Mogul (22 page)

She brushed him away. “He’ll be named after
his father,” she told him as she scooted from the bed and headed
for the bathroom.

“Whatever,” Julian said as he picked up the
bear. “This has got to be the gayest bear I have ever seen. Don’t
tell me you’re going to turn your son into a raging fag, Hol.”

“So what if I do?” she called back from the
bathroom. “I’d love him no matter what he was.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” Julian told her as he
turned the TV from the movie she was watching to a wrestling match.
“I’d beat the homo right out of him.”

She glared at him from the doorframe. “You
won’t lay a hand on my child,” she informed him in a deadly serious
voice.

He just laughed. “Whatcha gonna do? Get your
boyfriend to beat me up? Oooh, I’m so scared. Although I bet he can
pack a punch, giving all the workouts he gets fucking that whale of
his. Talk about heavy lifting.”

“Shut up, Julian,” Holly snapped as she went
into the kitchen. She put together a sandwich for him and grabbed a
soda from the fridge. Julian preferred beer but she was dead-set
against having any in the house.

She served him his dinner and snatched Angelo
away before he could mess him up. “Where were you anyway?”

“Leo took me out for some drinks,” he said as
he wolfed down the sandwich. “I needed to blow off some steam.”

“Why? Did something happen at the
studio?”

He snorted in disgust. “Didn’t happen is more
like it. We’re in a fucking holding pattern as long as Vanni is
prancing around on that TV show.”

“And he’s getting a whole lot of money to do
it,” she reminded as she climbed into her side of the bed. “That
benefits us, or so you keep telling me.”

“I don’t want his goddamn money,” Julian
snapped. “His pansy-ass gets to play the star when people like Yael
and I are the ones that make him look good. And get this, he won’t
even let me get any press or anything. If he thinks he can shut me
out of the band as some sort of paid flunky, he’s got another thing
coming. I’m going on tour and I’m going to be a star in my own
right, one way or the other.”

“Just give it time,” she said as she snuggled
with the bear. “I got you in the band, didn’t I?”

“Half-assed,” he pointed out.

“It’s more than you had a few months ago,”
she bit out. “You have no patience, Julian. You never did.”

“You’re damn right,” he snapped as he tossed
the plate onto the floor. “I’m too talented to wait this long.
People like Vanni fall ass-backward into fame when they haven’t got
any talent at all. Why do I have to be the one to wait? He lives in
his fancy beach house, driving his expensive car, getting life
handed to him on a silver platter. We’ve lived hand to mouth since
we were kids, Hol. It ain’t fair.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “But what other
choice do we have?”

“We light a fire,” he said. “There’s gotta be
something we can do to kick-start things.”

She yawned. “Wait till the baby gets here.
You didn’t see him today. He’s already in love with this kid. He’ll
do anything to make him happy.”

“Fuck!” Julian exclaimed, which made Holly
jump. “I’m tired of waiting!” he yelled before he slammed off into
the bathroom.

He stayed in there so long that Holly dozed
off a bit. She didn’t wake up until he was on top of her.

“Julian, what the hell are you doing?”

“I told you,” he said as he nuzzled her neck.
“I’m tired of waiting.”

His hands slid her nightgown up as he parted
her legs.

“Julian, no. I told you we couldn’t have sex
until after the baby is born. It’s not safe.”

“You think Vanni is waiting around for his
precious Andy to deliver? If he doesn’t have to wait, why should
I?”

She wriggled against him but he was too big
and too heavy. The only defense left was reason. “Because they
didn’t have a miscarriage like we did. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said as he pinned her arms
down. “You made me wait then, too, didn’t you? You’ve always made
me wait. For everything. From the first time I met you when you
were stealing money from that store, you wouldn’t even give me my
share until the next day, when I helped you get out of your daddy’s
house when he was drunk. There’s always a price with you, isn’t
there, Hol?”

She wanted to remind him that the price she
had to pay was being with him. He had always used her to get
whatever he wanted, from the day they met when she was nine years
old. He would blackmail her with all the things she’d do so that
her family wouldn’t starve, just so she’d do what he wanted her
too. She taught him how to pick locks, how to shoplift, how to pick
pockets – in return he’d shown her how to use her feminine ways to
coax things out of older men. That was how she got pregnant twice
by the time she was seventeen.

But she hadn’t given in to him until they ran
away from home. When they messed up and she got pregnant, he was
livid. She was going to squash all their plans. Who would want her
as some fat, bloated bitch with a string of kids trailing behind
her? He wanted her to have an abortion, but she was dead-set
against it. When she finally miscarried, he was relieved. But he
knew then how they could trap men with means. That became their new
goal: Holly could have her babies, and he could have her money. He
was her “brother” and little sis always had to protect his
career.

It was the perfect scam.

But ever since she met that pussy Vanni she
had been keeping him at arm’s length. She said it was so they could
trap him, but they already did that. She was getting fatter by the
day with his bastard child.

So now, Julian was tired of waiting. She was
disgusting with her bloated tummy, but he was too horny to care. He
kissed her hard, and then bit her lip as he pushed himself inside
her.

“Julian, no, please,” she begged but he was
beyond hearing. He grunted as he rode her hard. She didn’t
struggle, it was useless and she feared it would endanger her child
even more. She did what she always did whenever she was forced to
have sex with anyone she didn’t want to – which up until Vanni was
just about everyone. From her dad to Julian to all the creepers
they tried to con ever since she had hit adolescence, she checked
out entirely as they had their way. Her body had long been a vessel
she could remove herself from if anything upsetting might be
happening to it. No matter how they used her, her spirit rose above
it all, to dream of a happier place where she didn’t have to pay
her way with her sex – when someone could love her without taking
anything away in the process.

Within merciful minutes, he was done. He
rolled off to the side. “Not bad for a fat chick,” he said with a
sleepy yawn as he slapped her thigh. “Maybe I should give ol’ Andy
a go myself.”

He turned his back to Holly and went promptly
to sleep.

She held her breath as she felt her tummy.
She needed the reassuring kicks from her son. They were slow to
come but at last she felt the angry little kick that let her know
the disturbance was unwelcome.

“For you and me, both, kid,” she said as she
caressed her baby bump.

She climbed out of bed and escaped into the
bathroom to clean up. As she sat on the toilet she found the
paraphernalia on the side of the tub. She was no stranger to the
bloody syringe, the spoon and the tie-off he’d left discarded after
his one-man party.

She knew in an instant that Leo had provided
the heroin. Now that they no longer needed Holly to get Julian into
the band, Leo had moved on to controlling the next link in the
chain. Just like he did with Vanni, he’d get Julian hooked on drugs
again so he could manipulate him like a puppet.

She cursed the day she ever met that man.

When she wiped herself clean she found a pink
discoloration on the toilet tissue. Her breath caught and held,
wondering if the tell-tale cramps would follow. If Vanni had been
there, she could have called to him. He would have run to her, he
would have carried her to the bed, called the ambulance, taken care
of her and her child. But Vanni wasn’t there. She was by herself
yet again, this time in a much nicer bathroom before. Her eyes
squeezed shut as she remembered hemorrhaging in the bathtub, her
body wracked in painful cramps as she tried not to cry out and
arouse Julian. She checked herself again. The discharge, or more
likely, Julian’s semen, was still lightly tinged pink but not
bloody. She counted every heartbeat as she waited those agonizing
minutes that followed. The cramps never came, only a stronger,
forceful kick from her son. Then, and only then, did she clean up
Julian’s mess and head back to bed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Los Angeles, California

April 18, 2011

Graham, Vanni and Ivy sat across the large
conference table from Donny and Raelynn Wilke and their lawyer,
Eleanor Mercer, at the offices of Mercer, Vintner and Spiegel.
Eleanor Mercer was known as a legal firebrand in Los Angeles, a
defender of the downtrodden against the entitled elite, who had won
quite a lot of money for those seeking recompense from those
celebrities who had done them wrong. She pounced all over this case
months ago after Raelynn’s heartfelt interview right after finding
out her daughter Baylee was the nameless prostitute critically
wounded in an accident with Giovanni Carnevale.

She had no patience for the womanizing bad
boy, who had clearly plucked a desperate girl from the streets to
do unspeakable things while he was intoxicated. She glared down her
thin nose at him where he sat across from them, quiet and contrite,
as instructed by his own lawyer, Ivy, to be.

“If you go with the original offer, we can
write you a check today,” Ivy told her. “Five million dollars is
more than adequate to pay for the hospital bills and provide a
decent living for her relatives to relocate to care for her.”

“Five million dollars ain’t enough to pay
what he done to her,” Donny gritted between his teeth. Eleanor held
up her hand to silence him.

“You can’t put a price on our daughter,”
Raelynn spat.

“But apparently you can,” Vanni muttered, and
both Graham and Ivy touched either of his shoulders to silence
him.

Donny hopped from his chair, knocking it down
behind him. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth or I’ll shut it for
ya!”

One of the security guards that had been
hired by Graham stepped forward. Donny continued to glare at Vanni,
staring down his flared nostrils. His mother touched his arm but he
shrugged her off. Finally he picked up the chair and sat.

“What I hear your clients saying is that
there isn’t enough money that will satisfy them as a fair
judgment,” Ivy began, and once again Donny blew up.

“He didn’t even go to jail! Look at him! He’s
sittin’ there in his fancy clothes, perfectly healthy; everything’s
been swept under the rug. People don’t even know her name.”

Again Eleanor lifted her finger to silence
him. “Baylee is now in what the doctors call a persistent
vegetative state. She can open her eyes and breathe unaided, but
still requires a feeding tube. As long as she stays in this state
she will need constant medical care in a full-care facility. Our
concern is if she should ever rouse from this state and start to
gain awareness or function. The physical therapy to recuperate
would be intensive.” She glanced at Graham. “You are aware at how
costly this can be.”

“And what are the chances for recovery,
especially after such a long time?” Graham asked.

“No doctor who has examined her has been
willing to say this current state is a permanent one. Like a spinal
cord injury, it is unpredictable. She may linger on a feeding tube
for decades or she may regain full consciousness in a week, month
or a year.”

“And we’re not going to take her off a
feedin’ tube just to make your life easier,” Raelynn glared at
Vanni. “Miracles happen. We pray every day. It’s in God’s hands
now.”

“So as you can see, my clients would like the
assurance that Baylee is provided for no matter what the
circumstance.”

Ivy nodded. “We fully agree. Which is why
we’re willing to amend the offer,” Ivy said as she slid a piece of
paper across the desk. Ever since Eleanor had withdrawn her first
offer, Ivy had been very proactive drafting another, even more
generous, proposal. “It allows for such contingencies as, and if,
they are needed.”

Instead of giving over a lump sum to an
executer like Eleanor Mercer, there were two trust funds, which
would earn interest and benefit from investments to provide more
income when not in use. One provided life-long care should she
remain in a PVS, the other provided any recuperative care should
she ever come out of her coma. At the time of her death, what
remained from either trust would be liquidated to pay the
family.

And it still gave the Wilkes
a multi-million dollar payday for pain and suffering, which they
could spend however they wanted. It meant signing away eight of his
ten million dollar advance from
Fierce
, but as long as Vanni could
pay for his new home with Andy and both of his children, he was
willing to part with it in order to make up for what had happened
with Baylee.

He knew it never could, but he felt better
knowing he was offering more than they had originally asked. He
wasn’t being forced to do the right thing; he had done the research
and crafted the proposal with Ivy himself.

Eleanor looked over the offer, which she
folded and put into her briefcase. She turned back to them with a
poker face that gave nothing away whether or not she found the
offer agreeable. “I will need to present this to my clients, of
course.”

“Of course,” Ivy said as she gathered her own
briefcase. She rose and shook Eleanor’s hand. “I’m sure we can
reach an amicable agreement,” she said.