Crowne jewel, p.22
Crowne Jewel, page 22
part #1 of The Crowne Brothers Series
I find myself thrown under a fold-out table. Metal clicks against metal as a drawer opens. I can’t see shit from under here, so I get out my gun.
Too late. Mike already has his Glock pressed against Neville’s temple, cigarette dangling from his lips. Neville’s hands are up, and his gaze is fixed on the open drawer in front of him.
I get out and look inside. There’s a Colt 45 mixed in with the kitchen utensils. I take it and slide it into my waistband.
Neville coughs. Covers his mouth. Mike almost shoots him.
“There’s no smoking in here, dude.”
“You should put up a sign,” Mike says, inhaling and exhaling without removing the cigarette from his lips.
I push Neville into the desk chair. He lands with his legs spread and his balls flattened against the black pleather. For a moment, I consider him. His face. His hair. His body. The cheek swelling where I hit it. The muddy eyes triangulating from my brother, to me, to the gun, back to Mike, who’s holstered his gun to flick his ashes into the sink.
He touched her with those hands. Kissed her with that mouth. I have no control over the images that flash in my head. They are my experiences but from his point of view.
“What happened to your fucking arm?” Neville asks Mike.
“I was pulling a dollar out of a lion’s mouth.”
“Where’s your phone?” I ask.
“Kitchen counter.”
I grab it and point the screen to him. Facial recognition opens it right up. I hand it over to Mike.
“If you’re ordering pizza,” Neville says, “I’m lactose intolerant.”
I can’t tell if he’s fucking with us or he’s this stupidly sincere. There’s one way to find out.
“This is your only warning. Stay away from Lyric Crowne.”
“I haven’t gone near her in months. Even once, when we were at the same—”
“Shut up!” I bark. “We know everything. We know about the cameras, and the texts… and she loved that car, you sick fuck.”
“Jesus, man,” Mike says, scrolling through the phone. “How many pictures of your dick do you have to take before it looks good?”
“What the fuck happened to the car?”
“Which one of these did you send Lyric?” I ask, and he shrugs a little… just enough to admit he sent at least one.
“Is this like a glamor shot or something?” Mike holds up the phone and I’m assaulted with a dick pic.
“Find the texts he sent her. The one about raping her.”
I want to hit Neville repeatedly for putting that phrase in my mouth. There’s a metal knife block at the sink.
“What? No. I messaged her a reminder of what she gave up.”
“Your dick?” I pull out a knife.
“Yeah! And tough shit. If she doesn’t like it, she can delete it. But I bet she still has it. She’s a fucking bitch, but I never said I’d rape her.”
I lay the knife on the counter. Between fucking with us or being stupidly sincere, he’s definitely the latter. I don’t need Mike to find the texts. This is our guy.
“You did.” I pull off another, skinnier knife.
“It’s not rape if she wants it.”
I dump all the knives in the sink and throw the block at him.
Near dawn. In the car. Driving home with bloody knuckles. Mike is next to me, scrolling through Neville’s phone.
“The texts aren’t here,” he says.
“Deleted.”
“Maybe.” He puts down the phone. Neville’s computer rig rattles in the back. “What now?”
“We tell Ted Crowne that we got him. Lyric is free.”
“And we stole evidence. Roughed the guy up. Made it impossible to prosecute in an American court?”
“She can go home. That’s what’s important.”
We have Neville Bennett’s computer but not his bitterness. He’s going to keep that and carry it around, unleashing it on someone, somewhere, some time. If Lyric hears from him again, I won’t hesitate to do what the law won’t.
When I get back to the house, I intend to wash my hands and go to bed, but my blood is half adrenaline and a quarter testosterone. The soap makes my knuckles sting, and I keep thinking about that little man and his ball sac dragging on the seat of his chair.
The sight enraged me, and the memory of it nags at me. It’s not jealousy that Lyric chose to get near that sac—though I’m not delusional enough to deny that the thought of him touching her makes me want to rip off his head. It’s the ugliness and weakness of this man who held power over her.
We’re all ugly and weak. Every man is vulnerable.
Neville and I share soft flesh that rips when hot metal hits it, and when the shrapnel cools, we will scar the same. Our bones can be broken with the same impact. Plaque covers our teeth and fugitive hair grows all over our bodies.
Lyric is safe, and though she’s beautiful, she is just as weak and vulnerable.
One sack of bone protects another from a third.
The power pulsing through my veins runs its course, leaving me in the bathroom, leaning into the mirror to see every pore and wrinkle.
What vanity, to convince myself I could keep her safe.
Her lights are off. There will be no sleep for me, but I can hold her in my arms and tell myself I’m satisfied. The job is done. I’m free to turn my back on her again. It’s all lies.
Before I think too hard about it, I slip downstairs, out the kitchen door, across the yard. I put in the code for the back gate, then the house, locking the door behind me.
She’s a low lump on the bed, curled on her side, facing the window. I kick off my shoes and get into bed with her, curving my feeble, pathetic body around the shape of hers.
“Hey,” she whispers, half asleep. “You okay?”
“You’re safe.” I put my arm around her waist and nuzzle her hair, taking in the scent of her under the dying sage of her shampoo. “You’re safe now.”
CHAPTER 39
LYRIC
My head rises and falls, and one ear is filled with the thup-thupthup. I don’t remember Anton coming into the room, but I remember how his heart beat under me. It’s his chest I’m resting on.
After everything that happened between us, I should be uncomfortable and angry. I’m supposed to be bitter and resentful, but I’m not.
“You’re safe now,” he says.
Teasing wakefulness, I fall asleep again, then wake just enough to feel unfamiliar contentment.
My lungs expand, breathing in the energy to wake my brain.
“What time is it?” I ask without opening my eyes.
“Early.” He strokes my hair away, pulling the strands out of my eyelashes. Lips brush my forehead. “Late.”
“Damn.” I turn my head and open my eyes to meet his.
I remember him being this close. The brush of his eyebrows, the thicker spot of beard on the left side of his chin. I touch the outer corner of his eye, counting the lines. There are more now. How many more did he get in the years since I saw him? Did he get that much older when I didn’t?
“You’re safe.” He lays his hands on either side of my face, stroking with his thumbs. “He’s not going to bother you anymore.”
“Who?”
He seems to consider telling me before deciding against it. “It doesn’t matter. You can go home.”
He pulls me to him and kisses me, preventing another question. I accept his mouth and tongue, rolling on top of him. He’s solid under me, holding my head near his. My surrender is so complete, there’s not a bone in my body willing or able to resist. In this drowsy, lazy moment, I let myself want him without reservation.
Our kiss goes from comforting to urgent. Our hands move from safety to resolve, yanking clothes to the side, pushing toward skin. Straddling my legs on either side of him, I feel his erection against me. He pushes me down by the hips, and the kiss pauses while a cracking sound escapes his throat.
“Anton,” I whisper.
“Lyric.”
“Yes.” My reply isn’t just consent. It’s permission to be who we are. No games. No pretending.
He understands, locking his arms around me and rolling us over, kissing me before taking off my underwear, pushing up my T-shirt to kiss my chest, lingering on the hard apex while taking down his pants. I use my feet to help him get them down, wrapping my hand around his cock, running my thumb along the drop at its tip.
He wedges his hips where my legs meet, running his lips down my cheek and throat. I’m so wet, the length of him slides along the length of me.
Speaking against my skin, he says, “Hold on.”
After he gets the condom on, I wrap my legs around him. With a simple shift, his head rests where I’m open. With an urgency I haven’t let myself feel in so long I push forward, and he’s where he belongs.
“Jesus. Fuck.” He mutters a prayer and obscenity, all in one.
“Anton.” I take his face in my hands.
“Lyric.” He goes slowly, embracing every moment.
“Thank you.”
“Lyric, Lyric, finally.”
When I wake up, he’s not there, but there’s a note folded on the breakfast nook. I stare at it. My hands shake. I inhale only because I force myself to.
I don’t want to look at it. If it’s four lines, I’m going to break into a million and a half pieces. Who’s going to pick me up then? Where am I going to run?
He said I was safe. I’m not supposed to be afraid anymore. That was the deal.
But a deeper, harder, more tangible terror closes its fist over me. Somewhere, at some point, in some moment I forgot to guard myself against, I opened myself to him. I have feelings.
Shit.
Laying my hand over the note as if I want to push it deep into the wood, I slide it off.
Open it.
Buttons—
I left you some Zivchik in the fridge. You should try it.
—A
My laugh is so loud and lasts so long that I must sound insane. I go to the fridge and take out a bottle of soda, laughing again. I only stop to drink it, then start again.
I am exactly what I seem—utterly insane to love him again.
Flipping the page, I see another note.
PS: We took care of your problem. You are safe now.
CHAPTER 40
ANTON
Getting around the Crownes’ Bel-Air house without a map was easier the second time around. I got right to Ted’s office without a single wrong turn and delivered the news, expecting he’d tell me we should have called the cops.
He didn’t.
“How do you know what you did won’t make it worse?”
“I don’t. But we have his equipment, and we planted an AirTag in his shaving bag. He’s on a plane over the Pacific Ocean right now.”
Ted nods.
This is my cue to tell him I’ve been sleeping with his daughter.
Is there any comfortable time to tell a woman’s father that?
“Mr. Crowne, about our contract.”
Is there any comfortable time to tell a client you’ve slept with the principal multiple times since you were hired?
“Yes.” He snaps his fingers and walks over to his desk, opening the top drawer. “Speaking of that. Logan worked up an offer and scope of work.” He hands me a folder. “It’s bigger, if you can staff up in the right time frame.”
“I—” He’s telling me something and I need to change tracks before I sound like an idiot. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” I open the folder and flip through the pages, skimming the parameters of the job.
“What you found here opened up a real can of worms. We need a team with fresh eyes.”
Fresh eyes in India, Qatar, Dubai. Mexico is the closest country.
“This is all overseas.” Not all. Alaska’s on the list. That seems like splitting hairs.
“We can help you manage the visas and authorizations.”
I close the folder. I need time. I need space. I need to know if I’m with this man’s daughter, and it’s not fully up to me. “I’ll run this by Mike.”
“Good.”
We shake on it.
CHAPTER 41
LYRIC
My house is back and I’m back in my house.
They cleaned it up. Butterbomb’s been sent to the paint shop on Santa Monica Blvd. The equipment is gone from the dining room table, but little signs of the disruption remain.
Every edge and angle doesn’t need to line up. I’m plenty neurotic, but I’m not a neat freak or ever-so-orderly. At least, I didn’t think I was until I start noticing things. My framed poster for The Lobster is a little crooked, leaving a right triangle of bright white next to it. The coffee maker is unplugged and the top screw on the switchplate isn’t in all the way. The edges of square shade on the bedroom overhead light aren’t parallel to the walls.
The house is safe, and clean, and ready for me to live in again—but this is how I’d shoot a room where everything’s wrong.
I touch surfaces, straighten what’s crooked, make crooked what’s too aligned. With my foot, I rub indents of ladders and stepstools from the rugs and look up from that spot to see what above was changed.
Everything’s changed. I can’t get my arms around it all.
First things first. Get the bags out of the car and unpack.
The Mini Cooper is parked in the middle of the driveway, leaving no space for another car, and I think, that’s where a person puts their car when they’re not expecting anyone.
My first impulse after I get my stuff out and slap the back closed is to call a friend to chase away the alone-ness.
But how would the position of the car change if a person was expecting someone? And how could you tell a character’s intent by where they parked? If I left space, am I inviting trouble? Sending a message?
Danger. A stalker. She’s alone. She cannot be protected.
She leaves space? Act two break. She has to deal with him.
This isn’t a mystery. We know who he is. He’s impossibly charming and treacherous. No one believes her.
Act one break, no. Stop. This movie has been made a hundred times.
Oak leaves skitter over a parked car. Passage of time.
This movie has been made a hundred times, but not by me.
Handprints on the hood. A seat all the way forward after the tall man put it back.
A gas gauge.
Jesus. The whole thing is ready to write itself. It’s just me in a chair, typing.
I don’t make movies anymore. I’m not in this stupid business. No scripts. No meetings. No waiting for the phone to ring or disappointment when it does.
By the time I consider sitting at my laptop, the entire thing has blossomed in my brain, and the desire to bang it out, type it out, nail it down, whatever, is just because I have to.
Leaving my packed bags sitting in the driveway like good little sentinels, I run inside and open my laptop on the dining room table. Just the broad strokes. Some dialog. A transition that tells the story. The phone rings. I shut off notifications. Add one more thing before I stop to pee. One more. Drink water. Then the fourth sequence rolls like a story that I have no control over and it’s get it down now or lose it forever.
It’s hours before I get hungry. I wish Anton was here. He’d bring me a sandwich. He’d put my hair in a tie and rub my neck. But I don’t have him. That’s just what it is.
That’s when the second-guessing starts.
Do I put in a part for Liang? Will he be bummed if I don’t? Or if it’s so obvious that I’ve done it that it bums him out anyway?
Is it too close to what just happened to me? Is that bad? Or good?
Exciting enough? Original enough? Commercial enough?
“Fuck.” I close the laptop. “I hate this.”
I check my phone. Some check-in texts. Gossip in the chat. Photos of costumes for the masque. I squeal and heart, tip-tap, switch to a Liang text. I kind of miss Instagram, but not that much.
What I miss is Anton. I miss him wanting to know where I am, caring if I’m all right. I miss his eyes constantly on me. I need to reach for him across whatever space separates us. I type him a text.
—hey—
My finger freezes mid-tap, leaving the message unsent.
Once I send it, I’m going to have to deal with this script and the questions that made me text in the first place.
Is there a part for Liang?
What does the market want?
How do I finance it?
Is it original enough?
Or I could just walk away. Trash it. Forget it.
It’s original enough.
Is it though?
Yeah. It’s plenty original, because I’m out of the business and it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to finance it or think about how it’s going to be reviewed. It’s pure amusement because it’s not like I have anything better to do without my socials. No one’s ever going to judge it. It isn’t even words on paper because it’s not getting printed out for a crew.
I have to think. Anton’s job is over. I’m not his responsibility anymore.
And I should just type a few pages and see how I like this thing.
I leave the text unsent. As soon as I put the phone down, it buzzes. Voicemail from Kevin. I listen.
“Hey, Lyric. Just wanted to update you on the whole account thing we’re taking care of for you over at Meta. I have some good news. Can you give me a call back?”
The last time I saw Kevin was at the Meta campus, where he waved goodbye as Anton and I got in the car and kissed because Anton had stood up for me, asking for things I didn’t understand.
I didn’t want to feel anything, but we did fuck, and more times than there’s an oops-cuse for.
And late last night, we had a really nice fuck and then he was gone.
I tap the phone screen with my fingernail, but not to open, or watch, or read anything. The whole day went by and he hasn’t called me, but I haven’t given him a single word to go on either. Was this how it was in New York? Did we talk during the day?
