Trevor Reese: His Protective Love

by Mallory Monroe

  “What do you mean then what?” he asked the client. “Then your ass get out of the spotlight for six months. That’s what! No, it has to be at least six months. You want the public to forget, and that takes time. No public appearances at all. Not even little stops at the local deli. That’s right. Then we’ll get some ambitious journalists to start writing puff pieces about you and your charitable work. Maybe get a few to do some good Samaritan shit on you. And you ease back into the spotlight. Right. Right.”

  When Trevor opened his eyes, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Carly had awakened and was in his office. “Yeah, Okay, Bobby. Yeah. We’ll work it out, but let me call you back. Okay.” And Trevor ended the call.

  And he rose to his feet. “How you feeling?” he asked her as he went to her and she began walking toward his desk.

  “I’m better,” Carly said as Trevor pulled her into his arms and gave her a long, warm hug.

  He squeezed his eyes shut as he held her. She had the fright of her life over something that happened to her years ago, and he felt guilty that he never had her in therapy or had her brother Tony, who was a psychologist, talk her through those issues. Now he had to handle them for her the old fashioned way: with brute force.

  But he realized he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. He could have stayed where he was standing and held Carly all night long. But she was the one who pulled back from his embrace. And she looked him squarely in the eyes. “I have to find him, Trevor,” she said. No longer was that fear in her eyes. She had a determined look now.

  Trevor nodded. “I’m already on it, babe,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I went to Ames and got the manager to give me copies of the video. I saw the asshole. He was stalking you, babe.”

  When Carly looked as if her world was going to fall apart again, Trevor immediately regretted being so honest with her. That was their normal way of communicating. But he forgot, just that fast, that it was not a normal night.

  But it was too late to turn back now. Because Carly already heard what he said, and she was frowning. “He was stalking me?” she asked as if she could not have heard that right.

  Trevor nodded. He was all-in now. “That’s what it looked like to me.”

  “But why would you say that?” Carly asked.

  “Let’s sit down,” Trevor said, motioning toward his leather couch.

  But Carly was in the moment and couldn’t get out. “Why would you say that, Trevor?” she asked again.

  “I saw the whole tape of his arrival, and yours. He drove up just after you did, as if he had been following you. Then he went into that store after you went in and searched you out. When he found you, he followed you aisle by aisle.”

  Carly was stunned. “He was following me? I had no idea, Trevor!”

  “I know,” he said, grabbing her hands. “I know, babe. But that’s what he was doing.”

  “But he wasn’t already in the store. He was coming in while I was going out. We bumped into each other.”

  “That’s because he went back outside and waited for you to head out. Then he conveniently headed in, and bumped into you.”

  “On purpose?”

  Trevor nodded. “Definitely on purpose, yes.”

  Carly was astounded. But also very perplexed. She looked at Trevor. “But why would he be stalking me now? After all these years? You think he knows who I am?”

  “That’s the only explanation,” Trevor said. He knew it wasn’t the absolute only explanation. Carly was a gorgeous girl, and many men of all stripes wanted her. Unbeknownst to her, more than once he had to put a few of those men in their place when they tried to get too cozy with her.

  But for an abusive man from her childhood to suddenly want to stalk her as if he just happened to see her one day and fell in love with her, didn’t fly with Trevor. That would be too convenient for him to believe. That guy had to have known it was the girl he used to abuse. He had to have known.

  When Trevor saw the distress still on his wife’s face, he didn’t ask her. He took her by the hand and walked her over to the couch. And they both sat down.

  But Carly leaned up and scooted to the edge of the couch. She was still in disbelief. Then she raked her hair back and looked back at Trevor. “Why would he suddenly want to stalk me?” she asked him.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” Trevor responded. “I got his license plate. I have men searching for him as we speak.”

  “I have to be there after they find him,” Carly said.

  But Trevor was already shaking his head. “No way.”

  But Carly would not back down. “I have to! You don’t understand. I have to make sure he will never cross my path again. I have to, Trevor. I can’t take that again!”

  She was getting hysterical about it, and Trevor felt her anxiousness. “Okay, you’ll be there,” he said to her, reversing himself quickly, before she fell apart, and then he pulled her toward him, and wrapped her into his arms.

  She laid against him, with her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. It was still as if she was living a nightmare.

  They remained that way, in silence, for several hours. Until Carly finally broke the ice.

  “Was Amari here?” she asked. “I woke up a couple times and remembered seeing him sitting in a chair in our room. He smiled at me, and that put me back at ease, and then I think I went back to sleep. Was I dreaming?”

  Trevor shook his head. “No dream. He was here. He stayed with you while I took a trip to the grocery store. He left after I returned. He had to get back to his women.”

  Carly smiled. “That sounds just like him,” she said.

  And silence returned.

  Until Trevor’s cell phone rang. And he was told they had their guy.

  Carly was staring at him when he ended the call. “What?” she asked him anxiously.

  Trevor let out a hard exhale. “Let’s go get the bastard,” he said.

  He didn’t have to tell her twice.

  Carly was up on her feet before he was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  They had their man holed up in a small cabin in the woods near Spencer, a small town about an hour’s drive from Boston and north of the Turnpike. Trevor found himself nervous as hell when he drove up, and turned off the engine.

  He turned to Carly. She was more than ready, and was about to get out. But he touched her shoulder and stopped her. She looked at him and saw the worry in his big, violet-blue eyes. She exhaled. “Trevor, I’m fine.”

  “Are you certain you wanna witness this?”

  She nodded. “I’m certain.”

  “It won’t be pretty, Carly. I’m not going to be kind to him after what he did to you.”

  “Of course not!”

  “But I don’t want you trading in one nightmare for another one.”

  “Trevor, I can handle it, okay? Why are you tripping? You know I can handle it.”

  He did know it yesterday. Carly was a tough kid who could handle a lot. But he wasn’t so sure today after he witnessed what just seeing that man again did to her. She was shattered by that sighting. He couldn’t allow that to happen to her again.

  “It won’t be pretty,” he said again.

  “Good,” Carly said. And she added, a little impatiently: “Now let’s go.”

  Trevor actually smiled. “You’re handling me now?” he asked.

  His smile so disarmed Carly that she found herself releasing some of that anxiousness and smiling too. “You got a problem with that?” she asked him playfully.

  “You sound like Sal Gabrini,” Trevor said, Carly laughed, and they got out, held each other’s hand, and entered the house.

  But all smiles were gone when Trevor’s guys escorted them down the hall and unlocked one of the bedrooms.

  When the door was opened and Trevor and Carly saw the man standing there, still looking smug and arrogant, he expected Carly to remove her hand from his and get out of there. But she didn�
�t even flinch. She just stared at her abuser.

  It was the man, whom Trevor’s guys identified as Peter King, who was the animated one. He hurried toward them.

  “I demand answers!” he insisted as he hurried. “And I demand answers now!”

  Before Carly could react at all, Trevor released her hand, grabbed King by his Hawaiian shirt collar, and ran with him to the bed in the room. He slammed him down on top of that bed, placed his knee on that bed, and began punching King so violently that King began bleeding from every orifice in his face. Trevor wore a polo shirt, and it seemed to Carly that the veins in his massive biceps seemed to pop with every lick he laid on that man. He punched and he punched.

  Carly could never condone or cheer on such animalistic behavior in any normal sense, but she was cheering on Trevor that night. She would have tried to beat King’s ass herself, if given the chance. But no worries, she thought. Trevor was handling him just fine!

  Trevor knew he needed answers, but he couldn’t stop himself. He kept thinking about his innocent wife, caught in the clutches of grown-ass dusty old men, and he kept punching and punching.

  But King was going to lose consciousness, or worse, if Trevor didn’t let up. So he did. But not before punching King several more times, but all in the same spot this time to make sure he felt the sting of those punches. And then he forced himself to stop the onslaught. “How’s that for answers, motherfucker?!” Trevor said angrily to King as he released King’s collar and removed his own knee from the bed.

  Carly would have thought Trevor’s hand was in major pain from all of those punches, but he didn’t even rub it. He, instead, got on with it. Carly walked up to the bed, too, and stood beside Trevor.

  King looked like a pathetic little fraud against Trevor’s mighty frame and she wondered why she would have been so afraid of him. He was a punk, and she saw it in that instant. Trevor being beside her, she knew, had a lot to do with her courage. But fear was gone. Her eyes were wide open now.

  “Why were you stalking my wife?” Trevor asked him.

  Just as King, in tremendous pain, was shaking his head and about to issue a denial, Trevor angrily grabbed him by his collar again. “Lie to me, asshole, and I’ll kill you!”

  Then he released King’s collar. “Why were you stalking my wife?” he asked him again.

  But King still wouldn’t respond.

  Trevor reached behind his back, pulled out his loaded gun, and grabbed King by his thick hair. He jerked his head back and placed the barrel of the gun against the bottom side of his chin. “Why were you stalking my wife?” he asked him for the third time.

  Carly hoped he would just admit it and stop prolonging it, especially since Trevor meant business. And King’s eyes did change. They were now wide with fear. He couldn’t see the gun, but he felt it. “I saw her on TV,” he suddenly said. “She was at a press conference with one of her clients. And I remembered her. So I started following her. But I wasn’t gonna hurt her. I just followed her.”

  Carly found his explanation so creepy she felt her skin crawl.

  But Trevor had a different reaction. He stared at Peter King. Trevor knew stagecraft. He had to manage clients trying to rehabilitate their images all the time, and scripting them was always a part of that. Because it looked to him as if King had just recited from a script. As if he was in a hostage video, and they told him exactly what to say.

  Trevor wasn’t buying what he was saying.

  “Who told you to say that?” he asked King.

  Carly looked at Trevor. What was he talking about? Then she looked at Peter King too.

  King started shaking his head. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Nobody told me anything. I don’t know what you mean.”

  He sounded defeated to Carly. But he sounded rehearsed to Trevor. And the only way to tame a rehearsed man, Trevor knew, was to blow his mind.

  Trevor aimed his gun and shot King’s balls off.

  King screamed, and Carly backed up, shocked shitless too! But Trevor was a trained marksman. He shot King with a glancing blow. He was going to be in pain, and would have no further use of his equipment down there, but it wasn’t a death blow. Trevor knew what he was doing.

  But to King, he was a dying man. He held onto his crotch as his bleeding balls caused blood to appear on the outside of his pants, and he hollered like a woman. He couldn’t stop hollering as the pain completely overtook him. He flapped his arms and hollered and hollered.

  Although Carly was as horrified as she was pleased by the turn of events, Trevor was focused on King and King alone. He watched the man writhed in pain, and ball up like a fetus as if he had returned to his mother’s wound. But no mama was on this scene. He was not going to be comforted. Which was Trevor’s point. He wanted this asshole to suffer and suffer hard. And then, after the pain subsided, although it was never going away, Trevor expected answers.

  Carly was watching him too. She moved up closer. She was no longer afraid of Peter King. But when she moved up, Trevor did too, and placed his hand around her waist. Trevor wasn’t afraid of Peter King, but wounded animals were still very dangerous.

  But what happened next, Trevor had not anticipated. Because Carly spoke up for that little girl, all those years ago, who could not speak up for herself.

  “I remember you,” she said to King. “I remember everything about you. How you looked. How you smelled. How your eyes were so soulless. I remember.”

  She continued to stare at him. He was preoccupied with his pain.

  Then she asked him a question Trevor could tell she’d wanted to ask for years. “How much did you pay?” she asked him.

  King looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “What?”

  “How much did you pay my father to fuck me!” Carly said harshly and bluntly. “How much did you pay to destroy me?”

  “I didn’t,” King said, shaking his head. It was almost as if the pain was secondary to him. which shocked Trevor. It was almost as if he didn’t realize who Carly was. As if he didn’t realize what he had done to her!

  Did they have the right man? Was he just a dirty old sonafabitch stalking a beautiful young lady like he claimed?

  But Carly was so certain he was one of the men who abused her. She remembered everything about him. Trevor had to believe his wife.

  But King looked the part of a man wrongfully accused. And he told her so. “It’s not true,” he said to her. “I don’t know your father. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have the wrong man, I tell you. You have the wrong man!”

  His outcry reminded him of the pain again, and he clutched his balls and cried out in agony again. “You have the wrong man!” he kept saying. “You have the wrong man!”

  But Carly kept staring at him. Trevor was staring at her. And she shook her head. “You can say that for the rest of your life,” she said to King, “but you know and I know it’s not the truth. You are that man. You are that man.” Then she screamed: “You are that man!”

  Carly was crying out as tears dropped from her eyes. Trevor tried to pull her into his arms, but she was still yelling at King and jerked away from any restraint. “You lying sonafabitch, you are that man!” she kept crying. “You are that man!”

  Trevor expected her to be emotional, and she was living up to his expectation. But what he didn’t expect was King’s reaction to her emotional outburst. King had to know there was no way out. Trevor’s men were still in that house, and they were out in the woods far away from any civilization. But you would have thought he had an army behind him. Because he didn’t just lay there in pain and took Carly’s rage, he went for Carly.

  He jumped off of that bed and before Carly or Trevor could react, he grabbed Carly by her arms with his bloodied hands and viciously pulled her toward him. He was that dangerous wounded animal now, and as Trevor was grabbing her back, he was pulling her toward his mouth, as if he was Hannibal Lector and was going to eat her alive.

  But Trevor was no Clarise Sta
rlings. With Carly’s help, he pulled her away from King’s grasp and flung her out of harm’s way.

  But King was like a maniac. He wouldn’t quit. He tried to run toward Carly again, as if he was going to get her if it was the last thing he did. He was more than just a wounded animal now. He was a devil-may-care animal now. He had lost all logic and reason.

  But Trevor was in his way. That was why he reached for Trevor’s gun and the two big men fought for possession.

  But just as Trevor realized what King was trying to do, Carly ran out of the room, yelling for Trevor’s men, who remained up front, to come to their aid. And the men ran toward that bedroom.

  But King, with his maniac’s strength, was pointing Trevor’s gun, not toward Trevor as he had expected, but toward himself. King was trying to kill himself. As if Carly’s revelation that he was one of those men hit him like a ton of bricks. As if he wanted to pretend he was stalking a stranger. As if the truth was too much for him to admit. And he couldn’t deal with it.

  But before Trevor could pull that gun away from King’s throat, and just as his men were running into that bedroom, the gun went off.

  Carly stopped in place, and so did the men, as Peter King leaned backwards, and then fell sideways.

  He was dead.

  Carly ran to Trevor, to make sure he was okay. But he was fine. He pulled her into his arms.

  And they stared at her perp’s lifeless, bloodied body.

  It was over.

  That monster was dead.

  Carly felt a sense of horror, but relief even more.

  But Trevor didn’t feel so relieved as he held her, and as they stared at that bastard. He still felt uneasy.

  Chillingly so.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  He slid his penis inside of her and fucked her from behind. It was the morning after, and he woke up horny as hell. Carly welcomed it too, because that hellishness of the night before gave way to a new day. And she was going to enjoy every second of it.