Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
His life was so complete, so perfect, that it seemed as beautiful and unique as a snowflake falling from the sky.
And just as goddamned fragile.
Qhuinn looked back down at his daughter. Moving her closer to his heart, he stroked her soft cheek.
Shaking his head, he said in a low, nasty voice, “Neither do I.”
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Bathe Nightclub
Market Street, bet. Sixteenth & Seventeenth
Caldwell, New York
The statistical probability of being killed by a falling billboard on a city street is nearly incalculable. Something south of .00000071 percent, considering that math contemplated all objects going Sputnik on you, not just billboards.
But this was something Lyric, blooded daughter of the Black Dagger Brother Qhuinn and the Chosen Layla, adopted daughter of Blaylock, son of Rocke, and Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, wouldn’t think about until later on in the night. And even then, her one-in-a-million would just be a pebble on the shore of much, much more important things.
Fortunately, as with most stuff having to do with fate, she didn’t know what was coming.
At the moment, she was standing in the grungy city snow in a pair of Louboutin stilettos—and she wasn’t worried about crapping up her shoes, either. It was the shit coming through her cell phone she’d had enough of.
“Marcia.” She pronounced the name “MAR-see-ah,” as opposed to the Brady Bunch, normal way, under protest. “Can you just stop so I can get a word in—”
“This is a huge opportunity for you. She wants you to come for the first day of the conference, free of charge. There’s a backstage photo op, and an interview with her—this is going to level your brand up, I’m telling you.”
The emphasized words were like a strongman working his way through a bench press, and you had to wonder if there was a minimum set count and rep number. Like if the woman missed it, did she stand in front of her bathroom mirror and go at her grocery list just to finish the workout?
Lyric turned so her back was to the strong, shifting wind—and what do you know. Down the alley and across Market Street, there was a huge purple advertisement for the Resolve2Evolve conference.
Like Valentina Disserte was a stalker.
“Hello?” came through the phone.
Okay, fine, it was—was—a hot invite. R2E had real momentum as a self-actualization movement for women, and no one could argue that its leader wasn’t making the most of her fifteen minutes of fame. If the great Valentina kept stalking those stages and proselytizing about the priority of the personhood, the woman was going to be this generation’s love-yourself messiah.
The problem? It all just seemed a little too pretty-purple-bow’d to be real. Life through a filter of sound bites, rather than the real thing.
Closing her eyes, Lyric thought about what was happening in her grandparents’ house. Maybe even a month ago, she might have bought into the R2E message herself. Now?
Then again, maybe she needed the distraction.
“Fine.” As the wind came barreling down the alley with a big shove, she shivered and turned to the club’s fire door. “But can we get through tonight first before you ask me about anything else?”
“So where are you?”
“Out in the alley—”
The dented metal panel swung wide, and MAR-see-ah Rotterdam, social media manager to the stars, made her appearance with a stress-flourish. Clocking in at barely over five tall and fifty pounds if she’d just had another Diet Coke, the fact that the woman had two cell phones up to her ears made her look like she was ducking an explosion.
“No, Ron.” She motioned with the phone on the left as she hung it up. “You go to L.A. tomorrow for the collab. Look, I’m at an exclusive event and I have to go. I’ll call you in the morning—when you better be on that fucking jet.”
Marcia hung up phone #2. “Beautiful, but dumb as a box of rocks. Fortunately, he just has to stand there for selfies. Well, look at you.”
Lyric glanced down at herself and remembered that she did like her dress. Low-cut, strapless, and black, the thing was set with four-inch strings of iridescent beads so if you swung your hips back and forth, there was a halo around your body, the show both light and dark. Plus the sound was fantastic, a hush of applause.
Of course, Rhamp called it her car-wash getup—
“You know what?” Marcia announced.
Oh, God, no. Not another bright idea—
“I’m calling Vogue. You’re not big enough for the U.S. channel, but I think I can get us into one of the European ones. Remember when it was a magazine? Too bad we can’t do stills to show those eyes of yours. Blue and green, and not contacts. With the blond hair, come on. Are you just going to stand there? And you’ve ruined those shoes.”
As Lyric walked into the back of Bathe, she felt herself recede until she became nothing but a pinprick, only a tiny reflection of who she really was peeking through the velvety drape of what she looked like. Back in the beginning of all this influencer stuff, she had been incandescent.