THE Hunted
by CASSIE ALEXANDER
The Hunted
Copyright © 2014 by Cassie Alexander
www.cassiealexander.com
This ebook is licensed for personal use only. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters or events in this story and with any other person or creature, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To Christine Cox, with appreciation.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chatper Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter One
In my dreams I could pretend the sounds I heard were fireworks or drums, not gunfire, but when I woke to Vincent shaking me I knew our life together was through.
“Sammy, get up. Now.”
I sat up instantly. The shots were closer, faster, matching the doubletime of my heart. The Carmino family was coming at last.
Vincent shook me again. “Go,” he demanded, his eyes dark. He was beautiful and stern and muscles in his arms bunched, bracing for a fight. “Wake up. This is it. You remember what to do.”
I stumbled up and out of bed and snatched my robe off a chair. “Okay –“ I ran for the bathroom, realized he wasn’t following me and turned. “I’m not going without you.”
“Yes you are.”
“But –“ This wasn’t how we’d run the drills. When we’d practiced them, we’d both escaped.
“Things have escalated.” He stepped onto the bed and then off of it again to reach my side. Why wasn’t he going for the guns? I knew we had them, under the mattress, and in the closets -- “They’re not going to let me live. And I don’t want to watch you die.” He took my shoulders in his hands and held so tight I knew I’d be bruised.
“This is really it?” I asked, my voice small. I’d lost so much in my short life – I couldn’t imagine losing him, too.
He didn’t answer me, just pulled me in for one last kiss, lips and teeth and tongue. I kissed him just as hard back. If this was good-bye, I wanted to take part of him with me, to always be able to put fingers to my lips and feel the piece of himself he’d left there. He pulled back before I was ready – I’d never be ready --
“I love you. You know what to do. Go.”
Leaving would mean never coming back – and knowing that Vincent was gone. Another round of gunshots neared.
“Go!” he demanded, his gaze clouding. I could hear the fear creep into his voice – not for himself, but for me, that I’d get caught here with him. It was the only thing that made me run. I wasn’t afraid of dying – but I didn’t want to make his death any worse than it already would be.
“I love you,” I whispered, and ran for the bathroom door.
We’d practiced escaping, like elementary school kids practiced crazy-killer drills – talked about what we would do, how we would survive, where we’d meet up again in time. I never thought I’d be running alone though, without him – but he did. I looked under the bathroom sink, and there was only one backpack there. Goddamn him. I grabbed it and threw the ladder out the window where it would be hidden by the chimney and took the rungs on it two at a time. Halfway down I heard the shots get nearer, with shouting – and then everything stopped. I let go of the ladder without thinking and fell eight feet down, into a bush.
Vincent was dead. I knew it. I clutched my hands into fists to keep from screaming, and gathered myself to run for the treeline.
I snuck out the back of our compound, past men already gloating, and reached the street.
My first stop was blocks away, a gas station that we’d copied the bathroom key for. I let myself in and sank to my knees on the dirty tile.
He was gone. He’d always be gone. They’d killed him, taken him away from me and now I would never see his face again, feel his touch, lie purring against his chest after sex. All of that was in my past -- and once again, the only future I had was on my back. I put my head in my hands and let myself cry.
Get it together, Sammy. His voice snapped at me in my head, and I caught my breath like I always did when he spoke like that. Sometimes I was bad on purpose to make him have to use that tone – other times, I’d genuinely screwed up. It’d been followed by a whip’s bite enough times that it made my world narrow down to just him from habit. What did he want? How could I make him happy?
But he wasn’t here anymore. In my head, or otherwise. I blinked and realized I was curled up on the bathroom floor. I didn’t know how much time had passed. It could’ve been minutes – or hours.
Come on, Vincent. Talk to me again, baby.
I waited, hoping beyond hope, and nothing answered. I was alone. But – I looked at the backpack by my knees. I did know what he wanted, and what would please him most. Me, living, even if my only reason for living was gone.
I bit my lips not to cry and stood up, putting the backpack into the sink.
My new life. Here we go.
The clothes, shoes, and wig I’d packed months ago were still in the bag. I put the clothes on and shoved the robe in, right beside several thousand dollars in twenties – which wouldn’t be suspicious at all if I ever got pulled over. Just leaving the strip club, officer. .
Then I opened up the front pouch of the backpack. There was a charged burner cell phone and an envelope full of new drivers licenses. The top one said I was Sarah Hartford, and there were ten more below it, all with different names. Vincent had thought of everything – except for how I was supposed to live without him.
I pulled the wig out and tugged it on, going from long blonde hair to shoulder-length brunette, wishing that looking like a different person would really make me one.
The last thing to do was the only one I hadn’t practiced. I reached for the heavy silver chain around my neck and let my fingers sink down to the locket it held. It’d been a gift from Vincent. Oval, small, and silver, not ostentatious at all. I’d never taken it off, not even when it clashed with what I was wearing.
I fingered the locket and looked at myself in the mirror. My relationship with Vincent would be hard to explain to anyone in the outside world. He was a gangster, and I’d been a whore. Normal people would make assumptions, and say that we were broken. Shit yes we were, but what we’d had was good and real.
Which was why when he told me not to open the locket unless he’d died, I’d listened to him and never had. He trusted me. It was a token of his love, and it’d become a good luck charm. On some subconscious level I believed peeking would cause Vincent’s demise, and that not looking could somehow keep him safe.
But that hadn’t worked, had it.
What was inside? Diamonds to sell? Cyanide to poison myself with? A picture to remember him by? I carefully pried it open with a thumbnail. Inside was a small piece of paper. I took it out, unfolded it, and found a series of numbers – it was a phone number I didn’t recognize.
The only thing left to do was call. I turned on the cellphone and dialed.
Three rings – six rings – who the hell was I callin
g? Why didn’t you tell me, Vincent? – and a gruff voice answered. “Who is this?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. In the four years since I’d been given the locket, Vincent had never once taken it back. Maybe whoever had had this number in the past didn’t anymore, maybe they’d been killed by the Carminos too –
“How’d you get this number?” the man on the other end of the line asked, sounding annoyed.
“Vincent.” Either his name would mean something to this stranger or it wouldn’t.
There was a thoughtful pause at the far end. “Why’d he give it to you?”
I didn’t know – but I thought fast. It hadn’t been a birthday, Christmas, or an anniversary gift. It was when things had started to take a dark turn, when he’d been out later, getting his hands bloody, forced by the family to do things he didn’t want – I bit my lips and gave an answer I knew to be true.
“He wanted you to keep me safe.”
The man contemplated Vincent’s request. Then: “Where are you at?”
I gave him my address.
“You’re way too near eastside. Can you get to International and 35th?” He named a cross-section on the south of town.
I knew about the southside. I didn’t want to go there, but I could. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in thirty.”
“K.” I began to put the phone down.
“Hey –“ he shouted, getting my attention again. “Destroy whatever he gave you that had my number on it. I don’t care how, but don’t throw it away.”
“All right,” I said, but it was too late, he – whoever he was – had already hung up.
I stood there in the bathroom, swaying like a losing prizefighter, pummeled by my loss. Vincent was gone. I would never see him again, never hear his laugh, never know his pleasure. All of my memories – photos, hard drives, quickly scribbled love notes on pieces of paper -- with him were back inside our house, and going back would be suicide. The locket around my neck was the last thing of his I had. I reached for it and hid it protectively inside my shirt. That – and this – the small piece of paper I held, that he’d written the stranger’s number down on for me, just in case of tonight happening.
I stared at the phone number, memorizing it without meaning to – and then put it in my mouth and swallowed it to destroy it like I’d been told.
What was one more bitter pill after a long and bitter night?
I knew where southside was because I used to work there. Our city straddled a county line, dry on one side, wet on the other, creating a mini-Las Vegas along the edge. Along with the looser liquor laws on the southside came looser women, some in strip clubs, some standing around outside of them. I’d been both, at different times. Walking towards the neon lights of the Liquor Barns I’d like to say it wasn’t so seedy then, but while prostitutes might wear rose colored glasses, none of us actually saw the world through them.
I walked like I belonged, tough enough not to be a victim, but not so tough as to be a threat. I could have jogged to the intersection in fifteen minutes, but the only people who moved quickly down here were running from the cops.
Vincent had saved me from this life. Going back felt like admitting defeat.
I passed a group of people, head bowed, while watching them from the corners of my eyes and listening in case they followed me.
I know you wanted better for me than this, baby. You can’t be sending me back here. I reached up to touch the locket and caught myself. I didn’t want anyone I was passing to think I had anything worth stealing.
Vincent always knew what was best for me – better than I did myself. He’d shown me that, time after time. And he wouldn’t betray me, even after death. I reached the intersection and stood in a shadow, putting my back against a wall.
I just had to keep trusting him, like I always had before.
#
I didn’t know the hotel and I paced around the room. Ray was trying to move us upscale and I was one of his only girls who could make the leap. I’d grown up mostly normal, so it was easier for me to fake it than the girls who only knew the street, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable. A nice place like this only reminded me of how far I’d fallen.
Then there was a knock at the door. I took my place on the bed as if I’d been lounging there all along, waiting.
“Come in,” I said. The man outside used a key and stepped in.
He didn’t look like the kind of guy who had to pay for it – or anything else, for that matter. He was wearing a black suit, and underneath it he was tall and wiry, angular and muscled. He had short black hair that wanted to curl, olive skin, a strong chin, and a nose that looked like it’d been broken once or twice a long time ago. He took off his suit jacket, folded it, and hung it over a nearby chair.
Ray would’ve already told him what I charged. All I had to do now was be me – the version of me that he wanted for the night. I gave him my best casual smile. “So you’re looking for a good time?”
“Always,” he said, his voice low. He was so handsome it was hard to look at, especially knowing why he was here.
Then again, handsome guys could be dicks. They were used to getting their own way.
“How do you want it to go?” I asked, pushing a leg out, letting my skirt ride up an inch as I promised him things with my eyes.
“I want it with these,” he said, reaching behind him.
I tensed. Was he going to pull out drugs – or a knife? When he pulled out handcuffs, I laughed in relief.
“I’m not going to let you do that,” I said, shaking my head.
“Why not?” His face and voice were lightly questioning.
“Because.” Maybe on the north side of town, upscale escorts used handcuffs all the time. But on the southside, hookers who went that route wound up on the evening news – or at the bottom of some overworked cop’s file.
He grinned at me, undaunted. “What if I let you use them on me?”
One of those. No worries -- I could do that. “Sure.” I got up and knelt on the bed and pointed at the mattress. “Get on the bed, nasty boy,” I said, trying to dredge up some sincerity for the occasion.
He laughed. It was awkward and strange. Most johns didn’t laugh when they were on the clock. But it wasn’t threatening. It was the sort of laugh that made me want to laugh back, with him. I stared at him, not sure if that was okay, or how I should be.
“I’ll use them,” he promised, “but don’t worry, I’ll still be the one doing all the talking.” He moved to the other side of the bed, lay down fully clothed, and proceeded to chain his wrists through the headboard.
I watched him like a confused dog, tilting my head from side to side. When he was done, he looked at me. His eyes were an intense brown, and his gaze made me more uncomfortable than the room had, like he wasn’t just looking at me, but reading me. “Help me take off my pants?” he suggested, the corners of his lips lifting.
I sat there for a moment, studying him back. I couldn’t help myself from asking, “What’s to stop me from just stealing your wallet?”
He laughed again. “Well, my wallet’s in the back pocket. So’re the keys to these.” He shook the cuffs over his head.
I knelt beside him, cautiously. He could still kick me or something, right? He watched me just as carefully -- he had something planned, and I didn’t like that. I could see the outline of his erection, straining against his suit pants. But I reached for his belt and followed it with both hands to his taut ass and sank my hands into his pockets, pulling out keys, wallet, and condoms.
“See?” he said. I opened his wallet up, out of habit. So many twenties – had he already paid Ray? “So you can either take the wallet now – or you can stay.”
The part of me that was used to living on the southside, never taking anything for granted, and always assuming the worst was screaming take the wallet and run! Ray might beat me, but he’d never know how much I’d stolen if I hid it from him fast enough.
But the
part of me that knew about hotel rooms that had not only soap but sewing kits and mouthwash, the part of me that remembered wanting men that looked like this, was the one that spoke.
“Stay and what?”
“Use me until you come.”
I sank back on my heels a little. “Come on. I probably get more dick than you get pussy. And yours is supposed to be more magical than all of this cash?” I said, waving his own wallet in front of him.
He was undaunted. “The only thing I want is to see you come.”
“I come for all my guys –“ I started.
He cut me off. “Sure you do.”
I frowned down at him. He was so confident so – what was the term? Cocksure. I snorted. But who knew how hard it’d be to hail a cab from here that’d take me back to my side of town again, and not just drive off when they heard the street name? And I didn’t like getting hit by Ray –
So what would it hurt if I did use him? I’d been used often enough. What was the harm in taking my turn and do some using?
I looked down at him again and found him watching me. “We’ll see.”
He nodded.
I folded the leather of his belt back and undid the latch that kept his slacks smooth, then reached for the top of his fly.
I moved my hand fractionally, undoing the zipper tine by tine, unwrapping him like he was a present. I reached inside his pants and felt him underneath the thin cotton that kept him bound. Then I went for the waist band of everything together. “Help me?” I asked, giving him a look.
“Of course,” he said, raising his hips so that I could pull pants and underwear down.
I reached for one of the condoms on the bed and unwrapped it expertly, then reached out to touch him. His cock was hard and warm and the equal of any one I’d ever seen – which was, two years into this for me, saying a lot. I slid the condom over him and then straddled him with my knees, pulling up my skirt.
There was always something feral seeming about squatting on top of a man – which was one of the reasons I liked it. I lowered myself -- not wearing underwear was one of the few perks of my job -- until my pussy was right over his still hard dick, and I slid him in.
The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) Page 1
