by Dawn Ryder
No one questioned her when she pulled into the private parking area in the Lamborghini. Once she was out of the car, her less-than-designer suit caught a few looks. Celeste hit the meandering entryway sidewalk with a pace that didn’t give anyone time to question her. A pair of Asian receptionists smiled when she entered the spa.
“Caspian Devitt.”
There was only a flicker of recognition in one of the girls’ eyes before they both shook their heads.
“Mr. Devitt does not wish to be disturbed.”
Celeste dug into her purse and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. She folded it up and passed it to one of the women through a handshake. She muttered a few words in Korean. The woman’s lips twitched before she answered in a single word of Korean.
Celeste took off down the gleaming cream-colored hallway, past the inside fountain that was filling the place with soothing water sounds to the private massage suite marked with a number six.
She pushed open the door, startling a young girl who was rubbing the shoulders of her client in nothing but a G-string. But it was Caspian Celeste was interested in. He hadn’t really changed. Maybe he was a little leaner, but he still looked at her with an expression she recognized.
Like she was a possession.
She forced down the bitter taste in her mouth.
“I see you haven’t changed.” But she had and that gave her enough confidence to stare him down.
Caspian lifted his head and sent the girl away with a flick of his fingers. His bodyguard had moved into view, watching Celeste through mirrored shades.
“Leave us,” Caspian ordered.
He sat up and surveyed Celeste from head to toe.
“Lupan doesn’t know how to dress you.”
“I dress myself.” She stepped forward, making sure she looked at her ex-husband just as thoroughly as he’d studied her. “And I’m here to tell you one thing. Leave me alone.”
Caspian’s eyes narrowed. He stood up, a towel staying around his waist. It was a damned good thing because she was fighting off nausea with just his chest on display.
He reached out and slapped her. She jerked and responded without thinking. His hand had barely connected with her cheek before she slid toward him and kicked out his knee with a low roundhouse kick. He folded with a hiss, grabbing the massage table to break his fall.
“I don’t take your shit anymore, Caspian,” she hissed. “I know the little games you like to play, so I won’t bother trying to get security footage from this place, but touch me again and I’ll find a way to prosecute you.”
“Shut up,” he snapped as he regained his feet. “You belong to me and I will enjoy teaching you your place again.”
“Just try it,” she warned.
He started toward her but his bodyguard had reentered the room. Caspian gestured him away, but the man shook his head.
“Get out,” Caspian snarled.
“I’m the one leaving,” Celeste declared. “Before I have to kick his ass for having poor taste in clients. I’d really rather not have to explain myself to Master Lee.”
“You will come back to me, Celeste,” Caspian crowed. “You crave my strength in your life. You’re really quite lost without my presence.” He chuckled, turning her stomach. “That’s the reason you’re here. Deep down inside you need me.”
“Stay away from me.” She looked past him to the bodyguard. “Next time he touches me, I’ll put him down hard.”
She turned around and grasped the door.
“Don’t you dare turn your back on me!”
Caspian lunged after her. His fingers made the briefest contact with her shoulder, curling and just starting to dig in before she turned and grabbed his hand. She twisted it and flipped him over. He landed in a heap and ended up facedown on the marble floor with her knee lodged between his shoulder blades and his arm bent up behind his back at just the right angle to send pain shooting through his shoulder.
“Don’t…ever…touch…me…again.”
She jumped away from him as the bodyguard closed in on her. She locked eyes with the guy before opening the door and leaving. There was a scuffle and the slam of the door behind her.
“Let go of me…” Caspian’s muffled words came through the door, but it never opened.
Celeste made it back to the Lamborghini and pulled out of the parking lot.
She was shaking.
A new sensation was flooding her, and this time it was from victory.
***
“How dare you stop me?” Caspian growled at his bodyguard.
“The security cameras are still on in the hallway.”
He kept his hand flat on the door, infuriating Caspian.
“You’ll end up back in jail.”
Caspian snarled. “Shut up. You don’t tell me what to do. I pay you.”
He stomped back into the dressing room and grabbed his phone. Control was something he knew how to get.
Celeste obviously needed a lesson in just how good he was at getting what he wanted.
***
Traffic was moving slowly. She kept her cell phone on the passenger seat, but it never rang. The drive up to Malibu was the longest, most tedious one she’d ever endured. She drove past Angelino’s and on to the house. A large construction vehicle with a huge earth-drilling attachment was sitting near the road. New holes had been dug along the perimeter of Nartan’s property for the fence. The crew had left for the day.
There was a touch of chill in the air as September brought the change of season. She pulled into the garage and smiled as she heard the chirp from the new house security system. It continued to chirp, warning her to enter a code within two minutes or it would go off. She climbed out of the seat of the Lamborghini and pulled the door down.
Something shifted in her peripheral vision. A blur of motion that sent her whirling around, her purse dropping to the ground. She jerked back as she came face to face with someone a lot bigger than herself. He was already swinging at her. She shifted to the side, hours of training kicking in without hesitation.
Time slowed down. The guy stumbled past her with the momentum of his punch but recovered quickly. She brought her hands up, turned, and used a back kick against him. He grunted as her foot connected with his belly.
But turning around gave her a glimpse of a second man. He reached out and clamped his arms around her, trapping her arms against her sides.
“You going to stop whining?” the man holding her asked his partner.
Celeste took the moment to lower her body into a wide horse stance and use her elbows and a good twist from her waist to disable the man holding her. He yelped and cussed when she turned and sent a tiger-claw hand at his throat.
“She’s a real pushover…ain’t she?” The man behind her mocked his companion as he gasped.
The second man lunged toward her. With the car beside her, she didn’t have enough room to get out of his way. He tackled her into his partner.
“Enough of this Bruce Lee crap,” he choked out. “Hold her.”
She was sandwiched between them, and this time, the man behind her yanked her arms back.
“This would have been a lot easier without all the rules,” the man in front of her complained before smacking her across her face. Her head twisted with the blow, pain exploding in her eye from the force he used.
“Yeah…well, it’s got to look right. Right in the face, but don’t break her nose.”
She tried to duck her head but her assailant followed her, delivering a string of blows that made her vision darken. Consciousness began to drift away from her. She heard the connection of the last couple of blows but didn’t feel them. There was no way to fend off the darkness. It just dragged her down.
***
His phone was ringing again.
Nartan cursed and yanked it out
of his pocket. His fucking restaurant had better be on fire or his manager could find a new job.
But the message flashing across the screen came from his new home security system. He jabbed his finger onto the button to stop the alarm, which left the text message from Celeste on the screen. He read it twice before he cursed again.
The vet looked up. “I’ll be back,” Nartan said.
He only caught a fraction of the vet’s surprise before he was pushing through the doors of the office. He hit the hallway at a run and yanked open the door of his truck.
***
“Mr. Lupan?”
Celeste heard the voice and tried to wake up. For some reason, she wanted to go back to sleep. In fact, the urge was so strong, it was almost impossible to resist. She felt like she was slowly twisting around in a circle while floating. Around and around and around…
“Mr. Lupan, do you need assistance?”
She blinked and wished she hadn’t. Pain shot through her face. She moaned, completely awake, and rolled over as she balled up and tried to endure the agony burning in her abdomen. Her face was throbbing, and she could feel her right eye swelling shut.
“Help!” she called out, but her lips were stiff. She took a deep breath. “Police!” she yelled at the security system.
Why the hell hadn’t the security company already called them?
She shivered, trying to master the pain so she could look around. Her right eye was completely swollen shut but she got a look at the garage, sweeping it twice to make sure her assailants were gone.
“Did you say ‘Police’?” the person on the other end of the security system inquired.
Celeste cursed under her breath and struggled to her feet. She stumbled to the control panel and hit the panic button.
“Idiot,” she grumbled at the control panel. She started to go into the house but froze. Since she was unsure where her attackers were, the house wasn’t the haven she longed for.
“Police and fire services have been summoned.”
Her thoughts began to clear with the help of the pain. She straightened, relieved to find that only her face was battered. She punched the garage door and it began to open. At least it was an option for escape if they came back. But there was nothing outside but the corral. No one to appeal to for help. She sagged against the doorjamb, her knees feeling weak and her body shaking. Her vision swam in blurry waves and she lost track of time.
Light flashed and she blinked, trying to decide if she was passing out again.
“Celeste?”
Nartan was still stuffing his keys in his pocket when he came into the garage. She opened her mouth, but pain shot through her jaw and all she managed was a moan.
“Holy shit!”
She made a little sound of relief as he ran the last few steps to her. Then he held himself back, his eyes wide as he searched her face. She couldn’t stand the separation and huddled into his arms. He hesitated to embrace her, giving in at last and holding her shoulders gently.
“What the fuck happened?” He gently cupped the sides of her face and pushed her back against the car. Then he lifted one hand away from the bruise forming around her eye, letting his hand hover in indecision as he studied her.
“They…might still be here,” she managed to get past her swollen lips.
“I hope to fuck they are,” he snarled.
The cops pulled in without sirens and skidded to a stop.
“Get your hands up!”
“This is my house,” Nartan snarled.
“Do it, Nartan,” she advised as she struggled to lift her hands. She was shaking so badly, it cost a lot of effort.
Nartan cursed and lifted his hands as two more black-and-whites skidded to a halt in the driveway.
“Listen up. Put your hands on your head and walk toward me,” the officer commanded.
Nartan looked back at her, then lowered his hands to his head and locked his fingers. He started back through the garage while one officer kept a gun trained on him from behind the open door of the police cruiser. When Nartan reached the driveway, he was ordered to stop.
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back. Do it now.”
She watched in a haze as Nartan was handcuffed and pulled back toward one of the cars. “She needs medical help,” he growled at the officers.
“Now you.” The officers were containing the scene before listening to anyone.
Celeste took a deep breath before stepping away from the doorjamb. Her knees held her and she made her way toward the driveway. As she stepped into the light, she watched the cop lift his head above his gun. He was holstering it a moment later as he came around the open door.
An ambulance pulled up, and she lost track of who blinded her with flashlights while examining her face. She ended up sitting on a gurney as a paramedic checked her vital signs.
“Who did this to you?” the police officer asked.
She looked up, pushing away the paramedic who was trying to tape a gauze pad over her swollen eyes. “I don’t know. Two men were in the garage when I got home. I didn’t get a good look at them.”
He grunted. “I don’t need you to name him. Your blood is all over his shirt and hands. I can take you in because of the physical evidence. There isn’t a mark on him, so you’re safe. Help me, help you.”
“No.” She sprang up off the gurney. “There were two men in the garage when I got home.”
“Why didn’t you mention them before?”
“I did,” she argued.
His face was set in stone. Behind him, another officer was facing Nartan and reading him his rights.
“He didn’t do it.” She tried to control the emotion coursing through her.
The first cut…
“You crave my strength in your life. You’re really quite lost without my presence.”
Caspian would never come for her. He’d force her to come back to him. It was a game to him, and he never played anything but high-stakes games. Nartan was her weak spot.
Nartan was shouting at the officer in front of him, resisting as two others tried to put him in the back of the cruiser.
“Marcus Flynn,” she insisted. “Make them call Marcus, Nartan!”
He made eye contact with her for a brief moment before he was shoved into the back of the police car. It was a nightmare, watching him through the barred windows. The legal realities were flooding her brain, terrorizing her with just how dire the circumstances were.
She wasn’t going to be Caspian’s Trojan horse.
“I refuse treatment.”
She pulled the blood pressure cuff off her arm with a rip of Velcro and stood up.
“Ma’am…you really need X-rays.”
The paramedic tried to get her to sit back down. She brushed past him and ducked around the cop trying to get her to go back.
“I need my purse.”
“You need to get back on the gurney.”
Celeste made it back into the garage before the cop hauled her to a stop with a hand on her bicep.
“Lady, you need treatment.”
“I need my lawyer.” She ducked down, but with her eye swollen shut, her balance faltered. She ended up bumping her head on the side of the Lamborghini before landing on the hard concrete.
“Lady—”
The cop tried to haul her up, but she caught a glimpse of her purse and grabbed it before he got hold of her. He pulled her up and she ended up leaning against the side of the Lamborghini. She only spared a momentary thought for the paint job on the car before fumbling in her purse for her cell phone.
“Lady, you need—”
“To call my lawyer.” She punched the speed-dial button. “You’re arresting the wrong man.”
The cop only hooked his hands in his belt and regarded her with a stony expression that
he’d perfected through countless domestic violence calls where he saw the same people over and over, heard the same lies again and again. It had hardened him until he wasn’t able to sift through the damning evidence Caspian had made sure was on hand.
This was exactly what her ex wanted. All of the pressure would be on her. He’d keep increasing it until she bent. She had the bitter memories to remind her just how determined Caspian could be.
Marcus answered on the second ring.
“What’s happening, Celeste?”
***
“Lupan.”
Nartan stood up and walked to the booking desk. The officer behind it checked the mug shot of him against his face. “You’re being released. Sign here to acknowledge your court date.”
Nartan scribbled his name across the line before the cop slid an envelope across the desk to him. He didn’t bother to open it before making his way through the sliding door to the outside.
Marcus Flynn was standing on the other side. He held his index finger to his lips and jerked his head toward a large sign posted on the wall warning that the area was under video and voice surveillance.
Nartan fell into step beside Marcus as they walked through the dingy halls of the jail on their way to the parking garage. The moment Marcus drove them out of the building, he turned.
“Where is Celeste?” Nartan asked.
“Hospital.” Marcus had his eyes on the road. “I insisted. One of my guys is with her.”
“Good.” Nartan rubbed his eyes. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Marcus cut him a hard look.
“You don’t think I did it?” His temper was a hairsbreadth from exploding.
“Wouldn’t be here if I did.” Marcus cut him a side look. “I just don’t need to wake my buddies this time of night to help me hide a body.”
Nartan was digging his fingers into the seat. “What the hell do you mean?”
“I’m about to get free with my opinions. You might not feel so thankful when I’m finished.” He made a left turn and pulled into the hospital parking lot. “Your security is shit. I never would have let Celeste leave the office today if I knew how open your house was.”
