by Callie Hart
I’m taking precautionary measures. If she doesn’t follow Pippa’s advice and shows up tomorrow night, I’m going to make sure that, no matter how badly she wants to track down Alexis, she will run at the sound of the name she now knows belongs to me.
******
I’m pumped all of the next day, waiting for it to be time. I’m always pretty antsy by the end of the month, anyway, purely because the parties take the edge off my more outlandish tastes. I go to nights held by other people—Frankie used to host a downright dirty one—but it’s not the same. I am in control when that stuff goes down under my roof; I get what I want with whomever I want. The release just isn’t the same when I’m not the only master to be obeyed. It’s not that I don’t let other dudes in; that just wouldn’t work. But every guy who enters knows who the boss is, and that’s the way I need it to be.
It’s almost dark when I’m finally driving over to the place in the Camaro. Lace is laid out on the back seat, sleeping. I’m not leaving her alone for a second, even if that means she has to sit in a room with Michael keeping an eye on her all night. A cell phone alerts, making her grumble drowsily; I remove the one in my left hand pocket, trying to remember whether this one is Sloane’s or mine. It’s mine, and funnily enough the alert, an email, is from Michael.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Received: 02/21/14 19:21
Hey, boss, just a quick head’s up. Still haven’t found anything on the girl. If Charlie has buried her, he’s buried her deep. Got some of Rufus’s boys looking, too. They don’t know any names. I’ll be over in an hour.
I may call Charlie my boss, but there are plenty of boys out there who reserve that title for me and me alone. Michael’s been on my payroll for the last five years; he’s handy with his fists and has nerves of fucking steel. With Charlie’s non-too-subtle threat at the end of our last meeting, I know he’s probably got people on the alert for me snooping around in his shit. I’ve always kept Michael separate from Charlie, though. He won’t be on the look out for a six-foot-five motherfucker from Boise, Idaho. I slip the phone back into my pocket and process the information Michael sent me—he still can’t find the location of the girl, or even any record to confirm she still exists, but he’s still on the job. I know he’ll eventually turn something up. It’s just a matter of waiting.
We arrive at the apartment not long after that. I park the Camaro in the underground lot and collect Lacey from the back seat, careful not to wake her as I lift her out. She loops her arms around my neck and I carry her to the elevator. On the fourth floor, the apartment door is open and Ganya is hefting crates of vodka in from the hallway.
“Thought you liked the girls conscious at the beginning of the night, Zee.”
I shoot him a dirty look and head on inside, ignoring the jibe. I go to the end of the corridor on the eastern side of the sprawling, six-bedroom apartment, and settle Lacey inside the last room, making sure the door locks properly—we’ve had problems with unwelcome visitors taking liberties before. It does lock so I leave her while she’s sleeping, then I make sure the rest of the place is ready. At the front door the masks are already set out on a table. The theme for this month is gold, and so most of them are either white or black, coated with gold glitter or whatever that shit is they put on Venetian masks. I pick the ugliest one I can find—a devil’s mask complete with horns and downturned mouth—and set it aside for myself. I’m pleased when I find that everything else has been organised and set in place, as well. The lighting is low, a burned, honey-yellow that casts as many shadows as it does highlights. Sliced fruit and other treats are laid out for the guests, and silk screen partitions cordon off discreet corners of the various rooms, where people can gain a little more privacy should they want it. Most of the people who come here don’t, but there you go.
Guests begin to arrive, dressed in tuxedos and shimmering evening dresses, hair coiled in sweeping, elegant styles, just begging to be messed up. Names aren’t exchanged. Masks are kept in place. I go and get ready, trying to keep my head clear. The fucking thing won’t stop racing, though. Will she come? Will she dare? And if so, what the hell is she gonna do when she sees all of this.
I must be sick in the head.
Not only have I not spoken to the cops, but I’m on my way to the address Zeth sent me, and I’ve worn the shortest, slinkiest dress I own. I don’t know why but his text felt like a dare. He didn’t think I would do it, which made my rebellious streak stick its middle finger up. It’s been a while since that happened. After the worst day at work, being interrogated about Carrie’s disappearance—you were the last to see her, Dr Romera. Are you positive she didn’t mention anything about leaving—a fight with this guy is the very last thing I need. I’m not stupid, though; it’s probably going to happen, so I’m primed for one, regardless.
I leave my car two streets over and make my way to the apartment building, wondering if I should have at least told Pippa where I was going. If I go missing and am never heard from again, at least that way she could report my last known location. But I can’t. One, because I don’t have my bloody cell phone anymore and I’m not a savant with numbers, and two, because she would probably carve me a new one for not listening to her.
I press the buzzer for 12c, wondering if Lacey is going to be here. I’ve brought my medical bag with me just in case she is, so I can inspect her wounds and change her dressings, plus a crap ton of antibiotics that she’s definitely going to need. There’s a crackle over the intercom, but no one speaks; the speaker blares as whoever is upstairs presses the entry key, and the door clicks open.
I climb four flights of stairs before I hear the rumble of music and laughter. Someone’s having a party. A lone guy, suited up with his hands folded in front of him, stands at the end of the hallway, already watching me approach. Doesn’t take long for me to realize the music is coming from the apartment I’m after, and the guy in the suit? He’s standing watch over the door. What the hell?
“Can I help you, madam?” he asks me. His voice is smooth and low, his skin the color of warmed honey. With his shaved head and imposing six-and-half-foot stature, he’s intimidating in the most gentile of ways. Like a stiletto blade—slender and beautifully made, but still as deadly as can be.
“I’m—Zeth told me to come.” I’m majorly pissed that he would tell me to come while he’s having some kind of blow out. It was probably his idea of damage control, make sure there are plenty of people around so I can’t cause a scene about…well, everything.
“May I have your name, Miss?”
“Sloane. Sloane Romera.”
The tall guy doesn’t check a list or speak into an earpiece, which wouldn’t really have surprised me; he just seems to already know my name. “Welcome, Ms Romera. My name is Michael. If you need anything this evening, please don’t hesitate to find me.” He steps to one side and opens the door behind him, blocking the room inside from view with his body. He gestures to a table behind the door with an open palm, smiling courteously. “Please, if you would kindly select a mask.”
Select a mask? My toes curl inside my shoes. The last time I had to wear a mask was back in the hotel when I’d met Zeth the first time. It hadn’t mattered in the end because of the dark, but still, the associations are enough to make liquid dread cycle through my veins.
“I don’t think so,” I tell Michael. He gives me an understanding nod, like he’s been through this before.
“I apologise Ms. Romera, but without a mask I’m afraid I can’t let you inside.”
Mother. Fucker. I want my phone back. I want to see if Carrie/whoever the hell she is, is alright. I want to find out what Zeth knows about my sister. My jaw sets as I look down on the table, which is considerable in size. There are six masks left, and four of them are plainly masculine. The two feminine ones are both black with golden swirls, but one of them has a shining, metallic black, purple, green feather plumed from the side of it. It�
��s pretty so I pluck it up and Michael does me the honor of affixing it into my hair. Seems like the guy has done this before. “Thank you for obliging us, Ms Romera,” he says, and then he moves back so I can see into the room. And my stomach bottoms out.
******
I’ve heard the term before, but I’ve never seen it in real life: Orgy. Group sex. Gang bang. My mind shorts out after that. I can’t think of any more names for what I’m witnessing right now.
The apartment immediately opens out into a large open-plan space, and in that space at least fifty people are in various degrees of undress. Some men are still fully attired, while lithe women, dresses delicately slipped down to reveal a perfectly shaped breast here, ridden up to reveal shaven pussies there, sit on their laps or kneel at their feet on the floor.
Black leather bindings bite into flesh wherever I look, interspersed with couples kissing and groping at one another, hands everywhere. On the far side of the room, a man rocks his head back in sheer bliss as a woman on her knees, completely naked, sucks on his rock solid cock for everyone to see.
My mouth hangs open. I turn around and Michael, still standing there, shrugs. “If you’re looking for Zeth, he’s in the back room. But you’ll have to go through the apartment to reach it.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “Boss told me not to close the door right behind you, though. Doesn’t think you’ll make it.”
Well fuck me, he was right about that. I don’t need this shit. I shake my head, stepping toward Michael and the still-open doorway. Michael lifts one shoulder again. “He said you were a prude. He bet big on you walking out as soon as you saw…” he looks over my shoulder into the room beyond, smirking. “Well...”
“He’s an arrogant son of a bitch,” I snap.
“He sure is. You wanna teach him a lesson, you could go find him instead of leaving. Go tear his head off?”
I narrow my eyes. “Did you bet money on this?”
“Thousand bucks,” Michael informs me.
A thousand dollars? Zeth is so sure of my reaction to all of this that he put a grand on the line. I know that’s probably pocket change to him since he paid cash for Carrie’s hospital bill, but hell. Surely it would sting to lose it. I suck in a deep breath.
You’ve come this far. You’ve already seen what’s going on behind you. All you have to do is go find him.
“Fine.” I don’t give myself time to think. I spin around and make for the hallway on the other side of the huge room. I’m stepping over bodies before I know it. I do my best to keep my eyes up and front, but I can’t help catching sight of a few things. Things that will be burned into my mind for all time.
When I reach the hallway there are eight doors, four on either side. Most are open but a few are closed. Low moaning slides under the wood; groans of ecstasy and the loud slap of skin on skin. I’m too scared to open the closed doors, so I peek into the open rooms instead, bracing myself each time: a tangle of arms and legs greet me first, four women and two guys so interlaced it’s hard to tell where each one of them begins and the other ends. I back the hell out of there pretty quickly. The second room contains a group of men and women all still in their suits and beautiful dresses, watching a couple screwing on the floor. The observers all sip politely from their champagne flutes while touching each other subtly, a hand slipped up a dress, rubbing at sensitive skin; another manicured hand squeezing a hard on over the top of clothes. A guy wearing the most ornate tiger mask complete with fierce golden stripes turns and sees me. He takes a sip from his drink, pauses in caressing the exposed breast of his companion, and holds out his hand to me.
Oh, hell no!
I backtrack quickly, heading for the last door on the right. For a second I think the door’s closed and I’m about to turn around, but then I realize my mistake. The door is wide open. The lights are just turned off.
You son of a bitch.
I grip hold of my medical bag, clenching my fist around its handle, and take a deep breath. I walk inside.
“You’re sick, you know that?” I say into the darkness. A soft rustling sound greets me, followed by the shift of movement. Yes, the lights are off but the corridor is lit behind me so it’s not like last time. I can see enough to make out the looming figure that slowly paces toward me.
“I know I’m not normal, if that’s what you mean.” A terrible devil’s mask appears before me, two feet away; Zeth is dressed entirely in black, the suit he wears obviously a thing of beauty even in the muted light. His dark eyes shine from within the mask, sharp and hungry. “You’ve surprised me, Sloane. I like being surprised,” he rumbles.
“Well you’ve surprised me, too. Although I can’t say the feeling is mutual.”
He laughs, his voice so deep and powerful I can feel it in the soles of my feet. “You should open up a little. You never know what you might enjoy until you try it.”
“I know exactly what I enjoy, Zeth, and standing around watching fifty naked people grind on each other isn’t it.”
The eyes behind his mask flicker with annoyance when I say his name. He stalks toward me and reaches out, tracing his fingertips across my jawline. He seems pensive, intrigued by my stillness—I can’t freaking move—as he touches my skin. “If you don’t like watching, Sloane, you can always join in.”
I slap his hand away from my face, glaring out of my own mask. “Give me back my phone.”
He watches me for a second, smirking, before sliding a hand into the pocket of his pants and pulling out my cell phone. He offers it out to me, and I just know he’s planning on snatching it away from me as soon as I reach out for it. I hold out my open palm instead, waiting for him to place it into my palm. He pouts, game ruined, and does it. I slide it into the medical bag I’m still clutching hold of for dear life. “I came tonight because you needed to know that I’m not scared of you, Zeth. And I want to know what you know about my sister.”
“Really?” he eyes the bag in my hand. “By the hand luggage, it looks like you knew all about our little gathering and brought some toys to play with.”
I remember his black duffel, the one he’d had with him at the hotel, and I harden my jaw. “Like yours, you mean? I’m not the perverted one who carries around a stash of bondage gear.”
Zeth looks down, a calculated tilt of his head. His bag is sitting on the floor by the doorway to my left; I shiver when I see it. “My bag of tricks is slightly bigger than yours, Sloane. And there’s more than bondage gear in there, too. Maybe if you’re brave you’ll open it and find out?”
Infection is a major problem after surgery. We doctors spend a great deal of time battling to ensure that it doesn’t happen, that the wounds we create or try to fix remain clean, but sometimes it just happens no matter how careful we are. A body gets cut and ultimately infected; organs become enflamed, the body rejects new limbs. I’ve watched it happen time and time again, but I’ve never experienced it first hand. Yet it feels like I am right now—it feels like Zeth is performing a butcher’s surgery on my open chest cavity, and my heart is already enflamed. It pounds in my chest, fighting against the strange, alien feelings he’s purposefully infecting me with.
“I’m not touching that thing, okay? And I brought my medical bag with me so I could see to Carrie.” I emphasise the name so he gets that I know it’s fake. He doesn’t seem remotely fazed.
“Carrie is sleeping. But you’re more than welcome to play doctors with me? With the right inspiration, I can be a very good patient.” His hand rises slowly; he moves it the same way a person would when going to pat a horse. My mom showed me how to do that when I was a kid—let him see your hand, honey. Let him know you’re not going to hurt him. But I can see from the amused spark in Zeth’s eyes that he is going to hurt me. One way or another. He’s going to tear the bottom right out of my world. He makes contact with my cheekbone, his fingers so barely there that it takes concentration to feel them. It makes a huge difference from the last time he touched me back in the hospital, but that doesn
’t make up for his rough treatment.
“I’m not playing anything with you, Zeth. You’ll let me see Carrie if you care about her at all. Her wrists are nowhere near healed. She needs medication and she needs her dressings changed.”
“She’s on amoxicillin and her dressings are changed three times a day. More if they need it. She has a drip to help replace the plasma she lost, and she’s been restricted to bed rest. And right now, she’s sleeping,” he growls. I’ve pissed him off; that much is clear. I swallow when he shifts forward, subtly leaning into me so that his body is less than a foot away from mine. Twelve inches has never felt like such a short distance. “Now, Sloane, if you don’t mind, I’m hosting a party here. If you’re a coward and you’re going to bolt, then I suggest you do it now before things really heat up.”
Before things really heat up? I dread to think what that means, especially if he thinks things haven’t already escalated to surface of the sun type degrees out in his formal lounge. Maybe he hasn’t been out there. Maybe he has no idea what’s going on. Maybe he thought his guests would actually use the finger food to…well, eat. My subconscious laughs at me, practically pointing a finger. He was sitting here in the dark…waiting for you. He knows exactly what’s going on. He knows perfectly well, you stupid girl.
“Fine. I’ll happily leave, but first you have to tell me one thing. Is…is she alive, Zeth?” My stubborn exterior slips. There are times when I let myself bawl over the loss of Lex, sob until I’m sick, but the single tear that escapes me now seems filled with an unfathomable sadness way more profound than any that. Zeth huffs and does something unexpected; he carefully takes off his mask. He tosses it onto the bed that I can barely make out behind him, and then his huge hands begin to work at the cufflinks at his wrists.
