by Logan Fox
Until he stepped forward, into the light.
The girl’s eyes widened, and a small gasp escaped her mouth before she could press her lips closed. Her eyes flickered over Zachary’s ruined flesh.
It was like a physical touch, those horrified eyes. She barely seemed to notice when her blouse slid down her arms and gathered in a heap at her feet.
Zachary glanced at Angel. The man was waiting again, eyes staring a point somewhere past the girl. But, unless it was just the way his jeans folded when he sat, he could see an erection forming in Angel’s lap.
With a girl so pretty, half naked and willing—if terrified—to do anything they required…his own manhood was beginning to stir.
“Is my gift not worthy of you?” Zachary asked quietly as he stepped up behind the girl.
He laid his hands on her shoulders and urged her a foot forward, until her knees bumped against Angel’s. The man shifted, but didn’t look at her. Didn’t look at Zachary. His eyes were fixed on the mirror. On his reflection? He’d placed it there with meticulous care, making sure it reflected as much of the bed as possible…Did Angel see that now?
“Por favor…” Angel’s voice was ragged.
“Have you forgotten what to do with a woman?” His voice was cold. “Or would you have preferred a man?”
“No,” came Angel’s quiet protestation.
“Then do you still know how to fuck, or must I show you?”
Angel’s cheeks glowed with what could have been embarrassment or anger as he fisted his hands in his laps. Was he trying to hide his erection, or keep himself from punching Zachary?
The boy had already had his chance at revenge. He’d told Angel he would only get one chance at killing him.
Zachary slid his hands down the girl’s arms, and then cupped her breasts. He squeezed them hard, and she cried out in surprise, instinctively grabbing Zachary’s wrists as if she wanted to tug him away. But she never did. As soon as she touched him, she whipped her hands away again, holding her arms stiff at her sides.
He could feel her trembling under his hands, but her nipples didn’t harden. She didn’t like pain, or hadn’t experienced enough of the good kind to have it excite her. She was already of marriageable age—he couldn’t conceive she hadn’t had some experience with the opposite sex, not as pretty as she was.
Angel’s face contorted in anger, but he smoothed it a second later. He spread his legs open, grabbed the front of the girl’s skirt by the hem, and yanked her forward.
Closer to him, but out of Zachary’s grasp at the same time.
Maybe the young man now understand how this game was played.
Zachary gave him a slow smile that the young man didn’t return. Angel’s hands appeared around the girl’s waist, fumbling for the zipper at her back.
“Allow me,” Zachary said, opening the tiny pearl button with a twist of his thumb and forefinger and dragging down her zipper.
The sound seemed too loud in the confines of the room. It was a quiet night—most of the staff had gone to bed early on his request, and it meant the farmhouse was empty except for them and Ailin, standing guard by the door. The staff quarters were a quarter mile away, and even their occasional music and laughter that played out over his land some nights wasn’t in evidence.
Angel worked his fingers around the waistband of the young woman’s skirt, tugging it down. Zachary had a clear view of Angel over the girl’s petite frame; if he were to pull her into an embrace, her ear would have been on his breastbone.
She wore a frilly underthing—lacy and translucent—and this seemed to shock Angel more than her appearance a few minutes ago.
Zachary ran his thumb around that garment’s waistband, and then flicked it against her belly. The girl jumped, and then let out a tiny giggle.
“See, Angel?” Zachary said, rubbing his palm over the girl’s smooth stomach. “She has accepted her role in my house. Why can’t you do the same?”
Angel’s eyes flared wider as they settled on Zachary’s. “You want me to hurt. To kill. I won’t! I am not a killer.”
“Not yet,” Zachary mused. “But I have an excellent eye for talent. And you, my boy, can be a lieutenant one day.”
“Que?” Angel frowned.
Zachary held out a hand to the bedroom door. “Like Ailin and Rodrigo. My right-hand men. Business partners. Friends.”
“We never be friend.” Angel’s lip curled with contempt. “You are a horrible man.”
Zachary stared at Angel as the burn wounds on his body began writhing like something infested the flesh beneath. Suddenly, even the air weighed too heavy on his skin. “You truly think—”
“I hate you!” Angel tried getting to his feet, but the girl was in his way. She cried out when he bumped into her, and would have gone sprawling if Zachary hadn’t still been a foot behind her. She fell flush against him, her smooth skin as coarse as a metal brush over his wounds.
He hissed, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved her away from him so hard that she screamed when she struck the bed. She scrambled onto it, spinning around with big eyes and a shivering mouth as if ready to kick out if more violence was on the way.
Angel had gone pale. He held his bandaged hand out to the girl as if begging her not to run, and one hand to Zachary as if to placate him.
He drew air through his nose, pushed it out through his mouth, and tried to ignore the throbbing sensitivity of his wounds where the girl had touched him.
“Lo siento, Don Zachary,” Angel murmured. The fright in his eyes was palpable.
Zachary took a step back, and gave the young man a tight smile. “I’m not.” Another deep breath pushed the pain away long enough for him to gather his senses. “Last chance, Angel.” He swept a hand to the girl. She was massaging her scalp where he’d tugged at her head. Such a sensitive little filly, wasn’t she? How darling.
His saliva turned to acid, and he forced a swallow. “Accept my gift.”
He sensed the boy wanted to ask what would happen if he didn’t. He stormed toward the bed, the girl scrambling away from him like he’d known she would.
“¡Pare!” Angel stuck out a hand, not touching his wounds, but close enough that he could feel his warmth. “Por favor! Lo acepto.”
Zachary pushed back his shoulders and then took a slow step back. “Good.” But his voice was emotionless now. The game had come to a grinding halt. The fear in the girl’s eyes was bringing back unpleasant memories and unwelcome empathy.
He despised empathy.
Angel didn’t undress. He tuned his back to Zachary, paused, and then worked at the fly of his jeans. The girl was blocked from Zachary’s view by Angel’s body, but he was still close enough to hear the sound of her underwear sliding down her legs.
The girl didn’t protest when Angel moved her closer to the edge of the bed where he stood. Her legs flashed out to either side of Angel’s waist. She’d painted her toenails bright pink, and they flexed as if she wanted to grip the edge of the bed with them when Angel slid her hips closer to his.
Angel spat into his palm. Zachary watched her feet jerk and then flex as he worked his saliva over her cunt.
A soft murmur from Angel—asking permission, or apologizing?—and then the young man dipped his hips.
The girl cried out. Her hands appeared in Zachary’s view, gripping the sheets to either side of her.
Usually, he would stand to the side, or even move to the other side of the bed. But he’d been soured of this evening by Angel’s reluctance to do what any red-blooded man would have done. He turned, walked to the door, and wrenched it open.
Ailin had been staring up at the ceiling, and didn’t look surprised to see him. Then again, the man was rarely surprised by anything these days. Zachary sometimes wondered what Ailin thought about—he was never one to read or play cards by himself when he was on guard.
“Cigarette,” Zachary snapped.
Anyone but him would have given him a double-take. Ailin drew a crumpled so
ft pack of cigarettes from his pocket, hesitated, and then brought out a shitty plastic lighter.
He would have to purchase something more elegant for the man. God knew what he spent his paycheck on each month, but it was never on himself. Perhaps he had a lover Zachary didn’t know about. He might even have a family.
Zachary hadn’t closed the door behind him; from inside the room, came a girl’s breathy cry. Ailin shook out a cigarette, and then held out the lighter for Zachary. He pulled hard at the cigarette, coughed just as hard, and then took a second drag and held it in his lungs. It tasted foul, and hot, and too thick. But it was glorious. He took another drag, turned at the sound of the bed moving over the floor, and patted Ailin on the side of his arm.
“Thank you, my friend.”
Ailin said nothing as he put his smokes back in his pocket, and then returned to his inspection of the ceiling.
Angel glanced up when Zachary came back into the room. His jaw was tight, his right hand white knuckled where he gripped the top of the girl’s thigh. His bandaged hand hung limp at his side, as if his wound hurt too much for him to use it. From his new vantage point, Zachary had a better view than before. The girl seemed oblivious to everything except Angel’s dick. But he didn’t watch Angel fucking the girl…he watched Angel watching him. Disgust slowly replaced Angel’s vapid concentration. The young man tipped his head down, spat down on the girl, and then rubbed in that lubricant with furious intent, eyes never leaving Zachary’s.
Something twisted inside Zachary. He took another long pull at his cigarette before dropping it to the floor and grinding it out under the heel of his shoe.
“Don’t come inside her,” he said levelly. “I don’t want to have to pay for another abortion.”
A look of obtuse shock flashed over Angel’s face. Then he groaned, pulled out of the girl, and jerked himself off until he came all over her belly and breasts.
She lay panting under him, mouth wide and eyes confused. Then she tipped her head back and looked at Zachary upside down, as if wondering if he was going to take his turn with her now that Angel was done.
And the mood he was in, she might just be in luck.
Angel used the girl’s pretty underwear to clean his dick, and then awkwardly zipped up his jeans with his bandaged hand. When he stepped back, he closed her legs for her. They just fell open again, the girl seeming still trapped in some pleasure-wreathed dimension.
Zachary slowly walked over to the bed. His mouth tasted like ash, and it was beginning to make him feel nauseous. He leaned down, and kissed the girl until she kissed him back. Eventually, when the taste of cigarettes had been replaced by her sweet saliva, he straightened again.
Angel’s mouth had twisted as if he’d bitten into something sour.
“I don’t surround myself with frivolous things,” Zachary said as he tugged the girl’s underwear over the bed. He urged her into a sit, and then spread her legs open. “If you can’t do what I need you to, when I ask it of you…what use are you to me?”
Angel looked away, but then his eyes were drawn back when Zachary began fingering the girl.
He seemed transfixed by what Zachary was doing. The girl moaned, writhing and twisting her hips. Eventually bucking against his hand to drive his fingers deeper inside her. One finger became two, three. Her moans turned to gasps, then whimpers.
“So, I’ll ask you one more time, Angel…” He slid her underwear across her throat, catching hold of both ends in a hand. “Will you kill for me?”
Tightened it.
Angel leapt forward the same instant the girl gasped.
The young man grabbed at her underwear with both hands, trying to rip it from Zachary’s hands. But he’d twisted it around his thumb to secure it and the girl began to thrash.
“It becomes easier with time,” Zachary said, his voice tight with the effort of keeping the girl from breaking free. Her eyes bulged, and her face became red. Zachary yanked his fingers free of her, and used that hand to grab hold of Angel’s throat. The young man grunted, but didn’t bother trying to free himself; his clumsy fingers tried to tug away the underwear strangling the girl. A pinprick of blood stained the back of the bandage over his left hand.
“Some would say addictive, even.”
Angel went for Zachary’s hands instead, scraping his nails over his wrists. That dot of blood became the size of a quarter.
With a twist, Zachary caught hold of Angel’s fingers and tangled them in the underwear. When he pulled away, it was Angel strangling her, not him.
Angel froze. His face turned pale as the girl’s struggles rapidly ceased under them. He tried yanking his fingers free, but her head just bobbed forward. She twitched violently, catching him in the stomach with a perfectly manicured foot—bright pink toenails gleaming in the low light of the stand lamp—and then she was still.
A sob escaped Angel. He finally managed to shake himself free, and tugged away that slip of fabric. Bright red weals painted the girl’s throat. A few spots showed where blood had almost come to the surface.
Zachary grabbed the dead girl’s hair in a fist and shoved her toward Angel. He fell back with a hollow cry and seemed to notice that he’d opened his wound again for the first time; he cradled his blood-soaked bandage against his chest.
“Fuck her again,” Zachary said. “She’s still wet.”
Angel turned and retched on the floor.
A sneer tugged at Zachary’s mouth. The taste of ash had come back twice as strong, and his mouth filled with saliva as if his stomach wanted to empty itself too.
There was a first for everything in this world. And this was the first time he’d ever been wrong about someone.
19
The claiming
Finn splashed cold water on his face in the hotel’s bathroom, and gave his reflection a critical stare. He was badly in need of a shave and his hair a trim. His face was more lined than he remembered, and the set of his mouth decidedly grim. He almost bumped into Cora, who’d been waiting outside. She gave him a strange look from under her lashes and charged into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Lars was at the drinks station. The smell of brewing coffee filled the sitting room. “I’ll take first watch, ten to two.”
Finn made a non-committal sound and took the cup of coffee Lars handed him. Lars set another two cups down on the coffee table and sank with a sigh into the closest armchair.
“So…tomorrow’s the big day.” Lars sipped at his coffee and gave Finn a solid stare.
“Big day?”
“We hand Cora over, the gig’s up. By the way, how’s payment working now that Swan’s MIA?”
“He said Javier Martin would do a wire transfer soon as he had Cora.”
“If you can’t trust a drug kingpin, who can you trust, amiright?”
Finn shook his head and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. He navigated through the menu without reading. It was something to look at that wasn’t the closed bathroom door. Something to direct his attention to that wasn’t Cora goddamn Swan.
He took another swig of coffee, but it couldn’t rid him of the memory of her taste. As if he’d just kissed her.
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never been this hung up on a girl his entire life. There was just something about her. Something as intoxicating as—
He cut off the thought, but his beast stirred somewhere deep in his mind and whispered, Heroin?
“Are you planning on watching something, or just wearing down the buttons?”
Finn started and put the remote on the coffee table again with a clatter. Lars snatched it up, taking a swallow of his coffee and giving Finn a blatantly cocked eyebrow over the rim of his coffee cup.
“What you in the mood for? Action? Thriller? Comedy?” Lars began scrolling through the list of movies. “Hey, you seen this one?”
Finn forced his eyes away from the bathroom door. Lars was watching him, a tight smile on his mouth. He looked at the flat screen and s
hrugged. “Sure.”
“Sure you’ve seen it, or sure you’d like to?”
“Sure I don’t give a shit,” Finn muttered.
“Figured.” Lars set down his mug and selected a movie.
Finn hadn’t seen it. He didn’t make a habit of watching movies. He didn’t really have that much free time on his hands. The only time he watched movies was when he spent time with his sister, Heather. Those few months of the year when she wasn’t in rehab, of course.
He stood and went to check the windows. He closed them all, drawing back the curtains and glancing down into the street. Marfa was a ghost town—even the hotel’s parking lot only had a few cars in it. He walked past the bathroom door on his way to the bedroom to check those windows.
The door opened. He barely stepped back in time before Cora barreled out. Her shoulder caught against his, and her momentum spun her to face him. They stared at each other.
Shampoo and body lotion scented the air with a strange mix of roses and lavender. She’d changed into a hotel bathrobe—thick and fluffy—but it did little to hide her curves.
“Made you some coffee,” Lars called out. “And there’s a movie on if—”
“No, thanks,” she said, spinning away from Finn and making for the bedroom. “I’m going to sleep.”
“You both on a fucking diet or something?” Lars said, sounding sour. “Well I’m getting something. We’ll see what you say when this place starts smelling like take out.” Lars made for the telephone on a table against the far wall. He put his hand on the receiver and then froze when Finn spoke.
“You know what? Take out sounds good.” Finn paused. “Why don’t you go fetch us some?”
Lars gave Finn a long, considering look. His hand twitched as his eyes flashed to the bedroom door and then back to Finn. “We could have it delivered,” he said carefully.
“Thought you’d need the fresh air.”
In the background, the movie Lars had put on clamored through an action scene involving explosions, breaking glass, and the screech of tires.
Lars’s expression hardened. He gave his head a hard shake. “Yeah? I don’t.”
