The cash slides from my palm into the valet’s. His fingers curl around the wad of bills as he pulls back, and he looks away.
Aw, he’s embarrassed.
The girl on my arm giggles and leans into me.
Money and good looks will help people get away with just about anything. I learned that at the tender age of five from my father, thank you very much. He toted me around and flashed his smile or his wealth, and doors opened for us.
Sometimes literally.
Sometimes figuratively.
We were invincible.
Look at that sentence. Then read it again. We . Were. Invincible .
Back when I was a kid, my father and I wore gilded armor. He was a king, and I was a prince. We floated above the rest of society, and nothing was out of our reach.
I experienced the world through my father’s view of getting everything he fucking wanted. It’s only natural that I became him.
Look, I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying this is how it works. People are sheep, all too eager to be sacrificed to the wolves. And the wolves… well, they only survived if they were willing to get a little dirty.
The girl releases me long enough to stumble around the hood of my car. She practically falls into the passenger seat, her dress shifting to give me—and the valet—an eyeful of her tits.
That right there is the only reason she’s here.
Paparazzi cameras flash from across the street, and I turn on my brilliant smile. The one that worked on the girl at the bar. And the waitress. And the cop who pulled me over a few hours ago for speeding. He let me off with just a warning.
I raise my hand as someone calls my name. Trying to get me to make eye contact, to get the perfect photo. Everyone wants something but fuck them if they think they can get it. They get the bare minimum of my acknowledgement, and it probably gives them a hard-on.
The passenger door shuts. I take one more look at the valet, making sure he knows. I see him. I saw him put the cash into his pocket. I want him to know that the money doesn’t buy speedy service—it buys his silence.
He nods once, then averts his eyes again.
I slip into my car and leave the restaurant parking lot with a screech of tires. The familiar, intoxicating smell of burning rubber follows me. I love it—it means I’m making an exit. One that people will notice—and remember.
The nameless girl leans over and licks my cheek. I’m undecided if it’s hot or gross, so I ignore it. She whispers something that I also ignore, and I press my foot harder on the gas pedal. I don’t care about her right now.
Only two more streets before we hit the highway, and I can push this baby to a hundred. She has a certain purr when she gets that quick. The steering wheel almost vibrates in my hands.
It’s an adrenaline rush I never pass up.
Later, when the girl is sucking my cock and moaning my name, I might pretend to give a shit about her.
I shift her away and readjust my grip.
We skid around a corner, our light green. I hit the gas, and we fly down the darkened street. Ahead of me, the stretch of road is empty—until it isn’t.
The car comes out of nowhere. My headlights illuminate the driver’s pale face seconds before I smash into her vehicle.
My airbags explode, and only my seatbelt, which I don’t remember putting on, keeps me from rocketing through the windshield. My passenger’s head slams into her airbag, and she falls back against the seat. Blood drips down her face from her nose.
I struggle to inhale. The seatbelt is too fucking tight, and smoke fills my car.
I unbuckle and shove my door open, falling out.
Fuck.
The asphalt bites into my palms. Miraculously, though, I’m unhurt. I pat myself down just for the hell of it, but besides what I can imagine will be a pretty nasty bruise across my chest, I’m okay.
The girl in my car seems to be okay, too. She regains consciousness, blinking slowly and touching her upper lip.
I stumble around to the front of my car, which is currently smashed up against the other one. A silver compact car, one of those old ones from a decade ago. I hit the driver’s side, but ahead of the seat. It almost appears like I was aiming for the front tire—in an effort to avoid her entirely, I guess, and I just miscalculated. That’s how it could be argued, one way or another. If it’s going to be argued.
“Help.” Her voice is soft, hoarse. Like she screamed before impact, and her throat shredded.
I wince.
She has blood streaked down her face, and I can’t tell if her eyes are open or not. Her airbags didn’t deploy, but her window is broken. Glass cuts, then. And even though I didn’t hit it, her door is dented inward.
The street is empty. No cars, no people. When does that ever happen in a city like this? A city that usually buzzes with nightlife—in fact, it is probably buzzing with people only a few blocks away.
I nod to myself, calculating. Always calculating.
Another gift from Daddy Dearest.
I go back to my car and open the passenger door. I pull the girl out and lead her around, sitting her in the driver’s seat. I fold her into it, even as she stares at me. Confusion mars her face, turning it ugly.
Confusion is akin to stupidity. If you can’t understand something, you’re just not thinking about it hard enough.
“Where’s your phone, baby?”
Bless her soul, she perks up when I call her that. It’s not her fault she doesn’t know it’s my cover, because I don’t have a clue what her name is. She points to the floor of the passenger seat. To her purse.
“You were driving,” I tell her. I lean into her, cupping the back of her neck. “I need you to tell them that, okay?”
Her brow furrows. “Why?”
“Because I’ll make sure your wildest dreams come true if you do this for me.” I meet her eyes, my thumb rubbing a soft spot on her neck just under her ear. She leans into it, barely, and sucks her lower lip into her mouth. “You borrowed my car for the night. You were going to return it to me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she repeats.
I nod once and release her, closing her back into the door. I dial nine-one-one on her phone and hand it to her, then take a step back. Once I’m halfway down the block, I call my father.
I thought that would be the end of the story. He wouldn’t blame me for leaving the scene. It isn’t just about getting our way. It’s about preserving his image. Our image.
Exactly as I predict, he doesn’t say a word about my bad luck. Or who I was with. I send him the address of the house I’m sitting in front of, and he sends a car for me.
I arrive home thirty minutes later, and he doesn’t ask what happened. He’s like a lawyer, unwilling to incriminate himself in the fine print. If anything comes up, he’ll expect me to smooth it over. If I can’t, he will.
Two hours later, the cop cars come screaming into our driveway. I’m arrested on the spot.
