Page 62 of Savage Lover

“You know. Backing tracks for songs.”

I don’t really know, but I’m interested. I come and sit down on the edge of his bed.

“Let’s hear it,” I say.

“Okay . . .” Vic says nervously.

He places his cursor over the right spot on the screen and presses enter.

The beat plays out of his tinny speakers. I don’t know much about this kind of music, but I can hear that it’s upbeat and catchy, with a 70’s funk sound to it.

“You made that?” I ask Vic.

“Yeah,” he says, grinning shyly. “Listen to this one.”

He clicks another track. This time the beat is slightly eerie, with an instrumental backing that sounds like it belongs in a Kung fu movie.

“Vic, that’s really cool!” I tell him.

“Thanks,” he says.

“What do you do with them?”

“Well . . . I posted a couple online. And I sold them, actually.”

“Oh yeah? What does somebody pay for a beat like that?”

“Well, at first I was charging twenty bucks. But now I’m getting fifty per track.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

I’m impressed. My enterprising little brother has found a way to make money that actually sounds legal.

“I wish I had a better mixing board,” he says. “If I sell a few more, I could probably buy one. But I know I have to save for college too,” he adds hastily.

“Save for both,” I tell him. “Half for college, half for the equipment you need.”

“Alright,” Vic grins. “Fair enough.”

I’m really proud of him. I always knew my little brother was brilliant. He just needs to turn his attention in the right direction. To things that will help him out in life, instead of getting him in trouble.

I look at his thin, handsome face, dominated by his dark eyes and girlish lashes. The truth is, he doesn’t look entirely like my mother. She was 100 percent Puerto Rican. Vic is more fair. It’s possible his dad was a white dude.

I search his features, trying to find evidence of Raymond Page in his face. Could my mom have known a man like that? Dated him, or slept with him?

All kinds of men visited Exotica. As far as strip clubs went, it was one of the fancier ones in the city. People said my mother worked as an escort, too. I didn’t want to believe it. But it’s possible she met Raymond and accidentally fell pregnant.

That’s not information that Page would want anybody else to know. He would have been married to Bella’s mother at the time. And even if she’s okay with him philandering, I doubt that extends to unprotected sex with strippers.

God, it makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

“What?” Vic says. “What are you looking at?”

“That eyelash thing,” I tell him.

He laughs. “It’s kinda cool.”

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