Page 1 of Black Sheep

PART ONE

AXEL

Chapter One

FUCK BYGONES

Axel

Childhood sweethearts.

Even way back then, I despised the term. There was nothing childlike about what I felt for her. Even less was the implied sweetness of our connection. But we let them smile and label us as they pleased. All the while knowing and relishing our truth. She was pure sin, and I was the devil intent on gorging myself on her iniquities.

I lived for it. For her. The sexy, hint-of-sandpaper voice that could bring me to my knees. The limpid blue eyes that paralyzed me. The killer curves that made me want to kill every other boy or man who dared to look at her sixteen-year-old body.

At nineteen, I was fully cognizant of my obsession, was aware that it was a live grenade destined to blow me apart one day. But I was ready to die the first time I looked into her eyes. As long as I died in her arms.

I should have known my end was near the day she called me by her special name.

My Romeo.

She called me that the day I took her virginity beneath the stars on the beach of our families’ adjoining Connecticut properties.

My Romeo. As if she knew we were doomed. Perhaps she knew I was. Perhaps she’d known of the plan all along. Or she hatched it the day my father enrolled me at West Point. The day he embraced his grand and greedy plan to fatten his bank balance from war instead of just from common mafia mongering.

The irony was that I was the only fool in the piece. I may have accepted my role as Romeo, but her name wasn’t Juliet.

No, the devil’s siren went by the name of Cleopatra McCarthy.

And when it came right down to it, Cleopatra McCarthy was only too happy to watch me burn in the flames of my obsession. Happy to watch me die.

Childhood sweethearts. Fuck that.

Whatever we felt for each other was as old as dirt, filthy as sin. What I feel for her now is…too fucked up to name.

So now I watch her. She watches me.

Strangers. Enemies. Our hate sparks between us like forked lightning. Bitter, twisted. Alive.

There may be a wide dance floor between us and the sound of jazz funk blaring through the speakers inside the walls of XYNYC, my New York nightclub, but we may as well be cocooned in a little bubble of our own, merrily breathing in the fumes of our hate.

Eight years is a long time to drip-feed yourself poisonous might-have-beens. But I’m more than comfortable in my role of rabid obsessor.

I lean back, elbows on the bar, ignoring all around me except the woman tucked away in my roped-off VIP lounge. The elevated lounges offer a clear view without obstruction. The short black dress clings to her hips and upper thighs leaving her legs bare, the halter neckline and her caught-up hair displaying lightly tanned shoulders and arms.

The glass of vintage Dom Pérignon champagne in her hand hasn’t been touched. Not a single inch of her voluptuous body has moved in time to the music, even though music is…was a great love, once upon a time. Even after all these years, I retain residual resentment that I had to share her with Axl Rose and Dave Grohl, watch her body twist in ecstasy that wasn’t induced by me.

A waiter offers her a platter of food. She shakes her head and takes a step toward the black velvet rope that blocks the lounge. My bouncer steps in front of her.

She glares at him.

Without glancing my way, she reaches into her tiny purse for her phone. She sets her glass down, and her fingers fly over the screen.

My own phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m not surprised she has my number. Any member of my family could have obtained it by illegal means and given it to her. I take a beat before I pull it out and read the message. “I’ve been coming here almost every night for two weeks. You have to talk to me sometime.”

I glance up, make her wait for a full minute before I reply. “Do I?”

Her nostrils flare lightly. “He wants an answer.”

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