Purgatory

by Hayley Smyth

  I didn’t hesitate. Petey didn’t have a fucking clue what had happened until his lungs were screaming for oxygen. My hand pinned him to the wall by his throat, I watched, grinning when his eyes grew to the size of basketballs. He reminded me of a cartoon character, and I clicked my tongue, not loosening my grip on his windpipe.

  “Mind,” I yelled towards the door, “Mindy, it’s Jax. Is this pig fucker bothering you?” There was a scurry of noises from behind the door, a click of the lock, and then my Mindy appeared, anger enhancing her beauty.

  She stood beside me and rested a hand on my shoulder as we both turned our attention back to the man before us. “He accused me of stealing his fucking money.”

  She moved her body closer to him, and the dickface clawed at my hands. “Is that so?” I asked him, loosening my hand just enough for him to cough and splutter, his nose flared with each painful gasp, and then I gripped again. “Well, my friend, you’ve chosen the wrong lady to intimidate. Call this me, making your privileges null and void, cunt.” I reared my head back before throwing it forward, connecting just on the right spot. His nose exploded, and he slumped to the floor just as the security team came rushing to our side.

  I rubbed my forehead and eyed the men Luca had hired, “Took your fucking time, didn’t you? Good thing I was here, huh?” They had the sense to look sheepish, shuffling from foot to foot.

  Holding Mindy’s arm, I walked her towards the door. I looked down at the crying weakling, I spat, “That’s a lifetime ban from Vixen’s too, in case you’re confused.” As I shut the door behind us, the last thing I heard was his pathetic whimpering as the guys hauled him to his feet.

  Fuck, I’d forgotten how addictive the rush of adrenalin is after putting a man on his ass, seeing his blood. No-one fucked with my Mindy.

  Chapter Three

  Blood covered my shirt, and I stripped from it, watching with a semi-hard dick as Mindy banged on the bathroom door.

  She rolled her eyes and pointed at it, “My kid's in there. Being a little BITCH.”

  “Fuck you too, mama,” replied a voice from behind the door.

  I watched on with great interest; I'd seen Mindy's kid daughter here a few times before. It seemed she was at that age where her mother was always worried about teen pregnancy, her answer to this was to bring her to the club, have her sit in the offices while Mindy worked, Much to Angel's dismay, of course.

  I wondered why Angel didn't behave like the typical teenager and ignore her mother completely, and the more I saw them together, the more obvious the answer became. They were all each other had. Angel's father was god knows who, Mindy hadn't always worked for a legit company like Luca's, her past a dark story, and I'd only heard snippets. We'd spent the best part of ten years together, and I still had no fucking clue where she came from, my fucking Mindy and her dysfunctional family.

  “Baby, mama has to work so please,” she said, sugar-sweet, “get the fuck out of the bathroom!” she said, not so sugar sweet.

  Taking a seat in the massive chair by he bed, I stripped from my shirt and poured myself a drink from the bottle of scotch sat next to the bedside table, just as the bathroom door swung open.

  Angel glared at her mother, “I swear to God, this is the last time I'm coming here with you. I don't understand why you still bring me anyways; I'm nearly sixteen!” Angel was whirlwind through the room, snatching up her belongings, her bleached blonde hair, identical to Mindy's, whipped around her face as she crouched down then got back up again.

  She shot me a scathing glare too, and I smiled, “Who's pissed on your firework, darling?”

  She groaned, “She has! Fuck, Jax, if anyone can talk some sense into her, it will be you. Do you not think it's a bit weird she still brings me here?”

  I looked towards Mindy, who's eyes dared me to agree with her daughter. I held my hands up and laughed, “Ladies, I am not getting involved.”

  Angel let out a puff of disbelieving air and stormed towards the door, “I'll wait in the offices, mother. Later Jax,” and with Angel gone, I could finally appreciate the woman before me.

  She was fucking beautiful. All legs, hips, ass, and tits. Every inch of her natural, too. She'd changed from her golden bikini and was now sporting just a white scrap of material between her legs, white sky-high heels, and around her neck was a feather boa covering her nipples.

  Removing my shirt, I narrowed my gaze on Mindy, “She's a feisty one, huh?”

  Mindy gave her her killer smiler and moved towards me, hunger flashing through her eyes. “She sure is, baby,”

  I'm not sure if it was the late nights and early mornings, alcohol, or the stress of the last few weeks at work, but I came overtired. Dog tired. My body ached, and the sexual frustration wasn't helping. I closed my eyes and cracked my neck, tossing my shirt to one side. The damn heat was making it hard to breathe.

  “You look stressed, bubba,” Mindy purred, coming to a stop just before me, her pussy inches from my face.

  Her fingers found my hair, and she scraped her nails along my scalp. “Hmmm,” was all I could manage. My hands slid up the backs of her thighs, and I pushed her towards me, my face buried at the apex of her legs. I inhaled, and my semi-hard dick grew bigger.

  “I hear there's an auction coming up soon.” Her fingers continued to massage my head as I placed hard kisses on the bit of fabric keeping me from her sweet place. I groaned at the mention of work, and sunk my teeth into her hip, extracting a gasp from her mouth.

  She fell forwards, allowing me to twist her blonde hair in my fist, holding her in place while my other hand unbuckled my belt. “I'm not here to talk about work, darling,” I growled, her eyes widened as she looked down at my crotch, the apparent bulge she'd screamed over many times before, exciting her.

  Releasing her hair, she didn't need telling what to do next. Her skilled fingers undid the button on my pants, and I raised my hips so she could pull them and my boxers down. The damn feather boa was annoying me, and so I yanked it from around her neck and chucked it to the floor, groaning as her nipples hardened, puckering just for me as the cold, conditioned air hit them.

  Leaning forward, I took a nipple in my mouth, sucked as hard as I damn could, eliciting another hot mewl from her.

  “What do you want, Mind?” I asked, switching my mouth for my fingers, pinching her now reddened bud so that I could look her in her baby blues. She whimpered as my hand found her pussy, cupping it, and using one finger to stroke her through her underwear.

  “I should be asking you that, Mr. Murdoch.”

  I grabbed my now hard dick and stroked it, pumped it for her, “I want those lips wrapped around this.”

  Mindy's tongue licked along her bottom lips, and then her head was in my lap, and her mouth was where I needed it, where I wanted it.

  My head lolled backward, and I let go as her filthy tongue trailed a line along the sensitive underside of my erection.

  Closing my eyes, I savored each torturous lick. No-one sucked dick like Mindy. I don't know what even made her so fucking special, there wasn't a particular trick she had, and her lips weren't those big puffy ones men can only dream of having near them. There was just something about her.

  Some nights I'd visit her, and we'd just sit and talk for fucking hours. Luca introduced her to me all those years prior, and I'd never even so much as glanced at another Vixen girl. Carter and my Pops could never understand why I'd never attempt a relationship, given I wasn't short of female attention. I didn't have an answer for them, t just wasn't something that had ever appealed to me. Guys enjoy their freedom, and I guess I wasn't one chicken shit enough to pretend otherwise. What guy, if he were frank with himself, wouldn't want a different woman each night?

  I was thirty years old and had never felt better.

  Watching my best friends over the years, fall in love, buy a house, and all that shit hadn't made me jealous or crave the life they had. Perhaps I'd just never found the woman I felt something for that resembled love. M
y Pops could beg as much as he liked; I wasn't about to stick a ring on some woman just to please him and give him a daughter in law and grandkid. He'd just have to fucking wait.

  Such thoughts left my alcohol fulled mind as Mindy's mouth took every inch of me into her warm mouth, my throbbing head hit the back of her throat, coating it with precum. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I growled through clenched teeth, my hands pushed her head, urging her to suck harder, taste more of me, my hips thrusting forward, causing her gag reflex to try and expel me. I didn't let it. I held her head still while she caught her breath, and she looked up at me with those perfect blue eyes, hands gently massaging my balls, and I gritted my teeth so fucking hard as I felt the familiar ache; I was more than ready to fill her mouth.

  “Fuck, I missed your filthy mouth, sweetheart.” The sight of her pretty head bobbing up and down in my lap drove me wild. Her bleach blonde hair stuck to her face and spit oozed from the corners of her mouth, soaking me. My dick throbbed, my body warmed, and I was just shifting in my seat to hold her, force her to lap up every drop when the door to our room burst open.

  Mindy and I fell apart; she used the back of her hand to clean the mess from around her mouth. I was about to lose my shit when I saw who was at the door.

  “Luca! What the fuck?” I groaned, tucking myself back in. My tanned friend looked ashen, almost green, and I got to my feet, pulling my suit jacket around my naked torso.

  Luca was breathless, and through heavy breaths, he said, “Jax, it's Carter. Something's happened at home, man. He needs you.”

  I frowned, “Is he not here? He said he'd wait for me.”

  Luca shook his head, “Nah, man. He left about twenty minutes ago. Said he wanted to get home to the woman.”

  I scrambled for my wallet and grabbed several hundred dollar bills as an icy chill took me hostage. I chucked the money on Mindy's bedside table and hurried over to her to kiss her cheek. “Catch ya later, babe,” I said, before making a run for the hallway, Luca by my side. Our feet pounded the carpet; it's plushness muting the urgency in our steps. “What the fuck has happened?”

  Luca paled some more as we reached the elevator, “Carter rang minutes before I found you, he just said he needs you. Jax,” Luca swallowed, the air around us thick with dread, “he didn't sound right, man.”

  My heart fucking pounded against my ribcage, and I felt bile rise to the back of my throat as we traveled back downstairs. What the hell was going on?

  The taxi driver I'd managed to hail was pushing eighty, and the fucker seemed to want nothing more than to keep me from getting to my friend. Carter lived a few blocks away, in a quiet area, on a beautiful road with only four other neighbors. But the taxi driver's incessant need to drive as slow as possible meant that not at one point did the world outside the window began to blur through speed, and I was trying my hardest to keep calm.

  My leg bounced up and down, I had tried to call Carter six times since I'd gotten in the taxi, and each time it went straight to voice mail. That alone was enough to push me closer to the edge; my best friend never let his cell die; neither did he switch it off.

  The driver took a right and hummed along with the radio, oblivious to my bubbling anxiety, and I decided to give my father a call, see if he knew what the hell had happened.

  We were just a block away when he answered, his voice groggy with sleep told me he also had no clue what was wrong.

  “Jax? Everything okay, son?” He asked, stifling a yawn.

  I sighed, “Pops, I'm on my way to Carter's; something bad has happened.”

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “I don't know. Luca found me at the club, said Carter had gone home and rang not long after in a right mess. Other than that, I know as much as you do. I'm just pulling into his road now...”

  My voice trailed off as the driver emerged on to Carter's road.

  Seeing him standing outside his house, his white shirt soaked with blood sent shivers through my spine. Shivers so violent, I could feel each vertebrae shake and rattle. His dirty blond hair was speckled red, and, as the car drew nearer, I saw the terror in his eyes. The grief-stricken horror was as palpable as the New Mexican sun. He was motionless, stiller than the dead of night, I wasted no time in chucking some notes at the bewildered elderly driver and jumping from the car.

  “Jax! Jaxon!”

  Shit, I had forgotten my dad on the phone. I held the device to my ear as I stepped closer to carter, his body trembling, blue eyes focused on the ground before him. Swallowing, I answered, “Pops, send the guys and get here quick. I have to go.”

  “Jax, wait!”

  I hung up, pocketing my phone before taking one last step, bringing me within arms reach of my friend. He looked like shit, leaving me wanting to turn on my heels and pretend that something awful wasn't waiting for me inside his home. The front door was wide open, a soft glow of light cut through the darkness, but I couldn't see a thing. Nothing other than familiar wallpaper.

  The lump in my throat wouldn't budge, restricting the oxygen from filling my lungs, and although there was a breeze, perspiration coated my skin.

  Opening my mouth to speak, I was unable to find the words.

  Carter's eyes snapped up, focusing on everything and nothing as his bottom lip trembled. “She's dead.” His voice was carried away by the slight wind. I could have sworn he said she was dead.

  I stepped closer, placing a hand on the one part of his shirt that wasn't drenched with blood. “Who's dead?” My stupid mouth asked. Something washed over his face, something that yanked him back down to reality. He lowered his head again, his eyes taking in the sight of the blood, and then they widened. The panic, the horror of whatever he'd seen setting him, smacking into him with the force of a bulldozer.

  “Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!” Carter pulled away from me, ripping the shirt from his back before flinging it to the ground. His feet pounded the grass in his yard, leaving imprints of his anger, as he paced back and forth, his desperate cries growing louder and louder.

  Rushing towards him, I threw my arms around his shoulders, pinning his erratic hands to his sides. Whatever was waiting for me inside was bad. Real fucking bad. “Carter, tell me what's happened, bud. I can't help if I don't know.”

  Burying his face into my neck, his tears soaked my skin, and his fingers gripped my back. “Amy...I came home. Oh, shit, Jax. I can't fucking breathe. My baby!” He wailed, and I felt his knees buckle against me, his weight pulling him to the floor. I sunk to the ground with him.

  The bile rose and burned my throat, and I had no choice but to swallow it down, feel its vicious sting and hold it together for Carter. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Never before had I felt my heart and soul splinter. Amy. Just hours ago, she had her arms around my neck, an infectious smile on her face, and a baby alive and growing in her belly. Everything suddenly hurt.

  Who the fuck was responsible? We couldn't even call the police. Working under Vladimir's power meant the emergency services were never a goddamn option.

  As blood left Carter's skin and printed on to mine, I felt my mind power down. Confusion, anger, grief, and a whole heap of emotions I'd never felt before attacking each of my senses. Memories of the years the three of us had spent together came at me: Images of her strutting through the hallways of our school, with all the confidence she could only possess. She joined high school during our sophomore year, and stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the other girls we went to school with, and she was a breath of fresh air in a goddamn world that was, usually, stifling.

  Carter hiccuped, yanking me back down to reality, and I had to wipe away my tears. Time passed, although I'm not sure how much.

  Carter was still sobbing when my father and his SUV pulled up in front of the house, blocking as much of the view as possible, shielding the nightmare from nosy, prying eyes. From the passenger side, Archibald Murdoch stepped out, his dark features reflecting how I felt. Three other familiar faces, their
bodies donning the Murdoch tux, exited the vehicle, and all four men stalked towards us.

  My father whispered into Graham's ear as the others made a beeline for the front door. Crouching down before Carter and me, my dad looked his fifty-three years, the street lights causing the gray of his sideburns to glisten. I could see the weight of the world on his shoulders, the heartache on his face as he regarded the broken man in my arms.

  “Carter? Son? Come on, let's get you in the truck.” Archibald's voice pierced the eerie silence. Carter didn't move.

  I looked down at him, at his face still resting on my bare chest, “Carter? We need to get you up, okay? Come on.” Slowly, with shaking limbs, he let me stand him up, yet his grip on me never softened. My father nodded at me, and I walked over to the car.

  Opening the door, I released Carter and then helped him settle on the back seat. He flopped inside, curled up into a ball, and his eyes could have cut glass as they focused, unmoving, on his home behind me.

  Getting down on my hunches, I took his hands in mine, unsure of what to say, but completely aware I should have said something. “We'll get the fucker who done this, Cart; I promise you that,” was all I could manage through my cracking voice. “Just rest now. Dad and I need to sort this out; you'll be staying with me, and that's not up for debate.”

  I went to stand up when Carter clawed at my hand, clutching it like a scared child. His bottom lip was trembling as he took a big gulp of air. He exhaled, and what he said next shook me to my core. “They took her beautiful face.”

  The world beneath me tumbled away, and I slammed my eyes shut, hoping that would rid the image from my mind. It didn't.

  And just like that, one night, one night that was supposed to be a celebration would forever change the course of so many people's lives.

  I must have spent countless hours at their home, and tonight was the first time I walked through the door feeling anything but the happiness I usually felt. All that struck me as soon as my foot crossed the threshold of the door, the smell of blood and death punched my nostrils and made me heave.