The Dysfunctional Valentine Read online

  The Dysfunctional Valentine

  Hadena James

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.

  Copyright © Hadena James 2013

  All Rights Reserved

  The Dysfunctional Valentine

  Hadena James

  Copyright 2013 by Hadena James

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For everyone that wanted a sequel to The Life & Dysfunction of Nadine Daniels’. Big thanks to Jason for letting me ignore him while I worked away on this; and my mother without whom I would never write a book.

  Also by Hadena James

  Dreams & Reality Novels

  Tortured Dreams

  Elysium Dreams

  Mercurial Dreams

  Explosive Dreams

  Cannibal Dreams

  Butchered Dreams

  Summoned Dreams

  Battered Dreams

  The Brenna Strachan Series

  Dark Cotillion

  Dark Illumination

  Dark Resurrections

  Dark Legacies

  The Dysfunctional Chronicles

  The Dysfunctional Affair

  The Dysfunctional Valentine

  The Dysfunctional Honeymoon

  The Dysfunctional Proposal

  The Dysfunctional Holiday

  Short Story Collection

  Tales to Read Before the End of the World

  Prologue

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  About The Author

  Prologue

  Bachelor and bachelorette parties are intended to give the groom or bride one last “good time” before they get hitched. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a “good time” without something going terribly wrong. I was hoping I would have a terrible time and everything would be fine. However, with my arranged marriage just a week away, maybe a little bad luck would be a good thing. Maybe I would get another stay of execution. I doubted it, my mother and Zeke’s mother, Telisa LaRouche, were both at my house.

  Of course, this was technically the third such event. All the presents from the earlier bachelorette parties had been returned because I hadn’t a clue what else to do with them.

  First, the wedding had been scheduled for May, but Zeke’s appendix had ruptured the day before the wedding. So it had been moved to October.

  That hadn’t worked out either. They had been putting an edition on the church and the crane operator had dropped a 10-ton piece of stone through the ceiling. We had considered moving it, but my mother was insistent we get married in my grandfather’s church. She paid the expenses and the wedding had been rescheduled for February.

  That worked out well. Zeke and I still took our “honeymoon,” so I got a trip to Hawaii after the second failed attempt. After the first failed attempt, I had replaced Zeke with Alex and the two of us girls had goofed around in England for two weeks. During the second one, they had added onto the house (as promised).

  I still didn’t have any grass outside, but that was ok. It would grow back in the spring. Until then, Zeke had hired someone to keep the floors mopped and vacuumed when it rained. Six Great Danes could track in a lot of mud.

  That being said, this time the wedding was being taken far more seriously. I was pretty sure that even if my appendix ruptured, my mother would be wheeling me down the aisle and I’d be suffering the first few days of the honeymoon. They were a determined bunch.

  Saturday

  The bar had been turned into a “Den of Sin” for the night, or at least that was what the banner on the outside of it proclaimed in bright red letters. At each end of the banner was a mostly naked man.

  There was a line outside, all female. They were talking loudly, but stopped when we pulled up. The doorman, who looked like he would rather have his arm amputated, talked to Alex for a second and then lifted the rope. We were ushered inside and shown to our waiting tables.

  They were at the very front, nearest the stage. Alex put me in the very middle with my mother on one-side and my mother-in-law-to-be on the other. Then she handed me a stack of one-dollar bills. In theory, I understood what they were for, in reality, the chances of me using them were slim to none.

  On the plus side, I wasn’t enjoying myself, so my life probably wouldn’t interfere.

  After we were seated and served drinks, they let in the rest of the women. Some grumbled as they walked by us. Others gave me a thumb's up and said “congrats.” I was guessing the tiara said something stupid like “Bride” on it. Like it wasn’t bad enough that they had forced me into a bright fuchsia prom dress from the 1980’s or that I was wearing a garter belt and white stockings with patented Mary Jane shoes and Mardi Gras beads, the tiara seemed to be their way of adding insult to injury.

  It seemed like an eternity before the lights dimmed. Pulsing music began to blare over the speakers, deafening me. My mother began bopping her head to the techno beat. I stared at her in disbelief for a few seconds. She smiled and pointed at the stage.

  The stage was filling up with fog. Lights danced over the fake smoke and threw strange shadows around. Forms began to appear in the mist. I looked down the table, my Aunt Olga had her head down and her eyes closed. I was willing to bet she was asleep. It was at least an hour past her bedtime.

  The fog machines turned off and the smoke began to waft away. Behind it were very muscular men. They reminded me of my employees. Most of my security agents were built like that.

  To my horror, as the men began to gyrate and grind in time to the music, Telisa let out a whoop of excitement. My mother, encouraged by this behavior, broke out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the stage directly in front of me. This brought over one of the male dancers. He performed some complicated moves that made me blush even harder, then yanked off his shirt and threw it to me. It landed, like a dead snake, on the table. A few more complicated gestures later and he picked up the twenty with his buttocks.

  The ladies went nuts. Money instantly began appearing everywhere. I held onto my stack of ones, thinking I could invest them. I wasn’t sure how much a moving truck cost, but I was willing to bet the ones would help.

  My own group got rowdier. They were slinging cash onto the stage and getting bang for their buck. I slunk into my seat, hoping that if I closed my eyes it would all go away.

  Gunfire erupted over the techno music. Screaming women somehow managed to drown it out. My mother grabbed me and tucked me under a table.

  Gunfire I could deal with a lot better than gyrating men. I gave her a look, searching for my purse. It had been there a second ago.

  The music died. The screaming died. Everyone seemed to be cowering on the floor. Everyone except Aunt Olga. She opened he
r eyes and looked around.

  “Where are the naked men?” She asked.

  “Shut up old lady,” one of the gunmen said to her. I quietly continued to search for my purse.

  “You shut up; I was enjoying the naked men. Who are you and what do you want?” She asked him, narrowing her eyes at him.

  “This is a robbery, so sit down and shut up,” he responded.

  Aunt Olga swore at him in Russian, calling him an asshole with a tiny penis. She lowered her head back onto her chest. In the quiet bar, we could all hear her start to snore.

  “Stop dicking around with that old woman and get on with it,” the other man said.

  “She fell asleep,” the first one answered.

  “Did you tell her we wanted her money and jewelry?”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “She’s ninety years old, what do you expect?” My mother, inspired by a moment of bravery, got up from where she was huddled on the floor.

  “Get down,” the man pointed the gun at her.

  My mother rolled her eyes at him. I found my purse and pushed the panic button inside. My security agency now knew that I was in trouble and they should phone the police. Carefully, I tucked it behind me.

  “Don’t order me around young man; does your mother know what you’re doing? Ruining my daughter’s bachelorette party. She’s getting married next week. Frightening all these nice ladies. Waving guns around like madmen. The youth of today…” My mother finished with an exasperated sigh.

  “Shut up lady and get on the floor,” the gunman kept his gun trained at my mother.

  “I was born in the Soviet Union; you think that tiny pistol frightens me?” She put her hands on her hips.

  Now I understood where I got my stubborn determination from. My mother stood defiantly in front of the idiot with a gun. He didn’t seem to know what to do.

  “We want your money, jewelry, cell phones, all of it. Put it in a pile in front of you and put your heads down,” the other man took over.

  “You wish,” my mother sat down in a chair. Alex gave me a look. I shrugged in response.

  Telisa took Melina’s lead. She got up off the floor and sat down in a chair, her purse firmly clutched within her hands.

  “Shoot one of them, that will make them cooperate,” the second gunman said.

  “Unlikely,” I retorted louder than I had intended.

  “You must be the daughter,” the first one said, grabbing hold of my hair. He dragged me out from under the table. The stupid tiara tangled in my hair, making it hurt more than it would have if it had just been his hand.

  For a moment, I felt sorry for the guy. This was not going to go his way. I had four items in my purse; the panic alarm, a Glock, a dagger and a can of mace. The purse came with me as he pulled.

  Aunt Olga stopped snoring. Melina and Telisa could have killed a jaguar with the looks that came over their faces. The men were too stupid or too oblivious to understand the primeval instincts they had just unleashed.

  My great aunt, moving with the slowness of her age, pulled out her own gun. It was like nothing I had ever seen, meaning it was a Russian import. She pointed it at the second gunman.

  “I’ve got your granddaughter, put that away,” he told her.

  “She’s not my granddaughter, she’s my great niece,” Aunt Olga corrected him. “I survived Stalin, the KGB and the Russian Mob, you do not scare me. You are just a stupid thug with a gun and you aren’t going to do anything.”

  She pulled the trigger. There was a deafening blast. The second man fell onto the floor, screaming. Blood poured from his jeans. Aunt Olga had hit him in the crotch. I shook my head.

  There was a strange noise. The click of a trigger being pulled, but nothing happened. I reached into my purse, grabbed the dagger and shoved it into the leg of the idiot that had hold of my hair. He dropped his gun, but the tiara and my hair snagged on his rings. He yanked at his hand, screaming in pain.

  The third hold up man had been quiet throughout the ordeal. He grabbed Alex’s purse and ran out the door.

  “Wuss,” Melina said to him. She got up, walked over to us, jerked his finger, removing the ring. My hair was free. He clutched at the knife with both hands, unsure whether to pull it out or not.

  Telisa solved the dilemma for him. She came over in two swift movements and grabbed hold of the knife. With another deft move, she jerked it out. He screamed louder.

  Sirens were finally within hearing distance. Everyone but me seemed surprised by their arrival. I stood against a table, watching my mother and Telisa lecture the bleeding men. My Aunt Olga walked over to me, sat down in a chair and fell back asleep.

  “Hey,” Alex yelled at the guy who snatched her purse, far too late for him to hear her.

  “Let him have the money,” I told her.

  “It isn’t just about the money. My gun was in there. So were all my IDs and the new security codes for your building including the parking garage.”

  “I can change the codes,” I reassured her.

  “And the gun and ID?” She put her hands on her hips.

  “We’ll report the gun stolen along with your ID. The police are on their way,” I looked over at my mother.

  As I watched my great aunt snore, the realization of what the noise I heard was hit me. I began to hyperventilate. I put my head between my knees to stop the ultra-fast breathing and chase away the feeling of lightheadedness. He had tried to shoot me in the head. A million questions suddenly came to mind, but I was still struggling not to pass out and crash face first into the floor. Someone put their hand on my shoulder, I rose up, smacking Alex with the stupid tiara and putting marks on her chin.

  Hitting Alex with the tiara seemed to snap me out of it. The questions were still there, but my mind was still a little unfocused.

  “Are you alright?” Alex asked, rubbing her chin.

  “Does that hurt?” I answered her with a question.

  “Yes, actually it does.”

  “Good, payback for making me wear the stupid thing.”

  “Since you are being snide, I take it you can stand on your own,” Alex backed away from me and leaned against a table.

  “Does she have narcolepsy?” I asked, pointing at my sleeping aunt. It wasn’t the question I had expected to pop out. I was expecting “why did she shoot the other guy when one had a gun to my head?”

  “She’s ninety, Nadine, and she was a spy, she gets bored and falls asleep,” my mother scolded me like it was a silly question. It probably was. The spy bit I hadn’t known about. However, why that explained her falling asleep like a fainting goat was beyond me.

  “She shot someone while someone else held a gun to my head!” I exclaimed.

  “He had his safety on,” Aunt Olga said with a yawn. “They both did.” She said something in Russian that roughly meant “freaking morons.”

  “Pay more attention, Nadine,” my mother scolded me again.

  “Sorry, I hadn’t noticed they still had the safety engaged,” I took a deep breath.

  Lucy was carefully securing all the weapons she could find, including the gun my aunt had used. The police stormed into the room, guns drawn, shouting. My brother Ivan was among them.

  I audibly groaned and tossed my purse down onto the table. It hit with such force that it made everyone near us jump. There was a loud popping noise and my shoulder exploded with pain.

  I had just been shot for throwing down my own purse. Alex grabbed a jacket from one of our party and pressed it to the wound. My brother began shouting at someone. I was never carrying a purse again.

  “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be out partying with my fiancé,” I said to Ivan as he walked over.

  “Everyone is outside. Zeke got the call first, then the police. We met up with them outside. I decided to join because I figured the situation was secure.”

  “Aunt Olga did that,” I gestured with my head.

  “Good shot,” he frowned. “Do you want t
o file charges?”

  “For what?” I blinked at him.

  “For the officer discharging his firearm inappropriately.”

  “Nope, I shouldn’t have tossed my purse down. I forgot about the gun in it.”

  “You took a gun to your bachelorette party?”

  “Mom was with me,” I gave him a meaningful look.

  “Go to the hospital.”

  “It went clean through,” Alex chimed in, sounding cheerful. I looked over at her. She was grinning from ear to ear.

  “I hate you,” I muttered at her.

  “Nah, it’s just the pain talking,” she giggled back at me.

  “If I go to the hospital, does that mean the party is over?” I asked.

  “Yes, we will reschedule,” MacKenzie Reynolds walked in. “Sorry I was late. Looks like I missed all the fun.”

  MacKenzie is a private detective. She is also a cousin on my father’s side. She has pretty green eyes and messy red hair. She never wears make-up, she doesn’t need to. She is beautiful without it.

  Alex let go of the jacket and hugged Kenzie. Kenzie hugged her back. I struggled to hold the jacket on my bleeding shoulder.

  “Um, sorry, can someone help me?” I asked, feeling the blood run down my back.

  “Oh sorry, forgot,” Alex smiled at me again.

  “You smile a lot since you started fucking Sebastian,” I frowned at her.

  “Satisfaction. If you’d let Zeke…”

  “Shut it,” I stopped her in mid-sentence.

  “Nadine Daniels, did you just use the ‘f-word’?” My mother shouted.

  “Yeah, sorry mom.”

  “So you’ve been shot. A couple of days, we’ll say Tuesday, and we’ll go ahead with a Girls’ Night,” Kenzie looked at the wound under the jacket.

  “I’m not going.”

  “Yes you are,” Telisa informed me. “Just because this one didn’t go as planned, doesn’t mean we are giving up on the Bachelorette Party. I intend to see Zeke and his bride married right this time. Last time he ran off with the tart and eloped, then he divorced her for you.”