CASEN (The Karma Series Book 2)

by Amy Marie

  A ping from my cell phone alerts me to an incoming text. My heart beat quickens, hoping that it’s Embyr asking me to come back. It’s not, and the past few hours of calming myself down is all for nothing as I what I read instantly boils my blood.

  Reece: You fucking asshole! Trinity just called and broke up with me because you and your girlfriend have a big fucking mouth.

  Me: Fuck off.

  Reece: I hope you and that slut are happy together.

  I’m done. The last thin piece of thread holding my sanity together snaps. I grab my keys and head out the door.

  I’m not a violent man. I’ve never really been a violent man, but right now all I can see is red the entire way over to Reece’s place. I risk the chance of him not being home, but I’m sure if Captain sent him to the hospital than he is probably there.

  I reach his place in record time and buzz his apartment. He moved in here around the same time Ian and I both got our own places and he’s never invited me over. I hit the button to call his apartment again but still nothing. A tenant walks out, and I take the opportunity to grab the door before it shuts. I waste no time climbing the three flights of stairs and find 3B. I knock and after hearing nothing I put my ear to the door.

  It’s quiet. He may not be home but I’m also not going to sit in the hallway and wait for him. I grab my keys out of my pocket and spin them until I come across the one Reece gave to me in case of emergencies. It’s not breaking and entering if you have a key, right? The door creaks loudly as I open it and walk in.

  It’s bare. There’s nothing on the walls and only very minimal furniture. I search for a lamp but find none so I flip on the dining room light above the table, which is old and scuffed up. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. All of a sudden I feel unsafe, but it doesn’t stop me from looking around. Ignoring my intuition not to, I walk toward the back bedroom to see if maybe he’s here or in the shower. It’s doubtful, seeing as I’d be able to hear a pin drop. All the curtains are shut and I’m not sure he’s dusted in quite a while. The door to the master bedroom is ajar so I push it open. His room is just as stripped of furniture as the rest of the house.

  A mattress rests on the floor next to a box propped up to hold an alarm clock. I didn’t know Reece wasn’t doing so well. He was picking up extra shifts every chance he could. Reece isn’t in there so I walk halfway back down the hallway to another closed door. It’s the bathroom and just like all the other rooms, it contains the minimum amount needed to survive. A roll of toilet paper, shampoo, soap, and hand soap. An old yellow towel hangs over the shower curtain.

  My hatred of him is now becoming pity. I don’t know what’s going on. If Reece needed money or anything I’m sure he could ask his parents and they would help.

  Curiosity is now leading me the rest of the way back to the living room, and I stop at another closed door. This one is harder to open and I realize why. It’s locked but the door is so stripped that all I have to do is push my shoulder into it to get it unlatched. It flies open, crashing into the wall behind it.

  My eyes widen. This room is much different than all the others. Underneath the window is a desk with three computer screens and one keyboard. Newspaper articles are littered over almost every single space on the wall to the right. There is a couch on the other wall with books and binders scattered all over it. I step closer, using as much caution as I can because let’s be honest, something fucked up is going on here. When I reach the computer and hit a button, a still image of the video with Ian and Embyr pop up. He’s on top of her, his pants down, and you can tell they are in the middle of sex. My lunch begins to rise into my throat but I will myself to keep it down. I turn each screen off manually and face the wall of articles. Most are about Ian and the night he got shot. Each local paper ran the story and he has all of them plus the follow ups to them.

  “What the fuck is this?” I mutter to myself.

  There aren’t just clippings from the papers here but also pictures. Mostly pictures of Embyr. Pictures of her in high school and some recent ones as well. Those are disturbing but not as much as the ones from what looks to be her at college. I pull down one of her with a guy walking down a sidewalk and see WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY sign in the background.

  “Holy shit!” I yell, anger consumes me.

  Why does he have all this? Are these old or ones from Ian that he might have found or has Reece known all along where Embyr was and what she was doing? There are more pictures. Some of her changing in her old bedroom in Arlington Heights.

  “What are you doing here, Casen?” Reece asks from behind me. His voice sounding devious and when I turn to him, his face matches. A white bandage is over his nose. I’m pretty sure I broke it when I see the black circles under his eyes. He’s wearing a dark gray t-shirt and blue jeans. “I should call the cops on you.”

  I rip down the picture of Embyr and show it to him. “What the fuck is this?”

  The right side of his mouth comes up into a half smile. “That’s your girlfriend right before she took that guy home and fucked him senseless. I told you she was a slut.”

  My fists crumble the picture, and I will myself not to launch myself at him. My questions come out in a flurry.

  “Why do you have this? Were you stalking her? Did you have someone stalk her?”

  He laughs, leaning his shoulder against the door. “I told you, Casen. You weren’t the only one infatuated with her. I knew the whole time. I knew what she was doing, and while I sat there in college watching you sulk over her, I knew exactly where she was. When you asked Ian to find her, I knew just where he would. She was so fucking close. Just right under Patrick Strickland.”

  It’s too much. Imagining Embyr with all those men. Seeing her with Ian on the tape, the guy in the picture, and now the vision of her and Patrick. It’s getting to me. She’s mine.

  “So what, you were stalking her?” I glance at the wall again, everywhere I look there is a new picture of her.

  He waves his hands around. “Stalking is such a strong word, Casen. I prefer admiring her from afar.”

  “It’s stalking, asshole. When she doesn’t know it and when she sure as fuck doesn’t want you, it’s not admiring from afar.”

  I hear the click before I actually see the gun pointed right at me. Reece pulled it out so fast that I had no time to respond. All I can do is raise my arms in surrender.

  “Reece, man. What the fuck are you doing?”

  He wipes his mouth with his shoulder. “You know Ian said the same fucking thing. I wasn’t STALKING her. That fucking tease wanted me to watch her. She left her curtains open every single night. She played hard to get, saying no to me and yes to Ian. But he RUINED it by fucking her. They had to be punished.”

  My whole body is trembling with fear. “So what? You released the tape on purpose? Did Ian know you wanted her?”

  He steps closer. The gun aimed straight at my chest. “He knew. He held that over my head for years, Casen. YEARS! Every chance he got he made sure I knew he popped her cherry. Even after he found out Embyr was Annie. I had already known, but he still fucking pushed me.” He waves the gun. “He still wanted to talk shit after he found out. Told me how sweet her pussy felt. He thought it was a joke, and it wasn’t. He learned that really fast.”

  My stomach sinks. Ian found out a few days before he sent me the package. “Did you shoot Ian, Reece? Tell me you didn’t.”

  His head drops for a moment but comes back up with resolve. “You would have too, Casen. He was saying the most disgusting things about your girlfriend. How at his birthday party he was thinking of all three of us banging Embyr at the same time. How, now that he knew she was Annie, we could live out our high school fantasies with her. He pushed me, and I pushed back. He won’t say that shit now.”

  My arms are beginning to tire as I hold them up in surrender. “You’re fucking crazy,” I whisper.

  He drops his arm to the side. “Crazy? I’m crazy? No, I’m just seeing things fucking clea
r now. Casen gets everything. The job, the girl, the nice condo. Every. Fucking. Thing.”

  “I don’t understand, Reece.” I watch the gun at his side. “We make the same amount of money. What is going on here? Why do you have nothing in your house, even after all those extra shifts? If you needed money, I could help you.”

  “No!” he screams. “No! That’s all I need is a handout from Casen Parker. I’m doing fine on my own. My parents need the money and I’m getting it to them. I just needed to work the shifts to help them through it.” He starts to cry, and I take the vulnerable opportunity to step closer to him and maybe grab the gun.

  “None of this makes sense to me, Reece. Why tell me to forgive Embyr? You told me what she did was just as forgivable as what we did. You have Trinity. Do you still want Embyr?”

  He hits his forehead a few times. “I don’t know! I don’t fucking know. I don’t want her anymore, but I’m sick of you getting everything. Ever since we were kids, you got it all. The looks, the charm. You were homecoming king and got a full ride to college. I was always compared to you by my parents. Always! I was never good enough. My mind is clouded. Nothing is clear to me anymore. I can’t think straight. All of this is tearing me up inside, and Trinity…she makes me feel like I’m worth it. For the first time in my life, I felt good enough for someone, and now that’s gone. She’s gone.”

  “We can work this out,” I gently tell him, but I’m not sure that can happen. He killed Ian. He sent that video of Embyr, and from what I can tell, he’s lost his fucking mind completely.

  He must not like my suggestion because he raises the gun. “No, you’re going to tell everyone. I can’t let you do that.”

  “Reece, don’t do anything stupid.”

  He laughs manically. “Like, what? This?”

  I hear the bang.

  I smell the gun powder.

  I feel the pain.

  I see nothing but black.

  I thought I knew the depth of deceit. I had no. Fucking. Clue.

  TWENTY

  EMBYR

  Casen throws my naked body down onto the bed, my stomach hitting the soft sheets. He reaches his large hands around my waist and lifts me up, impaling me with his cock. I cry out in agonized pleasure as he fills me so completely. He pumps his hips into me, his fingernails biting into my skin. I’m so close to coming but I can’t seem to reach my orgasm.

  “Marry me, Embyr.” He groans. It’s not a question. It’s a command. “Marry me.”

  I try to open my mouth so I can answer him, but it won’t budge. My lips seem to be glued together.

  “Tell me you’ll marry me and I’ll let you come, Annie.”

  Annie?

  My mind is spinning. My orgasm is out of reach, but I can’t answer him. I’m trying, but it’s not happening.

  He flips me over, spreading my legs, and enters me with brutal force once again. His dark green eyes, with a hint of blue search mine. “Marry me before its too late…before I’m gone.”

  My hands reach out for him, but he disappears in an instant. I sit up, searching the darkened room but he’s nowhere to be found.

  “Casen!” I am finally able to scream. “Casen, come back!”

  I run to the door, but it’s jammed shut. I’m trapped just as the room starts to fill with smoke. I hit my fists against the wood but no one is coming. Slinking down to the floor, I grab my knees and rock back and forth.

  “Casen!” I cry out into the night.

  My body starts to violently shake.

  “Embyr!” Trinity yells. “Embyr, wake up!”

  My eyes open and I’m startled awake. I scan my surroundings. I’m no longer on the floor in a smoke filled room. I’m in my bed, sweating underneath the covers.

  “It was a dream,” I whisper.

  Trinity is sitting beside me. “Yeah, a loud one. First I heard moaning, like the good kind. The kind where I thought you may have had a rebound fuck in here, but then I heard the screaming. The bad kind where I knew it was a nightmare and I needed to wake you up.”

  Scooting back, I lean against the headboard of my bed. “Thank you. That was terrible.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, sliding up next to me.

  “It was Casen. He was here, and we were having sex but he was withholding my orgasm until I agreed to marry him.” A laugh bubbles out of my throat at how insane that sounds.

  Trin glides her fingers through my hair. “Are you sorry you broke up with him?”

  I sigh, and I rest my chin on my knees. “It’s only been half a day but I regretted it the moment I said it. I want nothing more than to be with him, but it’s not like I didn’t think it through. I need to do this on my own, right? Figure my shit out and then maybe we can talk.”

  “I don’t know, Em. There are only so many times you all can break up and make up before it becomes your go-to response. If you two really love each other then everything you are going through and everything he’s dealing with should be handled together. If that dream was real, and he asked you to marry him, would you say yes?”

  My head falls back against the headboard. “I would have said yes in a heartbeat.”

  “Then stop being so fucking scared. That man has seen you at your lowest. He’s seen you do your worst to him and still he promised not to give up. Why don’t you do the same? Don’t give up. Get through all this together, get married, and have the best looking fucking babies there are.”

  I laugh. I love how Trin is always there for me. I’m so thankful to have found her. “What about you, Trin. Are you going to forgive Reece and be happy?”

  A big part of me wants her to say no. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be in the same room as Reece. With Trin living here, it would be hard to tell her she can’t have her boyfriend over. I want her to be happy, but I really don’t think Reece is who could do that. I’m hoping as my best friend she would see what he did to me and kick his ass to the curb forever.

  She picks at some lint on my blanket. “No. I can’t. He made the decision to keep that video, send it to your job, and try to get Casen blamed. Not only is that fucking stupid, but it’s a felony. He’s over the age of eighteen sending out a video of a naked child. Even if you are grownup, it’s still very wrong on so many levels. Plus, I’ve noticed a shift in his personality since I met him, and I don’t like what I’ve seen. He seems capable of a lot of shady crap. He has this room in his house he won’t let me go into and he’s recently sold a lot of his shit. He won’t talk about it and his anger grows by the minute every day. It’s best to get out now before it becomes something I’m not equipped to handle.”

  I wrap my arms around her. “I’m sorry. I want you to be happy.”

  “I want to be happy too, Em, but it won’t be for a while. You, on the other hand, have your ever after now. You have to chase it and lock it down.”

  “I will.”

  “Tomorrow!” She commands.

  “I promise. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  My phone rings on the nightstand. A peek at my clock shows me it’s just past three o’clock in the morning.

  “Well,” she says, detaching my cell from the charger and handing it to me. “I guess his ears must have been ringing.”

  The display shows Casen is calling.

  Trinity leaves me to my call and I answer on the fourth ring. “Casen, I was going to call you tomorrow.”

  “Embyr,” a sobbing female voice responds. “Is this Embyr?”

  “Yes,” I warily say. “Who’s this?”

  “Embyr, it’s Megan, Casen’s sister. You need to come to the hospital as soon as you can.” Her sobs get louder. “Right now.”

  I scramble out of bed, grabbing a bra and an overnight bag to fill with whatever I think I may need. “Is Casen okay?”

  “No. He’s been shot. Come now. We’re in the surgical waiting room.”

  She hangs up, and I scream for Trinity. She’s back to my room in an instant. “Casen got shot. He’s at the
hospital. I need you to drive me.”

  My hands shake as I throw my charger, sweatshirt, change of clothes, wallet, and phone into the bag.

  Trinity doesn’t ask much as we near the hospital. I told her everything I know and calls back to Casen’s phone go straight to voicemail. This feels too much like the night Ian got shot. Late night phone call followed by a rush to the hospital, except this time it’s me who’s in turmoil. Yes, I knew Ian but my heart didn’t beat along with his. I don’t know how I could survive should something happen to Casen. I love him. I was stupid. He should have been with me tonight. This wouldn’t have happened.

  I push out all the blame and what ifs out of my head and jump out when Trinity stops the car in front of the emergency room entrance. I remember where the waiting room was down here, but I’m uncertain where the surgical one is. The nurse at the desk directs me and I take the elevator up to the second floor. When the doors slide open, I search in every direction until I find Mr. and Mrs. Parker at the coffee vending machine. They see me, and Mrs. Parker races over to hug me.

  “Oh, Embyr. I’m so glad you are here.” She cries, her tears dampening my shirt.

  “What happened?” I try to ask, but the words are caught up in my throat.

  “Embyr?” My name is called from behind. It’s Megan, Casen’s sister. She looks exactly as I remember her. Long dark hair, blue eyes, and without a stitch of makeup on, she still looks stunning. Her eyes show evidence of crying. “I’m so glad I was able to call you before Casen’s phone died.”

  “Megan.” I hug her. “What’s going on?”

  Her hand grabs onto mine and she pulls me to a few chairs out of earshot of other families. “Someone heard a gunshot in the building and called 911. When the police arrived they found Casen in the spare bedroom. He was shot in the chest and they had to take him into surgery. Reece called us.”