by Sophia Reed
Annie Knox was an undercover officer. If she wanted to vanish she would. Maybe that would be enough to keep her safe from Kie. Maybe Kie was no longer a threat. Maybe because I'd tried to get her in with a Master who would fuck her all the ways she needed she'd let me and my sub be.
But I didn't believe it. Annie could vanish because she was undercover. She was magic when it came to disappearing into other worlds.
Kie, though – if she was still going after Annie - had her own way of finding people.
I tried Annie's phone again.
Nothing.
When she left, two weeks earlier, it felt like the best thing. It had never been meant to be permanent. She was a police officer, used to working narcotics undercover. She'd gotten trapped in a cycle, took some of the drugs, got addicted. It happens. She'd seen some bad shit go down, the leader of the gang she'd infiltrated was killed.
That wasn't a bad thing. He might not have been the worst man in the world but he’d dislocated Annie's jaw at one point, and his soldiers sold fet to children.
But Annie had learned to care for him. When he was killed she went off the deep end and a dirty cop on her team sold her to me. Meaning he knew she was in over her head and he told her I could help her. I could. I had. The rainforest naturals my pharma company was working with were the answer to opioid addiction but they hadn't had trials yet. It's harder to get those when you're pretty much a hermit. Or a hermit with sexual proclivities the world doesn't approve of even if you are a billionaire and do have a new drug that could help thousands of people.
So the dirty cop got Annie to me and she figured out after she was with me that it was a one-way ticket. She was mine for the duration. Mine to hurt. Mine to fuck.
When she left, I thought it would keep her safe from my rage. I fed a lot of money into her bank account so she wouldn't have to work. The idea was she'd get a BA in criminal justice. With her experience, she could fast track and be out by twenty-six, still looking probably no more than eighteen.
The DEA would have to be insane to turn her down. Especially since despite her addiction and her "rehab" for the last year plus, she had gotten glowing recommendations from her superiors.
It's nice to be rich.
Annie hadn't touched the money I gave her except to move it into a high yield account she could access as she needed to for school. There was another amount in there too which I figured was part of what she'd taken from the Brotherhood on the day her father was put into CICU and she walked away from the gang and never went back. At least not to that gang and not before Jesse – her man – was shot and killed.
That was our story, "How We Met," cue hearts and butterflies. She hated me most of the time because I stripped her naked and whipped her, because I fucked her and sold her at an auction with my friends, a group of billionaires with similar interests. We'd buy each other's women and use the proceeds to fight human trafficking. The women we had with us might be with us under duress, but there were things we took moral stances on.
Only now Annie was out there with however much money she'd gotten from PD, starting a new life in some state I couldn't even identify. And Kie was out there and I had no way of knowing if she was gunning for Annie or trying to start a new life even without Norcross.
I felt powerless and I hated it.
That made the rage start to grow.
I went looking for a fuck toy and a pain slut and fear of what I might do gnawed at me.
Fear of what I might do. And what Kie might do.
3
Annie
Las Vegas is in the Mojave Desert. Seattle is in the Pacific Northwest, on the coast. Even the first time Cole St. Martin had taken me away from the location I knew I was in (Las Vegas) and blindfolded me and drove me for hours to a new and "secret" location (Las Vegas) I'd known pretty much where I was. The air is dry and smells of clean dirt, whatever that is, and of sage.
There wasn't much to do when I got back to the city. Find an apartment but even if I didn't touch the money St. Martin had poured into my account, between cashing out everything I had coming to me from PD and putting in the bank a little at a time all the money I'd walked out of The Brotherhood with, I was doing okay.
If I wanted to, I could probably pick up security work for a casino, though that would pretty much ruin my chances of working PD anywhere in the state. Because if I went back to a PD, I'd want to be undercover again.
It was midsummer and classes were starting in a matter of weeks. The university expected that everyone had already stressed over advisement and registration and gotten themselves sorted out months ago. Theoretically they would only take me on a conditional basis since I was signing up so late.
Truth is universities need the money and one way or another that comes from students. They weren't going to say no to me.
Finding a place to stay was easy. It was weird having the amount of money I now had. I'd never properly understood how easy it makes everything. Not, We'll run a credit check and let you know and do you have first and last and cleaning? But Yes, of course, let me look.
There was a lot of activity for a couple days. Leaving Seattle behind. Establishing new accounts at new branches for savings and checking. Finding the place I wanted, hoping for furnishing, settling for having the stuff sent. Then dealing with the university which, as I'd expected, was more than happy to have me as an addition to their growing and exciting program of criminal justice.
Whatever. I was keeping all my options open but really the reason I wanted to graduate was for DEA. And whether or not UNLV had the greatest criminal justice program of all time or not I was going there because I was determined to live here.
I was trying really hard not to read anything into that. Why Vegas? Oh, because I'd stayed there and learned I liked it!
It had nothing to do with Cole St. Martin.
4
Cole
At the end of the second day, I gave up and left her a message. That Kie was free. That Kie may or may not still be dangerous to her. That she should take precautions.
It was a simple message until I messed it up. That if she wanted to come and stay on the compound, for any reason at any time, all she had to do was text and I'd send a car for her or come myself. That I wouldn't bother her again unless she wanted updates on the Kie situation.
Did she want updates on the Kie situation?
Would she update me if there came a significant contact from Kie?
There were no answers to any of my texts or voicemails.
I wondered where she was. If she was eating right. If she was okay. Wondering if she was eating right brought an unwelcome throb of heat. That was one of her habits we'd been working on correcting because so often she ate crap. Or nothing. There were a lot of times she'd make coffee and a piece of fruit a stand-in for breakfast, and reminding her to eat – forcing her to eat – punishing her for not eating… those things were very enjoyable.
So I thought about that as briefly as I could. Then I made myself go back to work.
Marilyn screamed. The girl could take amazing amounts of pain but right now she seemed to be screaming for no reason, the slightest touch setting her off.
"Cole!"
Wait. She never used my name. Arm upraised to deliver another strike with the Lexan cane, I stopped and stared at her.
It was obvious she'd safe-worded, maybe minutes ago. There was a strike across her torso, absolutely out of bounds, and it looked like it was close to being bloody.
I stopped instantly. Put the cane down on a stand nearby and helped Marilyn to her feet. When had she knelt? And if she had knelt, sure indication that she was done and needed care and rest, how had I raised the cane to strike again? Images of the flexible cane slashing down across her face made me feel sick.
"You're not here today," she said.
I opened my mouth to demand she go back to her knees and that she bow her head to the floor and beg me to forgive her that trespass. At the same time I realized how
wrong that was. I was out of control. I'd ignored a safe word.
Not just ignored. I hadn't even heard it. I'd come very close to hurting her. What she'd said to me, there had been no accusation in her voice but there was fear. It made me sick to hear it. Making submissives afraid is what I do. But not like this.
She'd said my name because it was the only way she could get my attention.
I took her hand and helped her the rest of the way to her feet. Even so, I was wondering at the sudden penchant for submissives to call me by my first name, uninvited. Marilyn had used it to jolt me out of whatever headspace I'd fallen into. But Annie had done the same thing and she'd ended up leaving. Annie had used it to divorce herself from the submissive Annie who called me Sir. It had been a declaration.
Ariel had called me by name and wrapped herself around me and comforted me, all of that outrageously wrong in our dynamic.
I'd lost control because of Vincent and Kie, because of what happened to Annie. Ever since my space had been violated and my slave had been stolen I'd been in a rage, trying to get even.
I shot and killed Vincent Geddes, but so had Annie. She was a cop. She was a black belt. She'd hit him at the same time I shot him and there was no way to know which of us actually killed him, because her blow had driven the cartilage of his nose into his brain.
As vengeance goes, it was more than enough. He was dead, and the girl he'd stolen was one of the two people who killed him. The man he stole her from was the other.
But I wanted control. He took that from me and then died before I could do anything about wresting that back. He'd weaponized Kie, as well – already knowing she wanted to go after both me and Annie, he'd made it look like she was dead. Some other beautiful Asian girl had been shot in the face and left in place of Kie. Dead or not, Vincent had almost managed to kill both me and Annie with that one.
Was I out of control because of what happened to Annie? Because I honestly couldn't accept that maybe it was Annie who killed Vincent and not me? Or was it the fact of Annie choosing to leave, as if there were no contract between us.
As if everything I did to her didn't make her soaking wet between the legs.
As if she didn't want me.
I looked at Marilyn again. She was shivering. It was too cold in the pain room. I took my shirt off without thinking and wrapped her in it. Her teeth were chattering as I pulled her into my arms and so I did something I'd never done with anyone but Annie.
I carried her into the holding cell – holding suite? – that Annie had occupied, and through into the beautifully appointed bathroom that was mine when I stayed here. I seated her on the closed commode and started the water that sprayed out of two opposing shower heads. Plenty of warm water for everyone. Then I helped her up and when she was disinclined to release the t-shirt, I let her keep it, picking her up again and stepping into the natural rock-lined shower, holding her cradled in my arms until her shivering stopped, then letting her slide down my body. I still held her, slowly prizing the t-shirt away from her and off, throwing it into the corner. I didn't care about her being naked. I thought she'd be warmer under the hot spray without it.
I washed her hair. Her back. I washed her beautiful long limbs and I kissed her neck. I went to my knees and kissed and licked between her legs until she grabbed my hair and let her head fall back, the telltale swelling and pulsing of her sex letting me know as well as her moans that I'd pleased her.
I asked for nothing in return. How big of me. I'd seriously hurt her. The blow to her torso was already bruising and I wasn't going to let her leave for another couple days unless we went to one of the handful of doctors I trusted who were in the scene and could tell me there was no lasting damage. I didn't want to think I'd done any damage to her organs.
When we got out of the shower I wrapped her in a thick soft robe and pulled her with me into a huge easy chair where she could curl in my lap. She put her head on my shoulder and kissed my neck.
"Something is wrong with you, Cole," she said quietly in a kittenish voice and then, "Sir."
I smiled into her hair. Marilyn was a fuck buddy and a pain slut. It was strange and somehow pleasant to hear that she cared about me, even if it was only in relation to what I'd done to her.
"Is there anything I can do?"
Time travel, I thought. Get me back to the night I thought it was a good idea to auction off Annie before I realized I cared what happened to her. Or back to the day that Vincent realized he hadn't gotten what he wanted and his own slave had been beaten for hurting mine and so he determined to take Annie. She was supposed to be his for a number of weeks. He'd paid $5.5 million for her at that dinner party auction, but I hadn't let her take him. He was too brutal, too dangerous and I had developed a fondness for Annie. At the time I'd seriously meant to let him take her, only later. When she was further through training. When I'd brutalized her body enough times that her screams wouldn't drive Vincent into a frenzy of hurting her more.
Or to the point where she acknowledged to herself what she enjoyed, what she wanted and needed in her life. The beatings. The breast play. Knife play. Breath play. The things that made her cry and beg and to which she didn't always realize she was smiling. Humming. Moaning.
Coming.
And failing that? Failing taking me back in time so I could stop those things? Or the chance to go even farther back to those days when I had subs for limited amounts of time, mine to fuck and hurt and cane, mine to break and send away and it meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. And in that state, let me say no to the dirty cop when he called and instead, let me turn him in and see him taken off the force and whatever internal justice would almost have certainly been done to him.
Because cops don't sell other cops to sexual sadists. They shouldn't, anyway. And never without reprisals.
Though there may have been reprisals. No one had heard from the son of a bitch for a long, long time.
Failing any of those choices of things Marilyn could do for me?
Find Annie.
Bring her back.
I couldn't say that to the woman I'd hurt who now was offering to help me. I murmured into her hair and waited for her to dry off and warm up before she took her leave of me. She'd stay in a guest room, fed and clothed and cared for, but I'd stay away from her for the rest of her stay. Let her recover. Let her find me if she wanted to.
I didn't think she'd want to.
In two days time, if my limited education before I left med school surgical track and moved to pharmaceuticals was enough to convince me she wasn't bleeding or swollen, that I'd gotten lucky (and she hadn't – god, she didn't deserve that!) I'd let her go home.
I wondered if she'd be back.
I left a message for Annie. There was no way of knowing if she'd ever listen to it. And I texted.
"Please don't hang up. I just want to tell you something. I sent Kie with Norcross but his chopper went down. Kie lived through it. Norcross did not. She's loose, Annie. I just wanted you to know that."
And then because I couldn't think of any way to help her, or anything to offer her that didn't involve protection she'd refuse or coming here and going to school locally, which I knew she'd refuse, I hung up.
And faced my silent house.
Not completely silent. Other than the techs and the guards, there was one other person.
The guards were employed by me and far more visible than the techs who came and went by way of a distant door. I rarely saw them.
No one suspects it of someone who owns a multinational pharma company but not everyone who’s in the world's eye is comfortable there. When I make appearances, I'm always aware I'm posing as someone else out of self defense. I don't want the world to think it knows me. I'm uncomfortable with anyone getting close and that includes the artificial closeness of celebrity.
Also, I've always been awkward in conversation, a skill that hasn't actually been actively honed since turning to my Dom side. If the entire other side of the conversation
is "Yes, Sir," and if that person has no other conversational options, it's hard to practice.
The techs, on the other hand, make me look glib. So I rarely crashed their blue-lit world to pass the time of day. Besides, I made them nervous.
The guards were paid to protect and they were far more obvious in their presence, but they were one more group whose livelihood depended on me. I had enjoyed the company of some of the guards I'd had before but in the wake of Kie and Vincent and Annie's father and idiot fiancé appearing on the property without having been stopped, they were all summarily fired and a new group hired.
The new group still looked like they wanted to salute when I came by.
And there was Ariel. She found me in the living room, pretending to read a book. It was one of the first times I'd seen her topside, out of the underground, since she'd come to stay with me. Several years now, healing, not just the physical from having been stabbed and nearly bleeding out, but from the circumstances: the men who had used her, the drugs that had claimed her. It was someone she knew, that's what she'd finally admitted, who stabbed her and left her in that alley to die.
She'd tried. More valiantly than she'd pursued anything else she'd tried to die. Ariel was the one person I knew in the world who had nothing to hang on to. Her family was all dead. She was young and beautiful but no one stayed with her. She'd been knifed while waiting on a buy for heroin and the dealer saw a sad and vulnerable girl and decided he wanted both the money and the drugs to sell to someone else and while he was at it, he'd just make sure she never talked about him to anyone else.
Only I'd found her. Maybe losing Emily made me more aware of what was around me. Maybe I should never have been in that part of town. But that night I was and I heard her and then I saw her.
Whatever the impulse was to take her to one of the docs I knew who dealt with lifestyle choices, with BDSM partners and pain sluts who couldn't explain the cuts and bruises to "normal" doctors, I'd saved her life more than once. Because taking her to straight doctors, they'd have put her on some other drugs. Or tied her down and locked her up until she was happier.