by Jordan Bell
Sean. Sean.
“Kara! Kara answer me now goddamn it!” The door shook, the knob turned until it whined in defense. Fists like sledgehammers broke against the wood and somehow, somehow I found my strained voice.
“S-sean? Sean!”
“Open the door, Kara, it’s me. It’s me baby, open the door.”
I squeezed out of my hiding spot, my swelling knees and aching body complaining the whole way. I couldn’t stand, could barely crawl.
“I can’t. It’s l-locked…”
“Look, Sean, something’s broken off in the lock. We’ll have to break it down.”
“Move.”
Something slammed into the door on their side, bent the wood in towards me. I crab-crawled back into my hiding space as it slammed again and again, each time splintering wood a little more. On the third try the lock and wood gave, sent splinters racing across the tile and Sean fell into the room. Behind him Zach turned immediately when he saw I was naked and ordered someone else I couldn’t see out of the room.
Fury and terror made Sean wild-eyed, but his body remained powerfully in control. I needed to see that. The tears threatened again, welled from deep in my chest. His blue eyes went from the blood smears on the tile over to where I hid.
His breath hitched and he stalked to me and fell to his knees at my feet. I launched myself out of my crawl space into his arms and he swept me up into his chest.
I shook all over, from cold I only now recognized, from pain and fear and adrenalin withdrawal.
“Shh, baby, it’s ok. It’s ok. I’ve got you.” Sean buried his face against my neck and I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He rocked me gently as I cried into his shoulder, out of relieve more than anything else.
“I should never have left you here. I should have…”
“Sean?” A girl’s voice appeared in the door way and I felt him release one arm from my back and motion to whomever it was. A moment later I felt heavy terry cloth fall across my shoulders. Sean disengaged enough to try and help me into it but I loathed releasing my hold on him.
“She’s lucky they locked her in there,” the girl said. Dani. I recognized her voice now.
“Don’t,” Zach responded. “Not now.”
But she was right. Anything could have happened and I did not believe for a second there was anything random about this crime. Sean had been targeted on purpose. And I’d been terrorized for fun.
###
“How does that feel?”
“Ok.” Sean applied the final bandage across my knee, clean of blood but swelling bigger by the minute. My right one was almost the size of a grapefruit, the other bore only a small knot but somehow hurt more. I sat on his bed, a robe covering most of me but my legs. Beyond the bed a sea of ruin covered the floor. Everything had been gone through, closets emptied, dressers emptied. Beyond the bedroom I could see more destruction but the police had that under control. Zach was talking to them. Dani appeared in the doorway with two fistfuls of frozen vegetables.
“Your peas, highness.” Dani curtsied awkwardly at the bedside and I smiled at her attempt at levity. She dropped onto the bed beside Sean, the only person he’d allow anywhere close to me. She set one bag on a knee and Sean the other. He used a cloth bandage to secure them, though not tightly.
“Did they take anything?” I asked. He glanced over his shoulder towards the police in the other room and said nothing for a long time.
“Aside from your safety? Only some papers concerning the restaurant. Everything else is just destruction. Nothing the insurance won’t replace.”
“She’s ok, Sean. Look, she’s beautiful.” Dani pushed my hair over my shoulder and gave my shoulders a squeeze. I didn’t ask why she was there, but I was glad she was. I accepted the hug and gave her one right back.
“She is. I know. That doesn’t mean I want anything like this to happen to her. I’ve got to go talk to detective. Send Dani for me if you need anything.” He dropped a kiss to my cheek and left my side, pensive and restrained in a way I’d never seen him. Guarded and possessive, sorry and distant. A mess of emotions he was not used to feeling.
“He’s adorable. Like a puppy.” Dani teased and leaned her head against my shoulder. I smiled, despite my exhaustion. We stayed like that for a long time.
“How did you end up here?” I asked when the police and Sean and Zach moved away from the bedroom to a room deeper in the condo.
“Zach was giving me a ride home, but needed to swing by his office. That’s when we found it had been ransacked, too.” She frowned and sat up. “He said documents about the restaurant had been taken too. I wonder why?”
I thought of the way Zach had looked at the wild redhead when she’d literally fallen into his restaurant. It had been wonder and want. It didn’t surprise me that he’d offered to drive her home. It surprised me that it had taken him this long.
I shook my head in answer to her question, but something else nagged at me. Something I couldn’t quite remember.
“Are you hungry?” she asked and slid of the bed. “I’m starving. Sean brought take-out. I can bring you some.”
“Yes, please. Starved. And nauseous. This should be awesome.” I slid backwards until I hit the headboard. The leather straps still hanging there jangled a bit and embarrassment flushed my cheeks. She grinned to herself but said nothing as she left the room. Quickly I unhooked the straps and shoved them under a pillow in case the police made rounds in here.
“Miss Mahoney?”
I looked up at the sound of my name and a horde of people stood in the doorway. Sean and Zach flanked a police officer, Dani behind them with a bowl and chopsticks. She shrugged helplessly.
“Yes?” I cleared my throat and pulled my robe tighter around my body.
“A couple of questions? Can you tell me what happened?”
I nodded and launched into it the best I could remember. When I mentioned the towels all being gone, Sean began pacing like a wild animal. By the time I was done with my short, unhelpful tale, his hair stood in all different directions and he looked hung over and exhausted.
“You can’t remember anyone speaking? Not sure how many people there were?”
“No. I honestly had my hands over my ears most of the time. I didn’t hear anything telling.”
“Thank you. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions. One last word with the two of you and then we’ll be out of your hair.” He nodded to Sean and Zach. They both looked haggard but followed.
Dani finally picked her way across the room to the bed. I took the Chinese food and chopsticks gratefully and we sat side-by-side against the headboard.
“Sounds like they took the paperwork about the purchase of the property and a lot of the financial files,” Dani said between bites. “Wanna hear something else that’s really weird?”
I shook my head. “Weirder than someone stealing my towel and locking me in a bathroom while they ransack the place?”
“Weirder than that.”
“I don’t know, but tell me.”
“I heard Zach telling Sean that whoever broken into his office stole the invitations to the opening Taylor dropped off earlier today. Isn’t that weird? All the other stuff they took, and they took the invitations.”
8
____________
Telling Maris about what happened had gone about as well as I imagined it would. She’d been upset, hung up the phone, showed up at my apartment thirty minutes later, and made me go over everything in detail. We’d discussed the possibility of a potential real estate war, especially in light of the announcement of Marcus’s company’s buy up. Unfortunately, most of what we knew about real estate corruption we’d learned from movies.
Then she’d said something funny that became my nightmare for days.
“Taking all the towels away and locking you in the bathroom. Kara, that was personal. Against Sean, but against you too.”
After those words poisoned my brain, I couldn’t shake them
, or the feeling that I was being followed everywhere I went. Walking to the library and eyes went with me. Alone in the stacks and the feeling of another body just on the other side overwhelmed me, though I never saw anyone.
One afternoon someone had left a pile of books on the desk I was working that day. I’d only stepped away a moment to help someone and when I came back there were twelve books piled haphazardly in front of my chair on the subject of bondage and discipline. BDSM. Rope play. Non-consensual roleplay. Caning. Slavery.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe in coincidences. I collected them and put them back where they were supposed to go, the whole time feeling eyes following my every move and enjoying the fact I had to clean up after them to hide their torment. After that, nowhere felt safe.
Three nights after the burglaries, I walked home alone from the subway station, my arms full of groceries. I climbed the stairs, checked the mail, and was about to let myself in when I felt the presence of someone behind me. A hand grabbed my elbow and before I knew what was happening, I started screaming for my life.
The hand twisted me around and I dropped all my grocery bags and prepared to run. It took precious moments to recognize Marcus Giovanni’s handsome face, now cinched with worry.
“Whoa, whoa, Kara it’s me. It’s me. I thought you heard me. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
I blinked, uncomprehending, and reflexively grabbed my racing heart. I took in the sight of him, his expensive suit, his loose tie. He must have just left the office. My billionaire playboy who’d been dodging my calls since the day after I spent the first night with Sean. We’d never gone so long without talking. I should have been worried, but secretly I was relieved to not have to face him. Maybe, I’d thought, he’d gotten tired me and moved on. That would have been convenient.
“I…Marcus. I didn’t hear you. Guess I was a little on edge.” I wiped my sweaty palms against my pants and then bent to pick up my groceries. He collected several bags too, ensuring that he had a reason to follow me inside.
“Serves me right, sneaking up on a girl in the dark. I wanted to see you. I’ve been a bit MIA lately.”
“So I noticed.” I let us into my building, nodded at Ms. Glass who’d certainly poked her head out when she heard me screaming. He followed me up the stairs to my apartment. I let us in, dropped the mail on the counter and then started putting the groceries away. He helped.
“Things have been busy. We’re moving forward on some big development deals and I’ve been stuck every night at work. Miss me?” He grinned playfully.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.” I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and ducked into the fridge. When I straightened he was there, hands on my hips, pressing me into the counter.
“I’ve missed you.” He settled a series of kisses on my jaw, which felt extraordinary and freaked me out. I pressed my hands to his chest and urged him back, though he resisted.
“We need to talk, Marcus.”
“We need to talk,” he repeated, his sweetness evaporating in an instant, leaving behind a sort of scary intimidating business man. I’d never had to deal with the billionaire before, just the dominant lover I enjoyed often in my bed. Before Sean, anyway.
He crossed his hand over his mouth and took a step back until he leaned against the counter opposite me. He crossed his ankles, the very expensive suit looking so out of place in my dingy kitchen. Ours had been a bizarre relationship. We’d never been exclusive but had sort of become that way over time. He took other women as his dates to events to keep me out of the spotlight, and we both wanted that. We’d never been about our feelings or emotions, just sex. Just sexual companionship. He was rough and dominant and loved my submissive, shy nature. He loved my body, the way Sean did, even if I didn’t understand it. I was as much his secret as he was mine.
And, I realized watching him study me, I was going to miss him.
“You reconnected with your Sean.”
“Yes.” I didn’t hesitate or try to lie. He didn’t deserve that.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. Love is something that cannot be replaced, even by a very good lover.”
“You are?” I didn’t expect jealousy, but I didn’t expect honest well wishes either. I crossed my arms and he crossed his and we watched each other watching the other.
“Of course. You were my lover, Kara, but my companion, too. I wanted things to be different but knew they couldn’t be. Not while we were young and I was scrutinized constantly. I just bought a lot of property and plan to build a lot of different things to revitalize a neighborhood ripe for young twenty-somethings getting on their feet for the first time. I’m going to be all over the news and watched very closely. I had no desire to drag you through that. I knew you’d hate it.”
“I would have.” I smiled. “Thank you for understanding.”
“However.”
The serious businessman returned and my stomach did a little flip. His serious businessman expression, I realized, wasn’t that different than his Dom expression.
“Marcus?”
“However, I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled with losing you.”
He dropped his gaze in thought, but not in submission or shyness. He did it to disarm me and that made me very nervous.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. But you must understand that’s not my style. If I let things I wanted get away, or worse, be stolen from me, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t own half this city and control the other half.”
“I don’t understand.” And I didn’t. I shifted, closed in, prepared for an attack of some kind. Not a physical one. Again, not Marcus’s style.
“We end on my terms.”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Your Sean, Sean Castle. Oh yes, I know who he is. It’s not an accident I chose to go ahead with the development of the same neighborhood he’d just moved his restaurant into. He interested me. Old money, very old, almost as old as mine. A young man shirking his inheritance and family name to make one for himself. I can relate, obviously. Not to mention he had you so thoroughly, even after so many years. He stole you from me, and I’m not convinced he deserves you. What he did…I don’t know how you can forgive him.”
“That’s my business, Marcus. Not your concern. I appreciate your distrust, but that’s for me to figure out.”
My defenses built a wall up around me, careful not to draw his considerable ire, but also not wanting to let him think he could demand or decide anything for me. If he was moved by my words, he didn’t show it.
“Maybe it’s not my business, but I’m making it mine anyway. I will take one more night with you, on my terms. Tomorrow night. If I don’t convince you to stay with me where you are safe, then I’ll let you go peacefully and I’ll work with your Sean and his brother to fit into my designs for their neighborhood.”
“No. Marcus, no. Sean would never be ok with that. I’ve made my choice, right or wrong. It’s mine to make.”
“I’d never force you, Kara, of course I wouldn’t. However, should you deny me a final night, I’ll stop the opening of Wonderland tonight. I’ll take it from them.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I guess I’m giving you all the power for a change. Your choice. Your decision. Your power to save him and yourself.”
Cold, hollow cold flooded my veins. Marcus didn’t look any different than he had ten minutes before, but suddenly he was the devil, a monster used to using money and wealth to get his way and control everyone around him. That was his game, to control me even at the ending of our relationship.
Sleep with him and save Sean’s dreams. Sleep with him and break Sean’s heart. He gave me an impossible choice and knew I’d break over either one. His final squeeze of control. Because he could. Because he was a ruthless billionaire who never lost.
How I didn’t see this coming, I don’t know.
And another thought curdled my blood. Was he the faceless nemesis at my back? Not him of course, no
he’d never follow me or trash Sean’s apartment or burglarize the Wonderland offices. He’d hire someone to do his dirty work.
I knew, no matter what, he wasn’t kidding when he said he’d take Wonderland away from Sean and Zach. Tonight. If I said no.
“One more night?” I murmured, hating myself for saving the man I loved by betraying him.
“It’s a small betrayal, pet. He never has to know. I won’t tell him if you won’t.”
“Please don’t do this Marcus.”
He shrugged so casually, as if he wasn’t ripping my heart out of my chest. I squeezed my eyes briefly closed. Opening them was a struggle.
“It’s already done, pet. You won’t believe me, but I’ll be very sorry to lose your companionship. I don’t want you to go.”
“You think blackmailing me will get me to stay? You are sorely mistaken.” I scoffed and looked away. What was I thinking, getting into bed with this man? Men like Marcus Giovanni didn’t understand the world in which they don’t get what they want. I was a little fool to ever believe otherwise.
“You’ll change your mind. I know you Kara. One taste of what I have to offer and you’ll change your mind.” His eyes twinkled, the bastard, charming even himself. He smiled, knew he had me, knew I couldn’t afford to say no.
Even as my heart dissolved into a million, guilty pieces, I nodded.
“One night.”
He pushed himself suddenly to stand, tall but not as tall as Sean. He crossed the space easily and moved in close, too close, so that his cologne overwhelmed me. His shampoo. The smell of Marcus that was so very Marcus. Rich in every sense of the word.
“I promise you won’t regret this.” He tucked a finger beneath my chin and raised it to present my mouth for him. I didn’t pull away, but I didn’t soften either. He kissed me gently, a kiss that would have once melted me into the floor. Not now. Now it seared almost painfully. “We’re going out tomorrow. I’ll send an outfit by messenger. Wear it. I’ll pick you up at nine. Make sure you’re shaved. I want you bare in every way.”
