Page 4 of Hero & Villain (Super Serum Billionaires #1)

Chapter Two

VILLAIN

T he chocolate should have smothered my unhealthy emotions, but instead, I just felt weird, sitting in a bar, trying to drown my sorrows in chocolate when everyone around me was drinking.

Except Straw, my cello, sitting on the stool to my right, who didn’t drink the glass of whiskey in front of her any more than I drank mine.

The cello was also probably weird. Who goes drinking with an instrument?

The tightness in my chest squeezed as I took a big bite out of the mediocre chocolate bar.

It was the last one. I’d eaten too many too fast, but I still felt too much.

My emotions roiled until I could barely breathe.

With one business deal, the man I’d been living with for the past two years had thrown away any future we could have had together, destroying Toni’s security and my own.

Other than Thursdays, I’d gotten used to a quiet life with my cello and the slightly less quiet life as the socialite on Clint’s arm at every fundraiser our set attended.

It didn’t feel like my set. Nothing from his world belonged to me.

I’d left everything I’d accumulated in the last two years in that apartment, and I had no intention of going back.

My grandfather would have men waiting for me, and Maples was dying.

I was staring at my last sad chocolate bar when a new blonde edgy bartender slammed her hands on the counter in front of me. Ooh, so tough.

“Look, honey. You’re a musician; that’s great, but you can’t take more than one seat, not in this place during happy hour.”

Happy? How was working all day and then drinking the futility of life away happy?

I slammed my hands over hers, pinning them down while I looked into her suddenly nervous eyes.

“I’ll take as many seats as I like, honey .

” That’s right. I might be crazy, but I’d paid for that drink. Quake before me, you normal person.

She started nodding, suddenly smiling a fake smile that made my stomach twist. That’s how people smiled at my grandfather. “Sure, sure. No worries. Cellos are people too.”

For a second, I really felt like a villain, and it wasn’t a good feeling.

I released her and grabbed Straw, turning to the crowd of happy hour customers who were watching this with way too much interest, like they expected me to start talking to Straw or something really crazy.

I suppose I could put on a performance on top of the bar.

I’m sure they’d all appreciate my artistry.

Mm hm.

I’d stayed here long enough. It was time to get back to the villainous lair.

To do something with my life. Because it was so awesome.

Yeah. Look at me. Incapable of hacking, of saving Maples, of keeping a fiancé, of standing up to my grandfather, or of playing my cello in public. Yeah, hear me roar.

As I lifted my cello and turned, my coat’s belt got caught in the chair and untied, leaving me exposed in my Thursday dominatrix garb.

A bar-wide gasp went through them as they came to attention. Suddenly, a mostly naked woman was in their midst. Did I look vulnerable to them? There were so many of them and only one of me.

“Hey, you’re a hooker? You should come home with me. How much do you cost?” the guy to my left slurred.

I carefully set straw down and picked up my two whiskey glasses instead. I downed one and then the other, wincing at the burn down my throat while my eyes watered. I didn’t like alcohol, didn’t like being out of control, so it had been a while.

“I am very, very expensive,” I said in my most eloquent upperclass voice. “Sometimes I forget I’m for sale, I’m so expensive.” I turned from the bar, eyeing the guys who had surrounded me. I was pretty, so I must be weak.

A tall man with bad teeth came closer, looking me up and down as he licked his lips.

“I’ll take a sample of that. You know, to make sure it’s worth the price.

” He grabbed at me, and I broke his nose with my glass.

The crunch of cartilage and bone was like music to my ears.

Off-key music, but maybe that was his scream.

I kept it short and sweet, using all those delicate pressure points that you had to be incredibly precise to make work.

Everyone was delicate if you knew where to put the pressure, not just the woman who’d forgotten her pants.

I tightened my belt while no one else touched me for some reason. When I stood and swung Straw onto my shoulder, the grabby man was whimpering on the floor. I pressed my heel into his shoulder, turning like I was putting out a cigarette. My five-inch spike didn’t go in too deep, but deep enough.

“Did you like the sample? You should know in life that nothing’s free.”

He whimpered, and I felt petty for wanting him to hurt. I hadn’t hurt anyone in a long time. I must be out of practice. My grandfather would be so disappointed.

I shuddered as I walked directly towards the guy standing between the tables.

He swallowed and got out of my way, staring between the fallen guy and me like he wasn’t sure what to do.

I could relate. What in the world was I supposed to do with myself now that I wasn’t bound to the role of high-class dominatrix fiancé?

I stepped out of the crowded bar and into the blowing storm outside.

Everything I had could be traced by my grandfather and probably former fiancé.

I wasn’t ever going back to our place. Clint’s place.

Had I ever thought of it as mine? Surely even I would have things lying around if I thought I belonged somewhere.

The white stuff was getting thicker, heavier, more snow, less sleet.

My heels were soaked before I’d gotten a block.

I kept walking, going through my options.

No one had touched Toni in two years since I’d made the deal with my grandfather, catching the uncatchable, bringing him down to his knees literally and figuratively.

Clint was the family I used— an alliance between Harrison and Haversham that gave me, or my grandfather, Louis Haversham III, business deals with the tech sector that had always been out of reach.

Haversham’s name had a certain reputation that made some families keep their distance.

I closed the distance and held the heart of young Clinton Harrison beating in my fist, squeezing whatever I needed out of it.

They were my business interests, but it was always under my grandfather’s umbrella.

I hadn’t meant for it to last so long, but there was always the next deal, and the next.

I hadn’t hated living with Clint, and he was miles better than my sadistic grandfather.

I’d enjoyed playing a cello that no one would hear, arranging business takeovers with the branch of Haverscorp I managed, competing with my cousin Philippe to show who could grow the business more and faster.

Clint had been an excellent ally as far as business was concerned.

At least he would have been, if that last merger hadn’t undone everything I’d been working for.

What had my time with Clint really given me, and what would my grandfather want now that Clint had betrayed me and I’d failed?

My blood boiled as I walked towards the park along the river, but behind the rage was an emptiness as cold as the dark water that swept past. The wind blew around my bare legs, but I didn’t feel the cold.

Rage ate up any chill that dared creep in.

However long I controlled Harrison, it wouldn’t be enough.

My grandfather wouldn’t acknowledge any of the deals I’d gotten for him, only my failure.

How long could I keep Toni hidden from my cousin and our enemies?

What was I supposed to do now? My agents were all pulled?

Had my grandfather decided to hand over the family business to my cousin?

I’d kill him. I’d kill both of them. Not that I’d ever actually killed anyone before, but this feeling in my chest was murder.

A guitarist was cleaning up on the corner of Wall, putting away his instrument to protect it from the weather.

I would never allow myself to play in public.

My music was for my own personal enjoyment, not anyone else’s.

But was that really what it was about? Or was it my grandfather manipulating me the way he manipulated everyone?

Had it really been my idea to seduce Clint Harrison into bed with Haverscorp, or was my grandfather pulling all the strings?

Rage consumed all rational thought while desperation clawed at something underneath. I couldn’t go back to that world, to my grandfather, to the house where my mother had taken her life.

I walked up to the guitarist and held out my trembling hand. “Let me borrow your chair.”

He stared at me, with dirty blond hair falling over his face. “No one’s going to give you anything in this weather.”

I looked up at the dark sky. The city lights caught on the snow, casting a magical glow over everything.

“I’ll bet you your chair that I can get a thousand dollars tonight.

” Whether I could or not, I wasn’t going to take his chair with me.

I was going to play, though. I was going to play on the street, as base as I could be, peddling my wares to the masses, prostituting my music like I’d sold my body. At least that would be honest.

He nodded, and I sat down. I pulled out my cello, putting down the case and opening it up on the sidewalk like I’d seen pauper musicians do.

I wasn’t allowed to play publicly. My grandfather controlled so much of my life, in spite of my working so hard to be independent.

The only time I’d ever really won a fight was when I insisted on going to music school and clinched the deal by going to juvie after I dumped half a ton of pink lemonade powder in the city water.

I’d shown my grandfather that I would not lose the one thing that made my life bearable, and there I’d met Toni.

I’d never felt so free as during those months behind bars for tainting the water supply with lemonade.

I’d intentionally gotten caught committing a ridiculous crime whose sole purpose was to show my grandfather that he couldn’t control me. And it had worked for a little while.

He let me study music as long as I spent two hours a day studying with the preeminent business lawyer, a woman who hated herself for obeying my grandfather.

These days she worked for me, but did she really have loyalty towards me, or was that just a lie my grandfather allowed me to have?

He’d sent Harlem to bring me home. You didn’t do that to someone you considered free.

There I sat on the street with my instrument, without a purpose or a plan. If I went back to my grandfather, he’d compare me to Philippe. I couldn’t stomach the idea of my cousin taking Haverscorp because I’d failed, because my fiancé betrayed me.

I held the bow in my hand and felt so much rage and desperation, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t break my bow against the strings, but the moment I made contact, I was taken away from that terrible place and into a world where things made sense.

Music had always made more sense to me than things or people.

I played a messy Shostakovich sonata, shaking with emotions, but by the end, I could practically breathe as I drew my bow over the strings for the last time.

I opened my eyes, and the audience started clapping, stopping for the music in spite of the snow.

A lot of people were recording this with their phones.

Grandfather would be livid when he saw it, and there was no doubt that he would.

There were a lot of bills in my case, but not enough.

I met the guitarist’s eyes. He looked stunned, like he’d never seen a cellist before.

Was this so shocking? Maybe I wanted to be shocking.

Maybe I wanted to show the world that I was for sale— my body, my music, my soul.

This was my first concert. I should wear black.

I unbuttoned my coat and let it slide off my shoulders, leaving me in my Thursday costume with my cello.

I closed my eyes and let the rest of the world vanish as I played a piece that wept with betrayal, aching, agonizing betrayal.

It was almost like Britten understood what it was like to spend two years giving your body and soul, only to be betrayed and left with nothing.

It was my mistake— letting down my guard, believing Clint when he tried to talk me into marrying him, eloping to Paris or Las Vegas.

He wanted more than Thursdays and secretary sex.

He wanted to sleep with me in the same bed, in the same room.

He wanted all of me— my nightmares, leg stubble, all of it.

At least that’s what he said. Of course, he didn’t, not really.

I’d started buying wedding magazines. I’d started thinking of his mother as someone I could talk to, but of course it was all a set-up for betrayal. Of course it was.

Fine. I would find a way to destroy Geotech, to rip it apart from the inside and leave it without a shred of dignity, exactly how I felt playing my heart out to an audience of complete strangers.

At least I knew I had a heart, because this pain wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t have one. Too bad I’d never give it a chance to beat for another man again.