me a pissed look that told me that he already knew I’d come bearing bad news.

Then he actually beat me to it. “You thlept with her.”

The gentleman code dictated that I shouldn’t deny nor confirm this statement, but the contract I’d signed indicated that I’d better speak up, unless getting slapped with a lawsuit was a turn-on. I settled for somewhere in between. I wasn’t ready to throw Jesse under the bus in case she hadn’t told him. And I strongly wanted to believe Jesse hadn’t shared her sexual exploits with her stepdaddy, because: super. Fucking. Gross.

“Whether I did or not is irrelevant. Circumstances change. I want out.” I lit up a joint coolly, throwing the still-lit match onto the desk between us. I did it mainly to spite him and to remind him that he was not the boss of me. Though I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. The match sizzled and died, and I wished Darren would follow suit.

“You have a few more months left, I believe.” Darren cracked his neck, glancing at the time on my phone. He looked oddly at ease, and I wondered what kind of Xanax he was popping these days.

“She has a job. She’s got friends. She’s got me. None of that is going to change in the next six months, or years, if she decides to stay in Todos Santos.” The thought she might not made me want to break someone’s nose. “So the whole timeline issue is irrelevant. I’m not asking for the remainder of the money. I’m letting you walk away after paying me three million dollars for way more than six months.” For a lifetime. But, of course, I didn’t utter this shit aloud because for one, it was pathetic, and two, I knew Jesse was going to wise up sooner or later and go for a guy who deserved her. Life doesn’t stop for anyone. Even not for a low-bending asshole like me.

“The time limit was the reason we had a contract,” Darren argued, his left eye ticking, before adding, “but that was before you broke the contract. You’re right about one thing, Bane. Circumstances have changed.”

I leaned forward. “Don’t give me this bullshit. I helped your stepdaughter more than her therapist and the two of you have, combined.”

“Still broke a contract,” he said dryly.

I realized I didn’t have the time nor the interest to bicker with this clown, so I just waved him off. “Know what? Whatever. I spent around a mill of what you gave me. I’ll wire you the remaining two million back. We’ll call it even. Move on with your life and put that wife of yours on a shorter leash.”

“Bane.” He sprawled his bony fingers on the desk, grinning. “You’re not listening carefully to this entire conversation.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Huh?”

“You’re seriously, stupidly fucked.”

Darren opened a locked drawer in his desk, not sparing me a look. He took out a pile of documents from it and slapped it on the surface between us, before taking a steady breath, his expression blasé and foreign on his face, and said, “Why don’t you read clause number seventy-seven, point seven, Mr. Protsenko? Maybe the damages clause will make the penny drop.”

Then I finally got it.

The lisp.

It was gone.

It was gone, and so was the man I thought I’d read so well. Darren Morgansen straightened in his seat. He looked sharper, more alert. Not the same god the tycoons of Todos Santos were, but closer. Warmer.

What the fuck are you playing at, old man?

He slid the signed contract my way, and my eyes searched frantically for that goddamn clause I hadn’t bothered reading. I didn’t even have to ask why he’d faked a goddamn lisp. It was to throw people like me off. That’s why I’d skimmed the contract. Because he acted like a weak-chinned chicken. He wasn’t. He was something else entirely, and the worst part was that I had yet to figure out what. My eyes landed on the clause, and I could almost feel the chuckle Darren produced from his mouth inside my own throat, choking me.

77.7 In the case of termination or breach of the contract for any reason whatsoever by Roman Protsenko (The Entrepreneur), and with respect to the time, effort, and resources of Darren Morgansen (The Investor), The Entrepreneur shall compensate The Investor with $1.5 Million USD, which is a readily ascertainable sum certain of damages suffered by The Investor.

My eyes kept on reading and reading and re-fucking-reading the same paragraph over and over again, because it didn’t make any sense. How had I signed something like this? I was savvy. Every move I made was calculated to a fault. I may have looked like the easy-going pothead, and I certainly played the part—just like Darren played his—but I was a chess player, for fuck’s sake. Artem would kill me if he knew. If he was alive. Which he wasn’t.

Shit. Oh, God. Shit, shit, shit.

Darren propped his elbows on his desk, his smirk widening. He was having a great time. He pressed his index finger to the middle of the page and dragged it slowly back to his side of the desk, making a show of sighing. “Looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle.”

I stared him down, feeling the air inside my body turning into fuel, burning with anger. “What’s your fucking angle?”

He raised one eyebrow, poking his lower lip out. “Angle?”

“You didn’t go through all this trouble for nothing. What was your end game, Morgansen? And don’t fuck with me.”

He rubbed his chin in circles, thinking about it. “Fair enough. Seeing as you are indebted to me a sum of money you can never repay—two-and-a-half million dollars, I believe—and your relationship with Jesse is pretty much over, I guess I can tell you. It was about Artem.”

“Huh?” I wasn’t following him.

“Artem,” he repeated, “was my angle. See, I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off Jesse, and I never liked you, Bane. Even before I knew you, I hated you. I hated you because I hated him.”

“What business did you have with fucking Artem?” I spat out. I’d liked my mother’s former boyfriend, but he was a distant memory at this point. Mostly, I was sad for my mom. She’d really liked him.

Darren threw his head back and laughed. I wanted to punch his face, but wanted to hear his explanation even more.

Finally, he calmed down. “Artem Omeniski was Jesse’s dad.”

Here’s the thing about life: most of time, you’re in motion, so you don’t really know what’s happening around you. You are simply reacting to situations, and that’s why it is said that your life is actually nothing but a collection of your decisions. But sometimes, life is more than that. Sometimes, it’s a puzzle that falls into place with a click. Everything made sense now.

Pam and Artem had never been married. Therefore, Jesse was a Carter, not an Omeniski.

Artem had cheated on Pam with my mother, tearing Jesse’s family apart.

Artem was loved and adored by Jesse, and Darren hated him, or the idea of him. Consequently, he knew that I was the bastard child Artem had taken under his wing all those years ago. That’s actually how my mom and Artem had met. Around middle school, he’d gotten assigned to make sure I wasn’t going to grow up to be a serial killer or something, and we had weekly meetings. They’d wanted a Russian-speaking social worker I’d feel comfortable with, and I did. We hit it off. He’d come to our house. Eaten from our plates. Taught me shit. And my mother was always warm, perceptive, beautiful, and soft-spoken. They had similar values and thoughts and culture. I couldn’t fault him for cheating on Pam. Hell, he’d probably stuck around just to be in Jesse’s life. Who knew what Pam would have been capable of if he’d left?

“So you wanted to get back at Artem through me?” I rubbed my chin. “Are you aware of the fact that you can’t hurt dead people? They’re kind of beyond that.”

Darren shrugged. “Still. Jesse loved the bastard so much. He didn’t deserve all this admiration.”

“Did you kill him?” As far as everyone knew, Artem had fallen down the stairs and died in the office building where he’d worked. Broken neck. His death sounded too convenient. Darren stared at me with confusion. “I’m not a killer.”

“So Vicious was a part of this plan,” I said, trying to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle were neatly placed. Darren shook his head. “He helped you get to me.”

I thought about the meeting with Vicious all those months ago. About how he’d directed me to Darren. The latter shook his head.

“I met Baron at the country club a few months ago. Knew you were going to ask him if he wanted in on the deal because you look up to him. Everyone in this rancid town knows that you’re the next heir in line for the title of king. So I casually mentioned that I was looking to invest in local business. He didn’t know of my plan for you—he simply took the bait.”

“And how do you think Jesse is going to react when she finds out about this?” I gritted out.

“That’s the beauty of our situation.” He smiled, stretching his arms wide. “You would never tell her anything, unless you want to be drowning in debt for the rest of your miserable life. Everything I did was for Jesse. Artem was a vile man. I knew that from the moment I laid my eyes on Pam and Jesse all those years ago. I wanted to give Jesse the life she never would have gotten. And I did. But after Jesse was attacked by those boys, I needed to find a way to lure her back into reality. You were perfect. Beautiful, boyish, and most importantly—openly for sale.” He stopped, his eyes darting to my face. I didn’t even offer a tick of a jaw, looking blasé as ever. He continued cautiously. “I knew you’d be able to slay her demons for the right price, and I was eager to pay it. I thought it could go two ways—either you would fulfill your part of the deal and let her go quietly, because let’s admit it, a girl like Jesse is simply too good for a punk like you.” He hitched a shoulder, smirking. “Or you would break the contract, in which case, not only would I be preventing Artem’s favorite bastard from getting his precious SurfCity, but I would also be owed some serious money. Now, here is what’s going to happen—you are going to walk out of my office and end it with Jesse. Tell her you don’t want a relationship, and that she can still keep the job at Café Diem. Erase her contact from your phone. Ignore her texts. Leave her alone. Do all this, and consider us square. Disobey, and you’re in big trouble. Millions of problems, to be exact.”