Page 13 of R Is For Revenge, Part One (The Billionaire Boys Club #1)

BECK

S aturday night in New York City, and I’m bored out of my fucking mind.

It’s not a feeling I’m familiar with. My life is usually motion. Noise. Strategy. Control. Fucking. Drinking. Smoking. Fucking.

Hell, most of the time I’m not even here because the club runs like a well-oiled machine without me. The staff are smooth, the members are predictable, and Jules—the only wildcard I can’t quite shake—is off.

I should be relaxed but instead I’m restless as fuck.

The suite feels too still. No music. No conversation. No friends. Just the muted hum of traffic below and the occasional knock of wind against the high-rise windows. The poker table’s been cleared. The bar is stocked. The lights are low.

And I’m pacing. There are a number of women I can call to ease this tension. Fucking goes a long way in solving my issues. I consider it for all of five seconds as I stare at my contacts and then toss the phone. No one interests me. Not even Eden. And that woman will do anything to get a guy off.

What the hell is wrong with me?

My buddies are all gone. Huxley’s back in Berlin. Cade’s off with his latest model-slash-muse somewhere in Italy. Abel’s disappeared into one of his signature retreats—cabin, no phones, no people. Crew never made it back to this side of the Atlantic. And Braedon…

Braedon came by earlier.

Unannounced. Still smelling like top-shelf whiskey but sober enough to look ashamed.

“I crossed a line,” he said, standing just inside the doorway with none of his usual swagger. “I acted like an asshole and I don’t have an excuse other than...” He shrugged. “I was fucked up.”

I didn’t say much. Just poured him water on the rocks and let him sit for a while. Let him talk around what was really bothering him—the company, the pressure, the family legacy bearing down on him like a goddamn avalanche.

He didn’t say it out loud, but I know his father’s slipping, his mind isn’t what it should be.

There will be a war there. His uncle is starting to circle and Livingston Oil might not survive the fallout.

The thing is, Braedon, for all his swagger and I don’t give a shit attitude , actually does give a damn.

He just doesn’t know how to show it without burning down everything in his path.

He left an hour later with a stiff nod and more silence than usual. I couldn’t convince him to stay for dinner prepared by the best chef in the city. Hell, I’d extended the invite just as much for myself as him, but he’d turned me down.

And now here I am.

Alone.

I walk to the window, drink in hand, and stare out at the glittering city.

As always, the view blows me away. Lord knows I paid enough for it and fuck me, but it used to give me pleasure.

Not the cityscape exactly but knowing it used to belong to him.

I should feel happier than I do, because I’m standing here and he’s still holed up in LA trying his best to convince my firm to lend him money to rebuild.

I’ve got Harold where I want him. But all I can think about is the way Jules looked last night—tense but composed. Brave, in a room full of wolves. She has no fucking idea and I tell myself to stop feeling sorry for her.

Did Harold show compassion for my mother when she was sick and dying? When we couldn’t scrape enough money together for treatment overseas? When I swallowed my pride and asked him to send us the fucking money?

My mouth hardens and I finish my drink in one gulp. It burns going down and I feel like another, but I also know I’m on a slippery slope. Booze masks shit. And I need to feel everything.

I wonder where she is now.

Is she out? Sleeping? Watching old movies with that half-tailed cat she keeps talking to when she thinks no one’s watching? Is she on a date? Does she have a man in her life I don’t know about? Someone Cade hadn’t been able to find? Someone the guy I have tailing her hasn’t rooted out?

I shake the thought off and set down the empty tumbler.

She’s fucking gorgeous. But it’s not just attraction that keeps her inside my head. It’d be easier if it was. I know what to do with lust. I know how to file it into a neat category and burn it off with someone else’s lips on my dick.

But this?

This is something different.

Something I don’t like.

She’s a Horner. Harold’s daughter. And for all I know, she’s the apple of his fucking eye. Which makes her the perfect piece in the long game I’ve been playing since I took this building and everything else from the bastard who gave me nothing but a reason to burn.

So why the hell does she feel more like a question I can’t answer than a pawn I’m ready to move?

The buzzer chimes once—someone downstairs. I check the time. Almost ten. I ignore it. Let security deal with whoever it is.

I turn from the window, my skin tight like a caged animal.

I should go out. Find a distraction. Pull someone into my bed and erase the tension curling around my spine. Nothing better than sinking my dick into hot, wet pussy to make the world disappear.

But the truth is I don’t want anyone else tonight. I think of Jules naked. Legs spread. Inner thighs glistening with her desire. Her want and need. I think of me crawling between those legs. What does she feel like? Is she tight? Then I wonder what she tastes like.

And that pisses me off more than anything. Gets me thinking of things I shouldn’t be thinking of. Options. A different way for this game to play out.

The buzzer sounds again. Sharper this time. Insistent.

I grit my teeth and stalk to the intercom.

“What,” I snap.

There’s a pause. A crackle.

And then a voice I haven’t heard in longer than I care to admit to. There was a time when I talked to Lola every day.

“Beck. It’s me. Let me up, asshole.”

I can’t help but smile and press the button.

The lock buzzes, the private entrance clicks open, and I step back from the panel.

I hear the elevator move, the sound so slight it’s barely discernable, and the adrenaline that’s been simmering all night shifts.

It tightens. Not the kind that comes from a threat. The kind that comes from the past.

A minute later, the elevator chimes and the doors open.

Lola walks in like she owns the place. Blonde hair in a messy knot, oversized hoodie, black combat boots, and a designer duffel slung over her shoulder like she picked it up off the floor of a runway shoot.

She’s twenty-one now. Legal. Smart. Sharp. With our mother’s bone structure and her father’s blood, she has more chaos in her pinky than most people carry in their entire bodies.

“You gonna say hi?” she asks, arching a brow.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, already heading back to the bar.

Fuck sobriety, I need some help if she’s in town. “I thought you were in Barcelona.”

“I was. Then Milan. Then Mykonos. Then I got tired of chasing rich assholes who pretend to like art and decided it was time to come see my favorite older brother.”

I snort. “I’m your only older brother.”

“Still my favorite.” She drops the duffel on the couch and flops down like she lives here. “Nice place. Penthouse suits your whole broody billionaire aesthetic. You’ve got vampire with control issues written all over you.”

I don’t answer. I’m still recalibrating.

I haven’t seen Lola since last Christmas when we attempted a nice dinner of turkey, served with vodka and all the fixings.

Holidays have always been hard. We managed three hours before she ghosted me and flew to Iceland with someone named Magnus.

Fucking sucks. We used to be close. Tight.

But then after mom died nothing was the same.

I guess I spent too much time building my empire and not enough time looking after her.

Now I feel like I don’t know her. Like I don’t know how to be around her.

She kicks off her boots and stretches, her flashy rings catching the light.

“So,” she says, eyes narrowing playfully. “You gonna tell me what’s got you so wound up?”

“I’m not?—”

“Please. You’ve got that face. The ‘ I just destroyed a country and now I don’t know what to do with my hands’ face.”

I pour her a drink, shove it across the bar, and lean on the edge. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Clearly,” she says, grinning before taking a sip. “You always make that face when someone surprises you. Like your entire schedule just got rearranged without a PowerPoint.”

Fuck me, but I don’t know if I can handle her right now. I scrub a hand down my jaw and shake my head. “How long are you here?”

“Still not one for small talk I see,” she says, kicking her legs up. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to throw your life into chaos. Just wanted to crash for a bit. Maybe go out tomorrow. You still get into Aspen without waiting in line?”

“Is that even a question.”

She grins. “Then we’ll go. It’ll be like old times. You glowering in the corner. Me dancing with strangers. You scaring them off. Me drinking too much. You driving me home.”

Despite myself, I feel the edge of a smile tug at my mouth.

Lola’s a mess sometimes. But she’s mine. The only real family I’ve got left besides the guys. And while she might blow in like a storm, she makes life interesting.

Still.

I glance at my phone, where Cade’s latest message sits.

Still digging into Jules.

Lola has never met her half-sister, or any of her half-siblings. As far as I know, she’s never had the desire to have anything to do with the Horner’s. She hates them as much as I do.

What would she think of her half-sister working for me?

I guess I won’t be finding out, because no way am I sharing that piece of information. Not yet anyway.

I watch Lola sip her drink, legs tucked beneath her on the couch like she’s still fifteen and crashing my apartment during school breaks.

She never outgrew that careless confidence, the kind that gets her into places she shouldn’t be.

The kind that gets her into trouble and then out of it by flashing a grin and dropping the Gaines name when it suits her.