Ash Reckoning

by Samson Weld

  “You may be seated,” Judge Kirkland said after taking her seat.

  Heller sat, never taking his eyes off the woman who held his life in the balance. She looked upset, maybe even angry. Her dark eyes kept darting toward him. A tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  “Judge Mikki looks good this morning,” he whispered to his lawyer.

  David Ewing stiffened, before turning scolding eyes on him. “Behave, Russ. Don’t give her cause…”

  Heller smiled at his best friend since first grade, knowing David always had his back.

  “I’m fine,” Heller said. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”

  Checking out the prosecutor’s table, he spotted them in hushed conversation. None of them looked confident. Heller knew how to read men, being Dallas’ top stockbroker. And women were even easier to read.

  The lone female prosecutor looked the most worried, as she should be. He was rich. Super rich, in fact. He had the finest lawyers money could buy. They’d already thrown a dozen technicalities at the court, and they only needed one to get the case thrown out.

  “I’m going to keep it short and sweet today,” Judge Kirkland said, scanning both tables before her and then the reporters following the trial. “It is obvious to this court that the chain of custody is tainted. I’m appalled by the mistakes made by the police in what should’ve been an open and shut rape case.”

  The crowd gasped and began murmuring, forcing the judge to strike her gavel for order. She gave Heller a withering look while he smiled back.

  “Even though I believe there is a strong case to show that Mr. Heller is guilty of multiple sexual assaults, I have no choice but to declare a mistrial.”

  She thanked the jury members and gave a few parting words for the record, but few people were actually listening. Heller stood up and bowed to the judge, before turning to shake his lawyers’ hands. His lead counsel, David Ewing, quickly ushered him toward the door. Reporters thrust microphones and cameras in his face, shouting questions.

  Their questions were really more accusations and attempts to shame him. How did he feel about being set free after having raped all those poor young women? Well, great! Wonderful! But he couldn’t say that, despite really, really wanting to stick it to them all.

  “Fake news,” Heller responded with arrogance. “This isn’t just a mistrial, but misplaced justice. I’m innocent.”

  He pushed through the jostling reporters, loving the pandemonium. The reporters all looked shocked and frantic. Everyone wanted him to speak to them. He was in absolute control of himself and the situation. Maybe the only one in control. As usual.

  Everyone suddenly fell silent as his way was blocked by a lone blonde woman. Mid-thirties, attractive, wearing a gray sports jacket, below the knee pencil skirt, and nice heels. As nice as the outfit was, it couldn’t hide the bulge from her gun.

  “Hi, Anna. You look ravishing this morning,” Heller said, locking eyes with her.

  “It’s Detective Bellucci to you, Mr. Heller,” she said, blue eyes narrowing. Yet, she didn’t flinch. “It’s a mistrial. Not a verdict of not guilty, so this isn’t over.”

  He liked how he couldn’t intimidate her. And he simultaneously hated it. In his mind, she was stripped, on her knees, and sobbing hysterically as she begged for her life. That happy thought ended when she stepped closer, eye to eye, forcing him to lean back just a bit.

  “I’m going to personally guarantee that you spend the rest of your life in prison,” she said.

  “Police harassment!” David Ewing cried. “Did you hear that? Police harassment.”

  Heller leaned into Bellucci, but she didn’t yield an inch. Whispering in her ear, “I’m going to sue you, Anna. I’m going to make your life a living hell.”

  His lawyer promptly rushed him around the detective, and then out of the courtroom. Reporters followed, swarmed around them, as they made for the elevators.

  “Give us a few minutes to speak,” David Ewing shouted to the press corps. “Then we’ll come out on the front steps to make a statement and take a few questions.”

  The elevator opened and Heller stepped in with just Ewing. His other lawyers stayed behind to deal with the reporters. He slanted an amused look at his lawyer when Ewing pushed the button for the basement garage.

  “We dodged a bullet there, Russ,” David said, breathing was relief he hadn’t wanted to show the reporters. “I need you to lay low. Stay away from women. Don’t do anything to incite the press or the police.”

  Heller just grinned. He felt stoked to the max. Nothing ever stuck to him, mostly thanks to the fact his best friend was one of the best criminal lawyers in the country. Prosecutors trembled in fear when they faced him. David Ewing had never lost a case.

  “Hey, it’s my job to do the crime and yours to ensure I don’t do the time.”

  “Jesus, I’m just a man, Russ. I’m not a damn miracle worker,” he said. “You have to behave yourself. You hear me? Killing that girl brought Homicide in on the case and Bellucci had you dead to rights.”

  He shrugged. “She still screwed up the evidence.”

  “No! She didn’t,” David cried. “Her part of the investigation was flawless. It was detectives investigating the other rape cases who screwed up. Bellucci is out to nail your ass and she’ll succeed if you aren’t very, very careful.”

  “Speaking of nailing…” Heller said, smiling as he stared off into space, licking his lips. “I’m not sure which one needs to be put back in her proper place more, Detective Bellucci or Judge Kirkland.” He gave his lifelong friend a cold look. “I bet that feminist dyke judge is a screamer.”

  The elevator doors opened even as he spoke. Heller laughed at David’s shocked look, and then headed for his car, friend in tow. But halfway to the car, he heard David’s grunt of pain, followed by the sound of his friend falling limply to the ground.

  “Are you all right?” Heller asked, turning to find a stranger.

  A man in a ski mask and dark clothes, swinging his arm… Pain, and then darkness.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Ah, Jesus,” Heller groaned, fighting his way back to consciousness.

  The pain in his head was excruciating, especially his left cheek. Broken? Probably. And then he remembered what had happened. Someone had attacked him. Attacked him!

  Heller lifted his head off the long, dining table. It looked like he was inside the service bay of an old, abandoned gas station. The place was dark, filthy, and stifling hot. The stench of old oil permeated the air. Abrasive rope bound his wrists and ankles to the table’s four legs, and they were too taut. He had no freedom of movement.

  A dark shape appeared in the nearby door. “Good. You’re finally awake. We can get started.”

  Male voice, but he was disguising his voice. Talking like those actors playing Batman. He also wore a black knit ski mask that covered everything but his eyes. Annoying. Did that mean he knew the man? If his captor didn’t want to be recognized, did that mean he intended on releasing him afterwards?

  “Son of bitch, I’m going to mess you up,” Heller growled, throat almost too dry to speak. He coughed and cleared his throat, and the other man lifted up a long knife. A butcher knife. “What the hell?”

  His captor flipped a switch, and lights above Heller came on. Bright lights. The only lights in the bay. There was no good reason such lighting was needed.

  Heller froze. He understood where he was. The seriousness of his predicament sunk in all too well. Only it wasn’t his chick of choice naked and spread-eagle on the rack, and him about to do terrible things to her.

  It was the other way around.

  “Who are you? Why am I naked?” he demanded of the dark, masked man moving up beside him.

  Everything about him was formless black, except his eyes. Brown eyes, with white skin around the eyes.

  “What are you, some kind of deviant perv?”

  “Pot calling the kettle black,” his assailant replied. “But I apprecia
te your attempt to make friends. You, sir, are a charmer which makes my task so much easier.”

  The masked man stood a little above average height and weight, muscular and broad-shouldered. More fit and toned than weightlifter big.

  “Whose father are you?” Heller demanded, suddenly realizing what was happening. “Which one was your daughter? Sophie? Tammy? Who the hell are you? I’ll press charges, put you in prison, and then sue your estate raw! I’ll throw your family out on the street!”

  “I was thinking,” the masked man said, reaching a gloved hand out toward Heller’s groin. “Instead of starting off with slicing tiny pieces off your dick, maybe I’ll start with one of your balls. Thin slices. Ever had prosciutto? The expensive kind? Paper-thin slices. Can you imagine the agony? Can you feel it? It could take hours to carve one of your big-ass nuts up.”

  Heller cursed and bucked, struggling with all his might as he realized this was real. His binding held, starting to rub his wrists and ankles raw.

  “What do you want from me?!” Heller finally gasped out. “I’m rich. I can make you rich. How much do you want?”

  “Good. You understand,” he said. His brown eyes remained grim, fierce. “First, tell me why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you rape them? Why them and not someone else?”

  “Screw you.”

  “If you won’t talk, then I’ll listen to you scream,” he said.

  He grabbed Heller’s scrotum, squeezed until the balls bulged out, skin stretched, and then laid the keen edge of the blade against the skin. A trickle of blood dribbled out. Heller felt the sharp pain of that blade cutting his skin.

  “Aaaaahh!”

  “Speak, Russell.”

  “They were cock teasers! All of them were stinking little cock teasers!”

  “Sophie Worthington?”

  “Sophie was the worst one! Oh, she wiggled and giggled, dressed in her slutty skirts,” Heller gasped out, eyes wild. “She led me on for two weeks. So humiliating, but I wanted that hot little body so much. God, she was so beautiful, so sexy.”

  “She’s just eighteen,” his captor snarled.

  “Well, she’ll be a better behaved bitch from now on,” he replied.

  “Tammy Collins?”

  “Same. In her interview to be my intern, she all but came right out and said she’d sleep with me if I chose her,” Heller said. “Well, I did choose her and she acted all offended when I made my move. She actually slapped me!”

  “So you killed her?”

  “Actually, I didn’t mean to kill her. I misjudged,” he said, trying to shrug. “Squeezed too hard. Still, she’s no loss to humanity.”

  “You tortured and raped them because they wouldn’t sleep with you?”

  “No, because they were filthy cock teasers,” Heller said.

  The other man suddenly slammed his fist down between Heller’s legs, driving the long knife deep into the tabletop just inches from his genitalia.

  “Same thing. What a piece of work you are.”

  Heller watched his kidnapper warily. “What now. Are you going to become a murderer now?”

  “No. You’ll live,” he said at length. His eyes narrowed. “Though, you might not want to live after I’m through with you.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Hot enough for you, Nessa?” Gus Smothers asked.

  The hospital security officer stopped at the emergency room nurse’s station as he wiped the sweat off his brow. The tall, muscular African-American had been outside on a smoke break. The nurse smiled back.

  “Sweetie, I’m from Wyoming. Texas winters are too hot for me,” Nurse Nessa said. “Don’t get me started on Texas summers.”

  Before Gus could respond, the screeching of tires echoed through the ER. It came from the emergency entrance, so both of them looked that way expecting to see an ambulance skidding to a stop.

  Instead, they saw nothing.

  Then they heard the squeals of tires again, which was definitely someone racing out of there in a hurry.

  “Crap,” Nessa mouthed. Quickly she, Gus, and four others ran out the wide, double doors.

  As expected, they found someone had been dumped into their laps. The man looked young, maybe mid-thirties. Naked and bloody. Gus felt his dinner threatening to come up when he noticed the poor guy’s injury.

  “Oh my god, someone shot his dick off!” the new intern cried, turned around and emptied his guts.

  Gus moved to keep the automatic doors open, while the emergency room staff quickly and efficiently put the patient on a gurney and wheeled him inside. The security officer did a double-take when he saw the victim’s face.

  “Hey, it’s that rich guy, Russell Heller. The guy who just got off rape and murder charges this morning.”

  The doctors and nurses stopped to gawk first at Gus, and then at Heller. Gus scowled at the semi-conscious victim.

  “Got off on a technicality.”

  To their credit, the emergency room staff only hesitated for a second, before they continued inside to render aid. They had a job to do. Gus shook his head before looking around at all the blood on the concrete. Then he spotted it. A smartphone.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, bending over to pick it up. He snatched his hand back. “Call 911. I found some evidence!”

  The phone, lying screen up on the ground, had a video on loop showing Heller bound to a table, confessing all his crimes in living color.

  “Justice,” Gus whispered, a smile spreading across his face.

  I’ll be damned. Actual justice.

  Actual punishment.

  Get Ash Punishment now!

  About the Authors

  Tom Gallier was born in Beaumont, Texas. He served 7 years in an Armored Cavalry Regiment (11th ACR Blackhorse Regiment), learning no useful skills. After the Army he went back to school to study electronics, figuring that would be a profession with job security. In 2008 he was laid off.

  It wasn’t the first time or last time he was wrong. But while in school, and holding down a full time job, he began writing in his spare time. In the mid-nineties he had his first short story sale and publication. He shares his life with his wife and their two dogs.

  You can contact Tom at: t.gallier@live.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011307840927

  Before going into publishing, Samson Weld was a world-renowned pediatrician running a clinic in the war-torn jungle of Burma. He keeps modeling strictly as a hobby, when he's not volunteering to find homes for abandoned puppies. Samson Weld is also a seasoned liar.

  That's because Samson Weld is in fact the pen name of Steve Richer, the international bestselling author of the thrillers The President Killed His Wife, Stranger Danger, and The Pope’s Suicide.

  You can expect Samson Weld books to be outrageously fun and reading like action movies.

  You can Like Steve Richer on Facebook for all the latest news.

  Sign up for the newsletter now and receive a FREE NOVEL and EXCLUSIVE short story!

  More from Samson Weld

  Lewd Behavior

  Ash Vengeance (Ash Wexler #1)

  Ash Punishment (Ash Wexler #3)

  And as Steve Richer

  The President Killed His Wife (Rogan Bricks 1)

  Counterblow (Rogan Bricks 2)

  Murder Island (Rogan Bricks 3)

  The Pope’s Suicide

  Stranger Danger

  A Perfect Tenant

  Critical Salvage

  Terror Bounty

  Park Avenue Blackmail

  The Kennedy Secret

  The Gilded Treachery

  Never Bloodless

  The Atomic Eagle

  Sigma Division

  Intense Past: Historical Thriller Collection

  Eyes Only: Spy Thriller Collection

 

 

  hank you for reading books on Archive.