Unbind Me: Prequel to Risk Me: Vegas Knights Page 2

  He glanced down and that was when I noticed the cards all around us. Cards. His deck of cards. I must’ve bumped them out of his hand.

  “Oh my gosh, I did this… I’m so sorry!”

  “I was just practicing.” He stopped, then shrugged.

  “You were doing one of your card tricks, weren’t you?” I asked when he didn’t continue speaking.

  “Yes.” He grinned, eyes crinkling a little around the corners. “Seems like an awful lot of people know about my little hobby.”

  “An awful lot of people know you want to be a magician,” I said as he knelt to gather up the cards. I joined him on the ground, scooping up the ones closest to my feet and passing them over. “You’re getting pretty famous around here.”

  “Mentalist,” he said and accepted the cards.

  As we stood up again. “What?”

  Those eyes were so beautiful. He was so beautiful. He had the kind of perfectly perfect good looks that made you want to just sit and stare. And if he weren’t so close to me, I’d do it, too, but with him right there, I was sure that gazing at him ad infinitum would make the moment sort of awkward. But I couldn’t stop.

  Like a bee drawn to pollen.

  A deer caught off guard by the beams of a car’s headlight at night.

  A moth to a flame.

  None of them could ignore the object of their most hardwired desires by averting their eyes. So how could I possibly pull it off? Even so, he was sure to think I was a total freak, a stalker chick of the worst kind, if I stood there and sighed, and just kind of gazed at him.

  “A mentalist,” he said again. “I’m a mentalist, not a magician.” He tilted his head to one side. “I guess one could argue that mentalists are a kind of magician.”

  Intrigued enough now to forget my embarrassment—and the fact that I was late for class—I asked, “What’s the difference?”

  He gave me a wicked grin and held out a hand. “Give me the rest of the cards and I’ll show you.”

  “Miss Kent!”

  The sound of this period’s hall monitor, Mrs. Lewis, was enough to cause me to jolt and jerk upright so fast that the cards I’d gathered in my hands went flying all around us.

  “Shit. I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the boy still on his knees, now picking up the cards I’d dropped twice.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and with the last card back in his hand, he straightened and stood next to me.

  “Don’t you have class?” Mrs. Lewis asked from behind her horn-rimmed glasses.

  I hitched up the backpack on my back and nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Lewis. I was on my way there when I sort of bumped into…” I looked over at him. “Um, LeVan.”

  “Did you bump into him, or did he have his head in the clouds as usual?” She gave the tall, fit, dreamy boy a narrow look, her brows arched.

  “Now that ain’t fair, Aunt Tish—”

  “It’s Mrs. Lewis in school, LeVan,” she corrected him without letting him finish uttering her first name.

  He gave her a mild expression of annoyance like she’d just affronted him. “You know I graduated last year, right? I’m just here because Mom asked me to drop off something for Harry.”

  Right. I’d forgotten that LeVan’s mother was the vice-principal’s sister. In a town as small as St. Gabriel, everyone seemed to be connected to everyone else. Everyone knew something about everyone else too, including little details like that. But all those little details had a way of slipping my mind when it mattered. Like now, as I stood here being incredibly unrealistic about the fact that this boy was way out of my league, and probably would never give someone like me the time of day if he knew a thing about my family.

  “You are still in my school, and right now, you’re keeping one of my students from getting to class.” Her dark eyes cut to me and she cocked her brow at me again, waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, face flushing hot and red. “I…well, Nicky had a rough morning, that’s all.”

  Her face softened and the pity I knew she felt—that everyone felt—made me want to take back the words or at least back away and leave these halls. I didn’t. Deeply ingrained pride refused to let me. Stubbornly, I squared my shoulders. As the vice principal looked on, I crouched down and gathered up the last of the cards I’d dropped for a second time, not acknowledging LeVan as he joined me. When I had all the ones I could reach, I stood up and passed them over.

  “I’m very sorry I crashed into you,” I said, no longer delighted or dismayed that he recognized who I was. Of course, he did.

  We lived in St. Gabriel.

  Everyone knew everyone here.

  He had to know I was a Kent.

  Which meant he was better off far away from my fucked-up family.

  Without saying anything else, I stepped around him and walked off at a near run as I rounded the corner, disappearing down the hall as though he’d worked one of his magic acts—no, one of his mentalist acts—and made me disappear.

  4

  LeVan

  “Why’d you have to be so mean to her?” I asked, looking over at Tisha Lewis, my mother’s only sister and my favorite aunt. She’d argue she was my only aunt, but she’d still be my favorite, I liked to tell her.

  “That wasn’t mean,” she replied with a sniff. “The girl needed to get to class and not be staring at you with moon eyes.”

  “Was she staring?” I thought she had been, but I didn’t mind getting a second opinion. I was the son of a doctor, after all. Second opinions weren’t bad things.

  “Oh, deflate that oversize ego.” She came closer and smacked me lightly on the arm. Then she pulled me in for a quick hug. “You’re not here to see me. You would’ve called. And I just saw you at the barbecue yesterday. And why are you playing with those cards again? Lord have mercy, boy.”

  “Aunt Tish…” Sighing, I straightened the deck and tucked it into my back pocket.

  “Hush. I’m teasing you. Mostly. I hear you talked your father into this plan of yours. A few years of college, then you can pursue these dreams of being the next David Copperfield.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to be the first LeVan Vanderbilt, Auntie.”

  “You already are.” She smiled at me, and a mirror image of the pride I always saw in the eyes of my mother gleamed in her gaze. “Since you’re not here to see me, I’m going to assume you’ll see Mr. Hastings after you drop off whatever Harry forgot. You take off for New Orleans tomorrow, don’t you?” A broad smile curved her lips. “Going to Tulane. My nephew is going to Tulane.”

  My face heated at the naked delight in her eyes and I hunched my shoulders. “Aunt Tish, you’re in school, remember.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Oh, you hush. Go on, now. Get down and talk to Hastings. Show off for those kids of his and get out of my school. I’ve got work to do.”

  She gave me a kiss on the cheek—I had to bend down for her to do it. Then she shooed me off.

  But before I’d taken two steps, she called me back.

  “Oh, and honey? You see that girl?”

  I waited as she moved closer, her face taking on a closed-off expression I knew too well. Aunt Tish was about ten years older than my mother was, although she didn’t look it. Her smooth, dark brown skin had no wrinkles, despite the fact that she was fifty-two years old. As she laid a hand on my arm, my gut tightened a bit. “What is it, Auntie?”

  “She’s a sweet girl, but she’s not for you,” Aunt Tish said softly. “Don’t bother wasting time there.”

  “Why?” I asked flatly. “Because she’s white?”

  Aunt Tish’s mouth flattened, her lips nearly disappearing. “It’s not about that.”

  “Good, because in case you forgot, I’m half-white—my dad is white,” I said, my tone coming out more harshly than I’d intended.

  “Don’t you talk to me that way. I don’t care if you are eighteen and taking off for college tomorrow. You are still my nephew… You’ll show some respect.” She wagged a finger at me
.

  “I’m sorry,” I said immediately. I might not still be sorry once she was done, but I was for now.

  “For the record, before your mama and daddy got together, before he proved to be so good for her, to her…” Aunt Tish paused as though weighing whether or not to keep talking. “It might’ve been about that. But it’s not. That poor girl has enough on her plate as it is, just getting through each day. And her mother…” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I shouldn’t even mention anything, but it will save you the trouble. If you weren’t just looking at her like you wanted to ask her out, maybe I’d let it go…but…you need to go talk to your daddy before you make a move. Ask him about Melody Kent. And don’t let him brush you off, either.”

  She turned and started off down the hall before I could get another word in.

  “Why on earth are you asking me about her?” My father, Dr. Braxton Vanderbilt, sat behind his desk, hair mussed, eyes partially obscured behind the reading glasses he’d taken to wearing last summer.

  “Because I saw Aunt Tish today and she told me to,” I replied.

  Sitting in the chair across from him, I pulled out the deck of cards and slowly shuffled them.

  Dad’s face lowered to my hands, his eyes lingering.

  I made myself stop.

  He may never understand it, but if it weren’t for how much he’d taught me about reading people, I might never have gotten as good at the “hobby” he felt had pulled me away from medicine. Mom was the one who pointed it out to me. She’d tell me that I got these clever hands and my ability to see inside people from him. She’d ask me not to be too angry when he pressured me to see things his way.

  “You wouldn’t be who you are if it weren’t for him.”

  It didn’t take me very long to realize she was right.

  I never stayed angry for long anyway. It was a waste of energy. I preferred to spend the time thinking the problem through. There was no point being upset because, in the end, I was still going through with my dreams.

  At Tulane, in New Orleans.

  There were any number of places I could go to hone my craft, but I chose Tulane. My academic course load was light enough that I could balance doing both, and as I wasn’t there on the athletic scholarship the college offered me, I had the time.

  Dad was pushing hard for me to do the full four years. I agreed to three years and not a minute more. Only because there actually was some logic drilled into me about how useful a degree could be—just not in the field Dad wanted me to pursue.

  It would be useful, I was told, to get some classes in acting, and learn about the business of…well, business, since I didn’t want to get fucked over when I actually made it—and I was planning to.

  So, I’d major in theatre and business.

  It would take some work to finish both in three years, but by the time I was twenty-one, I planned to be done with college so I could spend a year working full-time and adding to my resume before I headed out West.

  To Las Vegas.

  Dad wasn’t too convinced. I wasn’t about to budge on my well-thought-out plan, either way. But he used to repeatedly tell me to come to him with a plan worth considering. And when I eventually did, he heard me out. Surprisingly, after I laid it all out, he nodded and agreed, dialing back his resistance a few notches. Dad was a man of his word, after all.

  Now, the time was here. It was just twelve hours before he and Mom would follow his family’s tradition and drive me to New Orleans to start college. Except I was sitting here, asking him about the Kents, which somehow caused him to look at me with grim eyes and as I met them, I wondered just what it was I didn’t know. In a small town like St. Gabriel, I figured I would’ve known almost everything there was to know about him…and about anyone else important enough to put that look in his eyes.

  But apparently not.

  Apparently, people in St. Gabriel had the capacity for keeping secrets too.

  “Melody Kent,” Dad repeated and blew out a breath, shaking his head thoughtfully. “Why did your aunt tell you to ask me about her? Just answer me that, son.”

  “I don’t exactly know, sir.” Looking down at the cards, I cut them down the middle, resisting the urge to offer one to him. “We were talking in the hall, and there was this girl. Aunt Tish told me to stay away from her. When I asked her why, she said to ask you about Melody Kent.”

  “Melody,” he said softly. He inclined his head. “You know who she is, son.”

  “Yes, sir.” I pressed my lips together and waited. If I waited long enough, he’d open up.

  My father rubbed a hand over his face, then met my eyes. “Who was the girl, LeVan?”

  “Thea Kent.”

  At that, my father tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I had a bad feeling you were going to say that.”

  Dad said what he had to say. It took hours, but he told me everything.

  And now, I didn’t just want Thea.

  I had to have her.

  5

  Thea

  “Summer school. It’s absurd,” my mother muttered into a screwdriver—heavy on the vodka.

  I wanted to point out that it was pretty absurd that she was already drinking on Monday, at eight-thirty in the morning.

  Her current husband, Jack, patted her on the back. “It’s just for six weeks, Melody. And Thea is fine with it.”

  I wouldn’t say fine. I was actually sort of embarrassed over it, but it was getting me out of the house.

  Nicky wouldn’t be alone, either. Nor would he just be with Mother and Jack. Our housekeeper, Alice Winston, had a daughter, Grace, who was studying nursing at college. Grace planned to be around for the summer break, and she agreed to keep a close eye on my brother while I was gone from Monday to Friday of every week during the accelerated summer term. I paid her too. Dug into my runaway money and offered her a thousand dollars. Grace said she’d do it for free but didn’t turn down the offer. She had tuition to pay just like everyone else.

  I was ecstatic that Nicky wouldn’t be here just with Mother or Jack. Jack, bless his heart, actually tried. He wasn’t a bad guy, which was surprising considering the fact that he was now married to my mother. But he didn’t understand Nicky. And if he ever were to leave Mother, he’d abandon Nicky.

  Grace, on the other hand, wasn’t thrown by my mother’s tendency toward verbal abuse. For some reason, Mother would dial it way back when Grace was around. I never understood why, but so few good things happened to us that I never questioned the small favors fate doled out. Her being here meant that I didn’t have to worry about Mother taking out her shit on my brother.

  Besides, it wasn’t like Mother wanted to take responsibility for him, even when she was here. She just wanted what she always wanted.

  To control.

  To emotionally lash out.

  To leave us lacking, the way she seemed to lack for everything in spite of her family’s tremendous wealth.

  Sadly, Mother was around the house a lot more these days. Several of the country clubs in Baton Rouge had removed her from their memberships rosters, although she claimed that she’d left them because their membership had deteriorated.

  I only knew the truth about what happened because a friend of mine from school saw what actually happened. Mom had unknowingly called another member over and ordered the woman to empty a trash bin near her locker. When the woman refused, Mother had apparently told her she was acting like trash. She didn’t know the woman was a member. But then again, Mother would make that assumption about any minority walking the halls of her precious country clubs.

  That was another thing about my mother that I hated.

  She was a racist and an elitist bitch.

  And an alcoholic.

  She tossed back the rest of the screwdriver and got up, crossing the room toward me on rock steady legs. Melody Kent could hold her liquor, for sure.

  “You had better pass that class, darling. I don’t raise losers.” She sniffed, glancing u
pward. “Your little brother…bless his heart. I still think the hospital did something to him.”

  That was just like her, assuming someone or something else was the cause of anything unfortunate that happened in this family. I could imagine what she thought the hospital had done—switched babies or deprived him of oxygen for one second too long, or something that would’ve done damage to Nicky. Something that would account for Nicky’s disability. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that maybe he was just born the way he was through no fault of his own or the hospitals. Or her. But we never had to worry about her blaming herself for anything.

  I loved my brother. As difficult as it was to care for him sometimes, he was my brother, the only sibling I had, and I loved him deeply.

  My mother, however, was a different story. She had overtly expressed her thoughts about Nicky more times than I could count. She’d rather he not existed if he was going to remain the way he was in her eyes—less than perfect. That was what I’d demanded of her once. She’d scoffed and given me a derisive look. “You’re quite far from perfect too, Dorothea. Make no mistake.”

  She at least tolerated having me around. For Nicky, she could hardly stand to look at him.

  As she continued to glare at me, her flat blue eyes boring into mine, I had to fight the urge to snap back at her. It was what she wanted. She was in a mean mood right now. And I was in no hurry to be asked to go upstairs and put makeup on if she decided to slap me in the face.

  Yes, it had come to that in the last year.

  The woman was now prone to lashing out at us physically.

  Maybe it was the alcohol.

  Or perhaps because she woke up one day and quit going to church.

  Maybe it was always in her.

  I could never tell when, either, so I always stayed a few feet away, just out of reach, to avoid her.

  “I need to get going,” I said, moving over to the spot where I left my purse. Inside were the keys to the car she’d given me—along with the very specific rules she expected me to follow. I’d almost rather not have the car, but it did give me a limited amount of freedom and with her for a mother, I needed it.