Zed, page 1
Zed
MV Ellis
Zed © 2019 by MV Ellis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recorded, or photocopied format without the express permission from the author or publisher as allowed under the terms and conditions with which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
Zed is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
For information, contact the publisher, Hot Tree Publishing.
www.hottreepublishing.com
Editing: Hot Tree Editing
Cover Designer: PopKitty Design
Formatting: Justine Littleton
E-book ISBN: 9781925853674
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-925853-69-8
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Zed
2. Octavia
3. Zed
4. Octavia
5. Octavia
6. Zed
7. Zed
8. Octavia
9. Zed
10. Octavia
11. Zed
12. Octavia
13. Zed
14. Vivi
15. Zed
16. Vivi
17. Zed
18. Vivi
19. Zed
20. Vivi
21. Zed
22. Vivi
23. Zed
24. Vivi
25. Zed
26. Vivi
27. Zed
28. Vivi
29. Zed
30. Vivi
31. Zed
32. Vivi
33. Zed
34. Vivi
35. Zed
36. Vivi
37. Vivi
38. Zed
39. Vivi
40. Zed
Epilogue
Thanks
Other Books by MV Ellis
Acknowledgments
ZED Playlist
About the Publisher
Give me today, for once, the worst throw of your dice, destiny.
Friedrich Nietzche
Dedicated to everyone who’s ever made their own luck.
1
Zed
Kota put her head around the door of my office and rapped on the doorframe gently. “Knock knock.”
I looked up, took one look at her face and immediately realized there was a problem. “Hey, K, what’s up?”
She wrinkled her nose as though she’d smelled something bad.
“So there’s a ‘client’ in reception who I need your help with. He won’t listen to me, and if he carries on, I’m in danger of punching him in the dick. I decided it was best to call in the big guns before it got ugly. And being as you’re the biggest of the big….” She winked coyly, faux flirting with me, even though we both knew she was doing no such thing. We also knew she didn’t need to in order to get me to do what she wanted. I loved her like a sister—my heart twanged painfully at the thought, as always—and I’d do pretty much anything she needed me to do, in any given circumstance, no questions asked.
I looked over at the monitor that showed me the reception area—there was a camera in every treatment room, also—and squinted a little, analyzing the grainy black-and-white image.
“Is that a kid? Looks like he’s wearing a school uniform.”
She rolled her eyes, popping her gum impatiently.
“Yeah, it is. And he is. And get this. It’s not just any school uniform. Nope, it’s none other than St. Joseph’s.”
“As in St. Joseph’s Academy?” Of course. I should have fucking known. I couldn’t see the crest on the blazer properly in the poor-quality image, but I ought to have recognized the stripes and trims—they’d featured in enough of my nightmares, both asleep and awake, to have permanently imprinted themselves on my psyche.
“The very same. He’s like a baby, and I thi—”
I was out of my seat and marching toward the reception area before she had a chance to finish her sentence. I stormed into the room, practically stomping up to the lone client. Kota scampered behind me, desperately trying to keep in step. I pulled up abruptly and she skidded into my back with an “Oomph.”
“Can I help you?” I didn’t want to be rude, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be too welcoming, either. Anything even remotely connected to St. Joseph’s made my skin crawl right off the bat.
Mr. St. J’s looked at me with watery blue eyes that seemed to be having trouble focusing. What the fuck? Just as Kota had said, he was young—sixteen, seventeen maybe? Looking at him, I was struck by a strong sense of déjà vu. That feeling and the overwhelming stench of Southern Comfort emanating from his every pore went straight to my gut. SoCo had been the first liquor I ever got sauced on, when I was younger than the little punk standing in front of me. Now it made me want to gag whenever I got even the merest whiff of it.
“Yeah, acshully, you can. I want a tatt of this guy on my asssshh.” He thrust a crumpled photo into my hand. I looked at it. A mostly blond early middle-aged man who seemed vaguely familiar glared out at me. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the laughter that was threatening to spill out in check.
Oh hell no. Not today, Satan.
“Well given that you’re clearly underage, and under the influence, that is the definition of not gonna happen. The door’s that way.” I nodded toward the front of the store.
“See ya, kid.” I nodded again, turned on my heel and started making my way back to my office.
“Why not, man? I haaaaaaave money. Look.” His voice came out in a sharp burst, like machine gun fire, and probably louder than he’d intended. He jumped a little in surprise.
Christ, he’s fucked up.
He rummaged desperately in the front pocket of his leather backpack and retrieved a handful of scrunched bills. Large bills. The action messed with his balance, and as he made his way toward me, every step seemed more unstable than the last. He thrust the money at me, but I stood still, looking at it as though he was clutching poisonous spiders rather than a considerable amount of cash.
“Here, look seeee.” At another time or place, the slurring might have been kind of funny, but right then it spelled a Class-B misdemeanor, and with my history, up to a year’s jail time. I wanted the kid out of there, stat. Rumpled greens and all.
“I see that, but your money’s no good here, so I suggest you call Mom, Dad, the driver, or the au pair and have someone come get your drunk and/or high ass, because I’ll be tattooing you just after I put a piercing through Satan’s scrotum. So beat it.” Obviously any pretense of manners had flown out the window on one of the kid’s bourbon-infused drunken hiccups.
I heard Kota snicker behind me and again fought the urge to laugh myself.
“What? Nooooo, maaaan, don’t be like that. I just want to get the tattoo and go, no trouble.” He continued to stumble forward, imploring me with his eyes. “Do you know who I ammmmmmm?”
Yeah, you’re the douche trying to get my ass thrown in jail. I kept my expression neutral and my tone the same. “You’re not getting a tattoo here today. I don’t care if you’re the Sultan of Brunei or Jesus Christ risen from the cross. Come back in a couple of years when you’re legal.”
“Well I am a Cross, but not Jesus. Xavier. Cross.” A boozy snicker slipped from his lips.
This kid was a joker. I’d already told him that I didn’t give a fuck who he was or wasn’t. There was nothing he could say or do to me to make me consider putting everything on the line to tattoo his pimply butt.
“Again, I don’t care.”
“My father is Xander. Xander Cross.”
Holy crap.
I heard Kota shift her weight from foot to foot behind me as I realized this whole shit show had just gone from bad to epically disastrous in the course of two little words.
Xander motherfucking Cross.
As I thought about it again, something dropped into place in my mind.
“Wait. So you came in all jacked up to get a picture of your old man permanently drawn on your ass? Is that what’s going on here?” I was actually laughing by that point, making it harder for me to keep my shit together and impossible to maintain a stern expression.
The kid swayed some more, then nodded.
Wow. I really couldn’t have made that shit up.
If it wasn’t my cock on the block, I might’ve been tempted to do it, for no other reason than it made for a great fucking story. It wasn’t every day that the teenage son of one of the world’s richest and most successful, if not somewhat enigmatic, entrepreneurs asked you to etch his dad’s image onto this butt. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever had an underage kid ask to have anyone’s portrait on their rear end, let alone this kid, and that guy.
I could tell he wasn’t about to go down without a fight, so I stepped toward him, putting my hands on his shoulders and forcing him to look up at me. Or at least try to.
He gave me a cross-eyed stare. That’ll have to do, I guess.
“Listen to me carefully, because I’m starting to get pissed. I’m going to say it one more time, and when I’m done, you’re out of here, understand?” Silence. “Do. You. U
He nodded slowly.
“Good. Now, there is not a snowdrop’s chance in Hell that I’m going to do this for you, regardless of who you or your father are. This is a hard no. You can try some other place if you want—not everybody has the same standards as me.” Or history. “So you might get lucky. But not here. Not on my watch. In fact, not ever.”
Speaking of watches…. I glanced at my wrist and rolled my eyes. What was he doing that buzzed so early in the morning anyway?
“What are you even doing here? Surely you should be at your hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year boarding school learning how to be a master of the universe or whatever bullshit they claim to teach there?”
I knew I should go easy on the kid, because he really was just a kid, but my patience was starting to wear real thin.
“Like I said before, you need to call someone to come collect your wonky ass. I don’t care if it’s your parents, your butler or an Uber. Whatever it is, do it now, or I’m gonna buzz your school and tell them I have a stray on my hands that I’m about to take to the pound.”
The kid hiccupped again, looking increasingly gray. Just as understanding dawned on me, he also seemed to get the memo.
“Oh, man, I don’t feel so—”
I could only guess that the last word in the sentence was going to be “good.” I’d never know, however, as he proceeded to empty the contents of his guts all over me, the floor, and himself.
Holy shit. I’d never seen so much projectile vomit come out of one person. It was like that scene from The Exorcist. There seemed to be an endless stream of it. I immediately let go of his shoulders, knowing that was a risky move given his precarious grasp of gravity, but I could hardly stand there while he covered me in his breakfast caviar. Besides, I thought if I stood too close, I’d be in danger of “accidentally” hitting the little fuck, so I had to step back for everyone’s sake.
Big mistake. Huge. I slid on something in his puke that was slippery as fuck. I skidded into the air and landed on my ass in the puddle of vomit, sending my mood from pissed off to murderous faster than you could say “underage drinking and drugs.” At the same time, the kid also lost his battle to stay upright and hit the deck like a sack of shit, vile-smelling liquid still spewing from him.
I could hear Kota laughing behind us, and I called out to her over my shoulder. “Number one, go get something to clean this crap up with before an actual booking comes in. Number two, you’re fired.”
She knew I was joking about the fired part, of course. Even with the unwarranted laughter, and the knowledge that she was more than likely giving me the finger behind my back as I spoke, I’d sooner hack off my right arm than get rid of her. It felt good to say it, regardless.
The kid had finally stopped just short of puking up is own entrails, so I hauled my ass off the floor and reached down to wrench him up by his armpits. He still didn’t look too good, but I didn’t much care. He was breathing, conscious, and not choking on his own vomit, so I was prepared to consider that a win. After propping him into a more or less upright position on one of the reception chairs, I grabbed his backpack and dug through the same pocket he’d pulled the stack of cash from.
Bingo! His cell was there, and thankfully it wasn’t locked. Small mercies. I called the last number he’d dialed, figuring that was a safe bet for someone who gave a fuck about the little turd. The person seemed to be called LILF, not that I cared. I just needed them to come get the kid, like yesterday.
“Xavier?”
“Nope. Not even close. But I do have a kid here who answers to that name, I believe. I also have his phone. And his vomit. He’s drunk as a skunk and probably high as a kite on who knows what, and he just spewed up a storm all over my shop, so you need to come remove his overprivileged underage ass.”
There was an extended pause before she replied. “Oh. Well, I’m part of his father’s legal team, not a relative, so I can’t really just—”
“I honestly couldn’t care less who you are. All I know is that your number was the last one on his call list, and you seem to be an adult. You need to come get this kid now. If I have to call someone else, it’ll be the cops and Child Protective Services. I’ll report his parents, plus the principal of that fancy-pants school they’re clearly wasting their money on for this ungrateful little—”
Kota cleared her throat behind me, having returned with the mop, bucket, and enough disinfectant to sanitize a hospital during a Norovirus outbreak, reminding me of my manners. Kind of.
I barked out the shop’s address too quickly for her to have written it down, so she’d better hope her memory skills were up to par. “Thirty minutes, or he’s someone else’s problem.”
I hung up before she had a chance to protest again. I knew I wasn’t at my most gracious, but I also figured that the extenuating circumstances of wallowing in someone else’s spew bought me quite a lot of leeway as far as my conduct was concerned.
I considered my Good Samaritan duties to be done, and I needed to get clean before I started getting mad again.
“Hold the fort here please, K. Keep an eye on him.” I nodded in the general direction of the pale, glassy-eyed teen. “I think he’ll be fine now that all of that is out of him and onto me, but if he starts again or passes out, we might need to call the paramedics. In the meantime, I hate the smell of myself so much that I have to go shower in bleach.”
2
Octavia
I immediately did what any sane person in that situation would do. I called the number back.
“Still me. And you still need to come get this kid. Only now you have twenty-nine minutes. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste any more of them.”
I scowled at the handset as though there was some outward benefit to doing so, just like I had a few minutes earlier when it had vibrated on my desk, pulling my brain out of the deposition I was reading. I had looked at the offending object for a few moments, not wanting to answer it but knowing I had to. So I let it go for a few more rings, just because I could, and sometimes stupid, petty, passive-aggressive acts of rebellion were all I had to get me through the day. That was what my life had stooped to.
In fairness to myself, I was in total disbelief that this “case”—essentially babysitting the wayward teenage son of one of the world’s most successful tycoons—was how far my so-called career had sunk. Worse still, I had been reduced to being abused on the phone by random strangers on account of said wealthy and reckless minor. Not cool. Not even close.
When I’d graduated Harvard Law magna cum laude, I hadn’t envisaged that my future job would mostly entail spending my days finding increasingly creative ways to keep rich, entitled white-collar criminals out of jail. Or in this case, left holding the baby while my colleague was on maternity leave.
Though Xavier Cross was hardly a baby, in the true sense of the word, taking on Maddie’s role on his father’s legal team while she was away definitely amounted to an extremely well-paid babysitting gig. Trying to keep the obscenely wealthy teen out of trouble was a full-time job in and of itself. Today being a case in point.
Before graduating, I’d had naive but lofty visions of making our city, and ultimately, our world, a better place to live. Given my double major in prelaw and psych, I could think of no better way to do that than working my way through the ranks at the DA’s office, putting away the bad guys. I’d always figured that being a DA was the best chance to really start changing our mostly rotten judicial system from the inside out, and I used to lie in bed at night fantasizing about winning awards and accolades for being instrumental in cleaning up our city’s streets.
