The door clicks shut behind them, and Jacobs shoves her, catching a handful of hair and using it to propel her across the suite and onto the bed. She makes a low noise, a needy noise that is as fucking annoying as it is embarrassing, and his hand smacks down, hard across her ass.
“Be quiet,” he snaps.
It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet.
With them, it never has been.
This is cruel and calculated, and his hands are hard to the point of pain as he shoves her down on the bed, and yanks her skirt up. She almost orgasms when he rips her panties away and when his fingers shove into her, she does scream, her body clenching as she comes all over his hand.
“God, I missed this pussy,” he murmurs, his fingers pumping deep and slow inside her as she comes, and he brushes her clit and it pulls a sob from her. “You missed this too, didn’t you, Ellie?” he demands.
She bites her lip and then almost screams again when his hand disappears. She has one second—one—to feel the aching emptiness and then his mouth is on her, wet fingers smoothing over her ass as he lifts her and licks, driving her mad with the soft, barely there licks and the rough brush of teeth, the sudden thrust of his tongue, until she’s sobbing into the bed and he stands abruptly.
“Turn over,” he orders.
She sits up and pulls her shirt off, and his hands are on her before she can fall back against the pillow. She whimpers when his lips cover her nipple, a rasp of teeth and pull of lips that makes her hips writhe on the bed. He settles over her, and hisses as his dick rubs against her wet pussy. “Jesus, Ellie,” he groans.
“You missed me, too,” she purrs, rubbing against him and his eyes, closed above her, flare wide.
“Keep teasing, baby. I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget how to walk away, much less why you want to run.”
Fear flashes through her at the promise, because she knows he means it.
But before she can say anything, he’s pushing inside her and everything—fear, Charlie, the anger, every fucking thing—vanishes in a wash of pleasure.
“Fuck, Ellie,” he growls, thrusting deep into her.
She’ll hurt tomorrow. A delicious sore feeling deep inside that comes every time Jacobs fucks her. She loves that feeling, loves knowing that she will still feel him tomorrow.
No one has ever fucked her the way Jacobs does, with an intensity that trips over into violence, and finally gives way to desperation.
She arches her back and his hand finds her throat, holding her still, a little too tight and he groans when her cunt clenches around him. “Mine,” he whispers, and she comes, bucking against him, her breathing choppy and her vision fading until there is only him, only his body pounding into her, filthy promises raining down as he fucks her harder and she screams and he groans, burying himself in her as his orgasm slams into him.
For a long time, they lay like that, twisted together, sweat slick and sticky, his dick still hard in her.
Until she’s calm and a lazy kind of sleepy is settling over the room, and his hands move, pushing through her hair.
“You cut your hair,” he says again.
She smiles against his shoulder.
“You haven’t cut your hair without asking what I think since you were in middle school.”
“Things change,” she says softly and he props himself up. The motions moves his dick in her, and she whimpers, her pussy too sensitive.
“Not with us.” He says stubbornly, a cold finality.
Reality is settling around her and she shivers. “Let me up,” she says.
For a moment, as he leans over her, still inside her, and frowns, she doesn’t think he will. But despite everything that is twisted and wrong about their relationship, he still respects her enough to listen when she demands something. He slides free and sits up, reaching for her torn panties to clean himself.
When he looks at her again, she’s holding a gun.
It’s the same gun Charlie bought in a pawnshop in Memphis, and the one she used to kill Lews in Santa Fe. It’s cold and heavy and strangely comforting in her grip as she points it at him.
Shock stutters across his face, something she has seen so rarely in him, and she allows herself a tiny thrill of victory as she stares at him.
“What are you doing, Ellie?” Jacobs asks, and he shifts away from her.
“Open the bag,” she orders. His eyes flick to it and then back to the gun. Making a face he does as she’s ordered, dumping it out on the bed.
Drugs. Money. Weapons, and fake IDs spill across the bed, and she smiles at him, a sick sad thing.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“All in, Jacobs.” She cocks her head, “If I left today, would you let me go? Or would you chase me?”
He smiles at her, a sad, steady thing with a hint of wicked self-deprecation. Once upon a time, in a park, he turned that smile on a little girl. He changed her world.
And even now, she can’t bring herself to regret that.
“I’ll always chase you, Ellie. That’s what you do for the people you love.”
She nods, and tears—fucking tears—spill over. His expression turns sad, aching almost. It’s too much. All of it. She’s sobbing, and he jerks forward, shouting when she lifts the gun again.
And pulls the trigger.
Part 5:
The End
Las Vegas Police Department, Interrogation room B.
Detective Blackmon: Tell me about your relationship with Ella Jane Munro.
Charlotte Brooks: Have you found her?
Detective Blackmon: (silence)
Brooks: How long have I been here?
Detective Blackmon: (silence)
Brooks: The strong silent type doesn’t work for you, sugar. You’ve already been far too chatty for that shit.
Detective Blackmon: Tell me about Ella.
Brooks: What do you want to know? She’s my best friend. She held me together. She’s a bitch and a sociopath, and she’s the best person I’ve ever known.
Detective Blackmon: You sound like you’re in love with her.
Brooks: (crosses arms) Have you ever had a best friend, Detective? Has your wife?
Detective Blackmon: (silence)
Brooks: That’s what I thought. Don’t put words in my mouth. Of course I love EJ. But I’m not in love with her. And right now, I’m pretty pissed.
Detective Blackmon: Why is that?
Brooks: Stop fishing, Detective. You aren’t very good at it, and I’m tired.
Detective Blackmon: Tell me why you’re pissed at EJ.
Brooks: (silence). None of this was supposed to happen. I don’t even know how we got here. It doesn’t make sense.
Detective Blackmon: Tell me.
Brooks: It was an accident. That’s the thing—all of it was a fucking accident. None of it was anything we planned. We only ever planned one thing—
Detective Blackmon: What did you plan?
Brooks: (Silence)
Detective Blackmon: Oh for fucks’ sake, tell me. What the hell did you plan?
(Door Opens)
Male Voice: Sir, my client doesn’t have to answer any of your questions. And if you don’t mind, I’d like a moment with her.
Detective Blackmon: I do mind. Who the fuck are you? Who let you back here—she isn’t charged with anything, she doesn’t get a fucking lawyer.
Male Voice: If she isn’t charged, she’s free to go. (at Brooks) Get up. We’re leaving.
Detective Blackmon: Now wait just one goddamned minute!
Male Voice: Sir do you intend on charging my client? (Silence) I didn’t think so. Time to piss or get off the pot, son. Now we’re leaving.
Chapter 32
“Get up, Charlotte.”
She’s staring, and it doesn’t make sense, not really, that her father is standing here in a police station in Las Vegas. He looks rumpled, his suit a little worn and wrinkled by travel. But he’s imperious, every inch a defense attorney as he bullies his
way out of the interrogation.
Blackmon is glaring at her, and she glances at the handcuffs on her wrists, holding them up with a little jingle.
“For fucks’ sake,” Travis growls. “How long has she been restrained? If she isn’t being charged, this is gross negligence.”
“Calm down. She got violent earlier and was restrained for her own safety.”
She feels the look her father slides at her, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. What time is it? Where the fuck is EJ? Are they right? Is the blood in the hotel room EJ’s? And if it is—she swallows hard, shoving down the pain and panic that’s clawing to get free.
EJ is fine. She is, because she has to be.
It takes less time than she anticipated to get out of the police department. Hayes and her father are making promises to keep her close by for questioning and she’s quiet between them, ignoring the furious stares from Blackmon.
He thinks it was a plan. All of it. She wants to laugh at that, a hysterical noise clawing in her throat to break free. She swallows that noise down and keeps pace with Hayes, ignoring the feel of Blackmon’s eyes boring into her back as her brother escorts her outside. The cops are staring at her, and whispering and she wants to stop and scream at them, wants to demand information about EJ. But Hayes is relentless, and her father is flanking her, and neither will tolerate her slowing.
Jasper is standing in the lobby of the police department, huge dark circles under his eyes as he paces restlessly back and forth, waiting for—what? What the hell does he think she’s going to be able to give him? She catches his eyes as Hayes pulls her along, and sees the leap of excitement there, the wild hope and she shakes her head, once, a tiny motion.
Daddy, at her side, catches it, and his gaze narrows on the other man.
“Where are we going?”
“I got a room for us at the Luxor,” Hayes says, and she nods as they step outside. She’s moving by rote, barely aware of what she’s doing as Hayes tucks her into the back seat, waiting for Travis to settle next to her before Hayes shuts the front door and slides behind the wheel.
“What the hell are you doing, Charlotte?” Travis breathes and she glances out the window. Watches with blind eyes as the city slides by in a wash of lights and people and fountains. She can feel her father fuming next to her and the unasked questions from her brother, but she doesn’t address either of them.
“Do you know the FBI wants to talk to you about Anthony Jacobs? How the hell do you even know that piece of scum?”
A tiny smile twists her lips. How would her father react if he knew that Jacobs had fucked his precious daughter? She shoves that thought down. Of all the stupid things she’s done in the past few weeks, that might be the one she doesn’t regret.
In the hotel room, her father stares at her, and Hayes leans against the wall. “Tell me what happened,” Travis says.
She shakes her head and he swears. “Charlie, it’s time to quit acting like a child. I just pulled you out of an interrogation room. What about this seems like a game?”
She laughs, and it’s a high pitched noise that rings panicked and hysterical. “It’s all a fucking game!” she almost screams.
Travis stares at her, and she shakes her head. She’s shivering, and she can’t stop.
“Where is EJ?” she asks abruptly.
Hayes breaks first, glancing at Travis for a cue. That’s her brother. Always looking to dad for approval.
She glances away from him, looking at her father. He won't meet her gaze, and that alone confirms it. "You know. What Blackmon wouldn't tell me. What is it? Where is she?"
"You don't want to know, sweetheart." He says, and looks at her. There's worry and concern in his eyes--the pit bull lawyer is gone, if only for a few minutes, and she's staring at her Daddy, the man who always protected her.
It's going to break his heart but she says, "You can't protect me from this, Daddy. Tell me the truth."
*
The water is swirling around the drain, and she's crouched on the floor. She doesn't know how long she's been here. It doesn't matter. Her father and brother are waiting on the other side of the door, but--
She squeezes her eyes shut, pushing the thought away. It hurts to think.
It hurts more to remember. Her father's voice, steady and calm.
The Nova was found this morning, around nine. While Blackmon questioned her. There had been bullet casing and one body.
A female body.
Ella.
She shoves that thought down. There were a lot of explanations—or maybe not a lot, but there were some, and EJ wasn’t dead. She was too smart for that shit—Jacobs wouldn’t kill her.
Unless she emptied out his millions and threatened to run. If she threatened to kill him. What would he do then?
She shudders and shakes her head. Because she can’t afford to think like that.
There comes another knock on the door, and her father’s voice.
“Charlie. You need to come out.”
She doesn’t want to. But he’s right. She can almost hear EJ’s cold and amused smirk. Her dry order to get her shit together. So she stands up and with shaking hands, she turns the water off. She dresses quietly, and secures her hair in a tight ponytail on her head. Applies makeup quickly and quietly.
When she emerges from the bathroom, it’s almost as if she hadn’t just spent the past hour sobbing in the shower. Hayes is drinking, and she walks past Travis to take the drink from him.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and his gaze darts to hers. She doesn’t need any more explanation than that, and his gaze tightens just a little before he shrugs. Nods once.
It was an exceptionally shitty thing to do, drugging her brother.
“Tell me what the hell you’re doing here and what kind of trouble you’re in.”
She nods and licks her lips. “Promise you’ll let me tell it, all of it. And then you can yell, if you want.” Travis frowns but he nods. It’s startling how much the threat of his yelling doesn’t bother her.
“I killed Tre.”
*
She talks for what feels like hours. Until her throat aches and Hayes calls down for food and more alcohol. She tells them all of it. Tre’s abuse and the night that everything went wrong. Calling EJ. Jacobs and his help. The week in Nola. Everything that happened—the only thing she leaves out is the detail about fucking Jacobs, and the night with EJ.
And she doesn’t tell him about the fake IDs and the millions they stole from Jacobs. For reasons she doesn’t want to think about, she isn’t ready to share that.
“But EJ is dead.” She chokes on that, the word sticking painfully in her throat.
“So it’s over.” Travis says, and her father sounds old. Ancient, almost. Older than he had before today. He’s watching her with something in his eyes he’s never seen. “You can go home, and put all of this behind you.”
Charlie hesitates, and his gaze turns dark. She nods. “Yes, Daddy.”
She curls on her side, unable to eat, and unwilling to stare at her father while he is so disgusted.
They think she’s sleeping. They have to think she’s sleeping. “What do we do?” Hayes asks.
“We put as much on EJ and Jacobs as we can. She can skate with a self-defense plea.”
“But—Dad. How did this happen?” Hayes asks, and he sounds so bewildered she almost wants to laugh.
If EJ were here, she would.
How do you become this? What created a girl who will kill and fuck and blackmail her way to everything she’s ever wanted? They would blame it all on EJ.
Charlie smiles, a tiny thing that no one will see.
How do you become this?
It is like so much else in life.
It just happens.
Chapter 33
If she were asked to look back, with the hindsight of everything that had happened, she would say that it all began six months before Wallace Bryce Talbert went missing. The day Ella Jane Munro sold Llewellyn Ko
onts a hit of blow in the locker room of her father's country club.
That is where it all began. How do you become the girl who is wanted by the FBI, hands stained in blood? This. This is how it happens.
But if she were asked to look back, she would have smiled, sweet and southern charm, and she would have lied.
Because the truth—no one would ever believe that...
*
Vanderbilt University, Five Years Ago…
“I’m bored.”
Charlie glanced at EJ, a smirk turning her lips. The girls are sitting in a small, almost empty café, just off the campus of Vanderbilt. She hadn’t expected to find a face from home, not here. And she hadn’t expected to befriend Ella Jane Munro. But it had happened, despite her and EJ.
“What do you want to do?” Charlie asked, lazily.
“Let’s play a game,” EJ says.
EJ, she learned quickly, loved games. She lived for them. “What?”
“Seduce a boy whose heart you can break,” EJ says, a sly smirk on her face.
And there it is. So typically EJ she can’t quite be surprised. She grins. “Do you have anyone in mind?”
Her smile turns coldly calculating. “Paxton. I want you to break his heart.”
Charlie’s smile stutters, and she wants to say no. But EJ is watching, too intent, and she knows better.
EJ doesn’t take it well when Charlie goes off script.
“Fine,” Charlie agrees and EJ makes a happy little noise, clapping as she bounces in her chair.
Her approval shouldn’t matter so much. It never had, before Vandy. And at home, it still doesn’t. They exist in separate worlds in Charleston, and they both seem happy with the arrangement.
She reaches for her phone and she can feel the pleased smirk from EJ as she types the message to Pax.
*
Kiawah Island, Two Years Ago….
EJ was late.
Charlotte stares at the cottage, and she can’t help but being furious. It’s dark and still, despite her careful planning to get here an hour after EJ.
Fatal Beauty Page 18
