Femme Fatale (Black Rose Book 2)

by Steele, Suzanne

  The real change, though, had come after I witnessed a gang beat a man to death, and there was nothing I could do to help him. That was the pivotal moment. A man died in my arms that day, and when I exited the alley where he’d been beaten to death, I was a changed man. I vowed to defend those too helpless to defend themselves.

  The only commitment that has ever proven stronger than my desire to kill off the scum of the earth is the love I carry for my wife and son. I loved her enough to stop killing, and I loved her enough to resume my bloodthirsty acts of vengeance when she asked it of me.

  During my research into the minds of serial killers, I have also delved into the emotional aspects. The majority of serial killers are unable to feel empathy. With some, the darkness goes so deep they are unable to feel any emotions. I differ from them in that manner as well because I am able to love—to the point of obsession. I’m a sinister sadist who actually feels things at a deeper level. My wife is very aware of how dangerous things can get concerning my volatile emotions, though I have never laid a hand on her when it wasn’t consensual. It is one of the reasons we fit so well together. She feeds off the danger and fear I provide. She’s an adrenaline junkie at heart, and I am the only man who can give her the drug her system craves.

  In my mind, I am a superhero of sorts, out to avenge those wronged by bullies. Now, I have my partner’s approval, which is a monumental weight off my shoulders. That sense of obligation to my wife only grows with the passage of time. I am a contradiction of terms, a monster who craves the dripping of blood between my fingers and the look of fear in a victim’s eyes, but only from someone who has accosted the weak. Some victims live high-risk lifestyles, and others become victims of crime simply because they are in the wrong place at the right time. The authorities call it a crime of opportunity—I call bullshit. Nobody deserves to be victimized by men who prey on those weaker than them.

  Yes, it’s true that I enjoy subjecting my willing wife to sexual depravity, and though the fear in her eyes excites me, it’s her hunger for me that I find the most thrilling. Knowing she feeds off my sadism and the fear I provoke in her turns me on. I know, even as sick and fucked-up as I am, I meet a need in her that no other man can ever meet. We may be polar opposites, but we’re cut from the same cloth.

  In the end, there’s a big difference between subjecting women to horror against their will and two consenting adults pushing their sexual boundaries. I walk a tightrope all vigilantes walk. Just like everything else, it boils down to being in control. I have to exercise some restraint and only kill those who deserve to die.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Melanie

  We had followed our target in hopes of establishing a pattern to his behavior, and what we got was Richard Roundtree’s river house. It was beyond lucky. I’m assuming with everything being reported in the news, Richard’s lackeys are panicking. Next time we track the partners, we’ll have to wait outside their homes. Charles was very clear about the dangers of establishing habits. We need to fly under the radar, and if we continue sitting outside the bar to spy on these guys, sooner or later, someone is going to notice. Whether we like it or not, we are outnumbered. Normally there would only be one person to target for a kill, but we were looking at four men. We’d already done away with one, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are still outnumbered. I know my husband is taking more precautions than he usually does, mainly in taking his time and executing less messy kills.

  We’d been caught off guard because when we broke into Richard’s river house, he was home. After seeing his friend bang on the door for five minutes, we had just assumed he wouldn’t be there. Evidently, he was there, but he was passed out in a drunken stupor.

  Charles used the opportunity to tell me the dangers of making assumptions. He even went so far as to say it was a learning experience for him as well. The problem is that making mistakes for serial killers can mean prison time or loss of life. I can’t imagine my life without my husband. I am taking the training very seriously. One mistake can bring my whole world crashing down. There are times I question whether I’ve done the right thing in asking him to kill again, but there is no turning back now. We’re past the proverbial point of no return.

  It had actually been fun to go through his house while he was there, yet totally unaware of our presence. My husband believes it’s his vacation home, and he’s hiding out there. Because it’s on the river and the basement is unfinished, he doesn’t think it’s where he was bringing the women to torment. The idea my husband came up with was genius. A rope tied into a noose and thrown over a rafter was better than a prick like Richard deserved, but driving the man to suicide was nothing shy of brilliant.

  I only have one regret; I wish I could have seen his face when he saw the package we left for him. The agony he will suffer won’t be in his actual death. It will be in never knowing when or where we will show up. He’ll also be tormented by thoughts of trying to figure out how to escape the predicament he’s gotten himself into. The result will always be the same—an agonizing loop of running through scenarios and then realizing there’s no way out of his nightmare. I guess the most fucked-up thing about it all is that I’m looking forward to it.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Charles

  I’m not about to reveal it to my wife, but I’m mentally beating myself up for assuming Richard wasn’t home. I know better than that. You can’t take anything for granted in my line of work. I’d gone into that house presuming the owner wouldn’t be there, and I’d learned a valuable lesson. I will never look at a target’s house the same way. I have gone out of my way to take more precautions now that my wife is working with me, and I still fucked up. Now, the thing to do is not allow myself to be overwhelmed with guilt because it will hinder our progress.

  “Come here.”

  I watch as she stands up and heads in my direction. I pat my legs, signifying I want her to sit on my lap. I can feel myself snarling as I roughly grip the back of her neck, pulling her toward me and crashing my lips down on hers. My tongue searches and probes every part of her mouth as if it’s the first time I’ve ever kissed her.

  My hips grind beneath her, making it obvious to her how much she still turns me on after all these years.

  “Take my cock out of my pants, babe. I need you. I need to be buried deep inside you.”

  Her hands tremble as she obeys my request. She gets up long enough to slide out of her lacy white underwear, and I smile at how wet she is when she slides down on my hardened member. My whole body shudders as if a cold chill is coursing through me.

  “You still make me crazy, girl.”

  The comment seems to spur her on. I watch her move up and down, doing a dance to music only we can hear the beat to as she rolls one finger around on her clit. I can feel her tightening down on me, clenching around me in determination to pull the seed from my core. I can feel her succeeding as pleasure rolls through me, starting somewhere from the tips of my toes and working its way up until I feel like my head will explode.

  I rest my head against her shoulder as I speak.

  “You’re my only weakness, and I will do anything to keep you. I love you to the point of obsession. You would do well to always remember that.”

  Though I speak words of adoration, the veiled threat is evident.

  Regardless of how much I have managed to blend into mainstream life, I will always be the serial killer who walked out of an alley a changed person after viewing the death of an innocent man. Never again will I be a helpless voyeur.

  Chapter Forty

  Agent Turner

  Even with all the evidence we’ve compiled, we still have no clue where Richard Roundtree is hiding. He’s the mastermind behind all of this, and I know from years of experience that bringing down the head will result in the rest of the body crumpling. Once we find him, it should be easy enough to find the men who worked with him. Since I can’t do anything while Richard remains in hiding, I’m going after th
e bartender I suspect drugged Lisa Monroe. Maybe he has an idea where we can find our suspect.

  I debate whether or not I even want to give the guy a heads up that his life is in danger. It would be very easy to just let things play out as they may and allow karma, under the guise of Black Rose, run its course. I don’t feel morally obligated to tell him anything, especially if he was the one who drugged the woman. However, it is my job to protect indiscriminately, which in a sense, does make it my responsibility. The oath I took when I entered the agency was a commitment to always do the right thing. Right now, I feel like that oath is the only thing keeping me from going to the dark side. Year after year of seeing criminals go free has done a number on the idealism I once possessed in my youth.

  Throughout my entire career, I had managed to never get close to a killer until Black Rose. He purposely tried to create a connection between us, and against my will, he succeeded. I am going to do the right thing, but it’s not because I want to or out of any desire to be honorable. The only thing giving this man even a slight chance at coming out of this alive is my respect for the vow I took when I was inducted into the FBI. The war in my mind is due, in part, to the fact that I have lost confidence in the judicial system. I started this job full of faith, but after years of working for the FBI, I’ve seen too much corruption, and it has chipped away at any trust I might’ve had. Like anything else, when you’re disillusioned, you become jaded. There have been too many times when I’ve seen cases where criminals are offered plea bargains, or worse yet, some technicality allowed a stone cold killer to go free, only to kill again. Serial killers aren’t capable of being rehabilitated. At best, they can manage to limit their kills to serve the greater good of the community, but the only killer I have ever witnessed to do so is Black Rose. I’m intrigued with his intelligence. He has never made a mistake by killing someone who didn’t deserve it. It takes a lot of research, time, and work to be certain someone hasn’t been wrongfully accused of a crime. It’s very easy for false accusations to snowball when you’re dealing with the court of public opinion and the Internet, yet the avenger of victims has never gotten caught up in the hype. He’s never allowed his emotions to override the facts. I’m also impressed he isn’t so narcissistic that he’d let his cult following go to his head. Most serial killers thrive on attention, but from what I’ve observed, he prefers to stay out of the limelight. In his mind, he has a job to do—nothing more, nothing less.

  I look over at my partner, Rene, as we pull up in front of the bar. I can tell by the way she’s eyeing me that she knows I’m conflicted, but then again, she always knows. That woman understands me like no one else ever has or probably ever will. She only confirms my suspicions when she speaks.

  “You can restart the car, pull away from here, and you’ll have my complete support. No one but you and I will ever know if we walk away and let this son of a bitch get what he deserves.”

  I feel as though I’ve been holding my breath for too long. I inhale deeply and then slowly exhale until I feel my lungs empty completely. I’m tired, and it has nothing to do with being sleepy. I’m tired of seeing the destruction these killers leave in their wake. I feel like I would love nothing more than to put them all in an arena and watch them kill each other off. No, what I’m feeling isn’t fatigue; it’s exasperation. I’m just plain weary. Lately, I have been having thoughts of retiring, leaving it all behind, and living in seclusion somewhere with my partner/lover.

  “That’s the problem, Rene… I’ll know if I turn a blind eye to what he’s doing. Regardless of where my life takes me, I still need to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day.”

  I exit the car before I have a chance to change my mind about saving this dirtbag.

  I look up just as my partner lovingly places her hand on my forearm, acting as if she’s brushing an imaginary piece of lint away.

  “Well, regardless of what you do, I’ll support you.”

  My lover isn’t a gentle woman, and nowhere is it more evident than in our bedroom. She isn’t normally inclined to displays of affection either, so the tenderness I see in her eyes isn’t something I’m accustomed to. To understand our relationship, you need to realize most cops are closer to their partners than they are to their own wives. Rene and I being lovers as well as partners to each other means it doesn’t get any closer than that. We share an unbreakable bond that few experience, even with their spouses. The reality is very few people are even capable of fathoming the intense depth of what we share.

  “Let’s do this,” I tell her, opening the door to enter the dimly lit bar. We take a moment to let our eyes adjust and get a feel for the place. It’s a habit I picked up long ago. Whenever I enter a location I’m unfamiliar with, I always assess my surroundings before I proceed. It’s actually a procedure I learned to implement when I was on a case in New York, questioning Colombian cartel members. Antonio Wayne runs an elite, members only, gentlemen’s club, and it’s something he does whenever he walks into a room. It’s rumored he has an eidetic memory. I figure if it’s good enough for a brainiac like him, then it’s good enough for me. It’s worked out surprisingly well. There isn’t a whole lot to deduce from the energy in this place though.

  People are sporadically seated in various tables or booths, talking and drinking like you’d suspect in a bar. Though the music is playing, no one is on the dance floor. We make our way over to the bar and flash our badges.

  “Officers, what can I do to help you?”

  Rene leans over the counter, nailing the poor guy with her no-nonsense eyes as she answers him.

  “It’s agents, and you can start by telling us where the bartender who looks like a surfer boy is.”

  He chuckles, but his expression quickly turns stoic when my partner doesn’t reciprocate. The woman has the ability to scare the shit out of men twice her size. I know the truth of this firsthand.

  “You must be talking about Tacks.”

  “Tacks? What the fuck kind of name is that?”

  The bartender chuckles again. I’m certain he thinks he’s won my partner over; he’ll find out soon enough that isn’t the case.

  “Yeah, he had a habit of putting tacks on the teacher’s chair when we were kids. We started calling him Tacks, and it just stuck.”

  “You don’t say… how ‘bout you put down that rag you’re wiping the counter with and come with us?”

  This time, it’s me laughing. I know he wasn’t expecting her to cuff him and take his ass in for questioning. No doubt, he now realizes there is no getting on my partner’s good side. I knew he wouldn’t succeed from the beginning; I know her as well as she knows me.

  Chapter Forty One

  Charles

  “I already know what your name is. I know where you live. I know where you work. I know where you went to school. I know your fucking social security number.”

  I take a moment to roll the small metal tray over to the surgical table where I have the man nicknamed Tacks bound. I lean down and smile coldly.

  “I even know how you got your nickname.”

  I take a second to look at my wife, who is now my partner in mayhem, and she’s transfixed by the scene unfolding before her. I see no fear or remorse in her eyes for what we’re doing—only curiosity.

  “What are you, some kind of crazy stalker or something?”

  The man asks me the question as if he’s trying to process how he got to this point, helpless and strapped down to my table. By the time he figures anything out, it will be too late.

  “You could say that… among other things.”

  I give him just enough information to add to his confused state of mind. It’s after I pick up the dental gag that I get the response I’d been looking for but had assumed it would take longer to get—fear, pure unadulterated fear.

  “Hey, what the fuck is that?”

  I ignore him, shoving the device in his mouth and stretching it open until he screams out in pain. Well, he made a noise that could b
e construed as a scream; I suppose it’s as close as one can get with a dental gag shoved in his mouth.

  I lean down and facetiously whisper in his ear, using my most smart-ass tone.

  “It’s not the dental device you should be concerned with, Tacks.”

  I have his head and neck restrained in a device I had specially made out of steel. He is so strapped down, there’s no way he’s going anywhere, and his attempts to jerk his head back and forth in denial of his situation are almost comical. We caught him in the alley, just as he was about to go in the back door of the bar. It was really very simple. We drugged him, threw his ass in the van, and brought him to the kill room.

  “Open wide!”

  I smirk as I drop a thumbtack in his mouth, pouring water down his throat in order to make him swallow. Tack, after tack, after tack, I drop them in as I alternate pouring water and whiskey to force them down his throat.

  He chokes, spits, and spews, but I regulate it enough that he is forced to take everything I give him. I believe the punishment fits the crime. His victims suffered. His victims had been terrorized. Why should his experience be any less agonizing? I turn to eye my wife.

  “If you think that shit hurts, just wait until the alcohol hits the perforations on his intestines those tacks are going to cause…”

  Yes, I would definitely say the bastard is getting what he deserves.

  Chapter Forty Two

  Agent Turner

  I stretch my legs out in front of me, squirming and trying to get comfortable in the standard FBI office chair that goes with the standard metal desk in our bureau office. I rub my eyes. This time, I am tired due to fatigue. We’d brought in Brandon Jenkins, the guy from the bar, and he lawyered up immediately. We didn’t have enough to hold him.