One Cursed Rose

One Cursed Rose

by

Rebecca Zanetti

Chapter 1

 

Dark eyes gleam from the darkness below the brick building  across the street, and I shiver. Just eyes. Bodies, space, and  pouring rain separate us, and all I can see are eyes and perhaps  the shape of a man. A large one.   

But that gaze.   

His stare thrusts into my body with a sense of warning more  foreboding than the thunder bellowing in the distance. Lightning flashes, too close, and I jump.   

“I’m glad you enjoyed your evening,” Rosalie purrs, carefully keeping her new phone out of the rain. “Is there anything  else you would like to say to your friends?”   

I turn, angling my face so the neon lights emphasize my  good side. One of my cheekbones is two millimeters higher  than the other. It’s sad that I know that. Worse yet that I’ll exploit it. “Oh yes. Please remember to either attend or pledge to  support the runners in tomorrow’s Dash for the Doggies.” The  stupid name rolls nicely off the tongue, but unfortunately this tidbit won’t lead to half the clicks my insult to the Tremaine  sisters will. “Those little puppies at the pound need our help.” I  smile and lower my chin for my flirty look.  

Rosalie giggles appropriately. “Will you be running, Miss Beau-  mont?”  

 I allow my cheeks to pinken. “In these shoes? Never.” I lift a  bare and now freezing shoulder in my best “aw, shucks” move.  “I have to attend an Aquarius Social board meeting tomorrow,  but I’ve pledged to support several of our joggers. I hope all my  friends out there will do the same. Also, I’d so appreciate it if  you’d explode-star and share this little emote-video of mine.” I  wink, giving our signal, perfectly masking my unease at having  to attend a board meeting after all this time.  

 She ends the video. “Should we get a drink?”  

“No.” A hard body emerges from the crowd, flanking me as  a near duplicate mashes to my other side. “Miss Beaumont is  leaving now.” They usher me through the bodies to a running  Mercedes, assist me inside, and shut the door. Nameless bodyguards that I barely look at tonight.   

My father rotates all security personnel after an unfortunate  crush I developed on a bodyguard at the age of fifteen. The man  was at least twenty-five, starkly handsome with blond hair and  mellow blue eyes, and knew how to whistle war ballads. It was  the whistle that intrigued me. He gave me my first kiss in the  front seat of a Mercedes, and that moment was amazing.  

 It also sealed his death. A lesson I will never forget.   

Tonight’s driver maneuvers the vehicle through the crowd  and I turn, seeking those eyes by the building but only find  shadows now. Shivering, I lean forward and turn up the seat  warmers as well as the heat. The driver is quiet, his broad hands  appearing loose on the steering wheel as he expertly maneuvers  out of the commercial area to the residential, ultimately pulling  to a stop in front of my unimposing building, where two bellmen hurry out into the rain to escort me inside.  

God forbid I turn an ankle.  

 Of course, they’re both packing, so I suppose I won’t take a  bullet, either.  

 I look up at the charming four-story brick-and-mortar build-  ing that my father hates. He likes chrome and glass, and while I  enjoy items that sparkle, love them really, I wanted something  homey when I moved out of the mansion after college. Since I  was merely the spare and not an heir, and since I have a uterus  and not balls, my father grudgingly gave in. 

 Things have changed.  

 I shiver and duck my head against the rain, my face cooling  from the harsh drops. One of the guard dogs holds an umbrella  over my head as he swivels around, scoping the trees and  bushes as if waiting for the hydrangea to shoot poisonous darts.  Unfortunately, the wind isn’t cooperating and slashes the rain  sideways and under the umbrella. The harsh wetness stings my  face.   

Relief fills me as I enter the comfortable entryway and clipclop on the impossibly high heels to the elevator, not showing  my discomfort. A blister burns on my left heel, and I bite my  lip to keep from stepping out of the shoe.  

 Instead, I rise to the top floor, regretting the need, or rather  demand, for me to live at the top.   

A basement apartment would suit me just fine. Of course,  it’s easy to say that since I was raised in mansions or high-end  hotels my entire life. I can be self-aware when necessary.   

I enter my apartment, ditch the sparkling dress and offensive  heels for torn yoga pants and a faded pink shirt older than I am  before raiding the fridge for leftover Chinese. I use a fork. Nobody is here to see, so why dig for chopsticks?   

My place is comfortable with cream-colored furniture, aquamarine accents, and hints of rose quartz. I finally relax.  

 After eating too many calories, I wash my face, brush out my  impossibly wild hair, and lie in the bed until exactly three a.m. My bed is soft and the pillows plush. Here I have more of the  rose quartz decorating my lamps, sparkling in picture frames  surrounding family and friends, and woven throughout a thick  rug that covers my hardwood floors.  

 However, there is no sleeping tonight for me. My childhood  nightmare, the one I thought I’d banished, is back after my  brother’s recent car accident and death. Finally, it’s time to  move. I can’t hear the click of the security cameras being  tricked onto a loop, if there is a click. Instead, the moment the  clock ticks three in the morning, I stand, grab a flashlight, and  silently make my way through the four-bedroom apartment to  the landing outside. Then it’s a simple matter of walking down  the five flights of stairs in my socks to the basement.  

 I can probably use the flashlight, but just in case, I leave it  off. It’s for emergencies only.  

 Winding through the basement, I come to a heavy cement  wall and click in a code on the barely there keypad. A hidden  door opens.  

 Sprawling on a threadbare sofa, Rosalie looks up from a gallon of Chunky Monkey. She’s changed from her overcoat to  sweats and a shirt even more faded than my own, although her  protective angelite pendant still hangs between her breasts.  “You sounded properly ditzy tonight. You sure you aren’t an  asshole in disguise?”   

I toss the flashlight onto the sofa, just missing her knee.  “We’re both assholes.” I angle my head to see that she’s eaten  the entire carton. Definitely an asshole. “Why in the world did  you ask me for a drink? We both need sleep.” Does she know  I’m having nightmares again? I try to retain some distance from  my friends, hoping to keep them safe, but they know me too  well.  

 “Please. The dark circles under your eyes beg for a triple  vodka before bed.”   

The door at the far end opens and Ella peeks out from our main computer hub, her citrine-encrusted glasses partly down  her nose. She shoves them back up with her index finger. “Did  either of you bring me anything to eat?”  

 I wince. “Rosalie ate all the ice cream.” And I the entire carton of orange chicken.   

“You’re such buttheads,” Ella says without much heat. Her  blond hair is up in a ponytail, and her blue eyes are wide behind  the thick glasses.  

 “We just decided that as well.” Rosalie shoves to her feet.   

“Where are we on the projects?”   

A man clears his throat. Loudly. “Some of us are in here  working, while others are stuffing their faces with enough dairy  to cause flatulence for a year,” Merlin snaps from the other  room.  

 I snort. “Merlin is in a mood.”  

 Rosalie coughs, her eyes red. Has she been crying again?   

“I’m sorry Charlie dumped you, but he truly was a moron,  and you’re better off.” I keep my tone gentle, but the truth is  that Charlie ghosted Rosalie, which means he isn’t worth the  crap in the bottom of an old drain. My tough friend is a true romantic with terrible taste in men.  

 She stands and holds her stomach. Yeah. That much ice  cream can’t be good.   

“Come on.” I sling my arm through hers and drag her  around the sofa to the main computer hub. Well, our only  computer hub. Ella is already back in her corner with her three  monitors, while Merlin sits in his corner opposite. “We should  have brought you two dinner, and we’re very sorry,” I say,  meaning it.   

The three of them use a hidden entrance to the building from  the back alley, and Ella makes sure to note the timing of the patrols my father has in place. So far, we’ve been both good and  lucky in avoiding detection.   

Merlin turns and lifts one bushy gray eyebrow. He is around sixty with thick gray hair a few shades darker than his eyebrows, and he rents a room in the Victorian home Rosalie inherited from a distant aunt. As usual, he wears a suit with a bow  tie; today it is a burgundy color. When I purse my lips, he looks  down at the tie, apparently preparing to continue our usual argument. “You’re wrong. Burgundy and maroon are colors.”  

“Are not,” I return per the rules of our long-running game,  pulling out a chair to sit at the dented wooden table in the center of the room. “Those are ‘not colors.’” While the table is old,  the chairs are new and plush, and the computer banks top of  the line. Most of them are not available for consumers yet.   

We’re not consumers.  

 He sadly shakes his head and waves a hand in the air to dismiss the topic. “Do we know why you’ve been called before  the Aquarius board tomorrow?”   

Claws slash inside my abdomen. “No. I’m sure it’s a routine  type of thing, the annual meeting.” My voice emerges way too  shaky.   

Rosalie pales. “Do you think they want you to take Gast’s  place?”   

At the mention of my dead brother, my only sibling, my  heart aches. We weren’t close, but I have good memories from  childhood when he used to play with me at the beach. And I  don’t blame him for becoming harder as he grew up. Our father  and our lives did not give Gast a choice. “I doubt it.” My father  has never seen beneath my surface, probably because I look just  like my mother, who died young. From what I can tell from her  diary, she was more concerned with the newest handbag or lipstick than real life.   

Of course, most people say that about me these days.  

 Merlin straightens his already perfect posture. “That’s a concern for another day, and we have work to do. It looks like the  fun run for the animal shelters is on lots of donors’ radar after  your video tonight.”   

“Last night,” Ella corrects, typing rapidly. “In addition, our Backpack program has sent additional funds to the New York,  Minneapolis, and Boise areas.”  

 I love that program. Kids without enough to eat can take a  backpack full of food home from school every Friday and return it Monday. We’re in all fifty states now, and I’d like to be  in every high and junior high school by the end of the year.  “Good. Do we require more funding?” I need to arrange my  next several videos carefully. It’s time to hide more of my  spending habits from my father. I take funds from my various  trusts to supposedly party and buy high-end goods, but actually funnel the money into various charities. 

“Yes,” Ella said. “I’m tapped for the month, and so is Rosalie. You could probably buy a boat or something—or at least  look like you’re doing so. Your father hasn’t checked your actual accounts in months.”  

 That’s because he doesn’t care, which is a hurt for another day.   

“I’ll make it happen.” Being involved in good deeds can only  help my social media profile, but I have to be careful about how  many charities I appear to support. More importantly, I can  never reveal what I truly love. Revealing my soft underbelly, so  my brother had once told me, will always be a mistake with our  father. “Where are we with the women’s shelters in Southern  California?”   

“Building three more safe houses within the next two months,”  Rosalie said, reaching for a binder and flipping over a page. “I  know we want to operate on a large scale, but it was a win helping the California state senator’s wife after she left the hospital.”  

 “She’s in a safe house in San Diego for now,” Merlin adds.  Good. The sight of those bruises will haunt me forever. I am  just fine helping one person at a time. “What about the senator?” I hold my breath.   

Rosalie looks at Merlin. “We could take him out, but it’d  make the news.”   

Merlin’s head draws back, briefly giving him a double chin. “We can’t afford the scrutiny, and it isn’t like we can go to your  father for the name of a hitman.”  

 I hate that he’s right. “I could do it?”  

 Merlin’s eyes widen, Ella stiffens, and Rosalie laughs outright. “I love you, Alana. I’m sure you have a gun, and I have  no doubt you could go to his house. But you won’t pull the  trigger.” Her voice softens, as do her blue eyes. “You’re not a  killer, and that’s a good thing.”   

Right. Women like me have other people do the killing for  them. I flash back to the funeral of the driver who kissed me,  when his mother shrieked and threw herself on the coffin. My  brother and I stood far away, watching.   

“I did this?” I whispered, bile rising in in my throat at the horror in my fifteen-year-old heart.  

 Gast shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. He might’ve been killed  even if he’d just looked at you. But I want you to see what happens when you step out of line. Don’t go kissing any more employees. Next time, it will be your fault, Alana.”  

 It is a lesson reinforced daily. I disappointed my father one  other time, and my beloved collie disappeared. When I asked  about Macbeth, nobody had an answer. It is still possible the  dog just ran away, but there is no way to know.  

Ella clicks her keyboard and flings a picture of two little girls  up on the far screen. “Speaking of personalized rescue: Ana and  Abbi Klostcky. Their mother and stepfather were just investigated for child abuse in Chicago, competing experts in the  courtroom battled it out, and they have been returned to the  pervert.” The girls are about five and six years old with wiry  black curls, tawny brown eyes, and pinched faces.   

I can feel the pain in them. “Were they evaluated?” My  breath stalls.  

 “Yes,” Ella says. “The caseworker, doctor, and shrink all  found abuse. The stepfather is a distant cousin to the judge,  though that was not disclosed. I barely found it.”  

 I swallow. “Try bribing the parents first.” It still shocks me  how often people give up loved ones for money.  

 “If that doesn’t work?” Merlin asks.   

“Take them,” I say simply. We have a series of safe houses  especially geared toward abused children. “I’ll get the money.”   

Merlin swivels his chair, facing me and tugging on his bow  tie. “Are we sure your funds will continue?”  

 I gulp. The subject is one we’ve avoided for months. While I  do have trust funds left to me by my mother and other various  relatives who have passed on, my father is the Trustee and most  likely has the ability to slow the trickle of money to me should  he choose.  

 Ella follows Merlin’s move, turning to face me. “The new industry report came out earlier today. Aquarius Social is in last  position of the four social media giants, which is not good. The  further you fall, the lower your… power and reach.”   

Her concern is for us both. “I know.”   

Rosalie chews on her full bottom lip. “Maybe that’s why  you’ve been summoned to the board meeting. There might be a  marketing plan in place.”   

“I can only hope,” I whisper, feeling deep in my gut that it  will not be that easy. For now, I have more people to save  “Where are we on the affordable housing initiatives in Georgia?” I’ll worry about my future, if I have one, when I step into  the board meeting.   

For now, I still have freedom, and I’m going to use it.  

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