Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

The hotel where Mona has booked us isn't exactly a place that pops up on Internet travel sites. It's more of an off-the-radar, quick crash spot for obscenely wealthy people. The pool is more of a real big tub kind of thing. I guess it's not surprising that the deck is abandoned.

The place is cleverly nestled in the Garden District, disguised as a house like all the rest. It's a huge, immaculately kept residence that's close enough to Abuela's stake that, even now, it's hard to breathe. In maybe fifteen minutes, I could walk to her stronghold.

I hate it, like everything else that has encompassed my life. I hate it enough that I'm watching the lightning as I let my arms float around me, and I can't actually feel anything. Maybe it's the weight of two past lives and three identities anchoring me to the stylish concrete steps. Maybe it's knowing that if I go anywhere right now, I'll do something even more stupid than swimming in a storm.

But I'm restless. Again, not my style.

A fifth of Patrón sits next to me that's not nearly as empty as I feel. My tolerance is shit these days, adapted to long, (mostly) honest work weeks, and to maintaining a fake persona. I can't afford to drink liquor much anymore for fear that I'll slip up and give myself away. I've worked too hard at being someone else to lose it all by getting sloppy. Well, that was me in Cape, the guy they called Doc. Now I'd be glad to lose it, every last fucking bit of it.

Beside the booze is an ashtray, and half a cigarette that's been drenched for who knows how long. I want a fresh one, but the pack is far enough away that I won't get up to get it just yet.

My thoughts flicker like an old school projector, lubricated by the tequila working its way through the gears of my memory. I think again of walking through the hallway of one of Abuela's most secret and massive bases, as terrifying and awe-inspiring as that was. I thought I'd never see that place again.

The bulb in my mind's eye bounces, then lands – inevitably – on Maria. We surprised each other in that hallway. I can't say I didn't expect to see her, but I wasn't ready for that to be how.

She was furious, that much was clear, but there's no way to know if I was the reason. She was shocked, too, by the sudden stillness that took her. That means Abuela is still pulling the same old shit in new, fantastic ways. The old bitch most likely never warned her granddaughter that I might show up.

The way the guys formed up on her, like I was the enemy, it made my stomach turn. After all this time, I still wanted to be on their side of her. I don't miss the life – or didn't before this shit started. But in my darkest times, walled up on my own or surrounded by a bunch of roughnecks who don't talk about feelings, I've missed her. I really miss Charlie.

I've spent more hours than I'd care to count reassuring myself that leaving was the smartest thing. I'll never know if her fascination with me would ever have gone deeper than the surface. After Mona, and the depths of her family's heartlessness, I'll be damned if I ever commit to someone else when it comes to love. When it's business, it's different.

Goddamn it all, Maria was more gorgeous than this drunken memory can do justice, even with Joshua in his man-bun-bullshit glaring at me from beside her. Even with Freddy staring at me like a Terminator. The tension was thick enough to put a bullet in.

I swallow a mouthful of tequila. By now my thoughts are loose enough to ignore the guys and run with the image of her. My cock stirs beneath the water, and I groan against the night. It's not a sound of pleasure, more of a half-blitzed expletive. What a horrible time to indulge in shadows.

For a heated moment I consider dialing her old phone number, just by the chance she kept it. I spend a good thirty seconds considering it before I sneer at the sky. Why? What good would that do? What does good mean, anyway?

Finally, and of course, my thoughts betray me again. I remember her laid out before me, a spread upon the king's table. I turned her to putty with my hands, and she let me. She was always a bad bitch, but in that moment she wanted me to take it. I did, but I was never meant to keep it.

Thunder blooms above me and rolls across the sky. It was my choice, to have her and leave. The alternative was to keep denying her blatant moves against me. So I gave the choice to her, even though she didn't know the motive. She didn't believe I'd go. I wonder if she regrets it. Sometimes I still don't know that I don't regret it.

I'm so hard it's gonna hurt if I don't do something about it. That pisses me off.

I'm waiting for the lightning to strike again, hoping this one might fuck it all. I must have missed the party, since I'm thinking about jacking off like a goddamned teenager.

I lean my head backward against the pool edge and decide to ignore everything. The rain is slowing to a drizzle, and I didn't even notice until now. I guess I have gotten sloppy.

My hand moves of its own volition, creeping under the band of my boxers – yeah, I'm wearing boxers in a pool in the middle of a September storm. Fuck it all.

As my fingers close around my cock, I'm assailed by the reality that this sensation doesn't come close to the one I'm remembering. This is a pale and pathetic attempt to relieve the thought of being balls deep in a warm, wet, and