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flowersandbigteeth · 2 years

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Your step brother gets to know you a bit better

General Plot: Your uptight step brother calls you in for a meeting, only he isn't exactly the person you remember.

Shapeshifter (Shane) x female reader

Word Count: 2k

W: slightly nsfw monster fluff, nudity, noncon touching and nakedness, there will be noncon and nsfw smut in future parts, but there is no explicit smut in this part, yandere behavior

Your usually polite, demure step-brother was not acting like himself. It’s not like you really knew him that well. Your parents had married when you were 17 and he had already become an adult living on his own. Your mom had somehow caught the attention of the esteemed Slater family and your status when they married had gone from poor daughter of a single mom to living in the nicest penthouse in the city and having guards chaperone you wherever you went.

Seth Slater was probably the richest man in the city. You had never really understood what he did. Something about stocks or real estate or something, just that he was blindingly rich. Your mom followed him around like a lost puppy, just happy to have some stability in her life after your alcoholic dad left you both.

You stopped seeing her very much after they started touring the world with his money, mostly just seeing your bodyguards. You’d been sent off to college and graduated, still under the senior Slater’s protection.

It seemed like his parenthood didn’t stop after 18, even though he really didn’t have to support you. Still, you lived in a nice apartment he paid for and went to the job he got you at one of his subsidiary companies in town. You still had bodyguards that followed you from work to your apartment and anywhere else you went. He was more of a dad than yours had been, so you didn’t complain, sending your mom postcards and being happy for her.

Shane you’d only met a few times in passing. He wasn’t curt or cold, but he was aloof seeming to be miles above everyone in the room.

His role as his father’s heir was to do all the work his dad didn’t feel like doing anymore. The elder Slater was pretty much soft retired. Shane was a busy man who didn’t have time for too many pleasantries. He’d said hello every time he’d seen you, asked about college even after you had graduated and then ignored you completely. He’d never taken any interest in you at all, which is what made this interaction strange to you.

“Sit down (Y/N),” his eyes, the sharp gold of a predator, focused on you. You’d actually thought you remembered his eyes being green. Obviously they weren’t, you could see very clearly they were the color of shiny coins, so you pushed the thought away.

“Why did you want to see me?” you asked, shuffling into one of the chic leather chairs in front of his desk.

“No,” he said, gesturing you over to a more intimate seating arrangement with just two plush chairs facing each other, “sit there. I’ll have someone bring us tea.”

You got up awkwardly and sat down where he’d indicated.

Shane liked the way the knee length skirt you were wearing rode up to your thigh as you sat down, dragging his chair to the perfect angle to glance up your skirt without appearing to be looking. He called one of his minions for tea before sitting down across from you.

You gave him an awkward smile.

His eyes devoured you. They passed over your (Y/C) hair, over your face and down the dowdy outfit you had been wearing for work, then back up again.

“So what’s this all about?” you asked, shifting uncomfortably.

He leaned forward in his seat.

“Let’s talk about that when the tea gets here,” he said, “in the meantime, how are you doing?”

He’d never asked you anything like this before, so you didn’t really know what to say.

“I’m fine, I guess,” you said, “work is going good…um…that’s it…I guess…”

He raised an eyebrow.

“No boyfriend to occupy your time?” he chuckled, “what do you do when you’re not working?”

He was being so much more affable than he had ever been with you, you were confused.

“Nope…no boyfriend,” you said, “I mostly just spend my time…”

Don’t say writing monster fucking fics. Don’t say writing monster fucking fics. Don’t say writing monster fucking fics.

“...knitting,” you said after an inordinately long pause.

He smiled warmly.

“That’s very cute,” he said and you blushed spontaneously.

You’d never really noticed how attractive Shane was. Sure you’d noticed he was good looking, but he was so ambivalent towards you and he was your step-brother, you’d kind of turned off that part of your brain.

You’d never noticed how attractive he was to you. He had nicely shaped eyes and dark hair that made them stand out. It was cropped in a business cut, but was at the moment a bit more messy than you’d ever seen it, a lock falling on his forehead. He was one of those people who could make the dimple in his chin work and had a bright, large white smile, with canines perhaps a bit bigger than most.

What was really different about him was his build. You could have sworn he was a much smaller guy last time you’d seen him. Had he really been hitting the gym? He was almost popping out of his white shirt and towered over you. You figured he could afford a good dietician and personal trainer, but had he gotten taller somehow? You scandalously wondered if he got that experimental leg lengthening surgery, he could afford it.

The tea came, chasing away your thoughts and Shane got a bit more serious, waiting for you to take a sip of your tea before he started.

“I’ve been wrestling with father for some time about whether we should include you in the family business,” he said, “that’s why you’re here.”

You took another sip and blinked at him.

“So I guess you came to a conclusion,” you said.

He barked out a laugh and leaned forward leaning his forearms on his knees.

“Yes,” he said, “we did. The agreement we came to was that you should work under my wing. I’ll teach you everything I know until you’re ready to take some things on yourself.”

You shook your head.

“That’s okay, I really don’t need another job,” you said, “I like where I’m at.”

He cocked his head like you’d said something cute and leaned back.

“I’m going to tell you now to save us both a lot of time and money, it’s not a request or a choice. You will work with me and learn what we do. You will participate and you will behave.”

Behave? What the fuck?

You stood up snorting at him. This was more like the step brother you knew. Always in charge, always getting his way.

“I don’t have to sit here for this,” you snapped, getting up, “thanks for the tea, I’ll see myself out.”

You marched over to the door to jerk it open only to find it was locked. You yanked it a few times before banging on it a bit. Pissed, you whirled back around on Shane.

“Open this door!”

He had his hands behind his head, looking just as amused as before.

“I forgot to mention you start today,” he said, standing, “right now in fact.”

He sauntered over to you slowly, with long steps.

“It’s cute that you think you can defy me,” he said. Then he looked down your body.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

You took a step back.

“Excuse me?” you hissed.

He smirked and stepped around you.

“I want to see what I’m working with.”

You drew your hand back to slap him but he caught it, looking closely at your palm, before kissing the inside of your wrist. You tried to pull away, but he backed you against the wall, pushing the hand he was holding above your head. You tried to push him with the other, but he snapped that one with his other hand and pinned that above your head too.

You went with your final option and tried to knee him, but he just laughed at you and didn’t topple over screaming like most men.

“That doesn’t work on my kind, pumpkin,” he said, “everything is tucked away.”

You drew your brows at that confusing statement, imagining a hundred things it could mean.

His head dipped down so that it was only a few inches away from yours and he transferred both of your wrists into one palm, the other hand running down the curve of your ear to your button up shirt. He slowly popped one button at a time as you panted underneath him, pushing the fabric to the side with a finger and letting it drift down your flank. You thrashed underneath him, but he had you stuck.

His scent washed over you in an intense wave, as if he’d released it. He smelled like some sort of odd spice, a bit like cinnamon but not quite, a touch more musky and less sweet. It was doing something to your head. You felt spacey and relaxed, falling back into the door behind you.

“Oh, careful there, love,” he cooed, sweeping you up by the base of your spine and splaying you out like a doll over his desk. Your muscles didn’t work and you whimpered in panic.

“Shhh, shhh,” he said, “I just want to have a little peek at my mate.”

He pushed your shirt off of your shoulders and took off your bra, while you could only watch in horror. Finally, he slipped your skirt over your hips and then your panties. He pulled the panties to his nose and breathed in your scent before tucking them in his pocket.

His eyes feasted on you, considering every curve. His finger drifted lightly over your over sensitive skin. Whatever he had done to you had made your nerves light up like Christmas lights. You wanted to squirm away from his touch, but you couldn’t move so you just moaned.

“Feel good?” he asked, “those are my pheromones. I have different ones for different things. This one is for pinning my victim.”

He stroked the inside of your thigh, coming just up to your pussy lips, brushing them with his knuckle absently, but no more. You shuddered, your body wanting more than your mind.

“I know everything about you (Y/N),” he said, his tone amused.

Before your eyes he started to shift.

He grew even taller, his skin shifting to a rich green and tentacles shooting out from his body in a cape. His face grew monstrous with huge teeth.

He leaned down over you and flexed what could have been lips in a smile.

“I know you probably like me better like this,” he said, a tentacle tracing another line around your breast.

Betraying the rest of you, your pussy leaked, a shiny droplet of your need drizzling onto the hardwood desk. At that point you were confused, frightened, and a little turned on. You didn’t know which emotion was winning out. You wrote about this stuff all night and here it was happening in front of your eyes. Was he going to ravish you?

“Or this,” he went on and changed into something boney and gaunt with sickles for claws.

A stiff nail scraped a long line over your stomach.

Then he changed back into his human form. The only thing tying his forms together was in all of them he had the same bright gold eyes.

“I can be anything you want me to be, pumpkin,” he said, tapping your nose with his finger, and then more seriously, “so don’t toss me aside so easily.”

#monster fluff #shape shifter #monster x reader #monster x girl #yandere fluff #yandere male #yandere x female #x reader #exophelia

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kit-kat-jas · 3 years

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Naruto makes bank

Now if you looked at Naruto, he looks like your normal 20-year-old going through college, he talks about his struggles keeping up with bills, his job at Starbucks, so on and so forth. I, Sakura Haruno have the same problems, but I still get help from my parents, like how my dad didn’t want me living in the dorms so he got me a decent apartment, with one bed, one bath, and the tiniest kitchen you could ever have. For extra money on the side, I uber during the weekends when I have the time. A specific order caught my attention on a Saturday at 2am in the morning. It was asking for out of all thigs McDonalds, on the richest part of town, to a luxury apartment on the penthouse level. The biggest gag was that it was a 65-dollar tip, so of course I took it. 20 minutes later I’m heading towards the penthouse door, but before I could knock the door swung open, revealing an older man around his late 30′s maybe early 40′s, but nevertheless he was kind of hot. “Hey, how’s your night going.” he asked with a kind smile. “Pretty good bout to head out after this drop off, thanks for the huge tip by the way.” “No problem is there some napki-, he was then cut off by somebody yawning walking into the doorway. “Nathen, when’s the food gonna-” the voice stops, and then we make eye contact. There standing in nothing but a button up dress shirt that reached his lower thighs, was the one and only Naruto Uzumaki. The next thing that happened was a blur, Naruto grabbing the food saying a quick thanks, and closing the door in my face. I drove home in complete silence running the events through my head. Naruto was gay, or maybe bi. Not only that but he’s sleeping with a man that’s most likely 20 years older than him. I gotta get some answers, cause I don’t talk to Naruto that much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about his wellbeing. The next morning on campus I see Naruto staring at his laptop like his life depended on it. I walked up to him from behind slowly so he doesn’t hear me. The reason why he was staring so hard at his laptop, was because he was looking a purses, but not just any purses, Birkin Bags. “Naruto, we need to talk.” He whips his head around looking at me for some time, before bowing his head down and sighing. I sit down next him while he closes his laptop. “What do you want to know?”

#naruto #sakura #sugar #Narutomakesbank #one-shot #sasuke uchiha #sasukexnaruto

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acioo · 5 years

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( PART THREE HERE ) & ( PART ONE HERE ) here are NINE MORE CHARACTER BASES ( label & background & personality ), all of whom i have played out in the past. they expand beyond ‘ the fuck boy ‘ and ‘ the arrogant rich kid ‘ because i think as a community we’re all tired of the cliche bull, so have some of my most fun & most subversive times. these are for inspiration purposes as well as admin purposes. if you are going to use these in an rph setting, i request credit, but otherwise, it’s not necessary. ( all details viable to change ; pinterest board links available for all of them - if you are interested in my characters, see my muse page ) TW : violence, alc, drugs, ( parental ) emotional neglect, death, blood, homelessness, police

001. THE WITCH — you are in the second generation of witchy women in your family. you’re not meant to misuse, you’re meant to give back, your mother tells you. nature loves you but nature holds grudges, your mother tells you. you are not you but we, your mother tells you. you will not heed her advice. age six, you learn how to make the tea boil in seconds just by whistling, even if you know that it’s not necessary. age ten, you make the kids who say bad words to you trip on their way up the stairs, leaving them with bloody noses and mouthfuls of curses. age sixteen, you fall in love with a girl who loves you like she’s going to lose you, who makes you forget why your parents crossed continents and why your blood sings a song of violence and why you stand unflinching in the eye of loss. you and your friends get into bad things when you start to get old enough for people to notice you. their eyes always go to you first. you and your dark eyes. you and the furrow in your brow. you and your lesson in awakening. you adopt another stray emotionally compromised teenager into your friend group and she tells you breathlessly, reverently that you’re the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. and it makes you mad, but maybe not at her, because you can recognize the good and bad people like a lie detector that’s seen too much and knows in details what a long night is because they’re all you have. you’re powerful in a way that they don’t seem to understand and maybe, you will take a lesson your mother. you’re powerful and you won’t let them see.

002. THE PROM QUEEN — the oldest by eleven minutes, you grow up trying to be everything your little siblings need. your parents are twisted but you learn to see them through rose-colored glasses instead of living in pain. when your siblings fall, you feel it, too, and when they cry, you cry too. it’s too much responsibility. your parents feed and clothe them, but you hold their mental health in your hands and the truth is you’re no better. you just got so good at hiding behind your mask that you can’t seem to tell the difference between you and party favor anymore, and the fact of the matter is that while they’re quiet and just so different in a way that your parents feared they would be, you blend in like a chameleon. you’re class president and prom royal. that’s the way it’s always been. but all the makeup in the world can’t hide the fact that you’re no better. the older you get, the more they can see. your grandmother, first. then your little sister’s best friend. your first love. everything you try to hide sits in your lap and you try to wrestle it into submission and sometimes it wins. they know you but you don’t. your eyes flash golden sometimes when you’re mad enough that you remember that you’re the one who put the burn stains on the wood floors of your family’s old penthouse, but you’re more human than anyone can ever even imagine.

003. THE UNAPOLOGETIC SLOTH — you’re the small-town preacher’s child who comes out with a slam when you turn ten years old. you’re burning your clothes in the basement when your mother comes home from book club. you’re looking for a way out, but all she wants to know is if you want to do it in the expensive fire pit outside instead. they call you their golden child but no one else shares the sentiment. you’re lucky that your group of friends ( they don’t look like you exactly or act like you exactly, but you all know what it’s like to feel like you’re alone in the world, or you did until you met them ) likes the way you bite back even if your grandmother doesn’t and neither does she come over for christmas dinner anymore and it tears you up inside until you bleed an angry and violent storm and trail curses ( against anyone, against god, if there is a god at all, if you even believe in a god at all ) down the creaky wood stairs from your room all the way into you mom’s lexus. you’ll come back but for now, you are a tempest and you are only beautiful when you’re burning. you’re not the type to bend yourself out of shape for people who won’t look back at you. you’re happy with yourself in a way that most people wish they could be, most people who spend nights drinking or turning in bed or smiling. you’re happy because you couldn’t care less.

004. THE PYROMANIAC — the child of two famous superheroes, you’re the picturesque image of your mother. you only have your father’s mutant blue eyes and you think that you’ll curse your mother with unhappiness for it until she gives up on you like you want her to. you hate her for her giving you everything you have. your powers, your hair, your two good hands. you love your father more than you love anything. it starts when you’re still little. lying about your powers, saying you have your fathers. your parents can’t stop it. the therapists certainly can’t stop it. not even your classmates' jeers can. the fires start in your teens around the time you start sneaking out at night. your mother with her kind eyes ( not yours, which are an icy and violent storm that everyone needs to seek cover from ) and tired crinkle in her forehead, who loves you even if the only time she gets your affection is at the request of your father, asks you about it and you don’t answer, look at her with contempt and a scoff. she knows the answer anyway. you’re the angriest kid she knows and they all wonder where you got it from as you project the worst pieces of your parents. your father's arrogance. your mother’s envy. by the time you turn eighteen, you’ve been arrested six times ( your party stories are to die for ; arson & assault & arson & underage drinking & arson & disorderly conduct ). you’re so hilarious, so famous, that they like to forget that you are also lethal.

005. THE PRINCELY POLYMATH — you don’t grow up as a person. the only child of one of the richest men the world may yet see, you come out of nowhere. bright hair and brighter eyes, you look and act nothing like your father. it takes you many years to find out that the only reason you’re surrounded by people is that they want something from you. the anxiety develops around the same time. coils into you and holds you tight. you cover it up poorly with anger and insult. it’s a bad look on you and it makes you bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood but it’s better than the alternative. you’re still going to get followed around. you’re still going to have callers. because you’re attractive and you’re devastating and you’re one of the brightest minds they’ve ever seen. you try not to let your father find out that under that mop of blonde curls lies a brain that can’t be matched, but he does when the maid returns from your room with empty vodka bottles and books on aeronautics and too-tiny baggies and sketches of architecture. your iq test makes the news, but you just wanted something of your own. your new school is just as fancy, but now you don’t have to hide the fact that you’re bored and unchallenged. when you’re fourteen, your starlet mother, who your father never forgave you for resembling, will overdose on pills in a bathroom in ibiza as you take the sats. you’re not allowed to be sad. you haven’t seen her since your fifth birthday. there’s nothing for you here. you wonder when there will be.

006. THE BEST OF THEM ALL — for as long as you can remember, you’ve been the nicest kid anyone has ever known. a candy-sweet smile and you really mean it, too. people marvel at the way you carry yourself and the hpw you can speak to people, but they’re always looking over your shoulder for your brighter, more reckless friends. you’re in the instagram posts but you’re no one’s first choice, and it’s okay because you’re used to it. you’re still going to be there when they fall down and cut themselves on the sharp edges of others that you told them with a wavering voice to watch out for. you keep a shovel in your trunk and your ringer on. because you’re that good. you won’t survive this kind of disregard but you think you’ve known this from the start. you’re not the protagonist in this story, but maybe you should be. people like to hear about warzones and long nights with longer bottles but the fact of the matter is that you’re not the kind of kid. you’re warm hands and a down looked smile. you won’t stand on the edge of the mountain but you’re happy to use your first aid kit to patch up anyone who does.

007. THE ACTIVIST — your mother never wants to be a mother and your father isn’t the kind of man she’d trust with her heart, let alone you with your chubby hands and big eyes. giving you up is the right thing to do. you run away from foster homes left and right. eventually, they stop looking for you, and you move from state to state, a rolling stone of your own. you find a person of your own. you call them your twin, but the facts don’t line up in a way you won’t realize for a very long time. eventually, you find your place with a microphone in hand and a shoebox under your feet. you care about everyone but yourself and you’re pretty okay with that. you’re a survivor, you always have been. when you’re fifteen, the peaceful protest you organized gets interrupted by local police who ask for a permit that’s not there. the noise ruptures your eardrum ; the crowd, the riot guns, the yelling. you never get back all your hearing but it won’t stop you. you’d never let that happen. you keep going, just different and with the help of friends. when you’re sixteen, you’re moving through a crowd, doc martens ahead of you when you stumble into a strong chest. an older man with a kind smile. when he offers to walk you home, asks if you’re parents know where you are this time of day, you laugh, but he’s serious. ( you’ve never met someone kind over the age of twenty. ) he adopts you in the spring and your platform is larger now, but you’re still the same old kid with fire in their heart and no chip on your straight shoulders. that’s the year you track down your biological mother. she’s apologetic and kind, but honest with you and you forgive her. she thought she was doing what was best for you and you think, despite the grim, and the scares, and the bad parts, that she did. you grow up, move from smartphones to tv screens to podcasts. you make a difference.

008. THE PSYCHIC’S DAUGHTER — you’re never going to be your sister, and eventually, you’ll be able to live with this fact. she’ll know of a father, a man who has dark hair and dark eyes and a dark heart, but you left him breathless and unhappy because he, like you, is a fighter. the worst person you know has your last name and your lips. your mother. she is what someone would call a powerful woman. she opens up a business of psychic women, trademarked under your last name, and you know it’s going to haunt you until the day you die. you know they have no power. you know they’re a trick of the light or a flick of a card or a bag of sequins. they teach you one thing. if you say anything with enough confidence, someone will believe you. you don’t know why you never say anything, but you don’t. you won’t. you will never reveal their secret. it’s not yours to tell. when you’re sixteen, following after your sister with big puppy dog eyes as she speaks gold and weaves silk with her steps, she will beat a girl half to death on the football field. she never tells you why and it seals the fate between you, but the truth is that you’d never be able to forgive yourself if she told you. ( she did it for you. the unloved child people whisper about under the bleachers. the psychic's youngest. you’ll curse them, they say. ) you are not your sister and you’re certainly not your mother. you’re dramatic, earnestly so, not with an outreached hand but with an open heart. and you may never recover from spending your days in the dark house at the end of the block, but it won’t hurt to try.

009. THE BACKGROUND CHARACTER — your small town chokes you from a young age. you grow up as one of the cool ones in that big squad of pretty, rich kids that everyone wants to be apart of, but you never asked for entry. your mother’s a bird who breathes down your neck, pecks at you for answers that she will never get because you’re too stunted, too angry to really be the child she’d always dreamed of having, and you find that kind of funny because you’re a lab baby that cost more than her car. you’ll try for her, but not for anyone else. they know that your ‘we’ll see‘s and your ‘maybe‘s are really just your fun way of saying you don’t want to hang out. you’ll try for her because she gave you everything you have ever had, but all they give you is migraines. too loud and too inconsiderate, you think. you’re a harsh judge on people, but they know what they bought into when they invested your sour apple self. you watch from the windows and that’s how you’ve always liked it. you’re safe there. they can’t hurt you. you’ll sleep with one every other month, or attend a party or two, but you’re too fast and too much of a whim for them to even know you before you’re gone.

#rph #rpt #rpc #rpa #resources #masterlist #admin help #writing #mine: char bases

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Top New Horror Books in February 2020

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Type: Novel Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: 2/4/20

Den of Geek says: Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation was one of the most-talked-about YA debuts of 2018, and for good reason! The story of Black zombie hunters in an alternate Reconstruction-era America is already one of the best premises of all time, and Ireland more than follows through on the promise of kickass, sociopolitically cathartic potential—with Dread Nation, and now with Deathless Divide. (We love this one so much, it’s also on our Top New YA Books of February 2020 list.)

Publisher’s summary: The sequel to the New York Times bestselling epic Dread Nation is an unforgettable journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Buy Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland on Amazon.

The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

Type: Novel Publisher: MCD x FSG Release date: 2/11/20

Den of Geek says: If it’s good enough for Paul Tremblay, it’s good enough for us! We love a good atmospheric horror read, and The Boatman’s Daughter sounds like it has more atmosphere in one page than most books do in their entirety.

Publisher’s summary: A “lush nightmare” (Paul Tremblay) of a supernatural thriller about a young woman facing down ancient forces in the depths of the bayou.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm.

But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

With the heady mythmaking of Neil Gaiman and the heartrending pacing of Joe Hill, Andy Davidson spins a thrilling tale of love and duty, of loss and discovery. The Boatman’s Daughter is a gorgeous, horrifying novel, a journey into the dark corners of human nature, drawing our worst fears and temptations out into the light.

Read The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson on Amazon.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Type: Novel Publisher: Berkley Release date: 2/18/20

Den of Geek says: Who doesn’t love a good creepy motel story? From the author who brought us The Broken Girls, comes another female-driven foray into horror mystery. If you’ve been digging Nancy Drew or love Sharp Objects, there’s more where that came from.

Publisher’s summary: Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

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Read The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James on Amazon.

The post Top New Horror Books in November 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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rnufharose · 5 years

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Blood, Sweat, and Tears - Chapter 6

Words: 2.3k

Trigger Warnings: There will be mentions of prostitution and sex trafficking throughout this chapter.

︻デ═一 ♥

The Kim estate resided in the richest part of the city--a large mansion in the Hannam district with a gate and a fountain made from the best materials and top-skilled architects. The courtyard was lined with fresh red rose bushes and the interior had tall ceilings, chandeliers, a grand foyer, and staircase, along with lavish bedrooms, a library and even what would be considered a ballroom. This house has been in Suho's family for many generations and soon became the home of the other members of EXO. Though they all lived in apartments and penthouses scattered across Seoul, they would occasionally come back to the estate for important meetings and dealings.

After dealing with another syndicate, G-Dragon had changed his mind as to where the meeting would be held, specifically, in his penthouse in Gangnam. Luckily, Suho had suggested that he come to the estate and the leader of BIGBANG was all for it. Chen was seated in the lounge, his brown hair slicked and styled, and he wore an expensive suit and watch. He sat on the leather couch, several books stacked at his feet. He was waiting patiently for Sehun to arrive.

"Where is that boy...?" he mumbled, his thoughts on Sehun.

"Boo!" Another male popped out from behind the couch, and Chen jolted slightly, his eyes on the brown-haired who smiled at him with sparkling eyes. "I got you!" He cackled, pointing at him and falling onto his back, holding his stomach with his other hand.

This man was Baekhyun, the smallest in stature with boyish features, but he was born in the same year as Chen. Though he looked very sweet and innocent, he was known to have a more... darker side. His trigger happy antics and animated personality, to put it gently, were what earned him a spot among Suho's syndicate.

"Yah, hyung," the younger male spoke gently. "why don't you use that energy when you're out on an assignment?"

"You know I have too much energy," he said as he sat up. "and you looked very serious. Loosen up a bit, Jongdae-ya!"

They heard the front door open, the sound echoing through the foyer, and they turned their heads, finding Sehun stepping into the lounge to greet them. "Ah, you're here," Chen addressed him. "I was starting to think you would come late... what took you so long?"

"Nothing," the raven-haired male crossed the room to pour himself a glass of whiskey. This house held many memories for him. Sehun grew up in the Kim estate when Suho's father took him off the streets, giving him a home. When he was old enough to understand what kind of family he was a part of, he picked up a gun and made it his mantra to protect Suho when he inherited leadership of the EXO syndicate. He was the first to join EXO and the other members followed not too long afterward.

Baekhyun pursed his lips, tilting his head curiously. "You didn't sleep with another hooker, did you?" He asked as the hitman sipped his drink. "You only drink in the morning when you have a one night stand."

"It's not like you're any better," Sehun spoke emotionlessly, and the boyish male shrugged with a giggle.

"That's true! But did you pay her?!"

"No... why would I when I was drunk?"

"Alright, can we change the subject?" Chen spoke with discomfort, standing from his seat and tucking his hand into the pocket of his slacks. "This meeting has to go off without a hitch. Afterward, we can think about what to do with the girl."

Haneul, Sehun thought, his hand tightening around his glass. She must be getting ready to come to Seoul... I have to find her before things get out of hand...

"Do we just lock her up?" Baekhyun wondered as he got to his feet. "Because that's probably the best option at this point. If the murderer is after her, she can't be out on the streets.”

"We're not locking her up," the hitman spoke firmly, turning to face the two older men. "she's already so afraid. Locking her away will only make things worse."

"Then what do you propose we do?" Chen opened his hand. "If she's around her friends, they'll be targets as well."

"I'll protect her. You don't have to worry," Sehun assured him, raising his glass to his lips. "I'll keep an eye on her as she goes about her day. I want to learn about her ties to all this as much as Junmyeon hyung does..."

A pair of footsteps entered the lounge, and Suho stood before them, "Well, lucky for us, G-Dragon happens to know exactly who is going after the girl. Let's hope he tells us if we're able to strike a good deal after killing Seungri."

"Then things seem to be in our favor, for now," Chen huffed. "Will the others be joining us?"

"Minseok hyung and Kyungsoo are busy with coffee imports. Red Velvet is helping them out. Chanyeol and Kai are making a deal with Lay and the Chinese Triads," their leader explained. "G-Dragon will be here in a few hours so get my study ready."

"Yes, sir," the three of them spoke in unison, leaving the lounge to get the house ready for G-Dragon's arrival.

︻デ═一 ♥

After Ilsung had discovered that Haneul was missing, he searched the town until the morning, calling Minsoo once the first light illuminated the streets of Icheon. "She ran away," the blonde said.

"But why? Why would she run away before leaving for Seoul?" the woman inquired, and he shook his head solemnly.

"I don't know... all I know is that the moment I entered the house, she was gone..." He wondered why she would run away all of a sudden. He thought he could make it better, that maybe he could comfort her and tell her he would always be there to take care of her, but she left before he could take that chance.

"She should be somewhere," Minsoo exhaled, deciding to stay calm. "we check all the places in town that are special to her or to Halmeoni. She's bound to be there."

"With her suitcase, clothes, and makeup not present?" He pointed out. "She's most definitely left for Seoul last night because I checked every place in town where she might be. Aish," he hissed, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Angel, why did you run away?!"

"Look, you can't get worked up. We can just go to Seoul. She's probably with Bella at The Magic Shop," the older woman tried to assuage him but he exclaimed suddenly.

"But she doesn't have to be there!" his blue eyes were glazed over, his expression dejected. It was like his heart had been ripped out of his chest and his blood had run cold. "I could have made it better, Noona... I could have taken care of her! I could have given her a home but she just left!"

"Think of the situation, Ilsung," she spoke rationally, having realized why the girl had suddenly left. "This house was her safe haven and it suddenly turned into a place where Halmeoni was taken from her. She obviously doesn't want to stay here knowing what happened. I would run away too."

"And leave everything behind?!" Ilsung cried, tears rolling down his cheeks as he pressed a hand to his chest. "And leave me...?" He choked, breaking into sobs. "She means everything to me... I should have told her how I felt before she left... how can she do this to me...?"

Her expression softened, her shoulders no longer tense as she watched him fall to his knees, shuddering as he hugged himself, his tears falling onto the wood floor, "Ilsung..."

"She goes to Seoul and she leaves everything behind... and that includes me," he mourned. "I don't want that... I don't want her to forget me..."

Minsoo walked toward him slowly, kneeling before him and holding onto his shoulder, giving him a soft smile, nudging her finger against his forehead, "Pabo ya... it's not the end of the world. Let's go to Seoul and find her. Then you can tell her how you feel."

He the blonde male breathed shakily, wiping away his tears with a sniffle. He lifted his head and gave a single nod after a moment, his eyes still glistening. He hoped she would accept his feelings when he did find her. He didn't know what he would do without Haneul. She meant far too much to him and letting her go would mean not living at all.

︻デ═一 ♥

G-Dragon had arrived and was soon escorted into the Kim estate and toward Suho's office. Sehun bowed before the older male, opening the door for him so he could step inside, where EXO's leader was standing in front of the desk. "Welcome," he bowed, and G-Dragon narrowed his gaze, listening to the door close behind him, and the hitman stood to the side in case he needed to step in and protect Suho.

"Thank you for having me, Junmyeon," the blue-haired man took a seat, crossing his legs and leaning back in the chair with a smirk. "about this deal... it concerns Seungri, doesn't it? If I understand correctly, your men killed him?"

"That is correct," he gave a single nod and crossed the room where the small table by the shelf resided. "Would you like a scotch on the rocks?"

"No, thank you," G-Dragon chuckled. "Let's make this quick. Why exactly did you have your men kill him?"

"You know my friend Kim Minseok, yes?" Suho asked, holding his glass of scotch. "He is responsible for all the coffee imports that come in... Seungri was trying to take our territory and our imports. Now, I know BIGBANG is a large syndicate, and the last thing I want is for our clans to break our alliance and start a war, but if someone breaks a deal, he has a right to... be put down, don't you agree?"

The leader of BIGBANG stared at him for a good moment before nodding in agreement, "I do. EXO and BIGBANG have had a long-lasting friendship for the past few decades. If one of my strongest allies took out one of my men because they simply broke the rules of our agreement, then I don't see why we can't look at this from a utilitarian standpoint."

"Exactly," the younger male smiled. "I'm not the kind of person to kill someone and not let the other clan know my reason why. That is the equivalent of being a coward and running away."

"You're absolutely right," G-Dragon leaned his cheek against his knuckles, his elbow on the armrest of the chair. "and you did me a favor anyway. Seungri was posing a problem for even my clan. He's trying to seize my imports for a while. This doesn't change the terms of our alliance, so there won't be a war. In fact, I won't risk a war knowing EXO is just as powerful as BIGBANG, though you are much more ruthless than I am."

"I'm glad to know this doesn't change anything between us," Suho brought his glass to his lips. "And now," he said after taking a sip of his drink. "about the information regarding Cho Haneul. You said you may know who is after her?"

"I do," the blue-haired male sat up slowly, not breaking his gaze.

Sehun listened to them with intent, his hands fisting inside the pockets of his black slacks. Now was the moment of truth. He would learn who killed the girl's grandmother and who is after her as well. With this, he will put a swift end to this person and their clan.

"It is Oh Wonbin of the FT syndicate," G-Dragon answered. "I do not know as to why he is after this innocent woman, but I was told by one of my men that her bloodline is very important. Wonbin must know why. There have been talks among the other syndicates about how he feels threatened--that this could spell the end for FT."

"But she is just an innocent girl," Sehun hadn't realized he spoke up until the two of them turned to face him. He quickly shut his mouth, but G-Dragon addressed him, standing from the chair.

"Again, I do not know the full details but ever since that old woman's murder, everyone has been speaking of Jonghoon going to Icheon on some business," he continued. "I imagine Wonbin sent his second-in-command there to kill the girl but instead, her grandmother took the bullet for her. He ran away when he realized he had failed. However, I don't think this will be the last time. They'll most definitely try to find her, and if they decide to keep her alive a little longer, it's probably to make her into a sex slave before taking they go through with killing her. It wouldn't be the first time the FT syndicate dabbled in sex trafficking and rape."

"I won't let that happen!" the raven-haired male said quickly, his tone firm and his expression holding hints of anger. "I'm going to keep an eye on her. If anyone tries to harm her, I'll kill them with my own bare hands..." He had never gone back on his promises, and he was certainly not going back on this one. No one was going to lay a finger on Haneul's head. If they did, Sehun wouldn't show them any mercy. Though he didn't have the best morals, hurting an innocent woman didn't sit right with him, and this girl didn't need to be dragged into the underworld any further.

#exo mafia au #mafia au #sehunxoc #sehunsmut #sehun x oc #exo sehun #oh sehun #sehun #eventual romance #eventual happy ending #eventual fluff #eventual smut #romance #fluff smut #fluff #hurt #comfort

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junker-town · 6 years

Text

Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta will do whatever it takes to win

He’s a billionaire casino magnate who doesn’t fear failure, and the Rockets might be his best bet yet.

The DirecTV signal on Tilman Fertitta’s Gulfstream G550 jet keeps cutting in and out, testing his patience.

It’s a Sunday afternoon in September and the new owner of the Houston Rockets is cussing at a shaky satellite signal that’s preventing him from watching the late slate of NFL games, just like countless other normal American sports fans are doing at this very moment. It’s just this TV happens to be on a jet, 30,000 feet in the air, en route from Lubbock, Texas, to Los Angeles.

Like this, time spent with Fertitta is a series of painfully normal moments set in totally alien circumstances: He’s a normal guy who likes to meet up with a friend after work for a drink, but that friend is a Wall Street CEO in a SoHo penthouse, and the topic of helicopter-friendly weather comes up. When he asks about the game day tailgating around Nissan Stadium in Nashville, it’s not because he’s interested in a road trip, but because he’s wanted to find a way to buy the Tennessee Titans for a few years now. And you know, if not them, maybe the New Orleans Saints.

Fertitta started as a restaurant man from the coastal town of Galveston, Texas, and now sits atop a hospitality conglomerate, Landry’s Inc., which comprises casinos, retail shopping, luxury hotels, and hundreds of restaurants. At 60 years old, he is the sole owner of everything in his empire. He has no partners and no investors. Forbes estimates his net worth at $4.5 billion dollars, and recently dubbed him the “world’s richest restaurateur.”

And right now, Tilman Fertitta also owns the sport of basketball in his home city. He purchased the Houston Rockets for a record $2.2 billion in 2017 — the latest addition to an empire Fertitta has built over the last four decades.

No one with his own reality show (let alone one called Billion Dollar Buyer) could be considered low-profile, but there’s uncertainty among fans of the Rockets and the league as to what kind of owner Fertitta will be. His passion for sole ownership of his businesses is a direct contrast to the ownership groups that typically buys pro sports teams now. Fertitta’s authority and wealth are akin to a Steve Ballmer or Mark Cuban, but he is determined to stand apart from those two both in personality and practice.

“I’m a Wildcatter. Wildcatters are fearless. You’ll go drill and get a dry hole and you move on to the next one. You keep drilling holes until you run out of money or get rich.”

He bought high because Houston is one of the best teams in the NBA, loaded with elite talent in James Harden, Chris Paul, and the newly acquired Carmelo Anthony. The Rockets are not a teardown project or a brand in need of renovating; Fertitta has a proven winner, but it’s one without a world championship since 1995, and one that lives in the brutal Western Conference.

Fertitta is flying to Los Angeles to spend a few days with his family for his daughter’s 21st birthday. Fertitta’s other G5 is still over an hour behind us — yeah, the other G5 — with his family in tow from Houston.

He’d been in Lubbock the day prior to catch his beloved University of Houston football team playing Texas Tech. Houston lost a shootout, 63-49, and his first words of small talk before takeoff are: “No defense yesterday.”

He looks out the window as the plane crosses over into California, pondering a question about his real motive for spending billions of his hard-earned dollars on a basketball team. Pure fandom? A family legacy for his children? Portfolio diversification?

“It’s just paper in the bank. You’ve already lived well, so what do you have? If I sold everything tomorrow and I’m flying around on a plane or whatever, so what? You don’t have your fiefdom. You’re bored. I fear boredom, 100 percent.”

He can come off as light-hearted or even sarcastic on the subject of spending his money, but he is not someone who easily parts with it. Tilman Fertitta is a dealmaker. He is ruthless. And whenever he is pressed to define that role or explain why he’s so successful in it, he always brings the conversation back home.

“Look, we are Texans,” he says. “We are Wildcatters.”

Wildcatter was the nickname given to Texas oil speculators in the 1800s who would risk bankruptcy by quickly moving their drill operations between cheap parcels of land, looking for oil in places where none was thought to exist.

“I’m a Wildcatter,” he continues. “Wildcatters are fearless. You’ll go drill and get a dry hole and you move on to the next one. You keep drilling holes until you run out of money or get rich.

“The people who have come here decided to take on that mentality, in Texas and in Houston. We’re Texans. We will do whatever it takes to succeed.”

Fertitta further illustrates this mentality by telling a story: “When a casino outside of Houston became available and I heard the [Federal Trade Commission] wasn’t going to let [another company] buy it, I picked up the phone and called the CEO and said, ‘I’ll come meet with you right now and I’ll put up 50 million dollars hard money right now. And regardless if it works or not, that’s your $50 million.’”

A normal person cannot accurately contextualize that statement. They will never understand the actual magnitude of possessing $50 million, let alone betting on their own ability to accomplish anything bigger with it.

Because of this, and because Fertitta delivers this anecdote so shamelessly and matter-of-fact, he’s got to be full of shit.

Except he’s not. That story is how the Casonio Resort and Hotel in Lake Charles, Louisiana, just over the Texas border, became his fifth Golden Nugget Casino.

And no, that’s not usually how buying a casino works.

In September, the Washington Post ran an article speculating the Rockets might be entering budget mode because of their offseason moves this summer, trading Ryan Anderson and De’Anthony Melton to the Phoenix Suns for Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss, as well as letting Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute walk in free agency. When asked about it, the DirecTV remote earns a reprieve from Fertitta’s frustration. He puts his phone down on the table in front of him.

“Why would anyone think that?” he asks. “Why?”

This notion of “budget mode” offends Fertitta as a restaurateur, as a hotelier, as the guy who started by waiting tables and working the kitchen in a Galveston seafood joint his family owned, and the guy who welcomes guests in the glossy Landry’s magazine on the hotel desk to enjoy an unforgettable weekend at his casinos and resorts and all the many, many things he owns that are designed to take people’s money for a weekend or a night.

“I would have a problem asking people to watch a purposefully bad team. In a city like Houston, that’s as competitive as it is for the entertainment dollar, you would be shocked at how your fans can leave you so quick. Then you have to spend years trying to get them back.”

Throughout his rise in the hospitality industry, Fertitta became known for taking small or underperforming businesses, overhauling supply chains and managers, and raking through details to create profitability. An oft-told story about Fertitta is, early in his career, he would show up at one of his restaurants on a busy night, tip over trash cans behind the building and have employees search for silverware accidentally thrown away, then leave them a heavy tip after they cleaned up.

However, none of this applies to the state of the Houston Rockets, a 65-win franchise that finished a game short of the NBA Finals thanks to stable leadership from a bevy of marketable, marquee names and respected managers.

Fertitta likes Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, the numbers-friendly executive who is so beloved in the basketball analytics community he’s been nicknamed “Dork Elvis.” Fertitta likes CEO Tad Brown. He likes Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni. Rather, one of his first moves as owner was to develop a relationship with the superstars he inherited, namely Paul and Harden.

“[Fertitta] has incredible relationships with investors since he has continuously made them a lot of money,” says Rich Handler, chairman of the board and CEO of Jefferies Group, where he is the longest-tenured CEO on Wall Street. He’s also Fertitta’s neighbor in New York. “He takes great pride in that. When you like your investors, your financier, your key operating people, and the businesses you are acquiring … that can be a lot of fun.”

But he hired none of these people. And despite a payroll in the luxury tax he’s publicly defended as a means to a championship end, he hasn’t dumped out the garbage on Morey or Brown or anyone else. He’s not worried about silverware right now.

“What happens if Steph Curry pulls his hamstring instead of Chris Paul? We’d beat Cleveland, just like we beat the shit out of them in the regular season, twice.”

On his plane this particular Sunday in September, the Rockets’ biggest headline of the Fertitta era is the signing of Carmelo Anthony to a one-year, $2.4 million deal.

“I promise, Melo is truly excited about playing for Houston this year, and me and James and Chris and the rest of the organization are excited about him being here. I think Carmelo is going to have a great year,” he says.

Yeah, maybe. But grabbing Anthony on a flyer doesn’t exactly define an NBA legacy, or even start one. While Morey is the architect and Brown the forward-facing executive, Fertitta is still largely unknown as a basketball man.

And in an offseason in which the Los Angeles Lakers signed LeBron James and the juggernaut Golden State Warriors got deeper, adding all-star DeMarcus Cousins to an already loaded roster, there is the sense that the Rockets have to do something.

What’s more, Fertitta has yet to make a move that would make them his Rockets.

“Like what?” he asks.

Like if Kevin Durant elects to leave Golden State next year, maybe that?

“Ah. Like Jimmy Butler,” he says.

This is days before it breaks publicly that Timberwolves star Butler wants out of Minnesota.

“You’ve got to remember something: I came in and I didn’t have anything broken,” Fertitta says. “That’s part of the reason I didn’t have to go in there with a knife and start cutting. All of the personnel decisions I’ve supported.”

The Fertitta methodology is the same across his portfolio: Pitch people the highest quality experiences possible for the price point he’s asking. If he sells someone fried shrimp platters and beer for $30 at his strip-mall chain Claim Jumper, it’s the same game as $1,000 luxury suites at his Post Oak Hotel (where Jay-Z and Beyonce recently stayed, he notes) — it’s satisfaction for the dollar spent. Earn repeat customers.

And he can’t risk the Rockets becoming Joe’s Crab Shack.

“I used to own that. And a year ago I walked into the Joe’s in Lubbock. It was a total piece of shit. That was the only restaurant concept I’ve sold in my career [in 2006], and I bought it back last year for 25 percent of what I sold it for. I saw how they totally fucked it up.”

So is there any scenario in which, one day, the Houston Rockets would tank for a first overall pick at the expense of the consumer paying to watch 50 or 60 losses?

“James’ and Chris’ contracts are up in four years, Clint [Capela]’s is in five years. So in five or six years we’ll have a bunch of cap space to see what we want to do again. I look that far. I just feel like we don’t have to tank. Houston is a positive enough place that people want to play.”

But Joe’s Crab Shack is not the NBA, because no one at Joe’s Crab Shack can tear a $50 million ACL pouring a guest a Mango Coronita Rita.

“Sometimes the stars align against you and you’re just forced to rebuild to some degree. What happened to the Lakers? Remember, everyone is one knee or Achilles away from being not so good. That’s everyone. What happens if Steph Curry pulls his hamstring instead of Chris Paul? We’d beat Cleveland, just like we beat the shit out of them in the regular season, twice. That’s nothing against LeBron, either. LeBron James was amazing, but he did it alone.

“I watched Jim Crane disassemble the Houston Astros for four years. Taking all of these prospects and draft picks, and I just couldn’t believe what he did. He didn’t have a face of the team. I just don’t know if I would’ve made that decision. I don’t know if I could. It took a lot of balls to do that, and I congratulate him for what he accomplished. But to field a team that loses 110 games a year for three years even if I knew I was going to win a World Series. I just don’t know that I could put a product out like that.”

Fertitta offers use of the plane’s WiFi, which reminds him he needs to get back in touch with Chris Paul about “a business question” Paul had for Fertitta. The two were seen behind home plate together at Astros games following Fertitta’s purchase. Harden has visited his brand new Post Oak luxury hotel. He wants players to openly engage him with questions, ask advice.

“I think you try to be supportive. You try to be there if they need you, be visible. But you don’t try to hang out with them. It’s a business.

“Your superstars have a seat at the table here. We’re not going to trade for someone or get rid of someone without getting their opinions. James and Chris … it’s their team. They have to be on board if we do something. You can’t take the mentality of, ‘This is my team, they work for me.’ That’s not what we’re dealing with anymore.”

Across Landry’s, the Rockets, and his various holdings, Fertitta has roughly 60,000 employees. He knows how to manage people. Yet none of his senior VPs or legal counsel or any other lieutenant in his empire makes nearly as much money as Paul or Harden.

“You really can’t win a championship without at least two superstars. You’re kind of out of it. These players have realized that it helps their brand to win, so they don’t mind sharing the spotlight.”

That’s why his most important construction project of late is building the Rockets into a destination for free agents. Fertitta wants to be a truly good owner. Not a cool owner (“I don’t care about that”) or a famous owner (“I’m already on TV”) — a good owner.

It’s early yet, but he says he’s pretty sure one thing and one thing alone defines a good owner in the league: creating a place where superstars want to come play. And this might be where Fertitta’s hospitality experience makes him especially powerful as an NBA owner. Across his casinos, luxury hotels, and many restaurants, he has built a fortune in creating places where people want to come play.

The afternoon slate of NFL games is lacking and Fertitta starts absentmindedly flipping channels. He also considers a series of rapid-fire questions about the state of the NBA and how his Rockets fit into it.

How do you beat the Golden State Warriors?

“You hit threes and hope that Chris Paul doesn’t pull his hamstring.”

How do you beat LeBron James’ Lakers?

“Let’s be honest, at 33 years old last year, LeBron was better than everyone else. He single-handedly took a team to the championship round.

“I think LA is going to be better than some people think. I think they already had a decent team. They took Golden State to two overtimes in the regular season and lost both games. I think the Lakers will be much better.”

Does that worry you?

“Well, do we catch Golden State or do we catch the Lakers? I’d rather not catch the Lakers in the second round and then Golden State.”

That could be tough.

“You know what? We’re really good. We improved ourselves.”

Is the NBA more than a two-superstar team league? Is it three? Is it four?

“The Warriors? The thing with [DeMarcus] Cousins is a one-year shot. They happened to time it just right.”

It is the luxury tax, a topic he’s devoured in the past year, subject matter fit for a businessman. Both on and off the record, Fertitta emphasizes how he has no interest in meddling in decisions on the court.

“I have very smart people that do that for me,” he says repeatedly.

Yet in the idiosyncrasies of the luxury tax, he has found his wheelhouse in the world of basketball. There’s numbers to be played with, a game inside of it. And of course it’s his money, so he’s paying attention. And for Fertitta, this part, the money part? The business part? That’s the fun part for him.

The repeater tax, though, is probably where the idea that the Rockets are going into a “budget mode” originates: Houston’s $143 million payroll this season will cost them in the range of $25 million in luxury tax. In the repeater, that range would be in the 80 millions.

“You have the luxury tax and the repeater tax. Do you understand what the luxury tax can do to you if you’re in it three years in a row? It has another multiplier of three and a half. For every million dollars you’re over, it costs you nine in tax. It’s unbelievable. It’s the difference of making money and losing $60 million a year, just like that,” he snaps his fingers.

It’s also one of the reasons, at least in mid-September, that the idea of Houston native Jimmy Butler playing for his home town seems next to impossible. If the Rockets managed to put together a likely package of players and picks that Minnesota would bite on, Butler could still leave after next season if he doesn’t get a max deal. How could Houston manage that?

“It’s not impossible. Nothing’s impossible.”

Later on, when the plane lands at LAX, he wants to sit on the G5 until his family arrives on the other one. Sheepishly, one of the pilots informs Fertitta that they — LAX, or the terminal, or whomever — really needs the space to land other planes.

Fertitta looks out the window. The tarmac for private flights is slammed. He’s never seen it like this. Eventually he figures out the Primetime Emmys are the following night, which explains the congestion.

“So we have to deplane?” he asks.

Getty Images

If one dwells too much on the idea of time in the presence of Fertitta, and what it means for a billionaire who claims to be dedicated to so many details of so many businesses, it’s overwhelming. The sheer amount of things he owns and controls and must make decisions on is hard to process. Somewhere in the secret codex of extreme wealth there must be a passage that revises the concept of time.

The wealthy are not late because they own the decisions. They own your time.

“I don’t get involved in the minutiae minutiae, but I know I’m the owner and there’s only one owner. Not three. One. Nothing happens without me. I don’t have to go show up at a meeting. The buck stops with me.”

A billionaire is never late.

It’s the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, 2016, and Tilman Fertitta is late. This particular week he’s driving a brand new, white 2017 Bentley Bentayga that, at this moment, he’s pushing through Houston traffic at an alarming speed.

He’s on his way to speak to the University of Houston football team, which is one of the hottest teams in college football, coming off a 13-1 season and a Peach Bowl win over Florida State. Fertitta is the chair of the college’s board of regents — its biggest proponent and booster. Fertitta loves basketball and the Rockets, but football? Well, that’s another thing entirely.

Houston football is peaking in 2016, and not just because it beat Florida State. Twenty years after the school had been unceremoniously excluded from the newly formed Big 12 — “complete bullshit,” Fertitta says of the 1996 decision — news breaks the powerful conference is considering expanding by two teams. There’s no guarantee, and many in the industry and media feel this is a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from a sexual assault scandal at Baylor, but it’s as good a shot as U of H will ever have to return to the top of college football in Texas.

He maneuvers the Bentley down Interstate 610, changing lanes on the verge of recklessness. The MSRP of the car being jolted through Houston traffic ($245,000), combined with the swerving is enough to make one feel ill.

“Oklahoma. What’s that going to be like on Saturday?” Fertitta asks. “I bet [Bob] Stoops is telling them right now, ‘You screw around with these guys and they’ll take you.’”

He’ll drive this particular Bentley up to a particular mileage point where it can still be sold at his dealership as new, then swap it out. Maybe the dealer will mention it as Tilman-certified, which seems appealing to someone in the market for a quarter-million-dollar SUV.

He’s assembling his speech through conversation, testing out lines while merging across multiple lanes with ease.

“I’m going to mention the planes. I wouldn’t normally do that in a speech, but the players will probably think that’s cool.”

Fertitta parks at the front of the athletics building and enters the team auditorium through the back. Houston head coach Tom Herman — then, like his program, one of the hottest names in college football — is rattling through various announcements. The room is restless.

Fertitta stands to the side. Most of the players in the room ignore his presence. They show no visible recognition of the de facto U of H team owner, dressed in a black T-shirt and sports coat. Herman starts the introduction reading from a notecard.

“We got a special guest, you may or may not have heard this name. He’s reaching legendary status … before the age of 40, he was the second-youngest man to be inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame, behind only Michael Dell of Dell Computers. He rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell when he took Landry’s private, hosted two presidents, and won two championship rings when he was a partner with the Houston Rockets.”

“I decided I wanted to get from point A to B, and I was going to take whatever it took to get there. I didn’t rob any grocery stores or anything, but I did whatever it took.”

Fertitta has been a part of the Rockets ownership before. In the nineties, he owned fewer than three percent of the organization, which allowed him to earn two rings with the Hakeem Olajuwon-led teams and, as he tells it, gave him and his wife Paige something fun to do on date nights. (Fertitta is one of the few people alive who could write off a six-figure initial investment in a sports franchise as a way to give him and his wife something to do on date night.)

“His company now? Guys, $3.5 billion with a ‘B’ in revenue. Sixty thousand employees. So he’s the boss of a lot of fucking people, OK? Forbes magazine’s 235th richest person, he’s the largest single shareholder of a company in America, has his own reality show, brought together Presidents Bush and Clinton as friends, very active politically, and probably the biggest thing on his plate right now is the promotion of this great university, and giving back to this great university.”

Forbes now puts his wealth at $4.5 billion, and he’s moved up to No. 153 on its list. And speaking of planes, Fertitta once lent one of his to Bush and Clinton in 2004 during an aid effort following a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

“Tilman Fertitta!”

Fertitta walks to the center of the room to polite applause. There’s a bit of a pregnant pause as he gathers his thoughts.

“My favorite thing, right, is just being a Cougar, because when I go anywhere people are talking about the Cougars. And I’m everywhere, flying all over the country. I’ve got two of those G5s, you know,” Fertitta says.

“FUCK YEAH,” a voice in the crowd booms. It’s Herman.

The players laugh, some applaud. Fertitta tells them how lucky they are — lucky to have this coaching staff, lucky to have chosen the University of Houston, lucky to have a chance to use their talent.

Herman wants Fertitta there to give some context to how a former U of H student who dropped out of the Conrad Hilton School of Hospitality to hustle everything from arcade machines to real estate became a billionaire. To tell his players how they could maybe be a billionaire or a NFL player or whatever, so long as they worked their asses off. Just be sure to work your ass off — that’s what Herman wants hit home.

“My first business venture was about capturing your opportunity,” Fertitta says. “I had a cousin that was in the women’s ready-to-wear business. He had a company that sold women’s clothes, called Center Stage. And I used to go to the market events in Dallas with him all the time and watch all the buyers looking at all the samples. And at the end of the show I’d watch all the samples being thrown away, or given away. Most all of the samples were sizes 7-9.

“I thought, Well, I’ll buy all those. I’ll gather up all those samples and I’ll go back to Houston and I’ll open up a store and I’ll sell all these samples. So my first business was a women’s clothing store called The Sample Factory.”

Fertitta floated from big idea to big idea around Houston and the state, building up debt in the 1980s and fighting off bankruptcy. Then his family’s business of hospitality that began with seafood restaurants and nightclubs in Galveston and Kimah, Texas, took hold. Fertitta bought, overhauled, and branded restaurant chains enough times to build the start of his fiefdom.

“Why did y’all beat Florida State last year?” Fertitta asks the players. “Because you took advantage of a situation.

“And you’ll always have down times. You know what people tend do in business when things are down? Same thing people in football do. They throw in the towel too early. You’d be surprised how much you can take and how much you push back in hard times.

“You have no idea how tough it’s been at times in my career. I have 22 chains. Five hundred restaurants. And the five Golden Nugget casinos. I own all five casinos by myself. I don’t have a partner.”

The players start to clap, some yell.

“You know why? Because that’s what I wanted to do. I truly decided, and this is the God’s honest truth, I decided I wanted to get from point A to B, and I was going to take whatever it took to get there. I didn’t rob any grocery stores or anything, but I did whatever it took.”

Fertitta has become a celebrity in the business world because he offers a nation of armchair kingpins a fantasy rarer than any measure of wealth: authority. That, and the reinforcement that bullishness is the key that will open any lock.

“The most anyone’s ever been chairman of the board of regents of the University of Houston is six years, because that’s all the bylaws allowed. You know what we did at the last board meeting?” Fertitta asks the crowd.

“CHANGED THE FUCKING BYLAWS,” Herman screams from the back.

Fertitta starts laughing.

“I’m chairman again. Because everyone wants the best leader, they want someone who can make something happen.

“You have coaches who would do anything for you. You have me, you have a president, you have a university that would do anything they can to help you be successful. We like being on the national scale. We like being talked about.

“You have to make it happen. You. Saturday after that big play, after that 50-yard run when everyone else is tired, you make it happen. YOU make the play.”

He pauses.

“And come November, y’all watch my show Billion Dollar Buyer on CNBC.”

The players stand and applaud.

Two days after his speech to the Cougars football team, Fertitta is sitting at a high-top table in the dead-center of a grimy college bar, which is stuffed with undergrads and 20-something professionals standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Houston had just upset Oklahoma 33-23, and highlights are playing on the televisions positioned around the bar. Fertitta is joined by various friends from the Houston business world, a few members of his legal team, and Scott Kelly, the famous astronaut. They’re all drinking out of plastic cups, watching highlights of the game on the bar TVs.

A sweaty kid in a U of H dri-fit polo pushes his way past the table, double-takes, and freezes.

“Holy shit, bro,” the kid says.

He looks like he’s about to vomit.

“Holy, you’re ��” he points at Fertitta.

“Oh. Shit. Man, I know you, too!” he points at Kelly, who smiles politely.

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The kid gathers himself. He’s a U of H undergrad and a Houston native. That he instantly recognized Fertitta would imply he comes from middle- or upper-class background, or some kind of Houston society. Or he just watches a lot of CNBC.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry sir,” he wipes his hand on his jeans and shakes Fertitta’s hand. “This is like, this table is Houston royalty. Thank you, man. Sir. Thank you.”

He is still shaking Fertitta’s hand.

“Shots. We’re doing shots!” the kid screams. “Please let me buy this table some fucking shots.”

Fertitta pats the kid on the back and leans in to say something. The assumption in that moment is Fertitta is sending him on his way with a polite comment, something Fertitta does regularly and with aplomb.

Three nights prior, in a different Houston bar, a man talked to Fertitta for 15 minutes. From Fertitta’s body language and tone it seemed clear the man was an old friend or some kind of casual acquaintance. An hour later, Fertitta reveals that the man was a total stranger trying to get Fertitta, a billionaire, to invest in a 24-hour gym franchise.

His wealth is impressive, sure, but Fertitta’s ability to greet, engage, and dispose of (with consummate politeness!) all the many, many people who want to pitch him some amazing investment idea in a bar is awe-inspiring.

Ten minutes later the kid is back with a tray of unidentifiable red liquid. He puts a shot in front of a guy who sells private planes, a shot in front of the astronaut, and then Fertitta.

“COUGS, Y’ALL!” he says.

“How could you not want Houston after this?” Fertitta yells over the crowd.

The Big 12, it turns out, does not want Houston after that. They don’t want anyone. On Oct. 17, 2016, the conference announces that it will stand pat at 10 teams.

Fertitta gets word while he’s in New York City for business. After processing the news, he embraces an argument that’s hounded U of H throughout the audition process — that a big reason the Big 12 didn’t consider them was the fear that, with their ascendant program and their recruiting location in the heart of Houston, they could grow to overshadow a majority of the other teams in the conference.

“So you’re not going to let us in because you’re scared?” Fertitta asks. He’s sitting in the multimillion dollar apartment he owns in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, and he’s fuming. “Because you’re scared of our quality and the tradition of athletes here in a big city, where they can come and be exposed to this culture? That’s a good enough reason to keep us out — you’re scared of us?”

When it’s suggested that Houston’s push is rooted in a sense of entitlement, to return the program to its former place among the state’s biggest schools, Fertitta gets angry. He lowers his voice.

“OK, I don’t believe in the word entitlement. I hate the word entitlement. I don’t like entitlement. I don’t use the word. We don’t have entitlement. That’s as if we didn’t have the coaches, the facilities, the tradition, the athletics, and the academics. I do not believe in entitlement.”

Even if your critics are saying … He cuts off the question.

“I don’t give a shit what they’re saying. I don’t want in out of entitlement. We’re not entitled to anything. You might want to write that, but I’m totally against that. There is no entitlement. We’ll get in on our merits, and don’t not let us in because of those merits, because we might recruit well. I want to do the right thing for these people, from administrators to student athletes, and the right thing is to get them to the Big 12.”

Fertitta has also learned, through back channels, that several of the key players in the decision hadn’t even seen the proposal he had put together on the inclusion of the University of Houston in the conference. Fertitta and U of H made a pitch to a three-person committee of conference employees — not the presidents of the Big 12 schools, including those at Texas and Texas Tech, who had publicly voiced their support for Houston’s expansion hopes.

“This was not the way American business works. At all. This was some kind of … club deal. We’re gonna decide if we’ll let you in or not,” he starts laughing.

“You could have the greatest credentials in the world, like Bill Gates trying to get into Augusta. Nothing to do about it.” He waves his hand and smiles.

Is it time to go look for a new club?

“Maybe.”

If Fertitta’s focus as owner of the Rockets will be defined by his desire to create the best option available for the best superstars in the sport, it comes from having learned the hard way.

Fertitta eventually acquiesces to the pilot and gets off the jet, thus freeing up valuable space for the other very rich people to park their planes.

He sits on a leather couch in the open air Atlantic Aviation terminal and starts the complicated task of coordinating rounds of ground transportation to a hotel in Beverly Hills for his family. A breeze pushes through.

Fertitta has rarely had a partner in business. If he has, he’s bought them out quickly. He says it’s not out of some hatred of having partners, though.

“I haven’t needed one. If I need one, I’ll get one. But I don’t need one. If you don’t need a partner, don’t get one.

“I’m in a stage of my life where someone’s always going to have more money, someone’s always going to have a bigger plane, a bigger boat, a bigger dick, whatever. Why I would want that aggravation? If I’d had a partner I couldn’t have done this deal [to buy the Rockets]. And I was right, because I watched all these other billionaires scrambling. They couldn’t pull it off.”

“I love the Rockets. I love the NBA. But the NFL is the NFL.”

Like with that casino, Fertitta had put up his own money, guaranteed, to buy the franchise.

But since purchasing the Rockets, Fertitta often reminds media that no American pro sports franchise has been sold for less than what it was purchased for. He’s quick to talk about the legacy the team provides to pass on to his children, but there’s a limit to how much he wants you to consider passion — or fandom — as a factor for his purchase.

“I took a billion seven in equity out of one company and put it in another. Basically it was an astute financial move. I diversified my holdings. I own a team that basically has no debt, because you can’t put any on them.”

Pro sports are a good investment if you’ve got the money to spend.

“It’s diversification of assets. I’m stronger today because I own a basketball team. It would be like you owning only one stock.”

Fertitta says this matter of factly, as if someone who only owns one stock can comprehend the immensity of spending multiple billions of dollars on a basketball team. But then he walks it back. Yes, the Rockets diversified his assets, but that’s still not why he bought the team.

“I didn’t do this for [diversification]. But after the fact it was still a very good financial decision. It’s got so much emotion, but you gotta understand, it was just natural for me. A lot of people buy a team and no one’s ever heard of [the buyer] before. Everybody already knew me. It wasn’t a big deal. I did it only because I wanted to own the Houston Rockets.”

It might seem natural that this is an endpoint for Fertitta. The man who couldn’t find a fair deal to bring the University of Houston to the Big 12 went and found a fair deal in the National Basketball Association. Now a team that he used to own a fraction of, he owns outright. Now he can bring titles back to Houston.

But this is a Wildcatter we’re talking about, and there’s always more room to dig.

Which is why he won’t rule out the NFL, even if he did just spend two billion dollars on an NBA franchise.

“There’s all sorts of things you can do. I’m a financial engineer. Every year that goes by it gets easier for me. If a team like the Saints or Titans came up, I would try to do something.

“I love the Rockets. I love the NBA. But the NFL is the NFL.”

As of press time, Jimmy Butler remains a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves, with Miami as his likeliest destination if a trade occurs.

Multiple reports have the Rockets eliminated from contention, despite offering a package rumored to be as big as Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, and several draft picks. The reasoning for Houston being ruled out isn’t because of the deal, but because, reportedly, Minnesota doesn’t want the Rockets to become the kind of juggernaut the Western Conference already has in Golden State.

“We already are at [that level],” Feritta says in a phone call. “We’re an improved team over last year based on who we’ve acquired this offseason. And last year, obviously, we’re a game away from the Finals.

“We would love to see Jimmy come home to Houston. It’s not a financial decision, it’s an assets decision on our part. We’ve got a great basketball team. We think we’re as good as anybody in the league. We’re not going to give up unreasonable assets, to break up this team, to get Jimmy Butler. But we would love to have him.”

A week later, after the Rockets’ media day at Fertitta’s Post Oak hotel, he won’t back down on the idea that the Rockets could possibly land Butler.

“You can be the headline if you want to be the headline,” he says. “But the deal has to make sense.”

He is eager to make a deal, especially because he has yet to prove the decades of acumen he’s built can translate to this new business, his most high profile yet.

For now, he waits. And when it’s time, when he thinks he can strike it big, he will be ready to drill.

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