Page 7 of Bourbon Kingdom
“Gone”
JETT
I’d suffered losses in my life, losses that have shaped me into the man I am today, that have taught me valuable lessons, and that have inspired me to be a better person. But I’ve never experienced such a loss as I did the moment Goldie took off her collar.
From the window of her bedroom, I watched as a cab pulled up outside the back of Diego’s club and took my little one away, leaving me a broken and bitter man.
Her words kept resonating through my head, “Have faith in the power I have.”
From the very beginning, when I asked her to stay with Diego and trust what I was doing for the both of us, I asked her to have faith, faith in me and faith in us, but now with the tables reversed, with her doing the protecting, my faith was non-existent and the main reason was because the one hold I had over her, the one object that gave me security in our commitment to each other was now lying neatly in a box in my hands.
My heart was rapidly beating in my chest, hammering against my ribcage, begging to be taken back by Goldie, to sit in her perfect little hands.
Not able to stand from the blinding pain that was ricocheting through my body, I sat on her bed and dropped the box I was holding to the ground so I could grip my head. Like a madman, I pulled on my hair, trying to figure out what Goldie was up to, why she found it necessary to leave me, to do this all on her own.
A small knock sounded at the door, disrupting my thoughts. I didn’t have the energy to look up, so I just mumbled for whoever it was to come in.
The creak of the door echoed through the empty room and I heard Diego’s heavy footsteps. I’d known Diego for a while, and I’ve been quite fond of him, but today, after he brought Goldie to the party, a dark part of me wanted to take him out, destroy him, because by some off-chance if he hadn’t taken Goldie to the ball, maybe, just maybe, she would be in my arms right now.
“What do you want?” I said in a gruff tone, trying to hide the pain in my voice.
“Listen, Jett, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I tilted my head up ever so slightly, so I was just barely looking at the man. He was strong and confident, arrogant at times, just like me, but where I excelled at hiding my emotions, Diego did not. Visibly, he was shaken from seeing Goldie leave; I could see it in his stature.
“Diego, I’m going to make this very easy on you. You’re going to tell me exactly what Goldie said to you before the party, and then you’re going to get the fuck out of my sight. Got it?”
The menacing tone in my voice was clearly heard by Diego, as he took a deep breath and rested his body against the doorframe and ran his hand over his face.
“Fine. Goldie came up to me while I was eating a sandwich and asked me about Lot 17. She wanted to know everything and I told her. I told her about your dad, about what Lot 17 entailed and what you wanted to do with it. I told her what I knew.”
“Why?” I asked while standing up, growing angrier by the second. “Why would you tell her when you knew I specifically wanted to keep her out of it and as far away from all of this as possible?”
“Besides the fact that she practically ripped my nipple off? She deserved to know. You were stringing her along, keeping her in the dark, she was bound to do something. If I didn’t tell her, she would have gone off to find her own answers, and who knows what would have happened then?”
With precision, I picked up the box with Goldie’s collar in it that I’d dropped and walked over to Diego, where I stood an inch away from him. Taking in a deep breath, I sized him up and said, “Meddling in my relationship, trying to fix a problem that wasn’t yours to fix will not go unnoticed, Diego.”
“Is that a threat?” Diego asked, feeling more confident now.
“It damn well is. Don’t meddle in my life, because it’s going to come back and burn you.”
“Funny thing is, Jett, you’re the one who brought her here; you’re the one who needed a safe haven for her, and I provided that. Just because you wanted to keep her in the dark doesn’t mean I had to. She deserved to know.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I said, raising my voice.
“Someone had to tell her, and your arrogant ass wasn’t going to, so I did.”
“You’re dead to me,” I huffed out, as I pushed past him, knocking his shoulder on the way.
“Blaming me for your problems isn’t going to help. You know I’m not the reason this happened. Try pointing the finger at yourself. Relationships are about being open and honest. You failed in that aspect when it came to Goldie, and you’re the reason why she left,” Diego pointed out, as I stopped halfway down the hallway.
“Relationship advice coming from someone who has been unsuccessful at keeping his own submissive longer than a few months, think I’ll pass.”
With that, I walked down the stairs of Diego’s club and out to the idling car that was waiting for me. My driver opened my door for me and drove me back to the Lafayette Club.
Diego’s words ran through my mind as I watched the lights of Bourbon Street filter through the side streets of the French Quarter. Scandal and debauchery were conducted every night on Bourbon, yet, were wiped away in the morning; if only life was that simple. If only I was able to sweep away my problems like the sanitation crew of Bourbon Street did.
Life was never that easy, though. Life had never been easy for me, from the day I was born, I had drawn a bad hand. I was privileged; I had everything I ever wanted. Money was never an issue, stature was a given, popularity and fame were things I exuded every day without even trying. I was given a posh life, but that was to the outside’s eye.
