Without another word, Kerri turned and climbed back into her car. She heard Harden call her name before she slammed the door closed and turned the engine over. The tires screeched as her car lurched backward. She spun the car around, shifted gears, and tore through the still-open gate and onto PCH. A Mazda Miata came roaring past just as she pulled out and had to swerve into the next lane to avoid a collision. Its horn honked in the distance, fading quickly as the car sped off and left Kerri alone on PCH to make the long, sad drive home alone.
Sniffling back the tears, Kerri soon moved past self-recrimination. Control, self-control, she thought, yeah, like I’d know anything about either one of those! I haven’t learned a goddamned thing!
No, I can’t keep hating myself like that. Okay, this didn’t work out, but I’m probably better off anyway. I have learned, and I’ve learned a lot. So now I can go out and use that knowledge, spread it around a bit. There are lots of guys who could benefit, and I could benefit from their benefit.
‘Pay it forward,’ isn’t that what Harden said?
Her tires clung to the asphalt as her car pushed east on the 10.
Why would I even want a man like that full-time? Sure, he’s generous enough with his money, with the things his money can buy, but he doesn’t share of himself, of his soul. He’s got no generosity of spirit.
Kerri also knew that she’d only scratched the surface of Harden Steele, that there was a lot he hadn’t revealed to her or perhaps to anyone. There was tenderness there, and a sadness he dared not show. There was still a streak of the romantic in him, a core of softness beneath all that hardened Steel and Kerri couldn’t shake the certainty that she of all people would have been the one to draw those truths out for the first and only time.
Get it out of your head, Kerri Abernathy; he’s gone forever, and that’s that.
Kerri pulled off the freeway and took the streets up toward her house.
In the mean time I’ve got a clean bill of health and a bright future, plenty of money in the bank and a whole new chapter of my career to look forward to. There’s no reason I should look on this weekend as anything other than an unqualified success, one I chose and one I made happen. I’ve taken control of my life, turned everything around in one fell swoop. And that took courage, that took risk and the risk paid off.
That’s control.
Kerri pulled up her driveway and turned off the engine. She looked at the big Tudor home she’d come so close to losing. Home at last, she thought. Maybe it’s time to do a bit more traveling, spend a little less time here or at the spa.
Maybe it’s time to call Fresno, talk to the folks again, and reconnect with Mom. Maybe there are a few things I have to say to her, things she needs to hear, about how young and stupid I was, about how sorry I am, about how much I love her.
Yeah, it’s a whole new era and a whole new Kerri Abernathy. Mark McCall’s widow is dead and gone. It’s time to stop looking behind me and start looking ahead. Thank you, Mr. Harden Steele, I’ll always appreciate what I’ve learned, and I’ll never forget you.
No matter how hard I try.
Kerri stepped out of the car and walked toward the front door. She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open in front of her. The house was quiet, grandfather clock ticking in the corner of the living room. Kerri stepped into the house, reaching back to close the front door and step deeper into the foyer.
She made it about five feet before aggressive hands reached out from behind her. They grabbed her shoulders and spun her around in a flash. Kerri’s heart jumped when he shoved her against the wall, hard and flat behind her.
At first she thought, Harden?
But when her eyes refocused and that cold, hard gun shoved into her mouth, she knew how wrong she was.
“Good day to yous, Miss Thing.—” Kerri’s eyes were fixed on Chaz, standing in front of her in that black leather duster. His partner, Dino, stepped out from the living room. Chaz went on, “Bet choo’s didn’t expect to see us, didja? Well, life’s full of little surprises, ain’t it?”
Chapter 11
Kerri was rigid with terror, not even flinching with that gun in her mouth. She knew one wrong twitch could make the gun go off accidentally, or even deliberately. She knew the end result would be the same. But she did notice the bruises on Chaz’s face, Dino standing with a slight list to one side.
“You and your slick Hollywood boyfriend,” Chaz sneered, “You thought you could shut me down, go over my head? Don Paulie’s men nearly beat us to death, lady! I’m lucky to have a tooth in my head!”
He jammed the gun deeper into Kerri’s mouth, the cold metal pressing against the back of her throat.
“Lucky for us, your boyfriend’s courier never turned up at Don Paulie’s office with the money. ‘Course, it wasn’t really luck, was it? Now we got an extra two hundred grand, and we’re sitting pretty when Don Paulie comes back to us, nice and apologetic. ‘You boys was right,’ he says, ‘y’got big t’ings ahead of you’s.’” Chaz chuckled, mean and shrill, shaking his head. “So he gives us another fifty G’s each just to bring him your pretty head … among other parts.” Kerri gasped, spine still rigid, palms pressing flat against the wall behind her. “Yours and Richie Rich’s, of course. Don Paulie don’t like to be made no fool of. You didn’t know that, and the tuxedo didn’t know it. But we did. And knowledge is power, right?” He screamed, “Right?”
Kerri could only nod nervously, that deadly weapon still sticking into her open mouth, jaw muscles starting to cramp on both sides of her face.
“You and that walking mannequin you go out with, think yer so great. Think yer some big-shot actress, running around with your tits out? You two don’t know shit about life in the real world, sweetheart, but you’re about to find out.”
Kerri quivered, but he kept her pinned with that oily gun in her mouth, coating her tongue with that sickening metallic taste.
“See, me and Dino here, we work for a living, we work hard for that living! We gotta do shit you’d never dream of doing! We go places you’d never make it back from! You think you’re so great? You got nothin’ on workin’ men like us, and yer kind never will. You rich, fancy jerks make me sick! My daddy was a fisherman, drowned when I was six years old! While you grew up with a silver spoon up your ass! You make me sick, all o’ you’s! You think you can just steal the country, just take whatever you want, do whatever you want whenever you want? Just because you're so rich and pretty, flashing your legs and your tits and that pretty pussy of yours; I don't think so.”
Kerri gasped, near to vomiting all over that terrible gun, still jammed into her mouth.
Chaz looked Kerri over with a greedy grin. “And we’s allowed to do whatever we want to, Candy Pants, it’s a no-holds bar!” Chaz licked his lips. “I’ve been waiting for a crack at you for some time, baby.” He sucked in a stream of air through his pursed lips, spit bubbling in his mouth. “It’s gonna be so good, sweet face. I’m gonna do you in ways your pissy pants boyfriend couldn’t even dream of. You’re gonna know what it’s like to be with a real man… for a little while, anyway.”
Kerri wanted to spit in his face, to knee him in the groin, but with that gun sticking in her mouth, she knew even the slightest movement could be her last. It took all her self-control to remain still and silent and not give in to her feelings of rebellion and offense.
It would be a fight she would never win.
Chaz snickered, glancing around. “Lots of rooms in this fucking hotel. We got nothing but time and the whole place to ourselves.”
“Well,” a familiar voice said from behind Chaz, “Not entirely to yourselves.”
Chaz spun to see Harden standing behind him, having sneaked in from the back of the house through the same opened door the mob goons had used. There was no more time to reason it out. Harden moved in a flash. As soon as Chaz pulled his gun out of Kerri’s mouth, which Harden seemed to know he would do, Harden smashed him in the face with the but
t of his own handgun, a silencer already affixed to the barrel.
Kerri ducked out of the way, as Chaz fell to the floor at Harden’s feet still clutching his own handgun, and Harden stomped on his wrist, cracking the bones and sending the gun sliding out of his grip.
By this time, Harden had leveled his own gun at Dino, who was drawing his own from the back of his pants. He managed to get the gun in hand before Harden’s silenced gunshots muffled through the house. Thp, thp, thp! Three holes burst open in Dino’s chest as he toppled back against the front door.
Kerri looked up, slowly raising herself to her full posture. “Take his gun, cover him.” Harden ordered as she scrambled to pick up the black automatic handgun just out of Chaz’s reach, his wrist still pinned under Harden’s foot.
It was then that Kerri noticed the smartphone in Harden’s other hand. Still holding his own gun with the other hand, he used his fingertips to swipe the screen a few times. He turned the screen down so Chaz could see it.
A familiar diatribe came leaking out of the phone’s little speakers, matching video of Chaz menacing Kerri on the screen.
“Lucky for us, your boyfriend’s courier never turns up at Don Paulie’s office with the money. ‘Course, it wasn’t really luck, was it? Now we got an extra two hundred grand, and we’re sitting pretty when Don Paulie comes back to us, nice and apologetic. ‘You boys was right,’ he says, ‘y’got big things ahead of you’s.’” Chaz chuckled, mean and shrill, shaking his head. “So he gives us another fifty G’s each just to bring him your head.” Kerri gasped, spine still rigid, palms pressing flat against the wall behind her. “Yours and Richie Rich’s, of course. Don Paulie don’t like to be made a fool of. You didn’t know that, and the tuxedo didn’t know it. But we did. And knowledge is power, right? Right?”
Chaz looked up from the floor. “Please, don’t… don’t!”
Harden smiled menacingly before swiping the screen again, tapping a few buttons and swiping again. “Just let me go, Dude. You won’t have to pay me a thing … I’ll even get you your two honey back, I swear it!” No answer came back, and Kerri’s attention was riveted to their contest. “I’ll get you an extra twenty. You gotta get paid for your bag man, right? His family’s gotta be taken care of, I get that … me more than most!”
Chaz begged Harden, “Please, I … I’ll do anything, anything you want! You need somebody taken care of, you got it. I’ll push a button on anyone you want, man! They’re gone! And you know I’ll be loyal, ‘cause you’ll always have that video, right?” Harden pushed a few more buttons, swiping the screen again. “Hey, we can work together and take out Don Paulie, I can be your man inside. I’ll have you runnin’ North Jersey in less than a year, man!” Harden merely pushed a few more buttons on the screen. Chaz screeched out, “You can put that away, Boss, I’m with you now!”
Harden swiped the screen again, his eyes cold and judgmental, looking down at Chaz.
Chaz turned to Kerri. “You, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t gonna do anything bad to you, I swear. I was just, y’know, acting like a big shot. But I wasn’t gonna rape you, I swear it! Tell him to stop, tell him to put the phone away!”
But Kerri said nothing, both hands on the gun that was pointed straight at Chaz’s heart, not that he had one.
Harden swiped his screen again, and Chaz’s voice took on a tearful desperation. “C’mon, man, I got a wife and kid! Don’t do this!” Harden just stared down at him, grim-faced, unmoved. Kerri’s hands started to sweat, the gun slick in her palms as her stomach began to turn.
Chaz was panting with greater desperation. “Okay, okay, you fucking asshole, why don’t you just kill me right now, leave Don Paulie out of it?” Harden glared at him, stepping down a bit harder on his broken wrist, causing Chaz to writhe in pain, eyes clamping shut before refocusing on Harden above him. “What’s the matter, you pussy? Don’t you have the guts to do it yourself? Prove to your little girlfriend that you’re a real man and do what a real man has to do! Why don’t you take control for once in your life?”
Harden swiped the phone screen again.
Chaz’s head sagged, lolling on the hard floor. He looked at Kerri. “Then you do it.”
Harden said quietly, “Don’t, Kerri.”
“You shut up,” Chaz hollered at Harden, returning his attention to Kerri. “You cow, you ugly whore! You worthless cum bucket!—” Kerri’s arms began to twitch, fingers at the ready. But she knew what his ploy was, and that this was a test of her self-control. She was not about to succumb to his trickery. “I’m gonna get out of this,” Chaz rasped at her, “Then I’m gonna come back for you! And I’m gonna take you apart piece by fucking piece, you hear me? And I’ll enjoy that!”
Harden pressed down harder on Chaz’s wrist, the man groaning in pain and looking back up at Harden. “Stop it, Jesus, it fucking hurts!”
And as he looked up at Harden, Harden swiped the phone one last time and then slipped his smartphone back into his pocket.
Chaz asked him, “What’d you do? What did you do?”
Harden looked down at Chaz, a little half smile on his chiseled features. He asked calmly, “Aren’t you gonna answer your phone?”
Chapter 12
Chaz’s head fell back to the floor. “Oh no,” was all he could muster, and that even before the digital recording of the familiar Godfather theme leaked out of his pocket. It repeated twice.
Harden suggested, “You really should answer it.”
“Fuck you,” was all Chaz could say, his body already slack and defeated. The phone stopped ringing and there was a protracted silence. “Don’t forget your wife and kid,” Harden said as the phone started ringing again. Chaz reached into his pocket with his free hand and raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Boss?”
Harden shifted off Chaz’s wrist and stepped back, allowing the young man to stagger to his feet, wincing in pain, the phone to his cheek.
“No, Boss, I didn’t… that was all Dino Boss, I swear it. I only found out about it afterward. I killed him soon as I learnt. And den I was gonna come right to you, but … no, I know, he was wrong, a hundred percent, but I tried to … ”
Kerri lowered the gun and ran to Harden. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his free hand holding his gun on Chaz, who was armed only with the smartphone, the instrument of his own defeat.
“Boss, I’d never betray you…” His voice was quivering with fear, tears starting to push out of his eyes. “Okay, Boss… No, Boss, please not that. I’ll get you the money back, and I’ve learned a lot, I got info. And you know how valuable that can… But I… No, Boss, please, anything but that… But… No, Don Paulie, not them, please not them, my boy’s only three years old!”
Kerri gripped Harden, both arms wrapped around his chest.
“Okay, Boss, awright… No, I wasn’t gonna hurt ‘em anyway, I swear… I won’t, Don Paulie, you don’t have to mention them again… I won’t… Awright, Don Paulie, awright. But could you just…— ? Don Paulie?” After a mean silence, Chaz repeated in a holler, “Don Paulie!”
No answer came back.
The three stood in the silent living room, before Chaz hung his head and started crying. It began as a low groan but rose quickly to a tearful sob and then to a high-pitched pitiful scream. He hurled the phone down, smashing it against the floor, the electronic rectangle shattering into shards of glass and plastic.
He wouldn’t be needing it anymore, and all of them knew it. Chaz looked up slowly at Harden. “I … I don’t have a gun,” he managed to say, voice cracking.
Harden retrieved the handgun from Kerri, and handed it to him. Kerri said, “Harden, what are you doing?”
“It’s okay, Kerri,” Harden said calmly as Chaz took the gun. The mob foot soldier wrestled with his lesser instincts, lips pulled tight over his teeth.
He sneered at Kerri, then at Harden, and turned slowly. “Don Paulie said to do it outside, so I don’t get more blood all over your floor. And he told me… t
o apologize. So… I’m sorry, okay—?” He let out a blood-curdling scream, “I’m sorry, okaaaaaayyyy?”
Harden and Kerri just stood in their embrace while Chaz turned and shuffled slowly toward the foyer. His sobs only grew the closer he got to the front door, crying and moaning with greater panic and even greater resolve. He wrenched the door open, looking down at his dead partner’s body, Dino, as it tumbled to the side, lifeless. The shape of things to come for Chaz himself, he let out a heartfelt wail that was all the louder for him being outside, and on the cusp of eternity.
The wail got louder still, a gut-wrenching scream that rang through Kerri’s body, recalling her own. She knew the terror he felt, she knew the sense of hopelessness, of defeat. His scream only got louder as he poured every last ounce of strength into it.
His miserable cry finally trailed off into a stream of low clicks, throat bubbling up with saliva and mucus. It clung to his throat, acidic and disgusting. In that last moment of silence, he flashed on his beloved Mila and little Pete.
Goodbye, my family, Chaz silently spoke. I hope you’ll never know what I had to do to keep you both alive.
God, I don’t wanna die!
Kerri and Harden watched from the foyer as Chaz stood, slouched just outside the front door. He turned, one eye glaring at them from over his shoulder. His voice rose again, raspy and torn, one final battle cry. He took a deep breath, fixed his stare on Kerri and Harden, and let out a gravelly, hate-filled, “Fuck… yyyyoooooouuuuuuuuuu!” Spittle shot out of his lips until his last words rang to their end.
Chaz raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger in one swift motion. The blast shocked Kerri, her whole body tensing with horror, fingers over her lips. Chaz’s body fell straight to the walkway. This time there was no silencer, and Harden set his handgun down on the floor and led Kerri toward the front doors to greet the police empty-handed.
Billionaire Benefactor Daddy: A Single Dad & Virgin Romance Boxset Page 68
