by SE Chardou
I nodded my head. “You’re right—it’s the only way and I just want this to be over and done with. If I can sneak up on him, that might be the best way.”
“Just don’t attempt anything too early in the party. Wait until everyone is drunk and high. All you have to do is control your alcohol intake. You want to stay sharp and alert. Once you’ve finished the assignment, text me. I will be less than five minutes away at all times and it’s going to take you that long just to navigate his big ass house,” she explained as she handed me a sparkly pair of Yves Saint Laurent stilettos.
“What if his bodyguards wonder why I’m leaving the party early?”
Estelle rolled her eyes at me. “Just stick your finger down your throat and puke all over them. They’ll be shoving you off the property, sweetie. Don’t forget to act really drunk and a danger to their precious Fernando. The last thing they want is a dead hooker ruining their party.”
After I slid into the high heels, I turned toward her full-length mirror and looked at myself.
I truly didn’t resemble the old me at all. I looked poised, expensive, stylish and most of all stunning in that detached, paid-money-for-hire type of way.
“Listen, I know you don’t have to tell me but . . . how did you get me an invite?”
“Fernando uses a variety of call girl services in the city including one owned by the Lucifer’s Saints. Most of the women are Eastern European but Layla has also hired a few fresh-faced Midwestern girls who came here with lights in their eyes and dreams of stardom. She thinks it’s a good idea to mix up the girls when they do parties like this just in case there are any misunderstandings,” Estelle explained as she straightened the spaghetti straps on my dress.
“This isn’t going to get her into any trouble, is it?” I questioned in a terrified voice.
“Relax.” Estelle smiled ingratiatingly. “I already checked with Layla and she’s only sending four girls tonight. There are going to be more than twenty at this party. Just say you’re from Pleasures Delight or Hot Stuff Unlimited.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Please tell me those aren’t the names of real escort agencies?”
She looked at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Duh? What good is giving you a name to an agency that doesn’t exist? Both will deny it anyway and the whole night will be pandemonium after what happens. All the girls will be questioned and they have nothing to worry about because none of them are allowed to carry anything stronger than Pepper spray. You’re a dead end. Just another anonymous blonde who slips out before the scene of the crime is discovered.”
“Okay.” I bit my lip before remembering they were covered with lip-gloss I would have to touch up before I left. “Listen, when all this is said and done. The forensics investigations . . . I’m licensed to carry the gun I have. If it’s used, I might be questioned.”
Estelle glared at me as if I truly was a country bumpkin before she walked into her closet and emerged with a large dark tan shoebox with Christian Louboutin Paris written on the top.
“This box used to house my favorite pair of shoes—a classic pair of high heel boots that my brother paid a lot of Euros for. He was on his way back from Iraq and had a three-hour layover at Charles De Gaulle Airport. Anyway, he knew I would love them so he bought them for me at a duty free shop.”
She paused and cleared her throat. “To make a long story short, that bitch, Angie—you know, the one you went off on at the Christmas Eve party at the clubhouse? Well, she ‘borrowed’ my shoes to dance in for work and never brought them back. After that thieving cunt did that, I started collecting guns . . . lots of guns because I planned to blow her fucking head off for stealing a pair of boots that couldn’t be replaced. Maarten talked me down . . . eventually. And by some strange coincidence, I found an unworn pair on eBay six months later or something. They weren’t the same color but I didn’t care. I just wanted my boots back.”
I opened the box and parted the tissue paper. There was a cloth bag with Christian Louboutin written on it inside but instead of boots were at least ten small-caliber handguns.
“Who the hell are you? A Gemma Teller in the making?” I wondered in a snarky voice.
“Don’t mock one of my favorite shows that used to be on television.”
“Even though it was totally unrealistic?”
“Fuck that—it had Charlie Hunnam and his fabulous ass and abs—reality can eat me.”
I burst out laughing and so did Estelle. I had to admit I needed the comic relief because with the rate my heart was beating in my chest, tonight would be far from easy for me.
“I think this would be perfect.” She pulled out an M&P Bodyguard. “It’s a .380 with laser sighting. It fits six bullets and one in the chamber—”
“If I can’t kill him with seven bullets, maybe I shouldn’t call myself a hired gun.”
“You sure you don’t want to take an extra clip?”
I shook my head. “That Kate Spade purse is small. I’ll barely be able to fit anything else in it once I load this thing. An extra clip would just take up space.”
Estelle walked into her closet, came out with a Michael Kors sack and removed a smallish boxy yet cute black handbag. “Actually, maybe you should take this sparkly purse instead? It keeps its shape and no one will know you’re carrying a gun. Even if you have to go through a metal detector, it’s got a chain strap. It’s the perfect cover.”
“Are you sure you haven’t killed anyone before?”
“No but I have decimated a lot of paper silhouettes at the gun range along with beer cans and liquor bottles when Maarten and I used to go camping. He always wanted to make sure I could protect myself . . . every since I was a little girl. He is definitely one of the most overprotective brothers a girl could have but I love him for it.”
I sat down on Estelle’s bed, mentally exhausted yet I hadn’t even left for the party yet. “I can’t even pretend like I’m not scared to go through with tonight. It’s not even the kill that’s bothering me . . . it’s the getting away with murder part I’m worried about.”
“You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t worry about that.” Estelle sat beside me. “The gun is completely untraceable—all the serial numbers have been filed off. I’m rolling the gun into a scarf because as soon as the deed is done, wipe your fingerprints off the weapon, and we’ll find a place to hide it until Maarten gets back and can get rid of it for us. Just breathe, and if you don’t get the opportunity tonight, it’s not the end of the world.”
I chuckled again though it was completely inappropriate. “Why do you say it like that?”
Estelle shrugged her shoulders cynically. “It just means Fernando will have to die another day.”
We both looked at each other and burst out laughing together.
If I’d learned anything about the woman I hoped to be my sister-in-law one day, I knew for certain we shared the same wicked sense of macabre humor.
Chapter Fourteen
Mira
The party was in full swing by the time I arrived.
I didn’t expect to make such a grand entrance but the bodyguards didn’t bother to frisk me and I was welcomed into Fernando’s ostentatious Lake Las Vegas mansion by the man himself.
“You must be my special birthday present,” he whispered in my ear before he bit my lobe playfully.
The smile I casually wore stayed in place though I couldn’t help but think I’m killing the man on his fucking birthday!
How horrible of a human being was I?
My mind flashed to all the tortuous murders he must have committed with the hands that were still fondling my body like I was a blow up doll, and my heart iced over.
Today was just as good of a day for him to die as any.
“So . . . birthday present, what is your name?”
“Jade,” I replied in a husky voice. “Usually my specialty is domination and humiliation but I left all my toys at home tonight.”
Fernando looked me up and down. “
Looks like you left your boots at home too but that doesn’t mean you can’t spank me if I’m naughty. You see, I have a whole closet full of toys you would just . . . salivate over.”
I didn’t know how I felt about flirting with this man but it felt dangerous; once the adrenaline hit my bloodstream, it was like a spike of the most beautiful and seductive drug running through my veins.
It all came back to me why my father had taken me off hit duty with Jake in the first place.
I liked it too much.
Like father, like daughter.
Some things we couldn’t change, and my twisted bloodline was one of them. The Deckers must have been related so some of the most atrocious and vicious Teutonic tribes in Northern Europe because enjoying the pain of another human being seemed to be part of our genetic code.
Now I understood why I’d been so nervous about tonight. It had nothing to do with me wondering whether I would get away with it but that I would revel in his pain a bit too much, and turn back into the person I’d been trying to escape my whole adult life.
Unfortunately, Mira Decker and Mira Clarkson were one in the same. We couldn’t be separated because I would never be able to flee something that was tattooed into my brain like misfiring synapses. I never wanted Pyro to ever see this side of me . . . ever. Maybe that’s why I’d turned what he’d done to humiliate me into the best sexual experiences we’d had together.
It was true I loved to dole out pain but I also received a special kind of twisted thrill in pain being inflicted upon me—especially when someone who I loved was behind it. Those were the invisible scars that would never heal. Were they even scars or just scabs, waiting for someone to reopen them so they could bleed through me again, and rule me the way they did in my youth?
I tried not to think too hard about it as Fernando walked me through the party where some of his bodyguards were openly having sex with women while two women performed a show of their own while other bodyguards watched, openly stroking their displayed erections.
“So, my darling? What would you like? Cristal and cocaine? Sorry, there’s no food on the menu. We wouldn’t want to mess up that beautiful body of yours.”
I stared at him intently. “Whatever you like. Remember, it’s your birthday and I’m here to serve you in any capacity you want me to.”
Fernando smiled, his hazel-green eyes bright with lust, want, and need. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to fuck you in every hole on your body and you’re going to love every minute of it.”
He grabbed my hand and led me through the various scenes of debauchery, up the stairs where one girl was on her hands and knees with one guy fucking her roughly in the ass while the other had his cock shoved in her mouth.
Maybe betraying Pyro wasn’t that bad if it was only with one man, and the ends justified the means. I promised myself I wouldn’t enjoy it, and this man would never know what it would feel like for me to have any emotions other than disgust and hatred for him.
My mind started to shut down those parts of my life that were ideal and sacred. This wasn’t a night that would ever be apart of those memories. This night would be locked in that box, in the back of my mind where a particular rape caused the pregnancy of my daughter, and the name of the man I would never be able to speak of who committed the atrocious act. If I could survive that then I could survive tonight, and I promised myself I wouldn’t allow myself to shatter like I did three years ago. I would hold myself together and remember I was strong, I was a survivor, and I deserved to be happy because one day, I would be ecstatic with the man who had my whole heart all to himself.
Fernando plied me with Cristal champagne, and several lines of coke later, I was flying high in the land of monsters without God in sight. I barely registered as he pushed me against his bed before he bent me over, ripped my thong and entered me from behind.
The tears I thought I should have cried refused to come and I remained dry-eyed and moaned like a dog in heat as he fucked me faster and faster.
I was a good actress; I pretended like it wasn’t Fernando at all and it was Pyro fucking me. That felt all the more better, thinking it was the love of my life squeezing my breasts and pinching my nipples than some stranger I couldn’t stand. It would make murdering him after the fact even easier for me to handle and overcome.
I wouldn’t let him beat me. In the end he wouldn’t win, not if I could help it. I suffered through his harsh thrusts as if I was just a hole and there wasn’t a person attached to my vagina. I moaned out loud but what sent me over the edge happened to be a hand, snaking between my legs and rubbing my rock hard clit.
Thank God for the champagne and cocaine because if I was dead sober, I never would have forgiven myself for falling over the edge of the precipice and entering a new place entirely, at least in mind. An orgasm tore through my body and I rode it as it continued to climb and bring mind-numbing pleasure I hadn’t experienced since the last time Pyro and I had made animalistic yet passionate love.
I started to come down just as he thrust into me yet again and grunted as he came inside of me, shattering the illusion that I was with my lover—not this disgustingly gorgeous man who was as rotten on the inside as he was on the outside. A living, breathing cancer that had destroyed the sacred pact Pyro and I had and for what? Half a million dollars?
Unfortunately for me, hindsight was twenty/twenty, and the tradeoff didn’t seem fair at all. All the money in the world wasn’t worth sacrificing what Pyro and I had together. Yet just like that, it was over because whether I wanted to be the bad girl in the relationship, I’d become one the moment I allowed another man to put his dick inside me.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” Fernando said although it was more of an answer than a question. “I always knew you were a dirty little slut who wanted to be defiled and degraded, and yet, you’re no whore . . . are you . . . Mira?”
Champagne and cocaine be damned, I turned toward him in surprise.
“It’s a nice costume but unfortunately, I never forget a tattoo. Especially one as intricate as yours is on their left upper arm. What are the odds two women would have the same roses and thorns tattoo? I also am very good with remembering faces too, chica.” Fernando stripped off the wig and threw it to the floor. “Take out the contacts. I want to see those beautiful blue eyes as I defile and degrade you. You won’t be able to hide from me. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”
I took out the contacts and ripped the fake eyelashes away.
He withdrew from me and turned me around to face him. His fingers played with my straps before he removed the dress from my body.
I truly was naked in front of him, unable to hide behind anything. Although I didn’t want to meet his eyes, I did with a look of pure coldness and frustration.
The bastard had won.
He’d gotten the best of me, and even when I did murder him, he’ll still have known what it was like to be inside me because he’d already been there. I was a whore just like my mother—willing to sell my body to the highest bidder. My drug of choice wasn’t meth, cocaine or heroin—it was cold, hard cash.
I could pay for a trip to Lourdes after tonight and have all my sins washed away but I still had a job to complete. I’d gotten this far, and I would make damn sure I finished this tonight. It wouldn’t go any further than this because it would never be Fernando who taunted to Pyro how he’d fucked me six ways to Sunday. I’d be damned if I lost the love of my life behind this piece of shit.
“Cat got your tongue, chica? You have absolutely nothing to say? No witty comebacks or pleas for me to take it easy with you? Speak up . . . you won’t get another chance.”
My heart thundered in my chest. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
Fernando laughed like I’d cracked the funniest joke in the world before he punched me in the stomach.
I fell to my knees, the wind knocked out of me before the intense and agonizing pain followed. If he hadn’t cracked a rib, he’d certainly bruised it
by the amount of effort it took to breathe.
He picked me up as if I weighed nothing and threw me on the bed. I tried to catch my breath as he handcuffed my wrists to the metal headboard. I couldn’t scream if I wanted to, the pain in my abdomen and right lower rib had me crying tears out of the sheer agony.
Fernando paced back and forth, too calm and serene as he refilled his fluted glass and drank the champagne while glancing at me like a slab of meat on the table.
“Just be happy I think you’re too beautiful to mar that angelic face. And your rib is bruised, not cracked. I’m not a monster. I want you to feel every bit of pleasure I dole out to your gorgeous body. And believe me, I will make you orgasm over and over again in spite of your pure, unadulterated hatred for me. I know it will make you hate yourself even more for not being able to control your own bodily impulses.”
“After you finish with me, just kill me, Fernando.” My eyes burned into his with such intensity, I wished I’d been blessed with telekinesis. I literally could have caused an inferno with the rage I felt. “If you let me go, I will murder you . . . very slowly.”
“Oh my dear sweetheart, you can’t do that. Not until I tell you some very interesting facts about your beloved. However, sex before secrets. Just looking at that juicy pussy of yours and those lovely tits of yours . . . my cock is hard as a rock. I can’t wait to have you in ways even your precious Pyro hasn’t tried yet. He hasn’t fucked that perfectly tight ass, has he?”
“Yes, he has,” I lied straight-faced. “Everywhere you’ll explore on my body tonight isn’t exactly uncharted territory. I’m hardly a vestal virgin.”
Fernando laughed again and the sound chilled the blood in my veins. There was no way he would let me leave this room alive, and we both knew it.
I began to pull against my handcuffs, trying in vain to get away but they were official use cuffs and the more I pulled, the tighter they cinched around my wrist. I began to panic and a full-blown anxiety attack hit me out of nowhere.
My heart thundered in my chest with a ferocity I couldn’t control, my head spun uncontrollably as I fought to catch my breath but no matter how hard I tried, my lungs felt like they weren’t getting enough oxygen.
