Beautiful Fiend: Chapter 29

I park my car in front of the three-story house and look around me. They’re not Stoneview rich around here, but they’ve got it good for sure.

The South bank of Silver Falls is mainly for middle-class families and the house I’m looking at screams upper-middle class. I leave my car and check the address I’ve been texted. Dylan, that kid who thinks of himself as a TV presenter and films all of Billie’s fights to put them on his channel, FollowTheFight, has been helping me. When I told him what I was up to, he found all the info I needed. It seems he genuinely likes Billie—a little too much, in my opinion. But the kid is helping me, so I can’t really kill him.

Now that I’m sure I’m at the right place, I walk to the gated property and ring their bell.

“Yes?” A sweet voice comes through the interphone.

“Hi, my name’s Caden. I was told Carla Rupert lives here?”

“What is it for?”

“I’m coming on behalf of the Silver Falls MMA gym. It’s regarding her next fight with Killer Clover.”

“Oh! Come on in, then!” The voice says excitedly as the gates open for me.

I walk to the entrance and a middle-aged blonde woman greets me. “Hi, I’m Lana. I’m Carla’s stepmother. Carla is in her gym training right now. I’ll walk you to the back.”

The girl has her own personal gym. While Billie must count her cents to put gas in her car and get to the shitty boxing gym Dickie owns, Carla Rupert has her own gym. Talk about unfairness.

I smile politely and let her walk me to the back of the house, into the backyard, and to their small guest house. The one they turned into a training gym.

Lana knocks on the door, but the loud music must mean Carla can’t hear anything. She opens the door and waves me in. “Just go in. She is somewhere in there.”

“Would you like to warn her I’m coming? I don’t want her to think a stranger broke in.”

Honestly, I don’t give a shit, but I have to keep up appearances.

“Oh, I’m not allowed in there. I’m her stepmother…you know how kids are at that age.”

What fucking age? I’ve got no idea how old she is.

“Ain’t that right,” I smile.

Turning my back to Lana, I walk into the gym and notice Carla hitting a bag at the back. Before going to her, I grab her phone connected to the speakers and turn off her music.

She looks away from the bag and at me.

“Who are you?” she gasps. Her eyes look me up and down, taking in the tattoos on my arms and scarred knuckles. She notices the letters I’ve got there. K.I.N.G.

She gulps, understanding who she’s facing, whereas Lana had no clue.

“I’m Caden,” I smile. “I want to talk about your next fight.”

She puts two and two together quicker than I expect her to. “You’re here because I beat up Billie. I won fair and square. You can’t retaliate after a fight—”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I cut her off. “I’m here to ask for a favor.”

“A favor?”

“I want you to pull out of the competition.”

She chuckles and takes off her gloves slowly. “If I forfeit, Killer Clover will be the winner. Not Billie.”

“Not forfeit. Pull out and put in a special request to give your win to Billie.”

“It’s just an amateur boxing competition,” she mocks me.

“For you,” I snap.

Narrowing her eyes at me, she takes her time to think. She drops her gloves to the floor and comes closer to me.

“What do I get in return?” she finally says, looking me up and down.

“That’s a question only you can answer. What do you want?”

“Thirty thousand dollars.” Her answer is so fast I almost lose my breath.

“Thirty—are you out of your fucking mind?”

“You clearly love the girl to come all the way here and ask this. I think thirty grand will be my cheapest offer.”

“I could simply kill you next time you go a little too close to the North Shore. Problem solved. So how about you rethink that offer?”

She laughs and turns her back to me to grab a bottle of water and a towel. “Yeah, you could do that…” She dabs the towel on her forehead and leaves it around her neck. “But then again, our security cameras probably have you walking inside this house. My witch of a stepmother talked to you, and,” she points at a camera in the corner of the room, “that one saw you, too. It’ll be a bit weird if I suddenly disappear, won’t it? Surely the cops’ first instinct will be to look at the gangbanger who visited me in the days prior to my death.”

I put my hands in my pockets and tilt my head to the side. “You’re a little bitch, aren’t you?” I observe casually.

“No, actually, I just know an opportunity when I see one.” She cocks a hip and takes a sip of her water.

“What the fuck would you need thirty grand for? Doesn’t your daddy buy you anything you wish for? Don’t you have an unlimited bank account or something?”

“God,” she snorts. “I know you guys on the North Shore probably have never heard of it, but see, there’s this thing called a trust fund. We usually don’t have access to them until a certain age. Mine is twenty-one, and I want to leave this shithole before then, so I need that kind of money now.”

“Shithole?” I choke. “You live in a fucking mansion on the south bank.”

“Gilded cages are still cages,” she spits with venom.

“Please, what could you possibly need 30k for?”

She comes face-to-face with me, her cheeks red. “I’m being married off to the first Stoneview douchebag they found since my fucking evil stepmother wants to climb up the social ladder. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m using the money to join my girlfriend on the other side of the country, and I’m never coming back here.”

I lick my lips and let a chilling smile spread on my lips. “Ever met that girlfriend?”

“We’ve been talking online for years.”

“Your girlfriend could be a fifty-year-old pervert. Did your parents never teach you about online safety?”

Her eyes narrow at me, and she retreats back. “Guess I’m staying in that MMA tournament, then.”

“Little bitch,” I say calmly, the tone of my voice showing that I respect her for standing up to me. “I’ll get you your fucking money. Just give me a week or two.”

“Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”

The moment I’m back in my car, my mask falls. My heart accelerates and my hands turn clammy. I don’t have that kind of money, although I know exactly how to get my hands on it. I’d never done it before because I still had some self-respect left in me, but I don’t fucking care about myself anymore. I just want Billie to reach her full potential. Nolan tried to take that away from her, and I can’t accept it. Killing him wasn’t enough. I also need to get her back on track to leave our hellhole.

In the three weeks following our date, Billie and I have become inseparable. So much that we both sneaked out of our respective parties to spend New Year’s Eve together.

In the new year, I convinced her to get back to the boxing gym. I drive her every morning after her run. She didn’t go back to college, but she did cut her waitressing job to part-time.

And me? I stopped ‘tutoring’. Meaning I also stopped seeing the Stoneview moms who use my body for themselves. Over the last year, they’ve offered me to participate in the parties organized by one of the Stoneview couples. Rich people exchanging partners and wanting a young man desperate for money to participate…how bad can it get? The money is big—twenty-five grand. I can add five thousand of my own savings to that, and Carla will let Billie back into the competition.

Grabbing my phone, I call a couple I’ve never actually had sex with but that I know organizes those parties.

“You’ve reached Gerald Baker,” a man says as he picks up.

“My name’s Caden King. I know Chantale Malone well. She told me about your parties.”

The mic on the other side scratches before I hear a door, and then he talks again.

“Who sent you?”

“I told you, Chantale Malone. She said your parties pay well.”

I can hear a smile in his voice when he finally understands I would be part of the entertainment, not of the participating audience. “I see. How old are you?”

“How old do you want me to be?” I try to say as calmly as possible. I fucking hate these people.

“That’s what I love to hear,” he cackles loudly on the other side.

“How much?” I ask to double-check.

“Twenty-five thousand for the whole night. Eight p.m. to six a.m. You’ll sign a non-disclosure agreement. You see nothing, hear nothing. You’ll be there for our pleasures, and that only. No safe words, no backing out.”

I run a hand through my hair, messing it up. My jaw clenches and unclenches, and I close my eyes. My car smells of Billie from when I dropped her off this morning. If I focus, I can almost hear that giggle of hers I love so much.

“Alright,” I say through gritted teeth. “Just send me a date and an address. I’ll be there.”

“Not so fast. Send me a picture of yourself.”

“Are you for—” I cut myself off, not wanting to lose the job. This is already fucking embarrassing, and it hasn’t even started.

I open my camera and take a selfie, adding as much as possible of my torso before sending it to him. A few seconds later, he talks again.

“Very good. You’ll hear from me soon.”

He hangs up, and I’m already left with an icky feeling.