Free Treacherous by L.L Hunter Page A

wasn’t surprised when I saw waiters and
waitresses walking around with drink-filled trays. My parents had
gone all out. I grabbed a champagne flute and sipped. I needed the
alcohol tonight to calm my nerves. As I made my way towards the
glass doors leading onto the balcony, I saw a familiar
face.
    “ Oh my God!
Rochelle!”
    “ As I live and
breathe!” The girl turned away from the balcony and ran into my
arms. “It’s been too long, babe.”
    “ Totally. I can’t
believe my mother invited you.”
    “ Hey, I was your BFF
in high school. How could she not?”
    “ True. And in my
mother’s perspective, you are still ‘respectable.’” We both burst
out into fits of laughter. Rochelle and I had always made jokes
about my mother and her ways.
    “ Hey, who’s that?”
Rochelle asked, changing the subject. I followed her gaze and my
stomach flipped.
    “ What is he doing
here?”
    “ I heard he was your
mother’s ‘special guest.’”
    “ Special guest, my
arse.” I angrily pushed my way through the crowd towards
Nathan.
    “ What are you doing
here?” I asked him in a hushed voice.
    “ Your mother invited
me.”
    “ My mother? How…” our
conversation was cut short by the sound of my father’s voice. As I
broke away from Nathan and walked in the direction of the yelling,
which could be heard over the music, someone snagged my
arm.
    “ There you are.” It
was Mia and by the scent of the booze wafting off her, I could tell
she was already wasted.
    “ You’re drunk,” I
teased, poking her.
    “ Yeah, yeah. And so
should you.” Her words blended together as she pulled me towards
the bar.
    “ Mia, wait. I need to
go see what my dad’s yelling about.”
    “ Some drunken frat boy
probably stole some of his prized gazillion dollar scotch.” She
waved her hands around in the air, carelessly splashing champagne
on helpless bystanders. I shot them an apologetic look and looked
back over my shoulder. “I need to go see what the problem is,
Mia.”
    “ Ooh! Look, Charlz.
There’s that hunky good guy of yours.”
    “ He’s not my guy, okay? Where’s
Frankie?”
    “ I don’t know. What
drink do you want? They have these delicious melon cocktails called
an Ava… something.”
    “ An Avalanche,” I
mumbled, trying to see into my father’s office. Two figures were
inside. I had to get closer.
    “ Charli, where are you
going?” Mia tried calling my name, but I had stopping listening.
The oak doors of my father’s office were all I could
see.
    “ You had some nerve
coming here tonight,” my father was saying. “And with my daughter?
You stay away from her.”
    Someone who came here with me? Did he
mean Frankie?
    “ I
can’t help it, I love her, Stephen. And I will get what’s
owing to me.”
    “ Levi, wait. If you do
anything to harm my daughter… if you touch one hair on her
head….”
    “ You’ll do what,
Stephen? I’ll only even think of hurting Charli if I don’t get what
you promised me.”
    “ Levi, please. We’ll
work something out, just don’t hurt Charlotte.”
    There was silence for
a few seconds, and I wanted so badly to burst into the room to see
who was talking to my father. He had said he loved me, but I didn’t
know any Levi. I put my hands on the sliding doors, about to push
them apart, when the stranger spoke again.
    “ We’ll be in touch.”
That was when the doors opened, and Frankie stepped out.
Withholding my gasp, I quickly merged into the crowd before he
could see that I had been eavesdropping.
     
     

Chapter
Seventeen
     
    Nathan
     
    As I placed my hand
on my driver’s side door to get out of the car, my phone
rang.
    “ Hey, Mark, what have
you got?”
    “ I pulled up a match
from the picture you sent me.”
    “ Yes?”
    “ It matches the
profile of a Levi Chandon who was charged with drunk driving and
manslaughter three years ago.”
    “ Shit.”
    “ Yeah, but that’s not
the fun part. Here’s where you say I’m a genius, and you’ll buy