Alex in Wonderland (Twisted Fairytales #1) Read online

  Alex in Wonderland

  A Twisted Fairytales Novel

  Published by Max Monroe LLC © 2017, Max Monroe

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Formatting by Champagne Formats

  Cover Design by Perfect Pear Creative

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  To fictional murder:

  You’ve been a real outlet for rage in this one. Though, Monroe does have to remind Max now that it’s not normal to have every character they ever write “taken care of” if they step out of line.

  To Google:

  Thanks for ignoring our many questionable searches in the name of research. You should know by now that whether we come to you looking for information on mini pigs or money laundering, you should just look the other way.

  And to Thatch:

  If you’re reading this, get over yourself. We know someone who can “take care of you.”

  Thirty-four years ago…

  “YOUR MOM WAS THE BEST woman I’ve ever known, Matty,” John Hadder told me as he squeezed my suit-jacket-covered shoulder. His grip was just short of painful. “If I’d known about you sooner, I would have been around.”

  I nodded at the casket without turning away, the blood red of the roses on top the same color as the puddle I’d found my mother in just four days ago.

  I hadn’t understood how she’d gotten that way or what was happening to her, but I couldn’t wake her up. She just wouldn’t…wake up.

  I’d remembered what she’d taught me about emergencies and what to do if someone needed help, and I’d called 9-1-1.

  I’d ridden inside a big ambulance, and the sirens were so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands. When we got to the hospital, a really nice lady in a white coat took me inside a room with toys and books and told me something that made me cry.

  My mama was gone. I hoped she was with the angels. Way, way up in the sky inside heaven. I hoped she could still see me too.

  And then, after that, everything changed.

  People I didn’t know told me what and what not to do, and everybody seemed to whisper a lot. My mama didn’t have any family, none that cared enough to come around even for holidays or special times, so I didn’t know where I was going to end up.

  I didn’t know much at six years old, but I’d heard plenty of people whispering about how she probably couldn’t face all the bad things she’d done in her life anymore.

  They called her all sorts of names I didn’t understand, but none of them sounded like they meant them in a good way, and I couldn’t imagine living with people like them would be fun.

  But that’s all it’d been. Bad. Ugly. Dirty words my mama said I shouldn’t say.

  Until John Hadder walked up to me today and pulled me close to him. I didn’t really know him either, and his face had a scariness I’d never seen before, even when in smile, but at least he didn’t say mean things.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” he went on. “You’re going to be with me now, and I’ll teach you all the things these high and mighty people are too stupid to teach themselves.”

  Three hours later, and John Hadder was the only thing I knew now. We’d driven just forty-five minutes, to the real nice part of town, where Mama always said the stars lived. I didn’t get what she meant—stars were something for the sky—but as the bright, shiny, clean buildings glinted in the sunlight, I knew this was the part of the city where good things happened. They had to.

  The car pulled to a stop in front of a tall building, taller than I’d ever seen before, and the driver came around and opened the door for me.

  John nodded at me to scoot out and followed, putting a hand to my shoulder again and guiding me inside the building, through a set of thick gold and glass doors too heavy for me to hold open.

  I tried my best, hoping John wouldn’t be too mad when I couldn’t do it, but he just smiled and took the weight himself.

  “I’ve got it, Matty. Go on inside.”

  I scuttled forward, moving my legs fast to get out of John’s way, and he stepped in right behind me.

  When I looked up, I stopped short. The letters were gold and glittery behind the huge desk. I’d never seen a sign so fancy.

  Sounding out the lengthy word as best I could, I felt my unused voice crack in the middle.

  “Won-derland, Inc.,” I said.

  John smiled and squeezed my shoulder just like he had at the funeral. I looked up into his eyes. They glowed like warm honey. “That’s right, son. This place and me, we’ll take care of you. And as you get older, I’ll teach you how to take care of it.”

  My eyes widened, so I turned back to the sign to hide some of my excitement.

  “Welcome to Wonderland,” I said to myself, so quiet it was barely a breath.

  Two months ago…

  I’m Matt Hadder.

  I’ve been called ruthless, savage—even brutal—by the men and women employed by my company, Wonderland, Inc., and it’s all true.

  I’ve fought. I’ve killed. I’ve connived. I’ve hidden things for people behind a veil of money and extravagance, and I’ll keep doing it until the day I die.

  Because good and bad are merely words, often misassigned to people and places based on nothing more than an illusion.

  Wonderland, a “party planning” organization for every major player in the world, is Oz, and I’m the Wizard.

  Some might say my organization is similar to the mafia. Personally, I’m not thrilled with the comparison.


  Aside from our sometimes-methods of swift justice and unmerciful punishment, my organization is wholly different.

  Our goals, our clients, our secrecy.

  So, yes, some might say we’re like the mafia, but I say we’re good venture capitalists.

  We’ve adapted to the times, pushing the age-old breadwinner of money laundering to new depths in order to compete in an increasingly globalized economy. As difficult as it is to track the routes of drugs, it is even harder to follow a well-hidden money trail in this era of online banking and cyberfinance.

  Wonderland doesn’t practice flamboyant tactics. We don’t court the media, and we otherwise stay out of the fucking spotlight. But we do keep the media and law enforcement in our back pocket, and we use them when necessary. Some might call our methods of achieving this extortion, but I see it as keeping my organization’s best and most profitable interests as top priority.

  I don’t enforce anything on the helpless, but I do use the money-hungrys’ greed to my advantage.

  While crime organizations like the mafia fall victim to law enforcement wire taps, surveillance, and FBI busts, Wonderland, Inc. keeps itself in the shadows and adapts to the ever-growing economy. It also helps that we have people like police chiefs, politicians, IRS auditors, and judges on our payroll and an extensive network of well-liked business owners as members of our community who are willing to help us help them.

  Sure, we delve into drugs and prostitution, but it’s definitely not our main source of income. It provides a means to end, merely there to entertain the wealthy.

  Most of our money is made through interest earned in our offshore bank accounts, utilized mainly during our infamous and extravagant Wonderland Parties. Oftentimes, the cash is written off in the name of charity, and in others, we settle debts and grievances through a series of line items with nearly every vendor in the city.

  On any given night of a Wonderland party, as much as one hundred million dollars can pass through our offshore bank accounts in the name of our clients’ financial priorities.

  The government can only tax you on money that’s on US soil, and in most cases, if that money passes through a different country, even for a minuscule amount of time, it becomes an exception to the tax rule. The taxable rate drops from thirty-three percent to nearly two and a half percent. Once you’ve factored in Wonderland’s three percent cut, it still leaves the wealthy with one hell of a tax break.

  Ironically, Wonderland, Inc. isn’t the only one using these tax loopholes. There are at least ten large American corporations that I can think of off the top of my head that have been exploiting them for years. I guess one could say our utilization methods might be slightly shadier than most, but it’s all relative when you start seeing how much those large corporations are profiting by not paying the full thirty-three percent on their billion-dollar profits.

  When it comes down to it, I can make things—drugs, prostitutes, deals, money—appear for a night and disappear as if they never existed, and I do it better than anyone else.

  That’s why I have thousands of members, people willing to follow my lead and support me from the bottom by following orders passed down the hierarchy of our organization with precision.

  But Cal Monarch, my security advisor, is the only one I trust with the whole truth, and there’s a reason for that.

  There’s turmoil under me. I can feel it in the foundation of every meeting, every glance, and every private word spoken. But I have eyes and ears everywhere, and I’ve fixed too many other people’s problems to be in the dark on how to fix my own.

  Harrison March and Damien Dormuss are my closest lieutenants. They’re in charge of managing Eric Queen, Jay Pidge, Mickey Moosa, and everyone underneath them, and I’m in charge of everything else. Who we deal with. What we do. How we do it.

  We’re in the middle of a carefully calculated plan with Charles King, a candidate for the presidential nomination, and I’ll be damned if everything I’ve worked toward ends here.

  One loose brick won’t make the pyramid my father built crumble—I’ll make sure of that.

  Even if I have to hold the whole fucking thing up myself.

  FRESH OUT OF THE SHOWER and clad in only my bra and panties, I stared down at the note covering the oversized brown package I’d left on my bed.

  Wear Me and Smile :)

  A heavy exhale escaped my lungs. With sagging shoulders, I rolled my head back and redirected my gaze toward the ceiling.

  Can I really go through with this?

  I already knew what was inside of the box, and it was a certainty there would be zero smiling over the next five hours.

  As I reached out and ripped off the first piece of tape from the package, I offered up a silent prayer, Please let me get through this day…

  That prayer turned into a silent, repeating mantra as I opened the package with the same delicacy I might a bomb and dumped out the contents. All puffy white fur and pink accents, the ridiculous costume taunted me from its haphazard position on my bed.

  Christ almighty, this feels like a low point.

  It took another five minutes of personal pep-talking, but I ultimately did the only thing I could do and put the stupid thing on over my bra and panties.

  You see that girl standing in front of the floor-length mirror?

  Look a little closer…

  Take in every inch of the white fur covering her entire body.

  Let your eyes peruse the pink ears standing straight up from her head.

  Note the giant, over-the-top grin with whiskers sticking out from her rose-colored cheeks. Even peer behind her and check out the fluffy white tail sewn to her butt.

  What appears to be a giant rabbit is actually me, Alex Little, inside of a horrid costume.

  I’m that girl, desperately pimping myself out as a rabbit called Sprinkles.

  No, not that kind of pimping.

  The nonsexual, “I swear I’m not a hooker” kind where I parade around in a costume for a kid’s birthday party.

  Don’t worry, I’m wondering the exact same thing as you right now.

  How in the hell did I get here?

  I sighed for what had to be the one-hundredth time. I look like an idiot.

  Turning to the side, I wiggled my ass a little and watched the cotton tail move back and forth with my hips. Yep. Definitely ridiculous.

  There was no way anyone could wear this look on a regular basis and come out ahead in life.

  But there was only one reason a twenty-five-year-old woman would willingly pimp herself out as a rabbit for a rich kid’s birthday party—pretty much the reason anyone did anything: Money.

  Times were tough. I’d recently gotten fired from my job as a bartender—apparently, I have no patience for drunk people—and I was exactly two months behind on rent for my humble abode, aka a shitty studio apartment in LA that was the size of a shoebox. And believe me, it wasn’t the big box for fall boots kind of accommodations. This was flip-flops-sized-shoebox living.

  I grabbed my phone off the bed and double-checked the email I’d received from my new employer—Princess Party Productions—for the home address at which I’d be humiliating myself. I couldn’t deny, when I’d answered their ad in the paper, I honestly thought I’d get to be an actual princess like Cinderella or Snow White. I had no clue there’d be a fucking rabbit costume included in the job requirements.

  To: Alex Little

  From: Princess Party Productions, LA

  Subject: Alex’s Magical Princess Schedule!

  Hi, Alex!

  We are all one big, happy fairy-tale family here at Princess Party Productions, and we are so excited that you are now a part of our team!

  Here’s Saturday’s details: You’ll be Sprinkles the Rabbit for a pretty little girl’s 7th birthday party! Yay! I bet you’re so excited!

  Time: 12:00pm to 4:00pm

  Clients’ names: Mr. and Mrs. Franklin and Kitty Devlin.

  Child’s name: Lemon Devlin.
r />   Address: 1865 Folly Lane in Laurel Canyon

  Contact Number: 555-123-8777

  Please pick up your magical costume from our office Friday afternoon.

  Have a lovely, magical day!

  Princess Mindy <3

  Princess Mindy. That’s what my new boss called herself. Obviously, the company name made more sense after I’d figured that out. I wouldn’t get to be a princess; I’d just get bossed around by one.

  When Tina from HR had interviewed me for the job last week, she hadn’t mentioned Princess Party Productions was run by a woman in her forties who called herself Princess Mindy and appeared to think everything was magical and signed all of her emails with a little heart. I would have remembered that.

  I had a feeling Prozac was at play here. No one in their right mind could pull off that insane level of cheery without medication.

  Fucking Sprinkles the Rabbit. He was the next big thing in kids’ television shows. That big-ass rabbit had gained a crazy amount of popularity over the past year, and kids ate up his dance moves like crack. The only difference between Sprinkles and Barney was that Sprinkles couldn’t talk or sing. He just danced around ineptly and made a game out of getting himself into trouble. I didn’t understand the fascination, but then again, I’d never understood that purple dinosaur either.

  The instant I’d read Princess Mindy’s email, I’d almost backed out of the deal, but the whole needing-to-eat thing urged me to get a few more details about the job before throwing in the towel.

  The rest of the email exchange between Princess Prozac and me had only proved that I’d officially fallen down the rabbit hole straight into fairy-tale job hell.

  To: Princess Party Productions, LA

  From: Alex Little

  Subject: Re: Alex’s Magical Princess Schedule!

  How much will I get paid for Saturday?

  -Alex

  Obviously, I’d taken Mindy’s tendency to embellish as optional during my side of the email exchanges.