Newmar, Lola - Unzipping Levi [Scarlett Rose and the Seven Longhorns 4](Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) (8 page)

“I–I’m fine, dear. I just haven’t eaten much today. All I’ve had since this morning was a slice of spinach quiche and a dirty martini.” Sweat beaded along her upper lip, and she wiped it away with the back of her shaking hand.

The first thing she needed to do was have an emergency meeting with her mother and Todd, her accomplices in the double-murder plot she’d conjured in order to be a wealthy widow. When they’d run into Scarlett and her sexy stranger at the sex club the night before, it was obvious Scarlett may have forgotten them completely, likely a side effect from the fall. But how was Scarlett able to remember her father? Or maybe she found some pieces of the puzzle?

No.

That wasn’t going to happen, Alisa decided. Smoothing her hair pouf down, she sat up a little straighter and demanded her confidence rise from the dead. There was no way in hell she’d make it this far—from underage Russian prostitute to a Texas tycoon’s fiancée—only to be defeated by a neglected little rich brat with a Nancy Drew complex.

Suddenly, Alisa didn’t feel too sick when she watched Charlie reach into his pocket again, pulling out yet another wad of crisp, new money then handed it to her. “Here, honey, take your mother downtown for lunch on me. Just walk into Five Sixty and ask for Mr. Puck. He should be in for the week, and he’ll take good care of you.

“You really need to stop skipping meals like that, Alisa. You’re whittling down to
nothing
.”

No matter how much complaining the rich old man did, there was no way Alisa would agree to loosen up her strict diet of gin and eggs. Her weight had to be in the high ninety pounds at all times. Anything above one hundred pounds was morbidly disgusting, according to her mother’s teachings, of course. If her ribs didn’t show when she didn’t suck her stomach in, it wasn’t okay.

“I’m going to call down for some water for you,” he said, wheeling over to the intercom on the side table next to the bed.

“No, no,” she reached out to stop him, “I feel fine now. I promise.”

“Anyways,” he continued as he turned back to her, “I spoke to my baby girl, and she said she’s coming back in town tonight from New York. I told her about the meeting we have with the wedding planner, so she’ll go back to her apartment. Then I’m having lunch with her tomorrow. She said she had something she wanted to discuss with me.”

Alisa could barely believe what she was hearing. “Are you seriously saying Scarlett actually called you?”

“Well, of course. Why wouldn’t she?”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. “No reason really. I just figured she’d still be busy closing the deal.”

“No, a few days should be plenty for my Scarlett. She’s a smart cookie. Don’t let those stunning looks fool you.”

Jealous rage burned inside of her as he spoke.
The little bitch won’t be so “stunning” once she has a few gaping holes in the back of her head
.

Alisa stood and grabbed her purse and luggage. “I better go retrieve Mother and take her to eat. I’m starving.”

“Are you planning on staying overnight, my dear?” he asked, indicating her Coach suitcase.

“It’s...for Todd. He was invited to Miami by his new sugar daddy, and he asked if he could borrow it.” Relief washed over her as Charlie smiled, obviously believing her lies.

“It’s nice to see you’ve made a friend in him, dear. He’s a sweet boy.

“That he is.” She kissed the top of Charlie’s head then patted it again. “I’ll see you later, lover.”

“Bye, my dear.”

She barely walked two steps out the door before she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Todd’s number.

“Hello?”

“Meet me and Mother at the Five Sixty restaurant downtown in twenty minutes,” she said then hung up the phone and shoved it back into her purse.

Down the spiral stairs and to the hallway on the left, she walked up to the guest room her mother had been staying at and knocked hard.

“What the hell, child?” her mother practically yelled when she opened the door. Pink Velcro rollers adorned her head, and she wore a red robe with a green clay mask on her face.

Alisa stormed into the room, and her mother closed the door behind her. “Scarlett contacted Charlie today, Mother.”

Dasha’s hand flew to her chest and clenched at her heart. “She didn’t tell him, did she?”

Alisa shook her head. “No, but I think she plans to tomorrow.”

“We can’t let her open her mouth, Alisa. She needs to be dead by sunrise, or we can kiss our lifestyle good-bye.”

“I called Todd and told him to meet us downtown. Hurry, Mother. Get dressed. We need to leave
tonight
instead of tomorrow. It’ll be much too late by then. It looks like we have to make a trip to Knotty much sooner than we’d expected.”

Chapter 7

Jameson Darque pulled his black Harley into an empty parking spot at the end of the lot. His younger brother, Johnny, pulled up next to him, and they turned the engines off.

“It’s only been a couple of weeks, and it already feels like I’ve been gone much too long,” said Johnny as he climbed off the bike and removed his dark brown leather jacket, revealing the fitted black T-shirt he wore underneath. A large hard-on already pressed against the old, faded denim jeans he wore.

Jameson shook his head as he ran his fingers through his messy, shoulder-length black hair. Of course, he loved BDSM sex clubs just as much as the next healthy man, but sometimes it seemed his younger brothers were eerily obsessed. He was the eldest of five brothers, all into hardcore kink. It didn’t really matter what they did while they were there, though, so long as they completed their research.

His front pocket vibrated against his hip, and he reached in for his cell phone and flipped it open. “Hello, Grandmother.”

“Did you boys make it okay, dear?”

He could tell from her raspy voice that she’d woken in the middle of the night to check in on him, and he felt a pang of guilt for not beating her to it. “We’re fine. We haven’t even walked in yet. Go get some rest, and call again when you wake up in the morning. Hopefully, we’ll have some updates for you by then.”

He heard her sigh heavily. “As you wish, my dear.”

He shut the phone and shoved it back in his pocket.

“Has Grandmother worried herself sick yet?” Johnny pulled off the dirty T-shirt he wore and put on a clean red one he’d retrieved from his backpack.

“You know Grandmother. As desperate for human grandchildren as ever.”

“Yeah, well, we better deliver soon if we have any hopes of seeing our trust fund.” Johnny’s hazel eyes filled with determination and excitement.

Twenty years ago, their parents had died in a tragic accident when a drunk driver had T-boned their car going eighty. Their widowed and extremely wealthy Native American grandmother, Charlize, took them in and raised them. Despite being an extremely sweet woman, their grandmother had made it clear their entire lives that the only way they were going to get their cut of their grandfather’s money was if they found a way to reproduce human children. Grandmother Charlize was born a shifter from a shifter father and human mother. She’d always wished for the life of a human, a life without hiding or fear or shame, and she’d said that if she couldn’t have that life, she’d make damn sure that the future Darque generations would. The only way they knew of was to find a strawberry girl.

Jameson and the rest of the Darque brothers had never been in love, so there was really nothing they were losing at that point. Love didn’t pay the bills or keep the family secure. Money and status did those things, and the only way they were going to get it was to mate with a strawberry girl. The kid would just be a bonus, and ninety-year-old Grandmother Charlize could die happy and satisfied.

The Darques had been riding the wide American roads for a couple of months now, gathering clues everywhere they went that may or may not lead them to this strawberry girl. They made note of any change in behavior from other shifter clans, and they’d broken into several doctor’s offices to search their files for any woman with concerns over a crescent-moon-shaped birthmark on any part of her body. She’d be claimed, of course, if they were able to see it, but hopefully, they’d be able to get to her before she became impregnated by her mates. Should she be pregnant, there was no hope, for once a shifter’s DNA is inside a human mate, it was impossible for her to get pregnant by any other man. He just hoped they wouldn’t be too late, based on what Ankoma had overheard.

His Houston contacts, the Badu cousins, had called their hotel last night with some suspicious news. The Badus were a pack of ten East African python-shifters who lived in the tough Third-Ward neighborhood next to the university they all attended. They’d come to Texas as exchange students and also to hopefully find their own mate in the process. The Badus had studied all around the world, the entire time on the lookout for their One. Texas was one of the last stops on their list before they’d start their search over again.

Jameson knew that for many generations of unlucky shifters, their search for their mate would sometimes go on until late in life before she was found. By this time, the woman would often be too old to produce any offspring. And then, there were also those tragic stories of some never finding her at all.

The Badus all worked odd jobs to support themselves during the school year. Although the youngest was only sixteen, Ankoma Badu was a freshman there at University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business. On weekends, he held a janitorial position at the Reliant Center.

The boy had reported that five longhorn-shifters—four of which were posing as grand prize rodeo bulls—had unexpectedly dropped out of the competition not only this year, but forever. Ankoma said he’d overheard a meeting the “trainer” of the group, a big cowboy named Denzel, had with the rodeo administrators. Ankoma claimed Denzel had sounded unusually antsy to get the meeting over with. The cowboy had said he and his brothers had fallen in love and wanted to retire in order to begin having a family as soon as possible. These men were at their prime in the rodeo circuit, practically undefeated. Ankoma said he’d immediately thought that maybe the reason the rodeo champions were so eager to reproduce with their mate was because she was a strawberry girl.

The Darques had sent word out long ago that they were willing pay millions of dollars in exchange for information on their generation’s strawberry girl. Like most shifters, the Badus felt it was more important to reproduce with their true mate, the one chosen by destiny, even though it meant their children would remain cursed. The Darques didn’t feel the same. Love was of no concern and of no value to Jameson and his kid brothers. What really mattered was that damn inheritance, and they were determined to get it.

“So say we find this strawberry woman,” his brother began as he knelt down to put on a cleaner pair of black boots, “what happens if she doesn’t want to come with us?”

“Then we’ll do anything it takes to convince her. Bribe her, beg her, threaten her, court her—”

Johnny interrupted him with a loud laugh. “Yeah, because us Darques have so much damn experience with ‘courting’ human women.”

He was right, too. Although they’d all been with countless beautiful women over the years from all around the world, they’d never had interest in forming any sort of relationship with their lovers. It was the same for most shifters. Every now and then, he’d meet a shifter, usually women shifters, who would carry on a relationship or two before finding their mate. They enjoyed the friendship and the education these “starter relationships” gifted them. But most shifters just found it to be a waste of time if the person wasn’t their true mate.

“And what if she doesn’t want to have sex with us?”

Jameson shot him a “boy, please” look. Even if he really tried hard to think about it, he could still never, ever remember a time when a woman had rejected his sexual advances, be they married, single, stay-at-home mothers, government officials, young, old…hey, all wanted Jameson, and Jameson wanted all of them. “I can fuck any girl in the world, little one.”