King of New York (31 page)

Chad heeds the
words of the older man and assesses them carefully before replying.

“Yes, of course
we have an understanding. I apologise for my oversight and I guarantee that it
will not repeat itself. It was simply a miscalculation of dates on my part and
I render my sincerest apologises if I offended you or caused you any
inconvenience. I appreciate you coming here and I shall sign the documents
immediately.” The truth is that Sierra was the cause of him forgetting to pay
his taxes to the city; she had clouded his mind and disrupted the daily
routines of his life. He curses her in his head before signing the document.

The man gets up
from his seat, his face serious.

“I know I can
count on you, Mr Perry. It is always a pleasure doing business with you.” He
takes the signed documents and waits for Chad to walk him out. Chad opens the
door for the older man and waits for him to step out before following him to
the lift.

Chad is one of
the most powerful, if not the most powerful man in New York. But there are
those he does not want to cross as their power is beyond money and wealth. They
control the country. New York is only a dot in the vast United States of
America, but they control the vastness of the country.

They walk out of
the lift quietly and Chad escorts the man to his armoured vehicle before waving
goodbye. He heads back to his office to finally open the envelope that was
brought to him earlier.

The paper is
quite mysterious looking, so he opens it quickly. There are photographs: photographs
of Sierra, in the arms of another man – Sebastian, to be specific. The images
are explicit and he doesn’t need his Harvard doctorate to figure out what
they’re doing in the still images.

They’re fucking!

“Well, she’s a
woman. What did I expect? Nothing! Fucking creatures, without a heart. What more
did I expect from this vile woman?” Chad says to himself as if it will make the
pain go away. It doesn’t, but it helps. He has paid his debt to the city so he
can have whatever he wants. Sebastian comes to mind.

“Revenge is a
dish best served cold,” he says to himself.

The pictures
hurt but he has become accustomed to disassociating his emotions from his mind
since Sierra left. He is back to his irrational ways. Rationality sucks and he
wants no part of it. He calls for his receptionist to discard the images in the
shredder next to his table as he can’t be bothered to get up from his seat. The
task is far too annoying for the billionaire.

Chad falls
asleep on his chair but when he wakes he realises someone has been in his
office as he slept. A new batch of photographs has appeared on his table. He
jumps up as paranoia plays havoc on his senses yet again.

“They must pay!
Whoever is doing this will pay!” he shouts, feeling disillusioned. His employees
outside hear his thundering voice but they say nothing, because there is
nothing they can say to the owner of the city.

He tears the
images into minute pieces and causes carnage in his office. Slamming the door,
he heads to the reception of the building demanding to be told who left the
pictures on his table as he slept. Everyone is a culprit in his eyes. They all
shift suspiciously but no one owns up nor tells him who the stranger was that had
entered his office.

He goes to the
security room of the building, but he is unable to pinpoint the intruder on the
video footage.

“Find out who
the fuck it was or else you’ll all be fired. I demand to know who entered my
office. That’s an order!” The men tremble in their seats as their boss commands
an answer. Chad slams the door, almost breaking it as he leaves.

“They want to
see me fail; they want to see my empire fall. But they will not. I am king and
this is my city!”

Chad Perry
shouts angrily as he walks past his scared employees. A psychological anger consumes
him as his paranoia mounts. He believes everyone is out to get him. But he vows
to get them first, whoever they are.

****

Sebastian is sat in a small café
on Wall Street. The envelope is no longer in his possession. He laughs quietly
to himself as his green eyes burn with glee. “Today was indeed a good day, a
very good day,” he says as he drinks the black coffee he’d ordered.

Feeling good
about himself, he decides to go to the boutique and collect something special
for Sierra before going to see her.

CHAPTER 22

Sierra looks at Sebastian with
indifference in her eyes as he enters the room.

“Thank you for waiting
for me, beautiful,” he says, and then gives her a dress that is worth a few
thousand dollars.

“I hope you like
it, baby. I had it designed specifically for you as I knew you’d get tired of
all the white in this room and want something more outstanding and compelling.”

“I love it. So
you do remember my favourite colour.”

The red dress is
exquisite. She gets up, goes towards him and thanks him with an indulgent kiss on
his lips. He holds her by her waist and tells her there’s one more thing
missing – actually two more. He tells her to look in the drawer by the table
next to the bed. She goes and opens it and inside is a dazzling diamond
necklace with matching earrings.

Sierra gasps in
awe at the precious stones. She takes out the dress and undoes the zip at the
back. The fabric feels soft and delicate in her hands, softer than her skin.
She slips her long legs into it and feels the fabric as the dress slides up her
body. Sebastian comes behind her and zips her up.

Lady in red!

She wears her
heels, and the stunning but understated diamond necklace subtly accentuates her
neck. She ties her hair up and places it in a bun, highlighting her finely shaped
face, and adds the diamond earrings. She has red lipstick in her bag and adds a
stint of colour to her full lips. She makes her make-up natural but with smoky
eyes to draw attention to her sultriness.

He has on a pair of black
velvet shoes with skinny trousers showcasing his sexy legs, thighs and firm
butt. The trousers are not too tight, but are the perfect fit for a manly
skinny trouser. Sebastian looks dashing with his royal-purple silk shirt,
emphasising his pecs and abs.

He guides her
out to the corridor of the penthouse floor. Inside the lift are his butler and
a lady that looks like she’s the cleaner. The butler refers to Sebastian as sir
and Sierra as madam. The cleaner speaks Spanish and says “Hola, señor,” to
Sebastian and “Hola, señorita,” to Sierra. Sierra nods in acknowledgement at both
their greetings.

 “Ladies first,
beautiful,” Sebastian says as they exit the lift.

A Rolls Royce is
parked outside – silverish-grey in colour, representing the old-school elegance
of the car. The doorman opens the main door to the building and ushers the
stunning couple out. The driver is standing by the open back door of the car waiting
for Sierra and Sebastian to enter.

Sebastian tells
the driver to drive, and off they go into the evening.

“My lady in red,
Sierra.” he softy whispers as he gently kisses her lips.

The ride is
smooth and comfortable as Chris de Burgh’s
Lady in Red
plays. The driver
parks the luxury vehicle in front of the Empire State Building: the landmark
building in midtown Manhattan. The skyscraper is an architectural phenomenon: finely
built and structured, standing as one of the tallest buildings in the world.
The building stands as an American emblem of innovation, technology and
engineering.

She remembers
the building from the movie
King Kong,
when the mighty ape climbs up to
the top to escape his tormentors but unfortunately falls to his death. She
winces at the thought of the poor and helpless primate forcibly taken to a
foreign land to meet his death in such a way from modern humans who acted in a
primitive manner towards him.

The night-time
New York crowd look at them as they walk past, some admiring and some jealous
of the beauty the two possess. The men can’t keep their eyes off Sierra’s sexy
legs or her figure in her red dress. They complement one another in looks,
class and style.

He kisses her
publically so all can see that she’s his. She is a little uneasy and shy at his
public display of affection, because she doesn’t feel like she is his lady in
an exclusive way.

Among all the admiring
glances, Sierra notices another who is not smiling. She does not see his face
properly as the night hides it, but his eyes are cold and distant with a hint
of blue as he stares directly at Sierra and Sebastian.

 Sebastian
escorts Sierra inside the building. On the walls inside are posters of jazz and
blues musicians. If there is one thing that Sierra adores more than fashion, it’s
music. Not just any type of music but music that speaks to her soul and
captivates her being. Blues and jazz does exactly that. She believes that the
musicality of jazz and blues is specifically for the ears of those that love
all music infused in one. The origins of the music she so loves rose from the
plantations with the emphasis on the rhythm and the beat of the music. It was
infused with rhythm and blues, rock-’n’-roll, and the soulful sounds of
beautiful voices singing in remembrance of the utopian motherland they had left
behind. The passion and pain that was inculcated in the music was what made her
fall in love with it – the way the beat rose and dropped without hitting the
floor and continued its climb back up. She loved everything about jazz and
blues. It is music perfected and to think that it rose from oppression and pain
made it all the more perfect.

She can admit
that she is a white girl that loves soul music, and it seems Sebastian loves it
too.

She is ecstatic
about what to expect at the private concert with the greatest music and its
artists taking centre stage. She kisses Sebastian’s cheek in gratitude for
giving her the opportunity to experience such phenomenal music live at the
Empire State Building.

“Only the best
for you, baby,” he replies with a subtle twinkle in his eyes.

She hears people
speaking English, French, Spanish, German and numerous other languages. The
crowd is eclectic, with billionaires and millionaires, as well as other music
lovers in the room. Most eyes in the room are fixed on her and Sebastian, apart
from those that are too afraid of their partners to look in their direction.
They revel in the attention that countless eyes are paying them.

As she walks,
she feels someone softly grab at her hands, but when she looks back to see who it
is, he’s gone, only leaving behind a glimpse of deep-blue eyes for her to
momentarily look into. The look in the stranger’s eyes sends shivers through
her spine. Sebastian is oblivious to the interaction Sierra has just had with
another. He softly places his hands on the arch in her back and leads her to
the front of the room.

Sierra is the
only female dressed in the ravishing red dress she has on. It’s a private
concert with expensive tickets that have been reserved specifically for the
rich and wealthy.

The sweet sounds
of pianos, guitars, bass and drum, cello, trombone, saxophone, trumpet and
countless other musical instruments play in the room as they’re being tested by
the musical engineers to make sure all goes perfectly as planned. She enjoys
the infusion of different instruments playing in unison as they’re tuned and
properly set up.

She hears someone
singing in the background. He sings in a trance-like way almost like he’s
speaking rhythmically rather than singing. The voice behind the stage entices
her. The melancholic words, using similes and onomatopoeic singing, she finds engaging.
The melancholia in his voice is almost harrowing to hear and it brings sweet
pain to her ears, and she remembers the words of J.J. Johnson when he said:
“Jazz is restless. It won’t stay put and it never will.”

In this moment
she thinks she truly understands what he meant by that quote. She knows in that
moment, while sitting in the Empire State Building, that the music she so loves
will last forever, because it represents what music is.

The waiter comes
to their table with a bottle of vintage champagne in a wine cooler and a glass
of cognac without ice for Sebastian. She tastes the fine wine before the waiter
pours some more in her glass.

The announcer comes
on the stage when the sound check has been taken care of. He’s a black man with
a physique more well-defined than most top male models. He is a handsome vision
of dark chocolate; dressed in a fitted suit, his smiles lights up the room; he
is sublime-looking, and by his demeanour it seems that he knows it too. He charmingly
introduces the show to its eagerly waiting audience and the deafening applause
fills the room.

The intensity in
the room is incomparable to any other she has felt before. Even though the
crowd is very small compared to previous concerts she’d attended, this, by far,
is the nosiest she has been to. The crowd may have been small but their passion
for music is colossal.

The announcer
exits the stage and on comes a white lady with bouffant hair slightly
resembling that of the latest sensation in modern music, with an old-school
twist. The lady is stunningly beautiful in a simple way. She hasn’t even
started to sing, but the confident way she holds the mike displays an aura of
talent and soul. The piano is played softly by an old man who looks like the
piano is his mistress in the way his fingers touch the keys. Behind him, the
electric guitar is being played in the softest and quietest way Sierra has
heard it played.