by Lake, Keri
Then it hit me. A gut-wrenching, soul-crushing pain. The kind that ached every bone in my body, every muscle, and made every breath an effort. The kind that made a person want to curl into themselves and die.
I couldn’t say the words that slammed into my chest like a wrecking ball, crushing my heart. He’s dead. He’s dead.
No. Impossible.
I wanted run straight into the building, after him. Another part of me ached for death to swoop down and take me away. The duality left me paralyzed.
No. No way a man so strong could have such a meaningless ending. He deserved more.
The officer who’d clung to me as the first explosion thundered stood off to the side, talking with medics, voicing the answers that, in my heart, I couldn’t accept.
“How many were inside?”
“Looked like a lot of East side, West side gangs. I’d say about two dozen dead on the first floor. In the basement? Two, for sure. Backup just arrived when the first explosion went off, and they didn’t see anyone on the west or south exits, so, as far as I know, Michael Culling and Nicholas Ryder were the only ones on the lower level. Tunnels lead out this way, and we ain’t seen nobody exit. So I’d … I’d have to assume they’re dead.”
Dead.
The word echoed inside my head, a constant ring of agony clawing at my stomach. He’s not dead. He can’t be dead.
“Are you having any pain?” The medic’s voice came into sharp clarity at my ear, and I turned to face her. She looked tired, with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and dark circles lining her sockets, giving them a sunken appearance.
“What?” The word came out involuntarily, as I processed the question. Was I in pain? “Yes.”
“Can you tell me where you’re feeling pain?”
A stinging burned my nose, and I clamped my mouth shut as her form blurred behind the shield of tears. “Everywhere.”
53
Aubree
If I didn’t think of him, it was only for a brief interlude. A moment of insanity when something in the world managed to distract me for a minute. I’d become a broken woman, going through motions. Empty inside.
Nearly a week had passed since the fire, and I still couldn’t function.
Even then, I stared at the gray walls in the small, claustrophobic room that somehow left a metallic taste in the back of my throat, likely from all the steel housed in such a small space. The table. Guns. My nerves.
I should’ve been reveling in my newfound freedom.
Except, my world felt like a cage, and I was the willing captive.
I needed him. Could feel phantom sensations brush across my skin whenever I recalled the first night we’d made love. For years, I’d worn my armor, deflecting pain, but I’d become nothing more than a hollow shell, on the verge of being crushed into a million pieces.
“You said this man who kidnapped you claimed to be Nicholas James Ryder? The same Nicholas James Ryder that supposedly perished in a fire three years ago?”
The investigator, whose name I couldn’t recall, sat across from me in the interrogation room. I’d sat there for hours, as if I’d been the criminal.
“Yes.”
“And he confessed to being the Eye for An Eye Killer as well as Achilleus X, as a means of retaliation for what was done to his family?”
“Yes.” I kept my answers brief, just as my lawyer had coached me.
“And it was your husband who was supposedly responsible for the murder of his family?”
“That’s what he said.”
He paused his scribbling. “That’s what who said?”
I studied the pockmarks in his face and noticed the sweat bleeding into the collar of his dress shirt. Flakes of dandruff dotted his dark gray sport coat, and my eyes shot toward his greasy, unkempt mop of brown hair. To the side of him sat a Styrofoam cup, wafting out the smell of stale coffee. I’d become a vessel, soaking up observations, keeping thoughts and conversations to myself. A silent box of secrets. “Nick.”
The television hanging from the corner of the room behind him showed Achilleus X, his masked face talking in silence with the volume muted. The closed caption text moved across the screen and read the same heart-wrenching message that’d played for the last two days, as news investigators pieced together a story from the destruction:
“People of Detroit. If you’re watching this video, it means I’m already dead. Your mayor has broken a very solemn vow to protect and serve you. He’s a murderer, a thief, and a liar. I’d intended to reveal myself, but Achilleus X is more than what’s hidden behind this mask. It’s more than flesh and bone. It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m merely a shell to house the belief shared by all of us. Speramus meliora resurget cineribus. Detroit will rise from the ashes. Operation Culling. Operation Devil’s Night. Stand down.”
“It makes no sense.” The investigator shook his head, drawing my attention away from the screen. “There are two completely different personalities when it comes to these crimes. It’s still my theory that Achilleus X and the Eye for an Eye killer are two individuals working together.”
“She’s told you what was told to her.” My lawyer sat beside me, flipping through notes he’d taken during the questioning. Unlike the investigator, Miles was clean cut, with manicured nails and thin-wired glasses that gave him an air of intelligence. “Are we going to sit here and keep rehashing the same questions? My client has suffered a very traumatic week.”
“One more… question. Anyone that might’ve had some beef with your husband? A vendetta? Aside from Nicholas Ryder, who you claim was Achilleus X?”
Don’t give them any more than necessary. Push the truth away. Don’t let them see it written all over your face. I felt like a criminal, but the one true criminal had died in those flames.
I couldn’t count the number of people who had a vendetta against my husband, all of them ghosts, whispering in my ear at that moment. I wouldn’t allow Michael to be viewed as a victim, when he’d victimized so many people. I could provide a list of names. People who’d been victimized by Michael’s violence, including our very own maid, Elise, who’d had her tongue cut out when she asked about photographs she’d once found while cleaning his office. The police had their evidence. They had their proof. Anything more would implicate the wrong person and inevitably make their saintly politician look like a martyr. “My husband made a lot of enemies in this city. You have Julius’s confession.”
Lips forming a hard line, the investigator dropped his gaze from mine and gave a sharp nod. “If we have any further questions, we’ll be in touch. I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
Fuck Michael. I hated accepting any measure of sympathy for him, but that was the game I had to play.
“Thank you.” I nodded, feeling light as I rose up from the chair.
I’d had vertigo a number of times since the explosion. Part of me wondered if I’d ever feel connected to the world again. If I’d ever feel whole.
Another part of me just didn’t care.
54
Aubree
From the dock, I stared off at the ocean that surrounded Boca Chica Island—a small piece of heaven just off Panama’s Pacific Coast. Red and orange streaked across the placid surface, mirroring the sky, as the sun began to set behind me. I never missed a sunset.
With Michael’s life insurance policy, I was able to pay cash for a gorgeous villa, set on over seventy acres of jungle and fruit trees, with a view of Islita Castillo off in the distance. I considered it a well-deserved treat, after months of grueling interrogations and court proceedings, for which I played only a small part as both a victim of kidnapping and a mourning widow.
Names had been given up by Michael’s connections and exchanged for pardons and reduced sentences. Michael’s dealings were investigated, his sacred office torn apart. The most heartbreaking part of it all had come during the confession of Brandon Malone, who detailed a grim and gruesome attack on Nick and his family. He spoke of the brutal torment hi
s gang had inflicted on Nick’s wife and son, the night they’d been murdered, and my heart bled when he recounted how they’d eventually disposed of them at Michael’s command.
A gust of wind fluttered the note in my hand—the one I’d skimmed the night I’d awakened from being drugged. The last remnant I carried of the man I loved.
Or men, as it were.
In it, he spoke of a place he’d seen once. An island that was too perfect to be true, located just off the coast of Panama. In my new home, I’d found dense mangroves, powdery white sand, unspoiled coral reefs and hidden coves.
My own personal paradise.
I’d never planned to be surrounded by the very thing I feared, but such was life. Drowning and coming back had somehow put me at peace with the water again—enough that I found myself submerged in the silence of the ocean on nights when I felt most alone, dreaming of Nick’s hands coaxing my body to orgasm. My heart felt empty but at home in the private and secluded glass house, in the thick of century-old mango trees and exotic creatures. During the day, I picked avocados and bananas. At night, I watched the moon rise over the calm, placid waters.
A couple weeks after the ironworks explosion, when I hadn’t been under the microscope of investigators and specialists or bodyguards protecting me against retaliation, I returned to that abandoned mansion, where I’d been kept prisoner. I didn’t expect to find the envelope. Thought for certain they’d have found it as they dissected the house. There it lay, though, tucked inside the fireplace, where I’d left it, beneath the ash. When the noise around me finally settled, I’d read it in peace. Every word.
Nick had left me his bank account numbers—access to millions of dollars that I would never truly find the need to spend. I donated some of the money to local schools and a healing through the arts center in Panama City. He’d also given me instruction on what to say to the investigators and lawyers during the trials.
The chip held the greatest secrets. I’d taken the time to study the medical records and the heart wrenching diagnosis of his dissociative personality, thought to be a result of trauma, post traumatic stress.
There had also been two plane tickets, as though he might’ve changed his mind and come with me.
Darkness stole the light of day, and I reached down to my stomach, rubbing where the small bump had begun to show through my dress.
Yet another part of the man I loved, growing inside of me.
I whistled for Achilleus, my black Cane Corso, who bounded across the beach and wagged his tail, as he followed behind. Smiling, I clutched the letter to my chest, and made my way back toward the large thatched roof home just a few yards away from the dock.
Once inside, I set the letter on the granite countertop of the gourmet kitchen. The space had been designed with the most modern amenities— state of the art furnishings, mixed with a classic island appeal. Furniture had been imported from Bali, and local artists provided the breathtaking paintings hung throughout. Such an odd contradiction of civilization in an ancient world.
I ambled toward the bedroom, where a king-sized bed, handmade by woodworkers in Panama, sat empty, kempt by the maid who came by boat every other morning and shared stories of her family. She was a kind, older woman, who often brought me delicious meals. I’d never had much in the way of Latin food until I’d arrived there, and after the first bite, I didn’t know how I’d gone so long without it. Food for the soul.
One of the six bedrooms in the house, far too small for anything more than a twin bed, I’d converted into an art nook. There, I spent hours trying to capture his face—the shadows and dips from his prominent jaw and chiseled cheeks, and those eyes, slicing away at my heart while they came to life on the canvas.
Pulling my hair back into a bun, I stood in front of the oversized mirror, staring at my hardened nipples. The thin, red silk dress I wore had been tied loosely in front, allowing half of each breast to peek through the wide slit. I’d become a creature of simplicity, and if not for the caretaker who lived just a few hundred feet from the house, I’d have probably walked around nude most of the day, because I could.
A faint draft brushed against the back of my neck.
In the mirror’s reflection, my eyes caught on the slight gap between the thick double doors behind me. Sliding the gun from the top drawer, I spun around, tipping my head to be sure, and crossed the room, where I threw back the door to peer outside. On the deck, the hammock swung ever so slightly in the breeze, but everything appeared to remain undisturbed.
Achilleus would bark, I reminded myself.
The only other person on the east side of the island happened to be Mateus, the groundskeeper, who had his own quarters. In reality, crime wasn’t an issue, but the investigations into Michael’s affairs had resulted in the implication and arrest of notorious gang members and political figures. I sometimes worried they’d come after me, seeking retribution.
Closing the door, I conducted a quick, half-hearted sweep of the house, and once satisfied with my search, I set the gun on the nightstand and climbed into my bed.
From the drawer of the nightstand, I nabbed a book—The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A.N. Roquelaure. I’d read the dog-eared page so many times, I’d damn near memorized it.
Sliding my fingers beneath the hem of my dress, I read in silence, skating my fingers down, between my thighs while the Prince proceeded to stake his claim on Beauty. I’d found some twisted enjoyment in the loneliness, night after night, fantasizing about Nick. My heart refused to move on.
Minutes passed, and my eyes grew heavy, my mind slipping in and out of that state of wakefulness and dreaming. Heat pulsed through my body, warming my skin, and my muscles went soft, drifting, drifting.
A whisper of touch traced my hipbone, as I lay on my side in bed. I let out a sigh and lifted my arms above my head, surrendering to the dream that bled into my consciousness. Fingers slipped between my thighs, pushing aside my panties, and I couldn’t tell if they were mine, or my illusion of Nick.
Pleasure radiated from my core, to my toes and fingertips, in delicious waves that had my hips rocking in slow, agonizing circles. God, it felt so damn good. I don’t want to wake up. I wanted to stay in the dream, forever in the state of ecstasy, with Nick’s ghostly fingers pumping in and out of me, in perfect sync with the cresting of my orgasm. As if he knew my body better than I did.
“Nick,” I whispered. “You feel so … good.” I fondled my breast, my tongue sweeping across my lips as the intensity built heat within my muscles.
“I watched you touching yourself. You’re so fucking wet, so tight.”
Oh, God, his voice was so lucid, so vivid inside my head, the sound of it alone nearly forced me over the edge, but his finger slowed again, and the haze of sleepiness lifted. Desperate, I focused, not wanting to lose the moment.
No, please. Let me have this! I needed this release.
My eyes flipped open. I lifted my hand, but the sensations kept on, and my muscles seized against momentary panic. Neither of my hands were anywhere near my pussy. One hand fondled my breast. The other remained above my head, something shackled about my wrist.
Yet, my walls still gripped what felt like long fingers inside me, milking them with each upward drive.
I let out a gasp.
“Come for me, Aubree.”
That voice! So rich and husky, it tickled my chest. The unmistakable sound of Nick.
It’s him. In my bed. He’s real. Not a dream.
Squirming against him, I fought the mounting pressure, the heat inside of me surging, swirling, promising the most exquisite release.
No! No! My mind protested, wanting to be sure the man lying behind me, coaxing pleasure like a fucking boss, was really him.
In a desperate bid between mind and body, I tried to will away the inevitable pull at my womb, the friction against my raw and hungry flesh, the string of tension in my muscles, telling me resistance was futile. My muscles turned rigid, quivering with the effort of holdin
g back, fighting the climb. I wanted to turn and see his face, to make sure it wasn’t some slick psycho with a death wish, but the orgasm crashed over me, and all I could do was lay there, allowing it to paralyze me, take me beneath the surface.
Ripples of ecstasy zipped through my body, spreading like flames through my muscles, the chasing tingles making me dizzy. Gripping the sheets with my free hand, I bit into my arm, cursing against my skin. Back arched, muscles taut, my body acted of its own will, riding out the most intense orgasm I’d had in months.
While my mind demanded what the fuck?, I cried out, confessing what he already knew, as his fingers continued their unrelenting pursuit of a second orgasm, the wetness and tiny muscle contractions making quick and easy glides that created a slight suction with each pull. His thumb caressed my clit, dipping into the wetness, then smearing it across the sensitive, if not traitorous, little bud. My own moaning droned inside my head, and I squirmed, thrust, tensed against the flames building inside my muscles.
Fuck you! Fuck you! My mind screamed inside its cage while another orgasm exploded through my body, sending flashes of light behind my eyelids.
“Oh, God, Nick. I hate you. I fucking hate you.” I wanted to sob into my pillow and wallow in the betrayal I suddenly felt, but those bullets of pleasure shot through my veins, a blast of cool tingles extinguishing the flames in pulses that had me smiling, in spite of my frown—a true contradiction of absolute bliss and fury tangoing inside of me.
“I can’t tell you how much it excites me to hear you say my name again.” His fingers slipped out of me. “I missed your taste.” A growl rumbled inside his chest, and at the grip of my throat, I nabbed the gun from the nightstand, crossed my arm over my body and pushed the barrel beneath what I estimated to be a chin.
“Achilleus X?”
“Hello, Pistol Lips.” His grip loosened, and I rolled on top of him until straddling his body, where his erection pressed against my ass, and pointed the gun at him.
