He smiled at her, dismissing the feeling of shame which tickled his bones.
We are two consenting adults, he reminded himself. And I will do whatever I must do to find them. If I need to seduce my second-in-command’s widow, so be it. It is for the greater good.
But as Elise stared at him with naked adoration, he wondered if he wasn’t crossing a line.
There are no lines. Not when Oculus is involved and my sons are still at large.
Chapter Four
Amarillo, Texas
Xave stood staring at the corpse on the floor of the red room, his blood seeping into the matte black floor as Sasha paced about nervously, wringing her hands in despair.
“I hate this guy,” she muttered, more to herself than the manager but Xave heard her clearly. “I was going to tell Tristan to cancel my appointment with him.”
“Is that why you decided to murder him?” he asked dryly even though his heart was hammering in his chest. “It would have been easier to cancel.”
“I didn’t murder him!” Sasha screeched and Xave shot her a scathing look.
“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “We don’t need to drag anyone else into your mess. Do you have any idea who this guy is?”
She looked at him, her dark eyes wide with terror as she nodded.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I knew something like this would happen but he always pushes it. I have begged him not to go so far but he never stops, Xave! He doesn’t acknowledge the safe word! He says it’s what he pays for!”
“He paid you to kill him?” Xavier asked sarcastically.
“No!” Sasha’s face was grey. “He always whips me to the point of bleeding! I told him that he was going too far but he never listens…and I thought he was going to kill me this time. I have never seen him look so intense. I was scared to death!”
He glanced at the terrified girl and saw that mixed with the basketball player’s blood was her own.
“What did you do?”
Sasha took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I screamed at him to stop it! I had my hands over my face to protect myself but he just laughed at me, Xave! I had no way to stop him except…”
She stopped talking and he stared at her expectantly.
“What did you do, Sasha?” he snapped. “Just spit it out.”
“I took off my stiletto and stabbed him with it.”
Ah, that makes sense, Xave thought, staring at the gaping hole in Clark Jameson’s face. Her heel went through his eye.
He did not admit that he was secretly impressed by her defenses.
Some of these assholes just think they can do whatever they want. Good for her for standing up for herself.
He realized of course that meant that they had a corpse with which to contend.
“What are we going to do?” Sasha sobbed.
“What can we do?” Xave replied lazily. “We have to call the cops.”
He didn’t mean a word of what he said but he savored the look of shock on Sasha’s face.
“No!” she cried. “I can’t go to jail!”
“It was self-defense,” Xave said conversationally, looking around the red room.
Sasha stared at him, aghast.
“No one will believe that, Xave!” she shrieked. “Everyone in here will be in trouble! They will shut this place down and I’ll go to jail! Please! Help me!”
Sasha was not telling him anything he didn’t already know.
She would be demonized despite the fact that Clark Jameson didn’t know how to play fair. As far as anyone else would see it, she deserved it for putting herself at risk.
Blood had sprayed against the mirrors and whips adorning the walls. The clean up was going to be a wild task but that was the least of their problems.
He had to get rid of the body.
“Go get some cleaning supplies and make sure that no one sees you,” he sighed. Sasha looked at him with hopeful eyes.
“You’re not going to call the cops?” she cried.
“Not if you do exactly as I tell you,” Xave grunted. “Do I look like I want to go to prison because you didn’t have the foresight to blacklist a client?”
“What are you going to do with him?” she breathed, ignoring his jibe. “How are you going to get him out of here without anyone seeing?”
“Are you going to make me change my mind about calling the cops, Sasha or are you going to do as you’re told?”
She did not argue again, hurrying toward the leather-bound door.
Thank God these rooms are sound proof. He must have screamed like a hyena, Xavier thought, watching Sasha peer into the dimly lit hall before slipping away to obey his request.
As the door closed, Xave reached for the dead basketball player, pulling him toward the back door.
Each private room had a separate exit to the outside so that no client would encounter another as they entered.
The red room was no exception and Xave propped the back door open, peering into the alleyway.
He grimaced as he saw a pair of homeless men rifling through the dumpsters. Closing the door, he turned back to wait for Sasha.
“Please tell me you drove here,” he said and she nodded. “Good. Give me your keys and tell me where you parked.”
“No! You can’t put him in my car!” she squealed.
Xave was losing his sense of humor and he stared at her furiously.
“I could toss him in the alleyway, sweetheart but I would wager the first place the police will look when they find his mutilated corpse is here. Try explaining that it was self-defense then. Use your brain, Sasha and give me your fucking keys.”
“How the hell are you going to take him out of here unnoticed, Xave?”
“Okay, you need to stop questioning me before I change my mind. Get me your goddamned keys and don’t make me ask you again.”
His nerves were growing raw and for the first time since he could remember, he was worried.
Sasha turned and dug her purse out of a hidden closet behind one of the rectangular panels of glass, throwing her keys at him without a word.
“Where is your car?” he asked.
“The lot on South Lakeside,” she muttered, keeping her eyes averted. “It’s the white Mercedes SL Roadster.”
Xave wondered if the athlete would fit in the trunk of a car that size.
I guess I’ll find out.
“Go have a shower and mind the front in case any of the other girls come looking for me. Tell them I’m indisposed.”
“I can’t – “the look in his eyes seemed to freeze her tongue and she spun to hurry from the room again.
Xave threw open the back door and saw that the hobo duo had moved further down the alley toward the street.
I’ll move the car here…
Suddenly he remembered something; there were cameras in the alleyway, placed by Lady Katrine itself.
Dammit!
Xave took a deep breath and hurried out the back door toward the street, keeping his head down to ensure he wasn’t recognized.
He located Sasha’s car in minutes and drove it toward the alley but as he approached, he took a deep breath to steady his trembling hands.
It will take me too long to pull the car in here, move the body and get out of here undetected. I can’t hold it off that long.
He knew he didn’t have a choice.
I’ll bring the car to the back and go from there.
He prayed that he would be afforded enough of an opportunity to do what he had to do but he did not have a lot of faith in himself at that moment.
He was aware that the clock was ticking. The longer he sat at the end of the alleyway, debating his next move, the more likely it would be that one of the other girls or clients would come searching for him. He could not leave the front door of Lady Katrine’s locked all night, not when appointments were expected.
No, he had to act and act fast.
Taking a deep breath, he jammed the car in reverse and scr
eeched to a stop at the back of the red room.
Popping the trunk, he inhaled sharply and concentrated, waiting for the telltale breeze to flow over his face.
As it passed, he leapt from the vehicle, dragging Clark Jameson into the laneway where he jammed the body in the trunk.
A bird tweeted over his head and Xave knew the moment had passed.
Maybe I can do it again.
He closed his eyes, willing time to freeze once more but he could still hear traffic as he listened.
If he had succeeded, he had managed to hide the act of moving the body from the dungeon to the car but he had not hidden the car from the alley.
Grunting, he retreated into the driver’s side to park the car back at the lot.
I’ll deal with Jameson after we close. I will have to make sure no one ever finds the body. It's the only sure-fire way to cover our tracks.
He made his way back to the red room and realized with horror that there was blood everywhere.
Sasha has her work cut out for her tonight.
He slammed the door to the room and leaned heavily against the door, trying to still his racing pulse but he was suddenly somewhere else, somewhere he didn’t recognize.
Men were racing into the room, dressed in black. He heard screaming and as he looked to his left, he saw his identical twin shrieking in terror.
Gunshots rang out and he was thrown to the ground as the group closed in on him. A table flipped and a man scooped him from a booster seat.
He stared at an older boy on his left and they exchanged a primitive message from the deepest recesses of their minds; they must be stopped.
As if in slow motion, the boys turned to watch the swarm of men.
The group froze as time physically stopped and Xave watched in horrified awe as their heads exploded one by one.
“Xave!”
He jumped and looked at Sasha.
“What?”
“Is it done?” she whispered. “Did you get rid of him?”
“You have to clean up this mess,” he told her. “The alleyway too. And work fast; the blood is drying.”
He sauntered past her and she put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“You need to wash up,” she told him, gesturing at his red stained hands.
Xave glanced at his palms and saw she was right.
Will this never end? He wondered, gritting his teeth.
“There are clients at the door,” Sasha told him worriedly. “What should I do?”
“I’ll deal with it,” he told her. “Just clean up this mess and go home. The car stays with me.”
She bit on her lower lip to keep from protesting.
“Okay,” she agreed.
As he reached the door, she called out to him.
“Xave?”
He turned to stare at her.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I – thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he replied grimly. “Because if the shit hits the fan, you bet your ass I will throw you under the bus so fast, your pretty little head will spin.”
And he meant it.
After all, he didn’t owe anything to anyone.
A stiletto, Jesus Christ, he thought with mild disgust but he couldn’t deny that he was just a tiny bit proud that Sasha had stood up for herself.
Four a.m. was bittersweet and when Xave locked the doors, ensuring that all the girls had gone home for the night, he double checked the red room.
To his surprise, Sasha had done a remarkable job cleaning up the chaos she had created.
I hope she’s smart enough to burn the evidence. I should have told her.
It was something he could remind her to do in the morning. She was probably high as a kite, trying to forget the events of the evening.
And if Xave had thought it through properly, Clark Jameson would never be found.
He’ll just be another star athlete to end up on Dateline, enveloped in speculation and intrigue.
Xave got in the car and headed for Interstate 27 out of Amarillo.
As he drove, a strange haze fell over him as if he had detached from his body and was studying himself from the roof of the small car.
An image of Clark Jameson’s lifeless body played in his mind and his stomach flipped dangerously.
People die all the time, he reasoned with himself. It’s not a big deal. It was an accident but it wouldn’t be seen that way. Sasha would be painted as some villainous hooker who murdered a superstar. Jameson would be an innocent victim and we would be deemed scum of the earth. No, you’re doing the right thing. There is no reason to feel guilty.
But there was no amount of justification that could shake the eerie sensation which driving around with a dead body caused him.
For a moment, he found delicious irony to the fact that people had always described him as being so dark, but when it came down to it, he felt tarnished by this dark reality that he found himself in.
I’m going to dump him in Lake Tanglewood. He won’t be found for years if I weigh him down properly. And I am not tarnished.
Bile threatened to spring from his mouth as if to contradict him but he gulped it back, gritting his teeth.
Abruptly, a picture of men swarming him with guns popped into his mind and he felt a cold sweat break out over his forehead. He didn’t know where the image had come from, but it felt an awful lot like a memory.
You can’t lose it now, Xave. You only have one last thing to do and then you can put this experience from your mind. You’ve been through worse shit than this. Keep it together.
Suddenly, however, he was finding it difficult to see as his breaths came out in short, jagged gasps.
In his mind’s eye, he was being attacked by unknown soldiers for reasons he couldn’t understand.
Is this like PTSD? Where is this coming from? He asked himself.
Xave pulled over to the side of the road, burying his head against the steering wheel.
Easy, he told himself. Easy now.
Yet as he tried to think calming thoughts, he recalled that he held Clark Jameson’s credit card number in his wallet and he was instantly swept into another wave of dizziness.
Oh my God. I am so fucked, he realized.
A knock on his window caused him to jerk back. He looked up, expecting to see a police officer.
Instead, a stunningly beautiful woman peered in at him, her grey eyes lit with concern.
Embarrassment colored his face as he rolled down the window, struggling to breathe normally.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded quickly, averting his eyes.
“Have you been in an accident?” she asked, her brow knit. He shook his head, hesitant to speak. He worried that whatever came out of his mouth would just get him in even deeper.
“Are you hurt? Do you need me to call 9-1-1?”
“No!”
It was the first word he had spoken and it came out much too forcefully.
She stepped back from the car, her eyes narrowing.
“Then may I ask you what you’re doing outside of my house?” she asked coldly, folding her arms over her chest.
Xavier lifted his head, taking in his surroundings.
Shock wracked his body as he recognized the neighborhood.
“I – I’m not sure,” he mumbled, glancing back at the woman. “I wasn’t feeling well and needed to pull over.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“Have you been drinking?”
Xave shook his head, scowling at her. Although at least that would explain his behavior, he thought wryly.
Her eyes softened slightly.
“Are you having a bad night?” she asked and there was a gentleness in her tone which Xave detected.
“To put it mildly,” he grimaced.
“Come inside,” she said suddenly and he stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Are you crazy? It’s almost five o’clock in the morning and I’m some random guy parked outside your house.
You’re going to invite me in?”
She shrugged nonchalantly.
“I have a good sense for people,” she replied. “Anyway, you’re not really a random guy, are you?”
He gazed at her uncomprehendingly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’ve been standing outside my house almost every day for the past three weeks.”
Xavier began to deny her allegation, but she held up her hand.
“No need to deny it. I’ve seen you almost every day now.”
He didn’t know how to answer her since he wasn’t even sure yet why he was drawn to her. Or maybe it was this house?
“Don’t you think that there’s a reason that you’re here right now?” she asked quietly. “Don’t you wonder if you were brought here? By…something?”
Xave studied her lovely face.
Am I buying into this? He asked himself, but he found that the answer was yes. What other explanation was there for how he had ended up here tonight, in front of the very place he had been drawn to for weeks?
“What is your name?” she asked, drawing closer to the car again.
“Xavier Sinclair.”
“My name is Danica Cortez.”
She offered her hand to him through the window and Xave reached for it.
A surge of electricity coursed through them and he was sure she felt it also as they stared at one another. Their eyes locked and held for a moment, and time seemed to stand still.
“Won’t you come in?” she asked a little breathlessly. “I would love to do a reading for you. I feel like you have a lot to…unburden yourself of.”
Xave almost shivered, knowing that she was a scam artist, but wondering if she had something, some kind of ‘power’ that helped her run her scams.
“You could say that,” he murmured, removing the keys from the ignition.
Danica’s smile widened as he exited the car.
“Welcome to my home and reading room,” she said as they mounted the short steps to the doorway.
Xave paused at the threshold, glancing back at the Mercedes.
You shouldn’t be going with her! For fuck’s sake, you have a dead body in the trunk of your car that you need to deal with! a voice in his mind warned, but he silenced it instantly. He didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted to follow the woman who was offering him a helping hand out of the darkness. There was something about her…something that called to him, to his soul.
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