Page 3 of Vita Mia

The car stopped.

“Remember kid, you asked for it,” Harris said and threw the gear into park. The Lamborghini doors lifted before the valet could assist. Harris didn’t want to be seen leaving the vehicle with him. That was fine. He was a piece of shit actor and douchebag for a human being. But he was no pedophile, and Ryder took a sick sense of satisfaction in making him think he was. The night he found out that Harris was coming to have a private dinner in his aunt’s restaurant with his management team changed Ryder’s life goals. He immediately put his plan into action. First, he convinced his aunt to let him bus the tables alone. She thought it was his fanboy in overdrive, so she agreed to give Hector and Pedro the night off. After all, since Ryder was six years old he’d collected every comic book that the hero Jason Harris now played on the silver screen. But Ryder wasn’t a boy any longer. He was twenty-two and he had man dreams. A friend of his who was indeed nineteen and an inspiring Instagram model was up for the seduction. All he had to do was set up the camera’s and get Hollywood’s golden boy with his dick in action. It went off smoothly. She arrived at the restaurant and made a beeline for the private dining room as the dinner was coming to a close. Harris nibbled the bait. Gave her a taste of the coke he was snorting. After his management team left he kept the liquor flowing. It didn’t take long for her to seduce his ego and lure him to the bathroom for a dinner snack. The next month Ryder and Janet approached Harris’s agent and convinced the idiot that she was underage. Harris fell for it. The rest would be recorded in the history books when Ryder becomes the one to solve the Illuminati mystery.

Ryder left the car. He walked tall in a tuxedo that cost him his entire rent check and he tried to appear as polished at the others arriving. He had only four hours of battery-life to store what he could on the iCloud server, so he had to be careful to record only what was needed.

An Oscar winning actress with the biggest pop-star in the world walked passed him. They just breezed past him as if he weren’t there. He nearly choked on the gum in his mouth. Behind the couple were a few star athletes. One of them had an Olympic champion swimmer as his date. His heart raced. Harris was a step ahead of him and he was greeted like a king. The actor greeted everyone he passed as if he were the president.

At the door, they were greeted by security. This was the first test. They were obviously trained in combat and very serious about their jobs. Ryder glanced to the left and saw more men of the same stature and intimidation watching. Each man wore earpieces like members of an elite secret service team. And they all had intense scrutinizing stares at the guests arriving. The Pope would have to show identification to get pass these men, he thought. Ryder tried not to seem conspicuous, but he was nervous. If there were guards then that meant there was a reason for privacy.

Fuck what The Third-Eye-Raven said in his investigations about the location of the Illuminati, and the improbability that it could be discovered. This was it. He’d found Eden.

With a discreet move of his finger over his watch he turned off the camera to the square lensed glasses he wore and stepped forward to be searched. Everything went to plan. He could see the relief in Harris’s stride and manner once they accepted his invitation and scanned their identification without issue. He passed the scrutiny. The bum actually walked as if he’d done something of importance when it was Ryder who had finessed the goons. But both of them were detained inside. Two women who looked like enforcement agents approached. One carrying a velvet box.

“What’s this?” Ryder asked.

“Do what they say,” Harris mumbled.

“Phones?” the woman to his left said.

“Huh?” Ryder answered.

Harris removed his phone and handed it over. A sticker was put to the back and a small scanning wand was used to swipe the barcode. The phone was placed in the velvet box. A valet ticket was given to Harris in exchange. The woman’s dark gaze turned to him.

“Telefono,signore.”

Ryder reached inside of his pocket and handed over his iPhone. The woman did the same thing. He stood impatiently, nervous as she scanned the phone and then gave him the ticket. When he accepted it he expected the matter done, but she paused. She stared at his face. Was she looking at him or the glasses he wore? Ryder’s heart began to race. But her stare then lowered to his attire. She seemed to answer whatever questions she had over his appearance in her mind and nodded to the woman with her that they should move on.

“Why are you wearing those glasses?” Harris asked when he and Ryder walked away. “Take them off. They make you look weird.”

“I lost a contact. I need them.”

“Take them off,” Harris insisted.

“Fuck you,” Ryder said.

Harris gave him a quizzical look. He shrugged and walked away. “Stay out of trouble kid, and stay the fuck away from me,” he tossed back over his shoulder.

“Suck my dick,” Ryder mumbled. He wasn’t a kid. Tonight, he would prove it. Ryder touched his wrist. He looked down as if he were simply checking the time and confirmed his camera was switched on. The digital display on his watch gave him a video image that showed his aerial focus and he adjusted it.

“Showtime.”

Ryder walked through the party. The first thing he noticed that piqued his interest wasn’t the celebrities drinking and mingling. It was the women that served every guest. They were all petite and shapely, with the same silky black hair parted at the center that flowed to their waist, no matter the ethnicity the hair was the same. These ladies wore black fitted dresses that were short on the leg and high-heels so tall they must have been acrobats to walk in them. They were classy. With one distinction. The gloves on their left hand. Black gloves with dark crystals along the finger. Each woman wore one glove. Why? Was that code for something?

They were not the kind of women you’d think would sign up to be servers, but the kind of women that would grace the cover of a magazine. Ryder would bet his life that the honeys all wore the same bra and panty size too; though he’d welcome the attention of any one of them, their similarities felt odd.

“Welcome,” a woman with copper brown skin and dark brown doe-eyes greeted him. She plucked a crystal flute of champagne from the silver serving tray and offered it to him.

He shook his head no. A sly smile lifted the left corner of her ruby lips. Her long dark lashes lowered as her gaze swept down and then up to his waist before returning to his stare. She gave him a nod of appreciation and then she moved on. Ryder watched her slide up to another guest and then another. As if in a trance he followed her, focused on the sway of her hips and the beauty of her slender legs. She walked him through the party and he bumped shoulders with the world’s elite. Record producers, and industry people in ‘Hollywood’ he’d seen on television were present. But when he left that room and entered a smoking room he found it was occupied by a different power structure. Politicians were the ones gathered. These men and women smoked cigars and were part of the political infrastructure that had courted a celebrity reality TV star to run for the Presidency. No one in the world thought the hotel mogul had a chance but when Ryder looked at those gathered he had to wonder—why not. He smelled the richness and power among them. A few of the hostesses sauntered around the political rats in similarly revealing dresses. Nothing appeared obscene or out of order, but the ladies heightened sex appeal seemed to appease the men. One Senator ran his pointer finger up the invisible center line of the leg of a woman who had bent at the waist to offer his companion a glass of champagne. She didn’t seem to mind.

There was music too. He heard it outside and knew it was a DJ spinning out the most popular rap tunes. But inside the music was different. A soulful voice sang in harmony with a live band. She beckoned him to another room. Ryder had gotten some good footage. These politicians exposed on his vlog would validate the exclusivity of the event. He couldn’t be happier. Before he was noticed as a lurker he decided to follow the harmony of the song-birds voice. He’d sweep the outside grounds last. He had to get closer to the real meaning of the event and then bounce. He didn’t trust Harris. Something about the place felt dangerous.

Through the open archway he entered a more subdued room. People sat at small intimate poker tables with dealers standing. And on the stage performing was the new Neo-Soul goddess whose song Ebony Eyes was climbing the charts. Her name was Lola, and she was far more beautiful in person than on Instagram. Ryder loved her music, watched all of her videos and public appearances. Lola was a biracial woman with butterscotch brown skin, and a riot of dark curly hair that cascaded in ringlet curls around her face. She wore a ruby-red sequined one shoulder mini-dress and matching shoes. The lights above that shined down on her made the tight material that clung to her hips, and rose up her shapely thighs sparkle as she swayed and stroked the microphone seductively. Her lips drew in closer to the microphone and barely parted as she belted out a low tune that seemed to stir up from the deepest part of her soul. It was her signature talent and the reason why even guys like him that listened to hardcore urban music would turn her on in his earbuds to sleep too at night.

Lola smiled and continued to sing to him. It took mental strength he didn’t know he had to turn away. Ryder headed toward the bar. There were far too many security guards and not enough people near the bar. Why was there so much security? He hadn’t seen shit to justify it.

“Vodka and ah... Redbull,” he said to the bartender.

The bartender frowned but nodded to his request.

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