CRUEL First Chapter Reveal

Lovely readers, CRUEL is coming March 21st, hope you enjoy the first chapter reveal!
-Trish

CHAPTER ONE

Bully

Blakely

Cruelty is a disease.

My second-grade teacher told me this. It was Kyle Sellars—with his seven-year-old sausage fingers—who snatched my Malibu Barbie and stomped her into the mud. I stormed after him, tackled him to the playground dirt, and shoved his chubby face in an ant bed.

His wail silenced the playground as kids formed a circle around us.

Appalled, Mrs. Fisher sent me to the principal’s office for disciplinary actions. Mrs. Fisher was new that year. She didn’t yet understand that you do not discipline a Vaughn.

My mother was called into the office. A socialite, Vanessa Vaughn rarely made trips to her child’s preparatory school. That was the nanny’s job. But she did that day, and by the next, our class had a new teacher.

I sometimes wonder what happened to Mrs. Fisher. Although I do recall what she said to me on the playground, her eyes wide and pale face aghast. Because no one had ever spoken to me like that before.

“Cruelty is a disease, Lauraleigh. It will fester inside you like cancer.”

I was confused. Tubby Kyle was the bully. How was I was the cruel one?

Mrs. Fisher had been right, though.

I have a sickness inside me, a black rot.

Infectious to anyone other than me, it’s poison.

Over the years, I noticed I was different, abnormal. People were these strange emotional creatures that sucked the energy right out of me. It became more and more draining to try to pretend, to fit in. I took steps to learn how to blend.

As for Kyle, his puss-filled pimpled face did heal with no outer scarring, but the internal damage was deep-rooted, the seed of fear planted. He never fucked with my Barbies again.

So what lessons were learned from that childhood experience?

Don’t bother my mother while she’s at spin class. Or ever, really.
Authority is easily displaced.
Bullies are cowards who respond to strength.
And the biggest lesson of all: I am not like others.

The early morning sun glints off the silver spoon in my cup. I stir the cappuccino foam, the clang of the metal against porcelain a hypnotic summons as I wait for him.

Come on.

As the thought turns obsessive, the glass door of the trendy corner coffee shop opens, and in he saunters. He’s late today. His dirty-blond hair looks finger-fucked. His cool, metallic-blue eyes are red-rimmed and glassy.

“Strongest you got,” he says to the barista.

An all-nighter, it appears. And his latest conquest…?

I reach into my bag and pull out the black notebook. I didn’t see him leave the office with a woman yesterday. His Town Car took him to a place where I wasn’t permitted access, and I watched from across the street as I waited for him, but he never left.

I jot down a quick note about his disheveled appearance. He’s wearing the same gray business suit from the day before, creases in the wrong places. I can almost smell the cheap pussy wafting off him from here.

I close the notebook. Chew on the pen cap. Despite what some may think, I do have a life, one I enjoy, and I had to leave my stalking post around 5:00 a.m. to go home to shower. Get the stalker stench off me before work.

My back teeth grind at the high whir of the espresso machine. He pays and tips the barista, then whisks through the coffee shop door and out into the bustling morning rush.

He never notices me. Why would he? I twist my sleek black hair into a low bun, don thick, black-rimmed glasses, and drape myself with baggy clothes over my work attire.

I’m not his type.

He likes obvious beauty. The kind a man can spot at a glance. Long silky waves of styled hair, cleavage on display, big bright inviting smile. The kind of beauty that invites him to try.

And take.

Not that I’m judging. I actually don’t have an opinion about such things. A woman can wear whatever the fuck she wants and that doesn’t give him the right to take anything.

I tuck the notebook away and shoulder my bag, bussing my untouched cappuccino at the rack above the trashcan before I slip into the stream of business suits and clacking heels and honking horns. The spring morning is chilly despite the sun peeking around the buildings. I follow him three blocks to the fifteen-story building where he has a corner office on the thirteenth floor.

This is where I leave him for the day. I can’t go inside the building, not without potentially being recognized. He may not pay much attention to me, but not every male is as single-minded as he.

I am a Vaughn. Lauraleigh Blakely Vaughn. It’s as pretentious as it sounds. My mother was a Blakely, and she insisted I carry her name in some fashion. And she insisted that having four names was just tacky. The Leigh in Lauraleigh was her consensus to a pseudo middle name.

Ever since that day on the playground, after I shoved a bully’s face in a bed of fire ants, I decided I could make my own choices for who I am, and that included my name. Blakely is what I go by most days (and I’m sure there’s a psychologist out there that would read too much into that; like my mommy acceptance issues), but it’s actually very simple; I just feel it suits me best.

But today, I’m Lucy Whitmore. Lucy has an ID and everything. She enjoys photography as a hobby, a side gig, hence the camera with the giant lens she carries around. She works part-time at a data publishing company until she can get her photography business off the ground. And if anyone ever gets too suspicious, I can make her disappear in a snap.

I remove my glasses and take a seat on the stone bench near a birch tree where I pull out my phone. I open his social media profile and scroll through his latest posts. Nothing from last night—but of course not. He doesn’t have to appear like he had to pull an all-nighter at the firm.

No, Ericson Theodore Daverns doesn’t have to fabricate excuses or apologize for who he is to anyone. Especially not to his meek little wife.

I close the app and place a call to Lenora. She answers on the second ring.

“Where was he?”

I can hear the desperation in her voice, the frantic need to quell the worry, the maddening suspicion. Lenora has already discovered the truth of her husband’s cheating; that’s not why she hired me. I’m not a private investigator, or a divorce attorney.

I’m revenge for hire.

To wit, most of my clients happen to be scorned women.

Oh, men. Since the dawn of time, you never fail at predictability.

I shoot her over an image of Ericson entering The Plaza last night.

“He was at Brewster’s,” I tell her. Brewster is a sleaze of a man who dabbles in NYC’s questionable hobbies. Such as gambling, wagers on underground MMA fights, drugs—lots of drugs—and prostitution. He’s not a pimp per se, but if one of the men who lines his pockets with spongy green cash wants a naughty schoolgirl for the night, Brewster provides. And he does so from the penthouse of The Plaza, aptly dubbed the attic.

Brewster is one of Ericson’s top clients. Ericson helps turn his client’s illegal money into legitimate investments. I haven’t been able to prove it yet, but I believe Ericson is skimming money off his client’s accounts.

“He was there again?” Lenora asks. “Oh, I just got the pic. Did you see him with anybody?”

Shouldering my phone, I dig into my bag and produce the notebook. I flip to the tally page. This is how I determine how deserving a subject is of my client’s revenge. I have a system of checks and balances.

It’s called: The Douche Checklist.

Clever, right? I have to amuse myself, because it’s a rare thing when someone else can.

On Ericson’s list, I have: Name (he gets a check mark for that alone). More than one mistress (he never sleeps with the same woman twice, and I have counted five conquests in the past three weeks that I’ve been stalking him). Then last week, as I waited outside The Plaza, I tracked down one of the sex workers who—for a hefty fee—told me he doesn’t use protection. Ericson has no concern for transmitting a disease to his wife of over a decade.

This makes him a top-ranking douche.

Which would be enough, but there’s also his deviant nature, the greedy bully inside him that needs to control and destroy. This, of course, is why he goes outside his marriage. To prey on women who won’t report him, women who need the money. And why he associates himself with a man like Brewster—a man with the seediest of ties.

I’ve kept this information from Lenora. Not because it will cause her pain. I don’t want to shield her; I feel no empathy for her suffering. Nor do I have close relationships with clients. The fact is, Lenora is already on the edge with her husband. What would she do if she discovered what kind of fiend she really married?

Call the police? Report him?

In my experience, it’s never a good idea to involve authorities. As if the police could do anything, anyway. Men like Ericson are never convicted. There’s no tangible crime, is there? If a man attacks and beats a prostitute, who will be judged: the man or the whore?

In a world ruled by men, I know what most people would think, as they judge from the comfort of their middle-class home, their steady workplace. A sex worker asks for it when she puts herself in a dangerous situation. It’s rather easy to judge from a secure position, with food in your belly and prescription drugs swimming in your veins. Hell, if some of those hypocrites couldn’t get their Starbucks, they’d be out there sucking cock for a caffeine fix, I’m pretty damn sure.

I sigh into the phone. I’ve lost my train of thought. “I didn’t see him with anyone last night,” I finally confirm. “But he didn’t leave The Plaza until this morning.”

“Maybe he was just…” She trails off. “Never mind.”

“Lenora, are you having second thoughts?” I emit a grain of sympathy into my tone. I practiced this by recording my voice on my phone, then comparing it to sound bytes of movies. Actors are great teachers.

The thing is, I don’t force anyone into this. They find me through word of mouth. It’s not like I advertise my services. After they contact me, I vet them. Thoroughly. Make sure I give them enough time to let the “heat of the moment” pass. Most of the time, people back out. Once their emotions have simmered, they typically decide one of two things: a) marriage counseling, or b) divorce. Then I refer them to a top-dog divorce attorney.

That referral goes both ways. Jeffrey Lomax also sends his select, irreconcilable clients to me.

“No,” Lenora says, her voice suddenly brave. “I’m not having second thoughts. Just a moment of weakness. I’m ready. He deserves some of his own medicine.”

Attagirl. I wait a few seconds for her to change her mind, then say, “All right. Deposit the second draw into the account, and I’ll initiate the next stage.” I end the call.

I open my banking app and refresh the screen a few times before the amount goes up. Five thousand. Not enough to retire in Costa Rica, but not chump change, either.

I price each job based on the client. Whether they’re financially sound is important. They don’t have to be rich—but well off enough to afford my services without going into debt.

I do this because it’s a long-term best business practice, and also, because I have very expensive taste. I like nice things: clothes, electronics, my loft in Manhattan.

I’m a shameless hedonist. Maybe partly due to the nurture aspect; my mother is a hedonist who raised me with nice things. Maybe partly due to the nature aspect; I have a thick shroud blanketing my feelings. Fine textures and comfortable, striking clothes feel good. I like feeling good. If I want something, I get it. I don’t understand why anyone would deny him-or-herself something that gives them pleasure.

I’m not controlled by my id—the brain’s pleasure principle—but I rarely tell it no, either. So my clients need to be able to afford my expensive taste, and to keep a secret.

The secret part is extremely important.

During the vetting stage, I make sure to dig up some juicy tidbit on each one. That’s another requirement. Each client needs at least one dirty secret I can hold against them should they suddenly have a bout of conscience and want to make our arrangement public.

As for Lenora, she may very well be a wronged wife, but she’s no innocent doormat. She’s been siphoning off her husband’s personal account. Little increments that she sends to a woman in Denver.

This woman adopted a baby boy twelve years ago in a private adoption.

Neither Lenora’s husband, nor her socialite friends, know of this child’s existence.

Then I factor in the target—or intended victim—the difficultly of access to them, and the measure of revenge the client wants to exact. This equation gives me a rough baseline, which is typically between fifteen and thirty thousand.

I make a decent living. I don’t have to work at my day job, but it’s wise to have a way to fudge my tax statements if the IRS comes knocking.

Truthfully, I probably should’ve turned Lenora away. During our first meeting at a hole-in-the-wall Starbucks, she presented as weak, broken. Desperate. The anger I usually see in clients wasn’t present in her. Instead, she begged me to help her. Her vulnerability didn’t move me; it was something else that motivated me to take on her plight.

Protectiveness?

Validation, maybe?

Honestly, I doubt I pitied her story or position any more than any other client, and yet there was still something about Lenora that burrowed underneath my skin.

I tuck the notebook away and check the time. I have a few items at my day job that require attention, then I can make the proper arrangements for this weekend. I’ll need to gain access to Ericson’s office, and that’s going to take money—more money than I’m charging Lenora.

On my way to my office, I send Rochelle a text. She’s a bigwig client whose jobs help fund the less fortunate who want my services. Rochelle is always in need of revenge. She’s a bloodthirsty bitch.

She might be the only person I could love.

One thing I’m confident about is my ability to read others. You don’t have to have a vast array of emotions to recognize the nuances.

It was like that moment on the playground with Kyle. I knew his place in the world, and I knew mine. It was black and white. The punishment fit the crime.

Ericson Daverns is murdering his wife, slowly and deliberately, with his cruel, callous actions and disregard. A justice system can’t punish him. A world dominated by his kind won’t judge him. I know his place in the world, and I know mine.

Vengeance is my ethos.

My phone chimes and I swipe the screen to take the call. “Rochelle.”

“Got your text, honey,” she says. “How much time do you have this morning?”

She doesn’t waste a second on useless banter. Again, I could love this woman.

“An hour. What do you have?”

“A competitor who thinks she can copy my brand and steal business.”

Rochelle is a power-seeker, and she enjoys punishment. A lot. Of course, I’m not entirely sure if she’s a narcissist or just insanely neurotic. Possibly a toxic mix of both, which makes the revenge game addictive for her. She’s due for another fix.

As I turn down an alley to cut through, I sense a pull at the energy in the air, and that same stench of desperation that clings to Lenora touches my senses.

“On my way.” As I end the call, I feel an alarming tug on my shoulder and whirl around.

A scrawny man with a hoodie partially shielding his face yanks at my handbag. I clamp one hand to the strap and raise my phone to snap a picture. “You don’t want to do this,” I tell him as he tries once more to snatch my bag.

He’s desperate. The worst kind of person. His moral compass takes a backseat to whatever drug he’s craving. “Facial recognition has come a long way.” I snap a pic. “Your face is out there somewhere. I can find you…” I lean forward as the crowd rushes past outside the alley. “And I will sneak inside whatever hovel you’re holed up in and systematically remove body parts, leaving your most precious for last. Then I’ll peel the skin off your limp dick and douse the whole butchered mess with brake fluid.”

He shoves away from me and pushes the hoodie back, revealing sore-riddled cheeks and bruised half-moons beneath his glassy eyes. “Christ, lady. You’re fucking crazy.”

Hitching my bag strap high on my shoulder, I lift my chin. “Keep that in mind for your next victim. They just might call me.”

As I watch him run off, I feel…nothing. Not even the slightest swell of adrenaline. I look at my phone and stare at the image of him, then delete it without another thought.

I walk against the crush of foot traffic, cutting a line through the center of the crowd, wondering when my own moral compass became so desensitized. Having no empathy doesn’t mean I don’t know right from wrong. I’ve branded my career on the very nature of justice.

But if I had been alone with that guy—no witnesses—would I have made good on my threat? Just the thought of it sparks a tiny ripple of excitement.

Lately, my revenge job, that typically breaks through the hardened Teflon layer, has become dull. I’m not achieving the same thrill I did once before.

That feels dangerous.

Yet, I know very well I’d never take it that far. Believe me, once I knew what I was, I did the research. I studied up on Bundy and Rader (BTK) and other psychopathic killers. Whatever misfired in their brains, whatever damaged gray matter those predators sustained that led them down a dark path….we’re not the same.

The world is full of my kind. Check your top CEOs and entrepreneurs. Chances are, they’re a psychopath. They’re at the top because they have little empathy for others to hold them back.

I shove the annoying thought away and focus on my task at hand. Collecting a nice-sized bounty from Rochelle. I require it for the next stage. Time to find a figurative magnifying glass, one with a blistering beam that I can aim right at the bully Ericson.