by Ella James
My mind is a kaleidoscope of Mom and me, of Katie and me. Chinese food with Carl. Type, type, typing on my keyboard: bliss. That night at the frog pond, gliding as I apologized for not recording the James Wolfe documentary. I can smell the shampoo in Gertrude’s bathroom. Feel the ache in my jaw as I take Race’s cock way down my throat.
This guy told me Race is dead already, but I can’t believe it.
It’s impossible for me to imagine anyone getting Race. And yet…half of my body is already bathed in red paint. It stings the two slashes on the inside of my stretched out bicep. Stings the long, shallow cut from my butt cheek down the back of my thigh.
He paints over the first and deepest cut he made, the one on the front of my right thigh, and the burning sensation of paint oozing into the wound makes me lose my breath.
“You know he was a sexual killer, right? That’s why I’m doing this. I wish I wasn’t,” he says.
I think dimly what a contrite fuckwad he is.
He drags the paint brush over my belly, toward my crotch, and a tiny little sob escapes my throat.
“You’re a bastard! I bet your mother would disown you…if she knew!”
He backhands me, and I vibrate in my ropes.
“Nobody talks about my mother! Not a whore like you.”
“You’re gross.” I can’t control my mouth. “I hate you. You’re disgusting and I…still think your mother would be ashamed of how you’re…treating me!”
I give myself silent accolades for sounding so coherent. I’m shivering violently again, unable to hang loosely in my binds. Which sucks. I realized a long time ago that I sway less if I make my body dead weight.
“Don’t talk about my mother, bitch.” He waves the knife at me.
I smirk, because why not?
“Who’s your boss?” It’s a random question, and I ask without hesitation. What’s the point of hesitating now? He rubs his gun. “We considered killing you, but instead I’ve got this.”
From some unseen pocket, he produces a syringe. “Lots of ketamine in here. We’ll bring you close as we can to an overdose and leave you like that. You try to squeal, no one will believe you, all drugged up like that.”
He grins, but it’s a leer this time. “I don’t think you’ll remember anything anyway. Ketamine compromises the memory.”
He reaches up and pinches my nipple, and there’s no art in his touch. The physical sensation reminds me of the time a college boyfriend groped me in my sleep. I know he’s touching my breasts, but I can’t really feel it.
I close my eyes and I imagine Race.
I see him smiling earlier this morning. “You’re always welcome, doll.”
I kind of liked the way he called me fuck doll.
CHAPTER SIX
WOLFE
Six years ago
Bryson Paige lives in Greenwich, in a sprawling estate his parents vacated just for him. I know exactly how to get there from my place in Lenox Hill, because when Cookie doesn’t tell me where she is, I track her cell phone. Yeah, I know. It’s fucking nuts. But I can’t stand to go to sleep unless I know she’s safe, and I won’t bow and just request she tell me. I won’t be that guy. So I’m this one.
As I drive, I check my phone obsessively. I don’t know what I think I’ll find. A missed call? Voicemail?
My fingers, locked around the steering wheel, ache. My neck hurts as I whip my gaze from the rear view to the side mirrors, over my shoulder, across the bustling lanes of 278. I think I’ve got the fucking flu. My head throbs and my eyelids burn so hot they make my eyes feel dry.
Fucking Cookie.
I told her to calm down with Paige. That guy’s a pussy. She doesn’t talk about him much, but I’ve got a pretty good feel for him. I’ve been with a lot of subs, starting back before I called them that, back when I was just a horny kid. Paige sounds like one who doesn’t know his limits. He’s broken it off with her twice lately. Then comes crawling back, begging, the second he hears she’s domming someone else.
I look at my phone, locked into its holder, on the dash of my Lambo. The screen is dark. I wish it would light up again. Her call was short, telling me nothing except she’s in trouble.
“Help me, Jimmy! I’m at Paige’s house in the garage!”
I change lanes and grit my teeth. There’s no way that fucker hurt her, is there? Sometimes a sub will break. I’ve only had it happen once, and she was small. But Paige is probably twice Cookie’s size. Fucker could really hurt her. I lick my dry lips. If he hurts her, I will kill him.
I try the number Cookie called me from twice more as I get on 95 and start to fly. Each time, my chest gets a little tighter, my foot a little heavier.
My head throbs. My throat is so dry, but I forgot to bring a drink. I swallow, over and over, which only makes it ache.
I’m going more than a hundred miles per hour when I exit the freeway, hit the brakes so hard the car’s rear fishtails, and shoot off down a winding residential road. It’s good I’ve got a photographic memory and a good GPS system on the computer in my study, because I can tell when the road starts to curve a certain way that I’m close. A few more miles and there it is, an overstated iron sign that says: Paige Place.
I hang a sharp right, stomp the brakes so hard the tires squeal, and blink at the keypad to my left. Fuck! I don’t know the code. I glance out in front of me, and for once I catch a break. The arm is already up. I punch the pedal and take the long driveway going almost sixty.
When the driveway curves into a huge circle, I slow at the valet booth. Empty. Because it’s Sunday. Sometimes help gets Sundays off. I drive up to the house, still glancing around for a valet. When I see none, I drive over to the long, one-story stone structure on the left side of the house.
I roll right over Paige’s pristine grass, yank the keys out of the ignition, and practically jump out of the Lambo. I ignore my sore, tired body as I try one door on the east side of the massive garage, followed by another.
Unlocked. Good.
Inside, the garage is divided into segments: cavernous rooms packed with import and antique cars. I walk through the first two rooms, feeling hot and slightly dizzy. I wonder what the hell I’m looking for and stop for a second, trying to listen for voices.
I don’t hear any, but in the next room down, I swear I hear footsteps.
I pick up the pace a little, weaving between cars, looking up at the rafters—for what, I don’t know. Lately Cookie likes to play with rope. I’m moving so fast now, I almost run right into a door that’s shut between this room and the next. So far, they’ve all been open. I grab the handle and find it greasy. Wipe it on my slacks, keep going. I’m sprinting now. I open and close my hand as I curve around two hummers.
Fifth garage now, then sixth. I’m gasping. Could be this cold-flu bullshit. My heart’s pounding so hard I feel it in my head.
I think I hear tires peel. Goosebumps crawl over my skin.
I dash through this room and into the next—the last one, surely.
Cookie!
My mouth itches to call her name but the unnerving silence in the garage has imposed itself on me. I run past two sports cars and what looks like a dune buggy, and before I reach the closed door out in front of me, I slow so much I’m almost stopped.
My throat feels swollen. I can’t swallow at all. I listen to the air and something hums around me. Intuition. Prescience.
I push the doorway open slowly, and before I’m even in, the dim light that spills from the room shines on me, illuminating, among other things, my hands. It’s not gasoline or oil on my left hand. It’s blood.
Two steps in and I start to turn a circle. I see him first. How could I not? The ropes that hold Paige are strung from rafters to floor, an elaborate spider’s web. And in the center, Paige, nude, dead.
I know he’s dead because of how his body hangs. Ropes pinch his wrists, his ankles, and his ass cheeks. His cock is cased in a steel sleeve. His head lolls sideways, bloated red. I clutch my chest,
my neck, but it’s too late. I’m ralphing on the oil-stained floor. The splatter seems to echo on and on. I wipe my mouth on my fever-hot arm and search the room’s corners for Cookie.
“Baby—it’s okay. I’ll help.”
And it’s horrible, or maybe wonderful, because I know I will. I’ll help Cookie any way I can. It’s too late for Paige, but I won’t let it be too late for Cookie.
I fortify myself and complete the circle, turning toward the side of the garage encased in shadows.
Cookie!
My mind rebels but my eyes can see her: Cookie, dressed in black tights and a lacy bra, swaying in a noose.
Her cheeks are swollen like a hamster’s. Her pretty olive skin is purple. And her eyes. Her eyes are open. Every blood vessel is broken.
My mind is starting to churn, I’m starting to wonder how it happened, when I hear a howl. I jump back, turn around, and realize that’s me.
I’m screaming. Screaming. God, it can’t be.
NO NO NO. NO NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
Not Cookie.
Not Cookie.
I grab a ladder, look frenziedly around for a knife or scissors. I can’t wait. I don’t want to touch her but I have to get her down. She’s not dead. She’s just passed out. I have to get her down, it’s hurting her neck!
All I have is my Zippo. I whip it out, climb higher on the ladder, and I burn the rope. I start to burn the rope, but the fire climbs quickly toward the ceiling.
I do the only thing I can: I grab the rope above her head and bat the flames with my bare hands. A minute later, it snaps. Cookie’s body falls to the cement floor, and I fall off the ladder, landing hard on my ass.
The fire alarm is wailing now. Water starts spewing from the ceiling, and I look her over, head to foot. Maybe it’s cold enough to wake her up!
When it doesn’t, I scramble over.
“Cookie!” I take her head in my lap and then I drop it. It’s so loose on her neck. I cover my mouth but I don’t get sick because that’s wrong. This is my wife. I’m not going to vomit at the sight of my own wife, I think irrationally.
Instead I turn her over, face down. That’s when I notice: her ass looks shiny.
There’s blood on Cookie’s tights. There’s blood on her ass.
And the water from the ceiling reminds me of rain. It rained last Tuesday—in D.C. I stood in cold rain, on the steps of the Truman Building, before I went inside to surprise Cookie’s father.
Cordial greeting, closed door, plush chair, fake smiles.
And then I dropped a bomb.
“If you don’t quit calling her, if you don’t quit harassing her, if you don’t quit acting like a possessive, fucked up freak,” I told Robert Smythson, “I’ll tell the press it was me instead of her.”
Wide, gray eyes. “What was you, Jimmy?”
“I’ll tell the media you raped me. Every summer in the Hamptons. You stuffed your cock into my ass.”
“This is blackmail,” he said.
And I shrugged. “Whatever works.”
I look down at Cookie, at the blood on my hands. On my legs now. On the floor. And I know what happened. I know who, and I know why.
I start to sob. I’m so, so sorry.
Sorry doesn’t stop the rain or bring her back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RED
“Hands up! Don’t move a fucking muscle.”
My body, limp in its binds, snaps to attention at the sound of that voice. His voice. Relief is a drug, lighting up my insides.
The bastard in black has gone from sitting with his ankle on his knee, smoking a cigar on the bench in front of me, to sitting stick-straight. The cigar is on the floor. His jaw is tight. His eyes, turned up toward Race, are furious.
But it doesn’t matter. Not at all. Because Race’s gun is pointed at his temple.
“Race! Oh God!” I don’t plan to talk, but the words just bubble out. My arms and legs jerk against the ropes. I want to throw myself at him.
He looks up at me with wild eyes. His face is bruised and blood-caked. He pushes the gun’s nose into my captor's head and holds my gaze.
“Did he rape you?” The words are tight and clipped, pushed from his mouth as if he can’t bear to have them in his throat.
I shake my head, and as Race says something else to the man, my eyes close without permission. It’s warm and bright here. Kind of like floating in a current. Time breaks into pieces, and I can’t keep up. I hear Race’s voice, deeper than ever, filled with rage. Then a low thud, followed by men’s shouts.
I can tell they’re fighting because I hear their bodies beat the wooden floor. Grunts and curses.
Win, Race, win!
I hear a gun shot and my body jerks. I wait for the swaying sensation that always follows any movement I make in these ropes, but it never comes. I peek my eyes open, startled to find I’m on the floor now, curled into a ball. My slashes sting. My body trembles.
I look for Race, slanting my gaze up, and I don’t see him at first because he’s kneeling in front of me. A gargling sound comes from somewhere behind him.
He bows down low, so his face is near mine. “Focus on me, okay. I’m here now.” He pulls me into his arms, and I wrap myself around him.
I see the man’s form on the floor and then we’re going down the stairs.
I blink a few times, looking at Race’s blood-streaked neck. It looks strong and sort of hard, for a neck. It's nice.
Will he be mad at me? Will he be mad I let myself get caught?
The thought makes my stomach feel like a deflating balloon.
I’m aware of the gentle bouncing of him walking down the stairs. Abruptly he sinks down on one of them, hugs me tight enough to hurt, and pushes his face into my neck. I cry, and his hand crawls up my cheek, wiping the tears tenderly away.
“I’ve got you now, Red,” he whispers. “I won’t let you go again.”
*
Time spools out ahead of us. We’re at his house in what, to me, feels like seconds, and he’s opening the back door—the one I must have been carried through after my attacker hit me in the head. I cling to Race’s strong neck, feeling weak and hot, like I might get sick. My arms and legs are numb and I am only stomach.
Race stops in the doorway of the bathroom, looking down at me with soft eyes. “He really didn't...? Are you sure?”
I tuck my chin against my neck and nod.
I watch his gaze break away from the hot mess that is me and sweep the room: where I crashed through the shelf, where I was caught. He steps past the mess, to the tub, and tucks me against his chest while he runs the water.
As the echo of water fills the bathroom, he looks up and down my body. His face is stern, unfeeling, but his eyes pop wider as his gaze falls on my arm.
“He cut you?”
Fresh tears blur my view of him. I nod.
He rises up from his crouch, still holding me secure against his hard, bare chest. He steps into the tub and sinks down slowly. Despite how gently he is moving, his muscles are tight.
He settles me close to the faucet, leans my shoulder against the wall, and, when he’s touched my shoulders and tucked my hair behind me, he steps out of the tub. Water cascades down his legs, onto the plush, brown rug. He steps out of his jeans and toward the cabinets, where he reaches inside and pulls out a First Aid kit.
He drops it on the counter, turns to look at me, and then, with his jaw locked tight, he strides to the wall and drives his fist through it.
“GODDAMNIT! Goddamnit! Goddamnit! GODDAMNIT!” Between each roar, he smashes a new hole in the wall.
I hug my knees. My pulse races. Should I give him privacy? Maybe, but I can’t just sit here. I stand up, wanting—needing—to go to him. As I step out of the tub, a line of blood flies through the air, and I realize he’s using his right fist. The hand he paints with.
“Race, no! STOP!” All my cuts sting from the water and the paint dripping off me, but I rush over to him anyway, twisting
so he doesn’t catch me with his elbow. I grab his forearm. “Stop! Stop! You’re gonna hurt your hand! Stop!” I cling tighter to his arm as he drives it into the wall again, and when he pulls it back again, I throw my other arm around his waist. I press myself against his back.
“Stop it! Stop it! Please Race, stop!”
He’s so big compared to me, and he’s filled with such fury. Every punch jolts his body a few inches. My wet feet slide against the floor. I cling to him, saying his name over and over, pressing my forehead against his bruised back.
