by Mari Carr
“What if she wanted it?”
“Jesus, Night. How do you propose I bring that topic up?”
“Ask her?”
“She’s never even met you. You’re a stranger to her.”
“So let me get to know her.” Night leaned forward.
Jon shook his head, more out of frustration than denial. “No.”
He couldn’t let this discussion go any further. They were passing into dangerous territory. If Jon let himself believe he could have it all, it would destroy the tenuous relationship he’d managed to build with Carly thus far. As it was, the entire thing was built on a foundation of sand. It wouldn’t take more than a light breeze to blow her right back out of his life again. And the fact was, he couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. If he had to hold back a bit of himself, so be it. He would be whatever she needed him to be, even if it threatened to destroy that precious connection he shared with Night.
Night’s face closed up against him. Jon fought the overwhelming feeling of regret. They sat in silence for several minutes while he struggled to find the words to explain.
“Night—”
“No, Jon. Let it drop. Please.”
He nodded, certain anything else he said would make things worse and he was grateful when Night changed the subject quickly.
“Every day Cassandra doesn’t call means another woman…” Night’s voice died out before he could continue the thought, but his observation was the same one that threatened to pound every bit of sanity out of Jon as well.
He’d spent most of the evening trying to lose himself in Carly’s body. As if by burying himself in her warm, tight heat, he could soak all of her happiness into himself. He’d used her hard and he was ashamed of himself. Not that she’d complained. She’d seemed to enjoy his rough treatment, continually welcomed his advances.
“Maybe we should plan our own reunion,” Night suggested. Jon saw where his friend’s thoughts had strayed.
“If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad?”
A faint glimmer of desperation shone in Night’s eyes. While Jon struggled to forget the past, to put all the pain and fear behind him, Night never stopped remembering. He refused to let the old wounds heal. Rather, he kept them open and sore. While Jon dismissed Cassandra as a bad memory, Night had watched the woman’s every move for years. No doubt it was Night who’d alerted Reilly to Cassandra’s return to Olson Mountain.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Night. It’s bound to make Cassandra suspicious. Let her come to you. Reilly is sure it’s just a matter of time now.”
Night stood up and clenched his fists. Jon was surprised by the action. For years, he was the one to fight his hot temper while Night took everything in calm, cool, collected stride.
“How can you sit there and let this happen again? Christ. I thought I knew you better. The friend I love, the one I grew up respecting and admiring, would never sit on his fucking ass and let innocent women get hurt.”
“Don’t you throw that shit at my door.” Jon was on his feet now as well, leaning toward Night. They were both tall, although he had an inch or two on his best friend. “I already fought that goddamn battle once. And look what it cost me, Night? I lost fifteen years of my life trying to make amends, and Sarah—” His voice broke on her name. “I killed her. I killed her, Night.”
His anguished words seemed to take all the wind out of Night’s sails. “Rex killed Sarah.”
Before he could stop the words that had haunted him for nearly half his life, Jon found them falling from his lips. “I raped her, Night. I raped Sarah.”
Night didn’t respond to his confession. He merely put a strong hand on Jon’s shoulder and pushed him back down to the couch. Night sat down as well and handed him the nearly empty bottle of whiskey. Jon drained it in one swallow.
“Now,” Night said after he’d composed himself. “Tell me. All of it.”
He began with just two words. The two words he’d never uttered to anyone before. “Rex knew.”
“What did he know?”
“All of it. He knew about Sarah and he knew I was going to betray him…had betrayed him. I’d stolen the documents from the office and delivered them to Reilly. I was coming to find you. Rex stopped me outside one of the training rooms in the dungeon. I didn’t know he knew about my betrayal. He pulled me into the room. It was dark and he was laughing. It sounded like he’d come unhinged.” Jon shuddered as he thought about how Rex’s cruel face looked just before he shut the door to the dim, damp room.
Jon continued to talk, the words coming easily despite so many years trapped inside him. “I knew time was running out. I needed to get to you quickly before the CAA agents burst in. Reilly warned me not to be inside the compound when the bust went down. He said there would be shooting and tear gas. I was afraid you and Sarah would be killed in the crossfire.”
“I found my own way out of the compound.” Night’s words were laced with the insult he apparently felt toward his ability to fend for himself. “Found you as well, if I’m not mistaken.”
Jon laughed even though nothing felt funny. “I know, Night, but I felt an obligation to protect you. Sue me.”
Night tried to smile at the joke, but his lips faltered on the action. “What happened in the training room?”
Jon’s heart constricted as his memories returned to that dark room.
“Come in. I have a rare treat for you tonight,” Rex said as he pulled him into the room and locked the door behind him.
“Master Reverend, I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere.” Jon’s reply sounded nervous and rushed. It was vitally important he not betray his fear. Rex would be able to smell it from a mile away.
“You are needed here. I have commanded your presence and no one else’s needs take precedence over mine.” Rex’s voice was harsh and angry and Jon knew he’d made a big mistake.
“Of course not, Master Reverend. I beg your forgiveness.”
“That’s better,” Rex replied. “Besides, my dear boy, I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime in exchange for a few moments of your time.”
Jon was immediately suspicious of Rex’s tone, but he was under the gun. He had to get out of this room, find Night, and hook up with Reilly and Sarah outside the compound. The four of them had to get the hell out of Dodge—now.
“Anything, Master Reverend. I am happy to serve.” The false words tasted bitter on his tongue.
Rex led him to a table. As his eyes adjusted to the near darkness, Jon saw the woman chained there. Her face was covered and he could barely make out her shape. His heart leapt to his throat as he realized what Rex wanted from him.
“Train this slave, Master Jon. She’s been very disobedient and she needs a strong hand.”
Jon froze and tried to come up with an excuse, any reason why he should be relieved from this duty. The clock was ticking and if he didn’t leave this room within the next fifteen minutes, chances were good he, Night and Sarah would all perish in the gunfight.
“Master Reverend,” he began.
“I sense your hesitation. Is something wrong? Is there something you need to confess to your father?”
He knows.
The words drilled their way into Jon’s consciousness like a jackhammer. He knew about his betrayal. Before he could answer, Rex crossed to the end of the table. “Let me make this very simple for you. Either you fuck this woman right now or I’ll cut her throat. Sinners must be punished.” Rex held a knife to her throat.
Jon heard the woman’s faint whimper and watched her struggle against her bonds. Rex’s knife pressed more deeply and Jon could just make out the small trickle of blood running down her neck.
Rape or death? For a brief moment, he considered what the woman would prefer. Would she rather be raped and live a long life, or die a painful death at Rex’s hand?
Without further thought, Jon untied the drawstring on his pants, crawling slowly over the woman and placing his cock at her opening. She
was dry and he didn’t want to hurt her.
He swallowed heavily, trying to dislodge the bile stuck in his throat.
Quickly he slid down and ran his tongue against the woman’s soft pussy. If he had to hurt her, the least he could do was try to minimize the pain.
“Now, Jon. Fuck her. Now.”
A door slammed outside and for a split second, Jon feared it was a gunshot. That fear pushed him forward and into the woman’s tight, dry body. Panic pulsed through him as he thought about Night and Sarah. He had to get out of here. Now he was worried about the woman chained to the table. How could he get her out as well?
Gunshots began as he moved his hips against the woman. She lay still for his attack, as if sensing his terror. He became cognizant of the fact his movements were less constrained. The woman was suddenly wet. The idea eased his mind for a moment. Perhaps she wasn’t suffering.
Yelling came from a distant hallway and somehow, he managed to come. He emptied himself into the woman. Straddling her, he breathed heavily. He had only a second to consider his actions…
Then Rex pulled the covering away from Sarah’s face.
His eyes widened with horror when he realized what he’d done. Before he could utter a sound, Rex’s knife slit the terrified girl’s neck right before his eyes.
“No!” Jon’s hands covered the fatal wound, desperate to stem the flow of her precious blood. “No!”
It was several minutes before he realized Rex had escaped and World War Three was erupting outside the door. He huddled over Sarah’s still form, desperate to protect her from any further harm. Glancing down, he noticed the blood on her legs.
He’d taken her virginity and her life.
He cried until he didn’t have any tears left.
“I’m not sure how I got out of the compound. All I remember is you dragging me outside the gate into the woods and Reilly driving us off the mountain,” Jon said, unable to look at his friend’s face.
Night didn’t respond for a long time. Jon could imagine the condemnation and disgust he must feel toward him. The same feelings he’d lived with for a decade and a half.
“Christ,” Night finally said. “I honestly didn’t think I could hate my father any more.”
He was taken aback by the comment and glanced over to Night. His face was a perfect mixture of anger and understanding.
“All those years we were partners. All those nights spent in stakeouts or huddled in foxholes. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you feel like you needed to carry the guilt of that around by yourself?”
He was confused by Night’s response. “Because it was my guilt to carry.”
“Way I see it, two people were raped in that room. Dying in prison was too good for my bastard of a father. I can’t tell you what I’d give right now to stick a knife in that asshole’s chest.”
Night’s words reverberated in his mind. Jon felt as if he’d sell his soul to the devil to believe they were true. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let Sarah’s painful last moments rest solely on Rex’s miserable shoulders.
“There wasn’t anything you could have done. Tell me honestly, because I’m sure you’ve given it a hell of a lot of thought, is there anything—and I mean anything—you could have done differently that would have saved her life?”
“I didn’t have to force myself on her.”
“Dammit, Jon. Listen to yourself. Rex had a knife against her throat. You thought you were saving her life. I’m sure if Sarah could have spoken, she would have begged you to take her. You had no reason to believe he’d kill her after you’d done what he asked.”
“He knew I’d betrayed him. I should have seen it coming.”
“To hell with that! You’re not a mind reader. You were a seventeen-year-old boy forced to make a choice no man should ever have to face. It’s time to move on. Call your girlfriend, go see her, fuck her—let her take some of this pain away from you. You keep dwelling on this shit and you’ll explode.”
Jon laughed, a cold, harsh sound, even to his own ears. “I was moving on. Until you and Reilly showed up and started exorcising all these fucking ghosts.”
Night was silent for a moment. Then he reached over and placed his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jon. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
* * * * *
Night listened as Jon started his car and drove away. Taking his advice, Jon was off to see Carly, to try to find some solace, some forgiveness in her arms.
Horror over the story Jon had told him left Night feeling unbelievably cold. No amount of whiskey would warm him again. Rex Thomas had been a coldhearted, selfish bastard.
He tried to remember one moment of fatherly love, one moment of warmth or comfort his father had offered, and came up empty. From the moment Cassandra Walker came to live on the compound, she became the focal point of his father’s life. He remembered his mother crying herself to sleep at night after being moved out of Rex’s suite and back into the women’s dorms, and he had watched helplessly as she slowly withered away. Within a year, she had died. Cassandra, for some inexplicable reason, took him in after his mother’s death and he and Jon had become inseparable, the best of friends, raised as brothers.
“Fuck!” He stood up and started for the kitchen. There had to be another bottle of whiskey somewhere in the house. He was sick of remembering all this shit. Jon was right. Dragging up all this ancient history wasn’t doing either of them any good.
Standing by the kitchen sink, he closed his eyes and imagined what Jon was doing right now. He could see his friend getting out of the car and banging on the front door of Carly’s little house.
Night felt for a moment as if he was there…
It was too damn late to be knocking on someone’s door and Jon knew it, but he wouldn’t be able to make himself turn around and go home. Carly would open the door and he wouldn’t say a word. He’d merely shove his way in, closing and locking the door behind them. Then he’d shove her nightshirt up around her waist and rip off her panties. Her back would be pressed against a wall in the foyer. Jon wouldn’t even take the time to take off his own pants. He’d merely open the front of his jeans and push into her. Into her hot, wet warmth. Into her comforting arms.
Home. Carly was Jon’s home now.
“Home,” Night pushed the thought away from his mind and staggering up the stairs to his cold, lonely bed. “I always wanted one of those.”
Chapter Eight
Jon took Night’s advice and began spending all his afternoons and evenings at Carly’s house. Time after time, she welcomed him into her body and her home with open arms, loving away all the aches and pains built up during a lifetime of guilt.
Night continued to wait, with less and less patience, for an invitation to the compound and Jon was happy to stay at Carly’s place, given his friend’s surly disposition.
Reilly supported Jon’s belief that if Night made the first move in contacting Cassandra, she would become suspicious and possibly disappear into the woodwork before they could build a case against her.
According to Night, Reilly was trying to figure out how to get a female agent in place on the compound. He’d attempted twice to get different women in. Both times his agents were turned away at the door. Reilly wasn’t sure what the secret was to getting inside, but Cassandra seemed to have a nose for law enforcement agents. He still hoped to have a female on the inside before Cassandra approached them. If Night had to prove his loyalty in a sexual manner, Reilly wanted to be sure there was a willing female agent there to play her role.
Late the following Friday afternoon, Jon unlocked the door to his townhouse before slamming it shut behind him.
“Sounds like you had a good day.” Night came out of the kitchen with a beer in his hand and a bag of chips under his arm.
“Fuck off.”
“Ouch. Trouble in paradise?” Night popped the top on his beer and ripped open the chip package.
“Carly called in sick today. I’ve tried to get her on her
cell phone all damn day, but she’s not answering. I drove by her house but her car’s gone and so is she.”
“That’s weird. Did she seem sick when you left her last night? Could she have gone to the doctor? Didn’t knock her up, did you?”
He gritted his teeth at Night’s flippant questions. “She’s on the fucking Pill and she was fine when I left. Besides, I called her doctor’s office and the hospital and she hasn’t been to either. I’ll tell you right now, she better have a damn good excuse for this or I’m going to beat her ass.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Did you ever stop to think maybe she needed a little girl time? For all you know, she hit the shops, a spa, whatever else it is women do to relax.”
“That would be a great theory if she was like most women. Fact is, she hates shopping. Besides, she never goes anywhere without her cell phone. I’m going to drive by her house one more time. Check again.”
“I think that’s a great idea. I just ordered some Chinese takeout. You can swing by and pick it up for me on your way back from Carly’s.
Jon rolled his eyes but grudgingly agreed. He needed to calm down and at least he’d be doing something productive. If he tried to hang out at home, he’d probably start climbing the walls. Turning on his cell, he tried Carly’s number for the millionth time.
* * * * *
It was just getting dark when Carly knocked on the door of Jon’s townhouse. Her errand had taken a hell of a lot longer than she’d intended.
