“Sure,” I responded. “Anything. What’s up?”
“Well, first, have you spoken to your sister lately?” she asked.
I furrowed my brow and looked at Cherri. “She’s sitting right here.”
“No, Callista,” Illiana said.
That was random all of a sudden. “Uh. It’s been a few weeks. Why?”
Both Carmine and Cherri gasped so loud it made me jump. “What?” Suddenly, my heart sank as I looked back at Illiana. The fake smile she had on when she entered was gone, leaving a cold, unfeeling expression in its wake. “Oh.”
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” she hissed in a terrifyingly low tone.
I’d never told Illiana that I was in contact with Callista. “Yeah. I do.”
Chapter Eleven:Ashton
“Will you please wipe that sad, sorry look off your face? I agreed not to drink if you agreed to come out with me, so get it together.”
Arturo was nursing a cup of soda while we both stood next to the bar at one of the clubs we frequented, Mystic City. Back in our younger days, before everything got so complicated, we often came to the club as a pair because picking up women as a set of good-looking twins was easy, but ever since Arturo started doing a few too many drugs and drinking a little too much liquor, I stopped going out with him because he had a bad attitude and thus struggled to pick up women. When I got back from my rendezvous with Denise, he was able to tell that things didn’t go well, so he convinced me to go out with him, leveraging a clean night in exchange.
“I said I’d come. I didn’t say I’d enjoy it,” I spat back, working on a bottle of water out of solidarity even though I would have much rather had a whiskey.
He tapped the back of his hand against my forehead. “Look, this is a good thing. If she’s not interested in you, then you can forget about her. Just cut your losses before it gets worse and let dad ice her. You wanted to know what got in between us. It was petty shit like this. We used to run this fucking city. Now you’re all down in the dumps over one chick. Get over it dude.”
I didn’t respond, mostly because I didn’t have anything to say. It was true. I did lean a little more toward my reckless, badass side back in my youth. It was always kind of exciting and interesting to see people jump through hoops, trying to keep us happy simply because we were who we were. Getting stuff for free, watching women fall all over us, an endless supply of whatever we wanted, be it booze or drugs—it was great.
It was great for a night.
No matter how hard I partied, I’d wake up the next day hungover and unsatisfied. I started wondering if anything out there could keep me riding a high for days on end. It turned out that it was Denise who could do that. The first time we met, she excited me way more than anything ever had before, and I found myself living in constant anticipation of the next time I’d see her. I’d roll on the high of time spent with her for weeks on end, and just when it was starting to thin out, she’d pop up, reigniting it all over again. Denise had become my drug of choice, but I was afraid that I’d permanently fucked up that supply.
“Yo. Yo. Yo.” Each time he said the word, Arturo knocked on my head. “Snap out of it.” He scanned the bar and then stopped and pointed. “Look.” Several women in skimpy dresses were all standing close to one another, all dancing and laughing. “What do you say? A bet for old time’s sake? Five hundred dollars says I can get more of those girls in a VIP booth than you can.”
Could one force a drug out of their body? “Fine.”
“Yeah?” Arturo said. “Cool. Let’s go.”
Arturo let the way across the bar to where the women were dancing close to the edge of the dance floor, and the second we got close enough, one of them noticed us and squealed. Her friends turned, and within a matter of seconds, they’d formed a circle around us.
Arturo laughed. “Am I being sacrificed to some god? Because if I am, this isdefinitelyhow I want to die.”
They laughed. “You’re twins, right?” one of them asked me.
“Nothing gets by you,” I responded, and she scowled.
Arturo smacked the back of my head, and the women laughed. “You’ll have to excuse him. He got dumped, so he’s a little down.”
That earned me sympathy all the way around. All the women started to coo, and the closest one to me started to pet my head. “Aww. She must be blind. You’re so hot.” The woman petting me was tall and blonde, and she had a rather large bust and thin waist. “I’d be willing to help you”—her hand slid down my head, swirled around my neck, and settled onto my chest—“forget about her.”
Little did she know, she didn’t even come close to Denise in looks. “Well, she was kind of a firecracker. I don’t know that one woman is going to cut it.” I raised an eyebrow, and the blonde’s eyes flashed with excitement.
She tapped a few of her friends closest to her. “Well then you’re in luck. We prefer to work together.”
With four of the women already agreeing to come with me, it meant that only two would be left to go with Arturo. I put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s five hundred.”
Arturo’s nostrils flared with anger. “Don’t you dare.”
“Five hundred what?” the woman nearest Arturo asked.
