Chapter 1 - The Bus Ride I Almost Skipped
I stepped off bus 2480 into the brightest afternoon I'd seen in months.
The boulevard was exactly what I remembered from the last time I'd been in this city — tall palms, cream-colored storefronts, glass windows so clean they looked like they'd been polished that morning.
And there she was, standing between a silver sedan and the red-painted curb, already talking before I had both feet on the sidewalk.
"Oh my God, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!
Look who finally decided to show up!"
Vanessa.
My half-sister.
She was wearing an ivory vest with gold buttons down the front and a pearl necklace I recognized, because our father had given it to her the year she turned twenty-one.
She spread both hands out like she was presenting me to an audience.
"Seriously, sweetheart, that's your grand entrance?
Damn, that's embarrassing as hell!"
Behind her, four or five young women in pale summer dresses had drifted out of the storefront and were laughing into their hands.
One of them, a brunette in beige, said it loud enough for me to hear.
"Wait, did he really just get off a fucking bus?"
Vanessa's eyes went wide with delight.
"NO FUCKING WAY!
You came here on the bus?
What happened, couldn't afford to bring a car?"
She pointed her index finger straight at my chest.
"All that confidence with a bus ticket in your pocket?
That's some broke-ass bullshit right there!"
I let her finish.
I've learned that people who talk like that are usually performing for someone, and I wanted to see who.
I found him about thirty feet away, leaning one forearm on the hood of the silver sedan.
Cole.
Navy polo, expensive watch, the kind of posture that says he's never had to wait in a line in his life.
He laughed and lifted a hand toward me.
"Bro, you've gotta be fucking joking!
We pull up in real cars, and you show up riding public transit like some lost-ass tourist?!"
His two friends behind him grinned and nodded along.
"Damn, man, that's pathetic.
You couldn't even afford a decent ride?
That's some sad-ass shit!"
Vanessa was still going.
"You really thought you could roll up here looking like somebody important?
Baby, you're making a complete fucking fool of yourself!"
I looked at her, then at Cole, and I kept my voice level.
"You people done?
Because you're making an awful lot of noise over a fucking bus ride."
Cole's smile flickered, just for a second.
"Funny how the loudest people in the room are usually the ones who don't know a damn thing."
That got a few of the women to stop laughing.
And then the street went quiet for a different reason.
I heard it before I saw it — a low, heavy engine, the kind that doesn't need to rev to announce itself.
A black Rolls-Royce was coming up the boulevard, slow, like it had all the time in the world.
Somebody behind me whispered, "Hold the fuck up… is that a Rolls-Royce?"
It pulled up beside the silver sedan and stopped.
Two men got out of the front — tall, broad, black suits, white gloves, faces like they'd been carved for a job like this.
One of them walked straight to the rear passenger door and opened it.
Inside was burgundy leather, deep and polished, the kind of red that costs more than most people's cars.
Vanessa's voice changed.
"Wait… what the hell is going on?"
Cole straightened up off the sedan.
"Uh… hold on.
Who the fuck is that car here for?"
One of the women behind Vanessa said, "Oh, shit… are those his people?"
Vanessa's mouth was open.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!
No way.
You've gotta be kidding me!"
Then, quieter, almost to herself.
"No… no fucking way.
What the hell did we just walk into?"
The attendant in the white gloves didn't look at her.
He didn't look at Cole either.
He looked past the whole crowd, straight at me, and said one word.
"Mr. Cross."
The street went completely silent.
Even the palms seemed to stop moving.
