MEGA-AX1 The Inferno (4 page)

As they entered the house, Brian heard a large chorus of people scream out, “Happy Birthday!” He’d been so busy and so tired he had completely forgotten it was his birthday.

“Happy Birthday, big brother. I love you, man.” Michael reached out and hugged him. They were all that was left of the Wright family. The photographer Michael hired captured the moment where the brothers embraced.

“I love you, too. Maybe I won’t kill you tonight after all.”

“Good...now can someone get this man a drink?!” Michael yelled out into the crowd, and like magic, Brian’s favorite drink was in hand.

“Let’s head over to the VIP area. I have a beautiful woman waiting on me.”

Brian shook his head, “Michael, you always have a beautiful woman waiting on you somewhere.”

“True. Very true. But then so do you. I’m just following your lead. Although, I can’t put a finger on it, but something about this one has me curious.”

“Have you slept with her yet?”

“I just met her yesterday, Brian.”

Brian took a sip of his drink. “Never stopped you before, but I’m sure that’s probably it.”

“You’re so cynical.”

The brothers laughed out loud.

*****

It took almost an hour to get back over to the VIP area. Everyone wanted to stop and wish Brian a “happy birthday”. When they finally made it over to VIP, Michael didn’t see Téa.

Brian laughed a little to himself, “Did you lose something? I guess she got tired of waiting on you to come back after all. Just pick another one. There are a ton of beautiful women here.”

Michael glared at Brian and scanned the room for Téa. After he couldn’t find her, he motioned for one of his assistants. The assistant came over quickly.

“Have you seen my special guests?”

The assistant pointed to the dance floor. There she was, having a good time without him. He didn’t know who she was dancing with, but the guy had to go.

As he made his way over to the dance floor, Michael uttered over his shoulder, “Got to go Brian. Oh, and….Téa’s best friend is almost just as stunning. If you’re nice I might introduce you.”

“I’m good, you enjoy.”

Téa and Jessie had dancing partners, but at this point they were basically dancing with each other.

Jessie hated to admit it, but she was having a really good time. She hadn’t done anything like this outside of work in too long to remember.

Michael went over to the DJ booth and made a request. He then wasted no time getting out to the dance floor.

The DJ made an announcement over the speakers. “This song is dedicated to a special lady. You know who you are!” Jay-Z’s “Dirt off your Shoulder” started blasting through the speakers. Everybody started raising their glasses and putting their hands in the air.

Michael went up to Téa and started brushing the dirt off of her shoulders. She stood there for a moment with a stony look on her face. He’d invited her to a party and then disappeared for over an hour. He whispered into her ear, “Sorry. Playing host took longer than I expected. If you let me, I’ll make it up to you.”

A smile threatened to break through her face, but she wouldn’t let it. He wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily. But this was her song, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Téa started to bob her head to beat of the song.

Her dance partner was pissed that Michael was trying to hoard in on him. Michael gave him a look that all but said “kick rocks” before pulling Téa into his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they moved to the beat of the song.

When the song ended, the DJ decided to slow the party down. It wasn’t possible for Téa and Michael to get any closer. Jessie was happy that it looked like Téa had made a connection.

As much as Jessie would have liked to have thrown all caution to the wind with her sexy dance partner, she just wasn’t ready. He looked disappointed but let her walk off the floor without too much fuss. All she could think of was that she hoped she had some fresh batteries.

Chapter 5

Brian was sitting at his special table, surrounded by all manner of groupies. As much as he appreciated Michael wanting to surprise him for his birthday, he was just over the party scene. His agent, manager, lawyers, and accountants were all there. Surprise, surprise; they all wanted to talk about business. There was a blonde on his left and a red head on his right, both vying for his attention. He was exhausted and not in the mood to even pretend that he cared about any of the conversations going on around him. Brian zoned out and watched as his brother ran after his special guest.

He had a bird’s eye view of the entire scene that unfolded between Michael and the young blonde. Brian also figured out that the stunning woman in the black dress dancing next to them was the best friend. He saw her leaving the floor and heading in his direction. Great, now he was going to have to entertain another one of Michael’s ‘friends’. But, to Brian’s surprise, the woman veered to the left and didn’t attempt to come over to his table. She went and sat over on the other side of VIP.

It had been so long that Jessie couldn’t even remember the last time she’d danced this much or this hard. She just wanted to sit for a minute. Unfortunately, it was too crowded where she’d been sitting before, but there was another table in a less crowded area of the VIP. Jessie took a seat and grabbed a glass of wine as the waiter passed by.

Jessie had a nasty habit of constantly checking her phone for messages. She made a concerted effort not to look at her phone for the next couple of days but was feeling just a little bit antsy. It had only been 24 hours, but she was shocked that she hadn’t received any phone calls from MEGA HQ. Though, seconds after the thought passed through her mind, her phone began to vibrate in the bottom of her purse. Jessie pulled it out as if she willed the phone to vibrate. It was a text from Max.

“Hope everything is going well. Don’t tell Téa I sent you this message. She gave strict orders not to contact you this weekend; however, we need your authorization for the China agreement.”

Jessie texted back,
“No problem. It’ll just be our secret. Send me the authorization link.”

A few seconds later Jessie received a second text with the link. She pulled it up and punched in her authorization code.

“Excuse me...Miss. Is anyone sitting in this chair?”

Jessie looked up from her phone to see who was speaking and what chair he wanted to use. He was a nice looking guy and seemed pretty harmless.

Jessie smiled. “Please feel free to use it. No one else is right now.”

“Thanks.” The hunky man took a seat and sat down next to Jessie “This is a great party. Do you know the honoree?”

She couldn’t believe she fell for that line. Now she felt obligated to speak with him. “Actually, no. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet.”

“Good. I’m sure if he took one look at you, I wouldn’t stand a chance of asking you to dance.” Okay, so the guy was pretty smooth. However, his timing was off because the music ended and the lights were turned on just as he’d asked her to dance. Not only were they not going to dance, but the DJ announced the end of the party.

“Okay...so maybe a dance is out, but how about letting me take you out for a late coffee or dinner?”

Jessie was flattered, but the only place she was going was home. She was still trying to recover from her last job on top of this being the anniversary of the worst weekend of her life.

“Thank you so much for the invite, but it’s been a really long day. As soon as I find my girlfriend, we are going to head home.”

“Are you sure I can’t convince you? How about your phone number and I’ll call you to set something up?”

Jessie wished that she felt that zing or something. The guy was really attractive, but there wasn’t even the faintest hint of a physical attraction. He was pretty smooth though, a little too smooth for Jessie’s taste. He also had this determined look in his eyes. Time to change tactics.

“I’m sorry, but my
girlfriend
doesn’t like me accepting dates from other men.”

He looked at Jessie for just a moment as if trying to assess her truthfulness. Giving in, he nodded in surrender and left.

Unbeknownst to Jessie, she had an audience. Brian had been watching her from the moment she stepped off of the dance floor. He thought it was quite interesting that it appeared as though she’d just turned down one of Hollywood’s up and coming actors.

Chapter 6

Téa and Michael finally made their way from the dance floor. She spotted Jessie, and they made their way over to her table.

Jessie couldn’t help but notice Téa’s rosy cheeks and the twinkle in her eyes as she sat down.

“Hey you! What are you doing sitting over here by yourself? I thought you were out on the dance floor.”

Jessie mischievously leaned over and whispered into Téa’s ear, “What? I didn’t think you noticed anything but Michael.”

Téa cocked her head to the side. “Ha ha, real funny. Anyway, I thought you were having a good time with that guy you were dancing with, or was that ‘Exodus’ having a good time?”

Michael was looking confused, “I’m sorry who is Exodus? I thought your name was Jessica?”

Téa explained, “Exodus is the alter ego that Jessie sometimes uses for work; she is bold and brash.”

Michael still looked a little confused, “So, are you an actress then?”

Jessie squirmed in her seat and glared at Téa before addressing Michael.

“No, I’m not an actress. I own a Security Management firm.” Then turning to look at Téa, “And to you my friend, Exodus did NOT make an appearance tonight thank you very much.”

Téa continued to tease Jessie, “Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

Jessie rolled her eyes, “I had a good time. I just thought I’d take a break once they slowed the music down.”

Michael turned around to see his brother being mobbed by guests trying to get that last bit of face-time now that the party was over.

“Excuse me ladies. I need to rescue my brother. Téa it might take a while, but I’m hoping you and Jessie can stick around for a little while longer.”

Téa turned to look at Jessie to see if she was alright with it. Jessie nodded her approval since she didn’t want to ruin the obvious budding connection.

After Téa gave Michael the green light, he instructed those two burly assistants to take them to a quiet part of the house that had been roped off from guests.

It was a quiet and cozy room. Jessie plopped down on the couch and kicked her shoes off. Téa did the same.

Jessie yawned. “Téa…you better be glad I love you like a sister. I am
exhausted
and we still have at least an hour and a half drive ahead of us. What time is it anyway?”

Téa pulled her cell phone from her clutch, “It’s about 3:15 a.m. Wait a minute…why did Max text you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play innocent with me Jessie. I can clearly see he texted you around 2:30 a.m. I gave him specific instructions NOT to text us this weekend.”

Jessie pulled out her phone and inspected it. “How did you know he text me? What did you do to my phone?”

“I’m the world’s best hacker! You know there’s not anything I can’t do or get into. I don’t care how much money you spend on the latest technology. I’ll always be a couple of steps ahead. And I didn’t do anything to your phone…
exactly
. At least, I didn’t program it to read your texts. I just wanted to know
if
and
who
from MEGA-HQ ended up texting you….so I could wring their little necks.”

“I’ve never been out of contact from headquarters for any long periods of time. I don’t understand why this weekend was so important that I not be reached.”

“Jessie, everyone needs some down time. You never take any. This anniversary is always so hard on you, and we all agreed that this weekend, you would take some time for yourself whether you wanted to or not. I was designated to ensure that you did.”

Jessie couldn’t be too angry with them. She knew they were acting out of love, but it still bothered her that they resorted to subterfuge instead of having a good old-fashioned conversation. Jessie believed that you didn’t always have to devise a plan to get inside. Sometimes you can just walk right in through the front door.

Yes, this weekend was always difficult. But, she had managed for the last eight years. Why was this year any different?

“I still don’t see the need for all of this extreme planning. You guys could have just talked to me about it.”

“We talk to you every year about it. And…every year you ignore us. This time we weren’t taking no for an answer.” Téa was still scrolling through her phone. “So, it was Max who sent the text. What did he want anyway?”

“He just needed my authorization for an agreement.”

Téa stood up and reached into her purse. She pulled out a circular object that looked no bigger than a quarter. She tapped it twice and it opened up as if it were a portal into Max’s bedroom.

“Hey Max...it’s Téa. Wake up.”

Max was in bed with the covers hanging half on and half off of his body. His arm was slung over his eyes. You could see the rise and fall of his chiseled chest that was lightly dusted with hair.