Complete Innocence Boxset

by Stasia Black

  Cora paced a few steps and stopped and spun back to Anna. “And there must be a message on it, or something. Otherwise why would she leave it behind?”

  “You guys wanna play?” Armand interrupted. They both looked down at him. Gods, his eyes were glazed and his pupils were huge. What the hell had he taken?

  Anna shifted her gaze back to Cora. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Get him out of here.” Cora frowned at her drunken friend. “Regroup. See if I can get anything off this phone.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Cora started to answer, when she heard a raised voice in the corridor. A very angry voice.

  Cora’s eyes shot to Anna’s. They both recognized it.

  AJ. It sounded like AJ.

  Anna darted to the door. Cora ran to Armand.

  “Come on, we have to go,” Cora hissed, pulling at his arms.

  “Don’t wanna.” He grinned up at her, catching her hands playfully. Cora squawked in surprise as he pulled her down on top of him.

  “Cora, you always smell so nice.” He nuzzled her neck until she pushed herself away. “You’re my dream girl.”

  Behind them, Anna was standing at the door. It opened and Anna shoved her body into the crack, posing provocatively in her sexy red dress.

  “Looking for some fun?” she purred.

  “Get out here; they want you on stage again.”

  Cora stiffened. Definitely AJ’s voice.

  “Sounds great, big boy.” Anna arched her back and slid her arm up the door frame so she was blocking the room from AJ’s view. “I’ll just help these two finish up, then—”

  Anna’s body jerked forward and she let out a soft cry. Someone had manhandled her into the hall.

  Cora jerked her face away from the door to hide it. She hurriedly slipped her purse off her shoulder and stuffed it behind a cushion.

  “I said now,” AJ was growling. Anna didn’t reply. Cora could hear the door swing open.

  Whirling back to Armand, Cora straddled him. She tugged down her shirt until her bra covered breasts popped out. Armand’s face fell forward into her chest and she let her hair fall across her cheeks.

  She could hear AJ’s heavy breathing as he stood in the door watching them. Armand moaned suddenly and Cora, afraid he’d call out her name, drew his head back and smashed her lips against his.

  Armand’s eyes popped wide open. Cora stared back into his, trying to communicate her panic to him.

  “Make sure you get the money, sweetheart, before you go all the way,” AJ muttered from the door before closing it.

  Cora heard the knob click and she sagged, then scrambled back.

  Armand was breathing heavily. “Uhh, Cor—”

  She leaped forward, plastering both her hands over his mouth. “Just shut up for a minute,” she whispered harshly and listened for sounds of AJ bursting back in.

  When nothing happened, she relaxed the pressure on Armand’s face, but kept her hands against his mouth. His bushy eyebrows were raised in surprise, his eyes shifting wildly.

  “I’ll explain everything later,” she whispered. “Right now we have to get out of here.”

  “Ok.” Armand’s words were muffled under her hands. She snatched them away and wiped them off on her skirt.

  Ok, think, think. AJ was outside; he wouldn’t expect them to be done anytime soon. Not if he thought she was one of his girls. She could wait a while but he might come back any minute to check on them.

  Someone banged into their door as they moved down the hall and she jumped.

  “We’re going out a different way,” she said, grabbing her purse and pulling Armand to his feet. He stumbled forward and it was enough for her to drag him behind the curtain.

  She opened the door and took a left, moving forward in the dark, the opposite direction she and Anna had gone earlier. Anna said this way led to an exit and they just had to find it.

  Cora didn’t care about the dark this time. AJ was far more terrifying than some stupid rats. If he caught her, she’d be at his mercy, on his turf, and neither Marcus nor any of his men even knew where she was.

  “What the hell?” Armand mumbled at her back.

  “Keep moving,” she whispered hurriedly. She finally turned on her phone’s flashlight again. The long narrow hallway stretched out in front of them, and there were a couple of doors ahead. She headed toward the one at the very end. They’d go out the back way and hope no one was watching that exit. If they were, she didn’t know what she’d do.

  They came to a doorway and Cora listened at the heavy wood. She didn’t hear anything. Ok, this had to be the back exit.

  She turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

  “Hey! Who’s there?”

  Oh shit! Not an exit, not an exit!

  Cora nearly climbed onto Armand’s back, she pushed him back so forcefully down the narrow passage.

  “Go, go, go,” she hissed. Armand lost his footing and bounced a little off the brick wall. Cora almost got tangled up in him but somehow they managed to move forward.

  “Hey, you can’t be in here!” The lights hit on her back as the door behind them opened before adrenaline kicked in and gave her some speed and Armand some focus back. They surged forward, running into the darkness of the hall, Cora continuously pushing Armand forward.

  “Where are we going?” Armand asked, sounding more sober as they turned a corner.

  “Just keep moving,” Cora bit out frantically. “The door should be up here.”

  Tiny lights from around the crack of a door up ahead gave her hope. The hall had widened enough for her to move past Armand, and she nearly clawed at the next door handle they saw.

  It had to be this one. It was really stuck, though, like it was rarely used. She backed up and charged it wildly, only barely hearing Armand protest feebly behind her, “Wait. I think that’s the—”

  The door burst open and Cora staggered forward, out from behind a curtain and right onto The Orchid stage.

  Anna had slipped off the dress and was in the gold bikini, gyrating with her ass towards the audience. Her head flew up and she stared at Cora in shock.

  Whirling back the way she’d come, Cora only managed to slam her body into Armand. He toppled over and she went down under him.

  “Well, if it isn’t the birthday boy, back for more,” she heard Anna adlib. Cora pressed her face into Armand’s shoulder to hide it and think of what to do.

  “And it looks like he got lucky,” Anna announced.

  A few appreciative whoops rose up from the crowd. Cora wrapped her arms around Armand and desperately hooked a bare leg around his waist.

  Armand looked completely dazed. “Cora, what the hell is going on?”

  “Just go with it,” Cora pleaded. “We need to get out of here.”

  “So then what happened?” Olivia demanded. She sat at her computer desk, sorting through chargers that would match Iris’s phone.

  Cora shook her head, causing the faded black sweatshirt she’d borrowed from Olivia to slide off one pale shoulder. “Then Anna got the lights to go down and got us off stage. We left out the front.” She flopped backwards on Olivia’s couch, still unable to believe they’d all gotten out in one piece.

  Olivia shook her head. “A night at a strip club and you don’t take me. I thought we were friends!”

  “Keep it down,” Armand groaned.

  Cora glanced at him where he lay on the couch, an ice pack held to his head. On the taxi ride to Olivia’s, he’d admitted to taking some pills from the first dancer they’d found him with—something to help with the pain of his rump. Mixed with champagne, they’d messed him up and then given him a big ol’ headache.

  Cora felt no sympathy.

  “So, you still have no idea where this Iris girl is?” Olivia had found a charger and was now working on one of her many computers. She had a whole wall of her tiny loft dedicated to electronics.

  “No, and I’m out of leads besides
the phone. Well, except for AJ. But I can’t just follow him around.”

  “Think maybe it’s time to get your husband involved?” Armand asked.

  She closed her eyes and tried to envision it. What would Marcus say if she took it all to him? What would he do?

  He’d definitely put Cora on lockdown for defying him and going places without his bodyguards.

  But would he do anything to help Iris? That was the question. There was still a chance he had a part in the kidnapping. Cora didn’t want to believe it, but she hadn’t wanted to believe things of Marcus in the past and they’d turned out to be true.

  Cora shook her head. She couldn’t risk putting her belief in Marcus again and not just because she didn’t think her heart could bear another disappointment. If he locked her away again, then who was there to help Iris? She’d be just another disappeared girl in a city that didn’t care. “No, I’m not taking this to him. I need to figure it out myself.” She yanked on her braids, unravelling them roughly.

  She noticed Armand and Olivia were both staring at her.

  But then Armand was nodding. “She’s right,” he said. “Marcus has other things to take care of right now.”

  “Right, he’s busy,” Cora agreed, filing away Armand’s insight for later. What did he know about Marcus’s late nights and the business that kept him away all hours lately?

  “How do we even know Iris had her phone with her when she was supposedly abducted?” Armand asked Cora.

  “She’s a twenty something year old woman. We sleep with our phones.”

  “Especially when they’re on vibrate,” Olivia muttered, clicking her mouse.

  Armand perked up.

  Cora cleared her throat. “Anything on the cellphone yet?”

  “Well, it’s charging. I’ll work on it tonight and as soon as I hack it I’ll let you know.” Olivia’s fingers flew over her keyboard.

  “I’m staying here.” Armand sagged back onto the cushions. “Let me know if I can help any more. Especially if your friend Anna is involved.”

  Olivia and Cora both rolled their eyes.

  “Well, my ride’s here.” Cora stood the moment after her ride service app pinged. “I gotta go. Let me know as soon as you get anything.”

  Sharo had sounded grouchy over the phone earlier when she told him she was staying late at the shelter to help Maeve take inventory. Cora had been surprised at how easily the lie rolled off her tongue. She was getting better at it.

  “You’re not really going to try to tail AJ, are you?” Olivia asked, pulling out a drawer and rummaging in it.

  “Let me sleep on it.”

  Cora might be determined, but she liked to think she wasn’t stupid. Today’s activities aside. But tailing AJ? That might tread into TSTL territory. Cora was still unconsciously playing with her hair, letting it pouf out in a corn silk cloud.

  “Wait,” Olivia held out a hand. “Give me your phone.”

  Cora’s brow wrinkled as Olivia clipped a black case over her device. “What is that?”

  “It’s called a Wasp. It’s a stun gun that looks like a cellphone case. New prototype. The next one will be smaller, but this works pretty well.” Olivia grimaced as she fitted her hand around the bulky thing. “Here, watch.”

  She showed Cora how to uncover the two tiny metal teeth that delivered the shock, then slide a button to activate the stun gun. It was all but invisible against the casing of the phone.

  “Holy crap, Olivia, are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. It’s still in beta testing, so you’d be doing me a favor if you use it and let me know how it works.”

  Feeling bad ass, Cora took her phone and pressed the case’s “on” button. A buzzing sound filled the apartment.

  “Six hundred and fifty volts. It’ll knock a grown man on his ass.” Olivia grinned at the thought. “Come here, Armand, let’s try it out.”

  “Pass,” he called from the couch. “I’ve been beaten enough by beautiful women tonight.”

  Eighteen

  Cora rounded the corner to arrive at the shelter and saw Sharo standing on the curb, glaring at the door. She halted in her tracks. Well crap.

  Cora eyed her husband’s second in command. Well, no point putting off the inevitable. She straightened and moved forward towards Sharo, who had spotted her.

  “Where have you been?” Sharo asked as she approached. She didn’t answer, but stepped through the door he opened for her.

  Inside Maeve came forward, hands outstretched apologetically. “Cora, I’m sorry, I told him you were just on a quick walk…”

  “It’s ok.” Cora turned back to Sharo, who was still by the door.

  “Get in the car.”

  Shrugging her purse higher on her arm, she obeyed.

  “Where’s Marcus?” she asked, once they both had slid in, her in the back, Sharo up with the driver.

  “Mr. Ubeli has been tied up in a business deal. It’s important. He sent me to check on you when you didn’t return his message.”

  Cora pulled out her phone and checked her voicemail. A new one was there. She sighed.

  “I didn’t hear it ring. It was an accident.” She’d put it on silent before entering the club earlier. She put it away, shaking her head. “You don’t have to babysit me, Sharo. I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”

  “Stop the car,” Sharo told the driver. Cora’s heart thumped faster as the car slowed to a stop and the big man turned around in his seat to address her.

  “You were out walking the streets. Alone. You don’t need Marcus to tell you how fucking stupid that is.”

  Cora cringed. Usually Marcus and his men kept the language clean around her.

  “There’s trouble coming and we’ve been dealing with it.” From Cora’s family. Sharo didn’t have to say it. “But until it’s blown over, you’re going to need to act like a fucking adult and use some common sense.”

  Something flared inside Cora, a little spark of anger. She was sick of people talking to her like she was a little girl.

  “Sharo, I was fine, I was just walking—”

  “It’s fine until one of our enemies pulls up, kidnaps you, and rapes you with a knife until you bleed out for us to find you. You think being a Titan will save you?” He gave an ugly scoff. “I’ve seen what these animals can do. In their minds, you’ve chosen the enemy’s bed. They won’t take mercy on you.”

  Cora’s breath left her. Her spine pressed deep to the car seat as she met Sharo’s angry gaze. How many men had seen this face just before dying?

  “If you don’t want to be treated like a naïve little girl, stop acting like one,” Sharo growled. “I’m going to get you to the penthouse, and you’re going to sit tight until Marcus comes home and takes you to dinner. Because he’s been neck deep in shit all week and he wants a nice night out with his wife.”

  Unable to find her voice, Cora jerked her head yes.

  Stone-faced, Sharo turned around and the car moved on.

  Cora sat quiet, but somewhere, deep inside, her anger started to boil. Stay on the farm, Cora. Don’t talk back. Mother knows best. Then Marcus. Now even Sharo. Meanwhile the Irises and Ashleys of the world were disposable. Throw them out with last week’s trash. Who would fight for them if not another woman? Who would even fucking care?

  She got it, okay? The world was ugly and dark and people were only looking to use one another. But she wanted to believe in something more. She wanted to believe in a world where love meant something and good was real, even if it didn’t always triumph like the storybooks said. It was still worth fighting for.

  It was still worth fighting for, dammit.

  Hours later, Cora stepped off the elevator, dressed for dinner. Her bodyguard stood off to her left, a constant shadow. Marcus was in a meeting already at the restaurant and was sending his car to pick her up. Following orders, she was to wait for his driver in the lobby.

  “Can I wait at the bar?” she asked her bodyguard. He nodded and she stal
ked towards it. Two guys in designer polo shirts watched her pass, taking in her long legs, put on display perfectly by her short peach-colored cocktail dress. She’d let her hair down and curled the ends so it bounced around her face like a movie star’s. Her makeup played up both her blue eyes and red, red lips.

  Sharo wanted her to grow up, she’d show him. Marcus, too.

  She paused as she entered the posh hotel restaurant and pulled out her phone to check it.

  Any luck? she texted Olivia.

  No answer. She’d called Anna and Armand back too, but gotten only voicemail. The phone would turn up something. It had to.

  “White wine, please,” she ordered at the bar. She was about to hop on the bar stool when a familiar snigger caught her ear.

  She turned to see a couple sitting at the bar. And her breath caught.

  There was AJ in his long fur coat, gulping down oysters. One of his thugs stood nearby. The man and her own bodyguard exchanged nods.

  Cora felt cold chills up and down her spine as she stared at the mobster. He sat there, so smug and carefree while he caused all this misery.

  Cora’s chest went hot with sudden rage. Probably in part because when she’d seen him earlier today, she’d been so terrified. She hated that he had that power over her, over any of them. She put her hand to her chest to steady herself.

  “Ah, Mrs. Ubeli. Looking lovely tonight.” The bastard raised his drink to toast her. His eyes glittered. “Going out? Your husband’s a lucky man.”

  Cora ignored his gold-toothed grin. “Say, Cora, have you met my little friend? She’s about your age.” He turned and touched the arm of a woman who sat beside him, very straight and stiff, staring ahead.

  Her face was hidden behind her brunette hair but her red dress left little to the imagination, cut short on her thighs and even then, open on one side almost up to her waist.

  Cora recognized that tight dancer’s body poured into an hourglass shape. But no. No, it can’t be. Please—

  AJ turned to grab the woman’s arm and she turned, her hair swinging back from her sculpted face.