Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,74
to be here.
The music is loud and thudding, shaking the walls and rattling the art on the walls. While the exterior of the house is faux-antique, the interior is all fluorescent pop-art, Lucite furniture, pinball machines, and gaudy sculptures that look like giant red lips, glittery guitars, and chrome balloon animals.
The guests are equally garish. Half the outfits would look more at home at a circus than a party, but I see enough brand-names to know it’s all expensive.
“Is this what’s fashionable now?” I mutter to Simone.
“I guess, if you’ve got the money for it,” Simone says. She nods her head toward a young woman wearing a skin-tight mini dress and a pair of thigh-high blue fur boots. “Those boots are four thousand dollars. They’re from the Versace fall line that hasn’t even been released yet.”
“Huh. I thought she skinned a Muppet.”
Simone laughs. “Well, expensive doesn’t always mean attractive.”
I remember that Simone wanted to design her own clothes, once upon a time.
“Did you ever end up going to Parsons?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “No. I never did.”
“Why not?”
“Oh . . .” she sighs. “Work and . . . other things got in the way.”
“Other things” meaning her parents, probably.
“I do make sketches of designs sometimes . . .” Simone says. “I have a whole notebook full of them.”
Without thinking, I say, “I’d like to see them.”
“You would?”
She’s looking up at me with the most heartbreaking expression on her face. Why, why, why the FUCK does she care what I think? I don’t understand her. How can she be so callous with me, and yet so vulnerable?
“We better get going,” I say roughly. “In case those guards really do call Kenwood.”
“Right,” Simone says, dropping her eyes. “Of course.”
The house is packed with partygoers, especially on the main level. Looking out into the backyard, we can see dozens of people lounging around the pool, swimming, or soaking in the hot tub. Some look like they fell in the pool with their clothes on, while others are half or fully naked.
The whole place reeks of alcohol. There’s liquor absolutely everywhere, plus a cornucopia of party drugs, right out in the open. I see a group of young women mixing up a bowlful of pills, then taking a handful each and washing it down with cognac.
Some of the girls look extremely young. Especially the ones hired to work the party. They’re dressed like guests, in mini-dresses, crop tops, booty shorts, and heels, but it’s clear from the way they prowl the party, finding older men and sitting down in their laps, that they’ve been hired as entertainment.
Simone watches them, frowning.
“How old do you think they are?” she says, looking at one particularly youthful redhead with her hair in pigtails.
“I have no idea,” I say. “Kenwood definitely has a reputation. I’m guessing he wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring in anybody under eighteen here in the city. But they say when he flies guests out to his boat . . . he brings in girls as young as twelve.”
“That makes me want to throw up,” Simone says coldly.
“I agree.”
“I had three aunts,” she says, quietly. “My father’s older sisters. They thought they were getting jobs as maids. Then they disappeared. Tata thinks they might have been trafficked. He looked for them for years, but never found them. That’s why he started the Freedom Foundation.”
I didn’t know that. I assumed Yafeu was using charity work like most wealthy people do—to enhance his status and connections. I didn’t realize he had such a personal connection to the issue. It actually makes me feel sorry for him. For a moment, at least.
Simone looks around the party with renewed focus. “What now?” she asks me. “What do we do?”
“Well . . .” I haven’t seen Kenwood anywhere yet. “I guess I want to snoop around his house. Try to find his office, or a laptop or iPad. See if I can access it, or steal it and have somebody smarter hack into it.”
“Alright,” Simone says nervously. I know she wants to help me, but this is where we cross the line from party-crashers to criminals. She’s probably never broken the law in her life.
We climb the wide, curving staircase to the upper floor. All the lights are off up here, probably to dissuade partygoers from coming up. I have to yank Simone into the nearest room, to avoid a guard prowling past.
There are guards all over this place. Unless Kenwood hired extra security for the party, he’s