by Jewel Geffen
Never Go Back:
An Interracial Romance
by Jewel Geffen
Copyright 2019 - Jewel Geffen
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Also by this Author
Chapter One
A slender woman in a charcoal gray blazer and pencil skirt sat in the depths of a derelict building. Her hands were bound to the back of the chair with a pair of rusted cuffs. There was a pale smudge like a bruise on her pale cheek, but she was unhurt.
At least so far.
She closed her eyes, then opened them again. The room was pitch black. At first she couldn't tell the difference between having her eyes open and closed, but gradually she adjusted to the gloom. Not that there was much to see.
She was in a featureless basement, surrounded by unfinished concrete walls on all sides. Old pipes ran along the ceiling overhead, glistening with condensation. The steady drip drip drip sound of water came to her from somewhere deeper in the basement.
Her heart beat fast, anxiety rising inside her. What was she doing here? What had she been thinking? She was drastically out of her depth, she realized. It had seemed almost like an adventure at first, something thrilling and exciting, but she was in real danger now.
For all she knew, she was going to be facing her own death in this basement.
She pulled at the cuffs, whimpering slightly. The sound of her cry echoed eerily in the huge basement, swallowed by the darkness. The handcuffs bit into her wrists, and showed no sign of any weakness. The chair had a metal frame, and seemed quite sturdy. She was five foot four and about a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and certainly wasn't going to be able to smash her way out of the restraints.
Where the hell was Jordan? He wasn't just going to leave her here like this, was he? Of course he wouldn't. Unless he wasn't in any condition to come rescue her. For all she knew, he was in as bad a situation as she. Or worse.
No, she wasn't going to think about that. He couldn't be dead. Not now, not after she'd just found him, after he had been in her life for such a short time. She wouldn't accept it.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep back the tears of frustration and helplessness which were swimming up to fill her vision.
Jordan was alive, and he would come for her. She only had to hold on and hold out, and she would be with him again.
She could hear the faint sounds of sirens far away, their distant wailing only just penetrating into the deep concrete hole where she was being held. It seemed like she could feel the whole weight of the city pressing down on her, that vast and frightful expanse of clustered humanity. She was only one speck of life in the huge mass of people, invisible among them.
Who would notice one missing lawyer? No one would care, in the grand scheme of things. She knew how these things went. People vanished all the time. Her friends and family would look for her, her co-workers would make inquiries, and the police might poke about, but eventually they would give up. She would just be gone.
Here she was, hidden in the dark basement of some old tenement house built over a hundred years ago, with no hope of escape and only little more chance of rescue.
To think that it had come to this, her whole life leading to this point. How quickly things could shift their course. A month ago this would have seemed impossible, absolutely impossible. Ever since he'd come into her life, however, it had all changed.
Her world had changed; she had gone on a journey of dark romance and dangerous uncertainty.
Even if she died here in this basement, she decided, she wouldn't take any of it back given the choice, wouldn't wish it different. It was better to have lived a month with Jordan than the rest of her years without.
A light snapped on overhead and she shied away from it with a hiss. It was so bright and sudden that it was physically painful. It was a bare bulb, nestled among the naked pipes running along the ceiling, and it flooded her grim surroundings with harsh white illumination.
She blinked. Having only just adjusted to the darkness, she had to adjust now to the light.
She heard the slow scrape of metal against concrete, a grinding noise like fingernails on a chalkboard. It was coming gradually nearer, and with it the echoes of implacably approaching footfalls.
Someone was coming towards her, a large dark shape walking into the light with a chair very much like the one to which she was currently bound dragging behind them.
It was a man, very tall and broad-shouldered, dressed casually in sagging pants and a flat-brimmed baseball cap. His skin was the color of milk chocolate, and a gold tooth flashed in his broad and predatory smile.
He swung the chair around so that its back was to her, then he sat down on it with his legs splayed. The man rested his arms on the back of the chair and looked intently at her. His eyes, a very light brown, almost yellow, seemed to gleam unnaturally, bright as a jungle cat's.
She looked back, doing her best to meet his gaze head on, lifting her chin and trying to will away the tears which had gathered there but not fallen. For a time she did, then the intensity became too much for her and she had to look away.
He chuckled, the sound resonating in the wide open basement around them. He shook his head slowly, as if quite genuinely amused by something. “You shouldn't 'a come here. You really shouldn't 'a done it.”
She set her jaw, not saying anything back. She knew men like this – though certainly never in this kind of context. There was no point trying to reason with him. Certainly no point pleading. That was what he wanted and once you gave this sort of man what he wanted, he'd come for more, twice as hard.
He held something up. Her Louis Vuitton handbag, the white leather scuffed and dirty. He popped it open and dumped it out. The contents rattled to the concrete floor. A silver tube of red lipstick rolled towards her until it bounced off her toe.
He picked up her clutch and undid the snap. Very methodically and casually, he began to go through it.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Her credit cards hit the floor one after the other, the hard plastic clattering on the concrete. He took her license out and held it by the corners. “Natalie Kendall... Address in the Hamptons, very fancy.” He eyes flicked up to meet hers, and he smiled. “Hello, Natalie.”
“You're making a big mistake, Tyson.” She snapped.
He just laughed. There was no amusement in his laughter, however, only a cold menace. “I don't think so. I'm not the one handcuffed to the chair. I'm thinkin' maybe you messed up, Natalie Kendall. You shouldn't never 'a come sticking your nose around here.” He took out her court ID, flipping t
he laminated card between his fingertips. “You really fucked up, counselor.” He sighed, and dropped the card, then he reached a hand behind his back. When he brought it back out into the open it was holding a pistol that had been tucked into the back of his pants.
“It doesn't have to be like this, Tyson,” she said, squirming fearfully against her bonds.
“Maybe not.” He shrugged. “Maybe you can convince me not to put a bullet between those pretty blue eyes of yours.”
“And how would I do that?”
He grinned. “I been hearing about you and Jordan. Hear you got a thing for the brothers, know what I'm sayin'? It's like that expression, yeah? Once you go black... you never go back.”
She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips tightly together.
“Heard you give a nasty blowjob,” Tyson said, getting slowly to his feet. He grabbed his crotch with the hand that wasn't holding his pistol. “You been wasting your time with Jordan. Maybe I oughta show you what a real black cock looks like.”
“Fuck you,” she snarled.
His smile got a little wider. “Something like that.” He took a step closer towards her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Where are you, Jordan? She thought desperately, pulling against the cuffs until they bit into her skin.
The bare light bulb overhead flickered weakly. Far far in the distance, the sirens wailed.
Chapter Two
Natalie Kendall narrowed her eyes. It was a risky move, certainly, but she hadn't gotten where she was by playing it safe. She bit her lower lip, taking care not to smudge the vivid cherry-red lipstick she was wearing.
She was going to do it. There wasn't any other way out of this.
“I'll do it,” she said, her voice steely and cold with a confidence that she didn't entirely feel.
“You'll take the deal?”
She clicked her tongue and leaned back slightly in her chair, swiveling away from the desk and turning to face the wide glass window of her high-rise office. The city lay spread out below her like a child's block town, toy cars crisscrossing the streets in neat little lines. “I will advise my client to take the deal. I can't guarantee any more than that, you know how it is, Bob.”
Bob Garrett chuckled. “Come on, Kendall. We both know you've got them wrapped around your little finger. You say jump and the company's going to ask how high.”
She smiled tightly. “I suppose we'll see. I'll get back to you with their response within the hour.”
“I'll be waiting right here by the phone.”
“You do that, Bob.”
She held the smart phone in her hand for a moment, then pressed the hang-up button. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as slamming a receiver into its cradle. She was old enough to remember what that was like.
Natalie Kendall was twenty-nine years old, and already one of the most powerful defense lawyers at the practice of Schiller, Schiller and Mason, which was itself one of the oldest and most respected law firms in New York. Her star had risen fast. She'd come here directly out of law school, been lucky enough to land a couple high-profile clients and win a few big cases, catapulting herself right past the majority of her peers and into, if not the highest echelon, at least somewhere near it.
It would be another three weeks before she found herself tied up in a basement in the wrong part of town. At this particular moment, she couldn't conceive of anything which could possibly lead her to such a place.
She didn't know it yet, but she was about to meet somebody who would drastically change the course of her life.
The intercom light on her desk phone lit up. She clicked her mechanical pen and picked it up. “Yes?”
It was the receptionist. “Mr. Kendall calling for you on line one,” Meredith chirped, eternally perky.
She rolled her eyes, fighting back the urge to let out a heavy sigh. “Of course. Thank you, Meredith, I'll take it. Oh, and call Jack for me. Let him know I need to speak with him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Natalie wondered if the receptionist resented having to defer to her; she was several years younger than the other woman, and Meredith had been here for years. She'd been privileged, and she knew it. She wasn't going to apologize, however. Everyone had their own path to walk, their own fate.
Her husband Todd, for example. She stabbed the button and held the receiver to her ear. “Todd?”
“Hey, hon.”
She fought back the urge to groan aloud. She knew that tone. He wanted something.
Back when they'd gotten married, about five years ago now, Todd had been a cyber-security systems analyst on the way up. She'd just taken the job at Schiller, Schiller and Mason, and he'd been the one with the steady paycheck. At first, everything was wonderful. Those first two years were some of the best of her life.
Then something had happened. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, and there wasn't any one specific moment to which she could definitively point, but something in him had changed.
He'd started to take more and more vacation days, then he just stopped showing up to work. When he did go in, he'd usually come home early and lock himself in his office. When she would ask him what was going on he would tell her that there was nothing to worry about, he was just working from home.
But she did worry. And, as it turned out, he wasn't working.
Todd had become addicted – or at least she considered it an addiction – to an online computer game. An MMORPG, they were called. She'd had one of the paralegals research it for her, telling him that it was related to a potential class action the firm had been approached about. The one her husband played was called Icarus Aftermath.
She confronted him about it, and he denied it. He got angry at her, and shouted at her to back off and mind her own business. A week later, he was fired from his job.
In the three years since, Todd had shown no inclination to seek new employment. He'd committed himself instead to gaming full time. He stopped seeing their friends, preferring instead to spend time among his digital community.
By that time she was making good money, more than enough for the two of them to live on, and he didn't see any reason why he should have to contribute anything. Any time she brought it up, no matter how gently, he would snap at her that she owed him for the six months he'd supported her while she'd been establishing herself in her new job and working to pay off her school loans. The longer things when on as they were now, however, the more hollow that excuse rang.
“What do you need, Todd?”
“Pick me up a card on your way home, would you?”
This time she couldn't suppress the groan. It felt so undignified, stopping into the store and picking up those Icarus Aftermath gift cards, putting them on the counter, with that half naked sorceress from the game's box art looking coyly up at her. She usually told the cashier that it was a birthday present for her nephew, unable to admit the fact that it was, in fact, for her husband.
“You could just give me your credit card number,” Todd snapped.
He used to have her card number, back when he'd first started playing. At the end of the year, she'd tallied the bill and discovered that he'd spent almost eight thousand dollars. That had been the end of that. “No no, I'll get the card.”
“Cool. I need the thousand point gift pack. The clan's going on a platinum-class raid and we have to get some high level loot packs if we're going to be ready for it.”
God, this is what her life had come to. “Sure thing, Todd. I'll get it.”
“Thanks hon, you're the best. Love ya.”
“Love you too, sweetie.” She hung up the phone and shook her head.
It was like living with a teenager who wasn't ever going to grow up and move out. They barely saw one another, much less went on dates, and their sex life had dwindled to almost nothing. But he still made plenty of time for that damn game.
She'd filled the space in her life left by her collapsing marriage with work, thrown herself into the job one h
undred percent, focused on being the best lawyer she could be. It was – or so she told herself – enough.
Speaking of. She gathered up her papers and stepped out of her office, trying to put aside thoughts of Todd and his game and what excuse she was going to give to the cashier this time.
She almost walked smack into Jack Schiller as she backed out of her office. “Oh!” she said, and nearly dropped her papers.
“Natalie,” he said, smiling that tight and controlled little grin of his. It was as if he was always amused by some private joke to which no one else was privy. It got on her nerves, but he was the boss, so there wasn't much she could do about it.
“Sorry, I wasn't expecting you so soon; I was just telling Meredith that I needed to talk to you about the Armstrong case. I spoke with Bob Garrett and he-”
Jack held a hand up. “Actually, Miss Kendall, I was looking for you.”
Uh oh. That was never good. “You were?”
“Do you know what day it was?”
She had to think about it for just a moment, but she answered confidently. “Tuesday.”
“Hm. It's the thirtieth. As in, the day before the thirty-first, which would be the last day of the month.”
“I'm not following.”
He sighed dramatically, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. I'm sure you haven't forgotten. Each associate at Schiller, Schiller and Mason, myself included, is required to log at least fifteen hours of pro-bono casework per month. It's our way of showing the community that we're not just a bunch of cut-throat corporate sharks out to fuck 'em, you know what I'm saying?” he flashed brilliant white smile that did little to dispute the shark comparison.
She groaned. “Jack, come on, you can't be serious.”
“Oh, I'm afraid I am. You have a day and a half to get your fifteen hours in, so I suggest you get to it.”
“I'm up to my eyeballs in the Armstrong case, Jack, I can't just-”
He held up a finger, his smile vanishing instantly. “I'm not a man who likes to be told can't by his employees, Natalie, I suggest you keep that in mind. Now, we've gone ahead and found you a suitable wretch in need of representation. He's waiting for you, as a matter of fact, in conference room B.”