“Don’t change the subject,” Ian snapped.He seemed unreasonably irritated.“Don’t you want to conquer them as well?”
“Who?”I peered back at him, vexed that he seemed so immune to the sudden flood of new faces.One of the things I liked most about the club was its discretion.We could play there with little concern about repercussions beyond the club’s walls.A torrent of new members, though, would make that more difficult to guarantee.
“Women!”Ian slammed his podgy hand down on the wooden table and sent one of his glasses flying across the polished wood.
At barely twenty years of age, he should have been in the physical prime of his life, yet somehow, in the haze of the club, you might have been forgiven for thinking he was closer to forty.Shorter than me by some inches and already sporting a thinning hairline, he’d managed to grow something of a beer belly, despite mainly drinking whiskey.
“Don’t you agree that the natural order of things is for men to be in charge of them?”
“The natural order?”Was he serious?I was happy to take charge in the bedroom, but aside from there, I’d always seen women as my equals.My mother had ensured I was raised to respect and honor them.“How much have you had to drink, Ian?”
“Evidently not enough,” he grumbled, staring across the vaulted room to catch sight of our blonde waitress.“Whereareour drinks?”
“On their way.”Leaning on the table with my elbows, I met his eyes.“What are you so grumpy about?”
“He’s jealous that you get all the hot women while it’s just him and his hand tonight!”Bishop joked, but his chuckle died a spontaneous death once he clocked Ian’s reaction.
“I have plenty of pussy.”Ian practically pouted.“You wait and see.By the time I’m out of college, they’ll all be clamoring for me.”
“Right.”I smiled, pondering whether he’d pick up on the sarcasm in my voice over the thrum of the relentless bassline.“You’ll be the boss, won’t you, Ian?”
“Too right.”He straightened, his grin stretching to reveal what dental work still needed attention.“By the time I’m done with this country, they’ll all know my name.”
Chapter One
Adam
The present day
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THE INSISTENT BEEPINGvibrating through the darkness was the only sign that I was still alive.Beyond that one, discernible sound, nothing else was familiar.I didn’t recognize the dark place I’d tumbled into.I simply awoke there, amidst the circling mists, and seemed to have been doomed to wander through it ever since; a silent march through the endless gloom.
I didn’t know how long that journey had gone on for.Days, maybe?But I supposed it could have only been an hour.There was no way to quantify time in the hazy neverland.All that was apparent as I stumbled forward in the shadows was that, wherever I was, it was a place between the living and the dead.I was alive, or at least, I hoped I was, but nothing else there appeared to share my good fortune.
The occasional specter passed me on my trudge—ghosts both of my past, and of souls I’d never met—all seemingly on their own futile journeys.No words were exchanged between us, only fleeting glances through the cloud, but there was solace in knowing I wasn’t entirely on my own there.There were other characters lost in the black.
