Aaron: Book Three (Scars 3)

by West, Sinden

  “So was the food.” I rolled my eyes at her. “You could have overindulged with the canapes instead.

  “Yeah, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun. Plus I need the al-co-hol to cope with those people. How can you stand them?”

  “Don’t do it again.” I drove through the gates and onto the road.

  “Do what? Get drunk? Like you can talk,” she mocked.

  “In front of them. Don’t get drunk in front of them. Don’t let your guard down. The minute they think you’re vulnerable they’ll take you like you’re a piece of goddamned meat and I won’t be able to protect you.” My speed increased.

  She laughed. “Sure you will, protect me. You always protect me. My knight in shining armor.” Her laughter continued. “Or should that be my knight in dark armor?”

  We’d reached the road that twisted and turned around the edge of the cliff, and I roughly pulled the car off to the side of the road, jamming my foot down on the brake so hard that we came to a harsh jerk of a stop. She flew forward, protected only by her seatbelt.

  “Ow.” She looked up at me through her mussed hair, frowning.

  I got out of the car and slammed the door closed behind me, before walking over to the barrier that was the only thing from stopping someone going over the edge.

  She waited a moment before following. “What’s your problem?” she called, the wind was whipping her hair around her face. I turned away from her, staring down at the sea until I felt her hand touch my wrist. “What is it?” Her voice was gentler now and more sober.

  I sighed and encircled her hand in mine. “In my office is a safe. In it is cash plus passports. They’ve been forged by the best so they shouldn’t cause any trouble under inspection.”

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “Not yet, but if I ever disappear, raid the safe and go. Don’t contact anyone back here, just go. Destroy your cell and anything else that links you to your identity.”

  I expected her to roll her eyes and scoff at how dramatic I was being, but she didn’t. She nodded like she understood. “Are you screwing over Luca?”

  I released her hand. “No, but he’s an easy guy to piss off. He’s unpredictable and ruthless. If one day he decides that my time is done. I won’t be given any warning. I’ll just be dead, and if he’s feeling particularly sadistic, you’ll be dead too.”

  That wasn’t completely true; my guard was constantly up. I’d know it when it was my time and I would not go quietly, but I wanted to scare her. It didn’t work however. She gazed at me with a serious look in her eyes as she took in my words.

  “You’re not an easy person to kill,” she said quietly.

  “I have an injury now.” My hand went to my leg. “It’s a weakness.”

  “And I’m your other weakness.” Her eyes were hard.

  “No.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Yes. You came for me the last time.”

  Yeah, and that was fucking foolish.

  I flashed her a smile. “I always learn from my mistakes.”

  She shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Let’s go. I’m cold.” She started to walk away but I reached out and grabbed her wrist, gently pulling her toward me.

  “Luca’s a psychopath. It’s something that doesn’t matter at all to me, but it should to you. If he wants you, he’ll just take you and claim you. Self preservation is king. It always will be.”

  Her mouth flicked up into the merest ghost of a smile. “It must be like looking in a mirror for you.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She pulled away. “Let’s go.”

  I waited for a moment before following her back to the car.

  Chapter Six

  Back at the house, I showered. Closing my eyes, I stood under the spray but it didn’t soothe me. All I saw in my mind was Luca looking at Rachel. It would be better if there had been lust on his face. Lust I could deal with, but this was just a cold nothing. I shivered despite the heat of the water.

  When I came out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my waist, Rachel lay on the bed, watching me.

  She had removed the ugly dress and just lay there in her bra and panties.

  “Sober now?” I asked her, before I saw the glass of wine that sat beside her on the nightstand. “Guess not.”

  “I like it. It makes me feel…nice.” Her voice was so soft that she was hard to hear. “Come over here.” She patted the space beside her and I didn’t move immediately. It was times like these that she confused me‒when she was so welcoming, almost as if her wall had crumbled down, but I knew that it wasn’t the truth and that wall was constantly there between us, and her act and machinations were like empty battlements; a trick when waiting behind them were men with arrows ready to fire into your core.

  In spite of this, I lay down beside her and let my hands sweep along her smooth thighs, feeling the muscle that she had cultivated there. Before she had been so thin that I could probably have broken her with my bare hands; that wasn’t the case now.

  I let my hands move along her skin to her inner thigh where the skin was at its softest, but they didn’t stay there for long. I wanted the prize and I wanted to tease. She didn’t utter a word as I let my fingers work in past the crotch of her panties to find the warmth and softness there. Her breathing became faster automatically as she moistened. I looked at her face. Her eyes were closed and her head tilted back while a half smile sat on her lips.

  I stopped my movements. “Look at me.”

  Slowly her eyes opened.

  “I want you to look at me. I want you to know that it’s me.”

  “I do know that it’s you. Who else would I really want touching me?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that question so I kept rubbing and dipping into her while she let out small moans.

  “Fuck me now,” she rasped as her hips lifted off of the bed. “Now. I want you fucking me.” Her voice was uneven and rasping. I didn’t need to be asked again. I tore off her panties, the silk ripping with ease, before I plunged into her. I fit perfectly like her body was made just for me. Her legs came around me straight away, pulling me in deeper as she smiled drunkenly, crazily laughing with lust that soon changed into a long moan that was followed by panting and then twisted noises like she wanted to speak but couldn’t. Normally she was so quiet that I felt like I had to pound her hard for a vocal reaction. Although her body always gave away what she wouldn’t let her voice betray.

  But now, there was nothing holding her back and that make me cum hard as she screamed out as she came. Her nails gripped my back as she kept me in her for a few moments before allowing me to slide from her. I rolled onto my back, absolutely spent and dripping with sweat. Her eyes were closed again with that lazy smile on her face. Her breasts were moving as she took deep breaths, and finally she got herself under control again to turn and look at me.

  Her fingers danced over my chest and then down to my abs as I lay on my back, resting my head on my hands. She took her time exploring me, her fingers sending a tingle direct to my dick that was ready to go again the second that she wanted it.

  “Your body is so warm, so magical in what it can do,” she murmured as her fingers continued on their gentle dance over my muscle, she lifted her head to watch me through her hair “but your eyes…your eyes are empty.”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t give an inch of reaction, even as she continued. “You call Luca a psychopath but that’s what you are, can’t you see that?” I still kept quiet. “That’s why you’re around him, isn’t it? Because he is what you are, and you like the challenge, in fact, I’ll bet that the only way you feel anything akin to fear, anything at all, is when you’re with him, because you know what he’s capable and that makes you feel alive. You both like to prey on the weak.” Her eyes were boring into me now, unmoving and unflinching. She wanted…what? Did she want me to agree or to argue?

  “Does it matter?” I asked finally.

  She moved her hands from me
, and I missed them.

  “I guess not.”

  She went to move away, but I grabbed her wrist to keep her there. “I’m not a psychopath, Rachel. I’ve been forced to see psychiatrists when I was in the system as a juvenile and no one’s ever said that I’m a psychopath.” Yeah, and they never said you were normal either.

  “Then what are you?”

  “Ruthless.”

  She shook her head, her blonde hair swayed around her, flicking onto my skin. “No. That’s not it. There’s more to you.”

  I let her go and grabbed for my towel, sighing. “So deep, Rachel, really.” I walked back toward the bathroom to shower again.

  “If you’re so normal then why don’t you show emotion? You only do when you’re drunk,” she called after me. I paused at the door and then turned to her and grinned.

  “I show you plenty of emotion.”

  “It’s not real. None of it’s real.”

  I shrugged again and stepped inside the bathroom, but before I closed the door I said. “You’re wrong about one thing. There’s nothing weak about the men that we prey on. They normally deserve their fate.”

  “What about me? I’m not part of that world and you preyed on me.” The words flew from her, tinged with emotion.

  “There was nothing weak about you, Rachel.” There was nothing more to say and I closed the door.

  She had vacated the room when I returned. I spied her sitting outside by the pool, alone and staring at nothing as she hugged her knees to her chest. She had changed into a white dress that was too cold for the weather and the darkening sky. That was her problem. I had work to do.

  She still hadn’t come in when I returned downstairs with a bag slung over my shoulder and keys in hand. “I’m heading out for a few days,” I told her from the doorway.

  “Okay.” She didn’t turn to look at me.

  I didn’t have to go tonight, but I wanted to get away from her. I didn’t like her dissecting me, and worse, I didn’t like her questioning me. I’d get Antony to check in on her later. He enjoyed her company, besides, I was getting his job out of the way. He owed me.

  As I was backing out of the garage, I saw her, just out of the corner of my eye. She stood at the window, staring at me through the glass. The dying sun glinting on the glass distorted her image, reflecting light and obscuring her face. The only definite object that I saw there was the white dress, and that image stayed with me as I pulled out of the driveway and set off to kill three people.

  I didn’t know why I let myself get distracted. I had a shit load of work to do, but once I changed cars and arrived in the town, I found myself heading to the address that I’d imprinted on my memory months ago.

  The house was nice. She must have been doing well for herself, or at the very least, using her cunt and her mouth well to get what she wanted. Her hair was now a blonde that was darker than Rachel’s. It incorporated several different shades so she obviously had it touched up at an expensive salon each month. She looked comfortable in her skin like the chameleon life suited her well. Her lover had bought her an expensive convertible that she zigzagged through traffic in like she had no care in the world. She tipped generously and smiled graciously and condescendingly at people she thought were beneath her as they loaded her bags into her car for her.

  The guy that she’d trapped or seduced was a weedy looking man and shorter than her. He had some IT company and drooled whenever she touched him. He thought that he’d made it and had no idea that this woman was about to rip him off big time. I watched as they kissed outside the house. It was like she was engulfing him with her mouth, almost eating him alive.

  Would this be what Rachel would turn into as she aged? A money hungry monster prepared to devour anyone to get what she wanted? She had a ruthless side. That I knew all too well, but was that because of what I had done to her or was it always there, waiting to emerge from her beautiful shell of a body like the flies in his dream…

  Fuck. I had to stop thinking like that. He was nuts. Plain and simple. She wasn’t the devil; she wasn’t a fucking demoness. Rachel was just a girl who had been tormented and trodden on. It was the rest of us who were fucked up.

  I gripped the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles went white as I tried to take deep breaths. I had to be careful. I would not go crazy like him.

  Swallowing finally, I twisted the key in the ignition and drove off. I had a job to do. I had other people to stalk. She would wait until the time was right.

  The people I was being paid to be concerned with lived in a far less upscale neighborhood. The sons attended a local college but still lived at home with their mother. I watched from down the street as their old car pulled up to a stop outside of the house. They were laughing and joking as they exited the car. One tried to tackle the other but his brother dodged out of the way, laughing and mocking his brother.

  Then the mother came out. She was dressed in the uniform for the elderly persons’ home where she worked. She’d be heading off for the night shift soon. Her hair was scraped back and she looked tired, but her whole demeanor changed as she saw her sons. Her face broke into a smile and she wrapped her arms around each one and they bent down to kiss her. All joking between the brothers was gone now. They clearly adored their mother and she had all of their attention. That stirred something in me. I adored my mother once as well, maybe I was four or five, but it didn’t last long; it died and turned to pity instead.

  I watched as she laughingly pushed them away to start walking toward her car, blowing them a kiss as she did so.

  Who were these people and why did Antony need them dead?

  And why the fuck did I care? They were nothing. They struggled to make ends meet. The boys both worked as well as studying. She was a solo mother who had raised her kids alone since they were babies. There was no father in the picture. There never had been. There was no father listed on the birth certificates and she’d never been married. She rented this house. She had nothing but a shitty car and a shitty life.

  HUMANE had been scrawled in capital letters. Quick and humane so they wouldn’t even know what was happening. What the fuck was Antony doing? Even he could have taken them out, if he had the balls to.

  As if he knew that I was thinking about him, a text flashed on my phone. He was keeping Rachel company for the evening.

  I didn’t think that he wanted to fuck her. If anything, he felt like more of a father to her, but he needn’t. I could take care of her. I was all that she needed.

  Inside, one of the brothers pulled the blinds and I started the car. I was done here for tonight. I needed food and sleep.

  Those were the only things that I ever needed.

  I dreamed, and it was of Rachel.

  It was when I made her straddle me. Made her, made her, made her‒I forced her through sheer terror, I needed to own up to that. But in the dream, I didn’t take smug satisfaction in it. Instead, I was mesmerized by her. This golden creature put her mouth on mine and sunk down on me, engulfing me in pure warmth. A lump formed in my mouth and my eyes stung and to my horror, tears began to form. I hadn’t cried in years and now liquid was falling onto my cheeks.

  Rachel broke her kiss and gazed at me, her lips curving into a smile as she saw me crying.

  “Oh, Aaron,” she said softly and kindly. “Don’t cry yet.” Suddenly, her eyes hardened. “I’m not even half way done with you yet.” Her voice had changed into a deep tone that wasn’t hers. It sounded demonic and I tried desperately to shove her away but she had an iron grip on me. She laughed as I struggled and then her mouth opened wide and something black flew out. It was a fly, and then another followed, and then another. A continuous swarm emerged and I screamed.

  My eyes flew open to be confronted by the dark of the motel room with just a small shard of false light creeping in through a gap in the curtain.

  I threw the blankets from me as I struggled for breath. Sweat covered my body and my heart beat rapidly. Shit. How did I get so freaked
out by a nightmare? Terror was for children, not me, and I was the one who committed that terror. I was the predator, not the victim.

  “Bitch. Rachel, you bitch,” I said to the empty room.

  I reached for my phone and hastily pressed her name in the contacts. It rang for a while before her sleepy voice answered.

  “What?”

  I didn’t answer straight away. My mouth was dry.

  “Aaron?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She sounded like she cared.

  “Yeah. I just pressed your name by mistake. Is Antony still there?” He shouldn’t have been. Not at that hour.

  “No, he left hours ago.”

  “Okay. Go back to sleep.”

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” she pressed.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry.” I ended the call.

  Chapter Seven

  Another day of watching. The brothers grabbed a football and headed to a nearby park. Young, strong and athletic. That could be a problem.

  I stayed watching the mother. She waved her sons off before sitting down on the porch and lighting a cigarette. She inhaled deeply as if this simple act gave her such joy. She would have been pretty when she was younger; before time and stress engraved lines deep in her skin to make her look older than she really was.

  I tried to imagine Rachel at her age. A mother? A loving mother? It didn’t really seem to fit, just like the image of Rachel aging, that didn’t fit either.

  And if she did, she would age like her mother with smooth skin, excellent hair and stylish outfits. No, the evil did not age with grace. Everything was a game to her type, even outplaying time…

  Not that Rachel was evil. I had to get that fucking idea out of my head, but nor was she innocent or naïve. That bitch that gave birth to her had destroyed that.

  I tried to put images of the mother and daughter out of my head. Why the hell did Antony want these people dead? It wasn’t my business. It didn’t really matter anyway.