BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (23 page)

Leon didn’t believe him
one bit. They were all mad, and would be even more so when they
found out about what he had done. For all Leon knew, Stewart and
his friends could be running around eating people and creating more
Phantoms. The glass was looking pretty empty at this
point.
  

“
Did you
do what I think you did?” asked Santino. He hoped and prayed Leon
had just been out taking a walk, but he wasn’t that
naïve.
  

Leon gulped big and shook
his head. “I didn’t mean to. For God’s sake, I turned my brother
into this monster that I am!” Leon shook and whimpered. His eyes
stung, and his head started to hurt.
  

“
What
happened?” asked Kosner.
  

Leon tried to explain the
best that he could. “I went to tell one of my brothers so he could
deliver the message to my family that I’m not dead and not in
prison.”
  

Santino was livid. He
didn’t even want to hear Leon’s weak excuse. He had specifically
said no Phantom was to touch a human being unless he planned on
eating or killing them. What had Leon not understood about this one
simple rule?
  

“
The
wrong brother was at the house. I wanted to tell my older brother,
the more serious one, but I got Stewart,” Leon went on. “Stewart
grabbed me, and I reacted. It wasn’t my fault.” Leon saw how the
others looked at him with contempt.
  

“
Then
what happened, Leon?” asked VIN.
  

“
Stewart
had his friends over, and he turned them into Phantoms when they
came to help him out. Before I knew it, they had all touched
Stewart as he lay on the ground gasping for
air.”
  

“
So all
we have to do is go back to your brother’s house and bring them
here,” Kosner said. “All hope isn’t lost, Leon. Perk
up.”
  

“
You
don’t understand. I saw my brother get
up.”
  

“
You
left them there didn’t you, Leon?” asked Santino in anger. How
irresponsible could Leon be? He had left newborn Phantoms to fend
for themselves. Santino hadn’t done that to Leon, so why would Leon
do it to them?
  

“
I
didn’t have a choice. There were too many of them, and I didn’t
know what to do!” Leon shouted.
  

“
Keep
your voice down,” Kosner said.
  

“
I’m
sorry, alright?”  
  

“
Sorry?”
asked VIN. “Sorry isn’t the word. You just orphaned how many
newborn Phantoms? And now Alexandria will be their
playground.”
  

“
Not if
we get to them first,” Santino interrupted. “We round them all up
and find a bigger place to lay low for a
while.”
  

“
How
many of them do you think were at your brother’s house?” Kosner
asked Leon.
  

“
There
were four other guys watching football in the living room when
Stewart opened the door,” Leon responded. “But I’m not sure if
there were others in other rooms.”
  

“
You
mean the Quarries and the Buckhorns?” asked VIN. “Man, I had money
riding on that game!”
  

Santino said, “VIN, try to
stay focused.” He needed to find all of his underlings quickly,
before they touched anyone else—and before the police got a hold of
them. “How far away is your brother’s house?”
  

“
It’s on
the south side of Alexandria,” said Leon.
  

“
We have
to wait until nighttime to go looking for them,” Santino
said.
  

“
But
they could be out eating people or attacking the city,” Kosner
pointed out.
  

Santino knew that too, but
still his hands were tied. He could only look out for his own, and
at the moment, the Phantoms that were on the south side of
Alexandria would have to fend for themselves. He hoped that his
family was inside with the doors closed and locked. Until he knew
the damage, he couldn’t jump the gun and react without
thinking.
  

“
What
are we going to do with this guy?” asked VIN. “I personally don’t
trust him, and I blame him one hundred percent for whatever is
going to happen while we sit around!”
  

Kosner
agreed.
  

Santino was angry at Leon
but couldn’t be too mad because he had done the same thing when
he’d turned Kosner and VIN by mistake. On the other hand, if Leon
had just done as Santino had said then there wouldn’t be a mess to
clean up.
  

Santino didn’t have an
answer for the guys. They wanted results; they wanted to see Leon
punished. But who was going to discipline him? Santino? He didn’t
have a belt to beat Leon with, a set of rules to go by, or anything
else that could be used for punishment. The Phantoms were created
out of chaos; that was their punishment, to live in pandemonium.
They were no longer humans, so the rules didn’t apply to
them.
  

Santino hunched his
shoulders. “Do whatever you want with him. We make our own justice
now.” He sat back and kept his hands clean.
  

VIN cracked his knuckles
and approached Leon. No rules were his kind of
party.
  

25.

Night at the Flora Plume
Club
  

“
I’m not
going in,” Chelsea said. She folded her arms across her chest and
wouldn’t budge from the SUV.
  

“
It’ll
be fun—a chance for us all to be together, away from everything for
a while,” Kurma sweet-talked.
  

“
I don’t
want all of us to be together unless it’s everybody!” Chelsea
screamed. “I want Nina, and I want April back.” She kicked the back
of the front seat with her foot.
  

Kurma closed the door so
the people on the street wouldn’t hear Chelsea’s fit. “Who started
this tantrum crybaby stuff?”
  

“
Nina
did,” said Jackie. She rested on a nearby fire hydrant and was
ready to go. “Just let Chelsea stay in the truck for a minute and
cool off. We can come get her later.”
  

Kurma didn’t like the idea
of leaving Chelsea by herself. What if she ran off? Then Kurma
would be another Raptor short. She began to protest, but
O’bellaDonna stopped her.
  

“
If she
doesn’t want to come then we can’t make her,” she said. “Plus
Chelsea isn’t going anywhere without someone holding her hand. I
say we all go in and have a good time while she stays bitter and
cries herself to sleep.”
  

O’bellaDonna led the girls
past the yellow line that roped off the Flora Plume Club. There was
a massive line filled with girls and guys all dressed to impress.
Kurma had never been to a club and didn’t know how she would get in
without her ID. And even if she did have it, she wasn’t even
eighteen yet.
  

O’bellaDonna had
everything covered. She was working her pink dress, and her heels
gave her extra inches over the door host. She flashed a smile and
placed her plump chest in front of the guy’s face. He didn’t even
hear what she was saying; he couldn’t stop staring at her
body.
  

O’bellaDonna pointed her
finger at a random name on his clipboard and waited for him to
catch the hint. He smiled and moved aside as he opened the rope for
the girls to pass through. The crowd erupted into boos and
complaints. O’bellaDonna just sashayed on through, switching her
hips to the tunes inside the club.
  

Inside the Flora Plume
Club a mix of salsa, club, dub step, hip-hop, and techno beats
played. Kurma had never seen anything like it. The entrance was
wide and jam-packed as the girls made their way into the
first-floor grand room. There were stairs on both sides leading up
to different themed quarters.
  

Thousands of people moved
to the music as the girls stepped onto the dance floor. Kurma saw
several screens projecting all the actions of the upstairs rooms. A
machine up high blasted bubbles that fell lightly onto the girls.
Kurma looked up and smiled. Bats hung from the ceiling—real, live
bats that flew up high and out the windows that ventilated the
massive club. There were three wet bars on the main level with
fluorescent lights hitting the dark floor around them. Two DJs
stood on opposite sides of the club, battling each other with crazy
beats. The crowd loved them. Laser lights beamed everywhere, and
Kurma was scared to death when a gust of cold wind blew pass her
face.
  

“
It’s
only mist, girl,” O’bellaDonna screamed over the music. She smiled
at Kurma’s reaction and bumped her head to the beat as she looked
for the bar. “Let’s go get that drink,” she yelled. She didn’t
think Kurma had heard her, so she pulled her arm. Kurma grabbed
Rimselda, who grabbed Jackie, and the girls marched single file up
to the bar.
  

The girls people-watched
as the night began. Jackie was sipping her Mai tai when someone
groped her from the back. She turned around and came face to face
with her boss, Mr. McGrady, a spiffy old guy who had his hands in
everything that was illegal. If he was here, Jackie knew she was
going to have a good night.
  

“
Jacquiline, you doll baby you!” McGrady screamed over the
music. He tried to grope the front of her jacket, but she playfully
pushed him off.
  

Jackie smiled at her boss
and tried to introduce the girls but was distracted by his
bodyguards.
  

“
They’re
with me. Never mind them,” said McGrady when he saw Jackie’s facial
expression. He excused the two guards and moved closer to her. He
had always liked her. She was young and pretty, had a nice shape,
was slicker than chicken grease when it came to cars, and never
snitched him out. She’d worked for him for the past four years,
since she was fifteen.
  

“
I have
a table upstairs in the Gold Room,” he said. “Tell your friends to
come join me up there.”
  

Jackie nodded. “Do you
have wristbands for us?”
  

“
Wristbands? What the hell would I look like walking around
with one of those on my arm?” he asked. “Trust me, you hang with
me, you can go anywhere in this club!”
  

Jackie knew how Mr.
McGrady rolled: he was all about the high life, the fast life, the
money and all the things that came with it. Mr. McGrady had a wife
and two model girlfriends, and Jackie had just so happened to show
up a year after he had settled down, otherwise she would have been
one of his girls—a kept girl. She didn’t want to get to close
because her work might have been affected, so she tried to keep the
flirting to a minimum.
  

“
Who’s
your friend?” asked O’bellaDonna. She could smell money a mile
away. She smiled at the old man, and Mr. McGrady smiled
back.
  

Jackie could see where
this was going, so she did the introductions. “O’bellaDonna, this
is my boss, Mr. McGrady.”
  

O’bellaDonna placed her
hand in his, and he kissed it softly. She was smitten by this old
guy.
  

“
Ladies,
this way.” He directed the girls up to the third floor, where the
crowd thinned out and the lights grew brighter. The Gold Room was
sectioned off by opaque floors; Kurma could see two levels down.
The seats in McGrady’s section were connected in a half square with
a large table in the middle, with bottles and bottles of champagne
and other alcohols chilling in tubs of ice. Half naked women, all
tan and gorgeous, brought sparkling water and fresh juice. Kurma
had never seen anything like it. Photographers came by and took
pictures, and she shied away.
  

Mr. McGrady wasn’t having
it, though. He pushed Kurma into an embrace and sat her in the
middle of the couch, where all eyes were on the couple.
O’bellaDonna cut her eyes at Kurma, and Kurma’s face heated up. She
tried to excuse herself but Mr. McGrady wouldn’t let her
go.
  

“
I have
all the prettiest girls of Alexandria here with me tonight!” he
yelled over the house music. The roof of his mouth showed as he
talked loud enough for everyone to hear. He pulled Jackie on the
other side of him and gave her a sloppy kiss. She spilled her drink
all over him and Kurma.
  

“
Don’t
worry, babes, by the end of the night we’ll all be smelling like
the bottom of a bottle,” Mr. McGrady
joked.