“So how did you kill her?” Lois is genuinely intrigued. At the moment, she still figures I murdered her somehow, and she is trying to guess what method I used.
“I was in love with her.” It’s the truth.
“I don’t understand,” Lois whispers.
“Alain made it clear right from the start that none of his men were allowed to touch Alaina. She was surrounded at all times by guards, and he protected her virtue at all costs. To this day, I’m not sure why. Perhaps he was saving her for some mafia kingpin or Bratva alliance, I’m not sure. Anyway, the rules were clear. She wasn’t to be touched. As Alain killed his men for a lot less, no one ever messed with the girl. She had no friends under his roof, no allies, and no one to confide in. It drove her crazy.”
“Until you came along.” Lois’s voice is now sad. She’s imagining herself in the girl’s place, and she’s probably got a good idea of what happened to her already. She stays silent, though. This story is mine to tell, and Lois is happy to listen.
“Until I came along,” I confirm. “I was assigned as her security detail for a long stretch of time. Too long, but I was one of the few men Alain trusted with her. Back then, of course, I was your average kind of guy.”
“Who ran drugs and arms, and whipped girls for a living.” Lois snorts.
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly, “did you ask for permission to talk?” Lois stiffens once more.
“No, Sir. Sorry, Sir. Please continue.”
Her voice is whiny like she’s afraid I’ll stop this story. I’m considering doing just that, but now that I’m half-way there, I figure I may as well finish it.
“If you utter another sound, you won’t ever hear the end to this tale. You’ve also just earned yourself three strokes of the crop.” Lois nods and presses her cheek into my chest. I need to stamp down on that cheekiness. She can’t let it loose around here. No one will tolerate it.
I sigh. “Where was I? Ah yes, Alaina’s trusted bodyguard. For years I didn’t touch the girl. I knew better than to get close. She would often try to get me to talk, but I’d cut her short as quickly as I could and put some distance between us. I couldn’t avoid her, but I didn’t want to learn her secrets. I knew the consequences of doing so, and they were dire.”
Alain rarely came to visit her, and when he did, they fought. Adie came to her when he could, but he wasn’t let off the leash very often. If she was close to anyone, it was her youngest brother, though. The pair of them were both scared witless of Alain, and rightly so. He tortured anyone who crossed him, and more often than not they were left in pieces when he’d finished. Alain was, and still is, ruler of all those around him. You don’t fuck with him – not if you want to leave with your life intact. Adie didn’t understand the power play. He constantly pushed Alain, and Alain shoved back. For a while, the beatings kept him in line, but Adie has never coped well with being confined behind four walls. Alain would also whip him just for the sheer sport of it. To see how much he could take before he broke. That’s what he lives for. There’s nothing he enjoys more than snuffing the light out of people’s eyes.
As you’ve seen, Adie has become accustomed to pain. He can take a lot. Eventually it got to the stage where Alain came close to killing him in order to manipulate him, and that got too risky. Whatever he might lead you to believe, Alain doesn’t actually want Adie dead. He’ll accept it as a consequence if he has to but killing his second in command won’t do him any favours – he needs him. So when the whipping stopped working, he decided to try another tactic. He whipped someone else. That someone else happened to be his sister.
Lois makes a horrified sound in her throat, but she doesn’t say a word. She’s waiting for the rest of the story.
“Whipping Alaina proved to be a far better deterrent for Adie. After Alain had done it once, Adie fell into line smartly, and became his brother’s little lapdog. His sister, unfortunately, fell to pieces.” I pause, lost in sharp, bitter memories. “I picked them up.” I don’t say anything for a while, and Lois doesn’t press me on it. I already know she feels too much, by watching the expressions on her face, and I’m surprised she can do this job at all. There is no cold-blooded killer aspect with her. It’s all white-hot fire. It’s both a blessing and a curse. Feeling too much in this job is the makings of a recipe that will get you killed.
When the silence goes on for too long, Lois reaches up a hand and gently strokes my arm as if encouraging me to continue. I sigh. I guess I’d better get this over with.
“Alain left her in a bad state. He literally patched her up and flung her back in her room, but she didn’t have any fight left in her like Adie. She cracked. Every day she would wake up sobbing, and every night she would cry herself to sleep. It was as if she’d gone full circle. At the beginning, she would have talked to anyone, but near the end, she wouldn’t say a word. She was scared of everyone and everything, and the nightmares never went away. Alain could always return at any moment and put her through it all over again. She never recovered, and Alain didn’t give a shit. She was left on her own for weeks at a time, with no contact to the outside world. Any normal person would have gone mad, and she was close to it.”
“All this time I’m standing by the sidelines, with nothing but murderous rage for Alain – but as you know, once you start working for him the only option for leaving is usually a bullet in the head.” I then laugh cynically. “Except for me. I’m a special case. I don’t get let off that easily.”
“She got to me, day by day, week by week. Alaina was like a princess, with alabaster skin, bright blonde hair and deep, cobalt blue eyes. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and yet the most untouchable. It messed with my head. I’d see her storming around her rooms in sheer nightgowns, or even her underwear sometimes, and I’d try my hardest to look away. It wasn’t always easy. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to die at the same time. I was scared.” Now I’m getting lost in the story, and it feels as if it happened yesterday. In my head I can still see her face, tight with anger, as she stomps from one side of her room to the other. “Back then, she hated Alain more than any of us. She was much like Adie in the respect that she did not like to be imprisoned. If you contained her within four walls for any length of time, the light inside her withered and died.”
“One day she fell out of bed and banged her head. She was concussed, so on the advice of a doctor, I sat on her bed and watched over her. Alaina wanted me to hold her. I politely refused. She wanted me to lay with her and wrap my arms around her. Again, I refused, but she tried again, day after day, and we began talking. Nothing much at first. Just a few anecdotes about our past. I tried to put a bit of light-hearted humour in there when I could. It seemed to help. The crying stopped. For a few weeks she seemed to be coping with her situation and improving a little, day by day.”
“You know what happens next, of course?” My fingers had now tangled themselves in Lois’s hair, while I inhaled the delicate scent of lavender and lilies. Damn Alain and his bloody shower gel. I would never be able to smell lavender again and not think of Lois.
“Yes,” Lois whispers. “Adie steps out of line once more and Alaina gets punished again.” Her voice is horrified. I think she already knows what’s coming.
I nod against her head, rubbing my chin against her soft, silky tresses. It’s oddly therapeutic.
“The second time was the killer. It was worse than the first. She was bedridden and drugged for weeks. When she came to, she wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep for nightmares, and even the most basic chores were beyond her. She wouldn’t tolerate anyone in her room but me by this time, so I had to help her. I washed her, dressed her, cleaned her teeth, and put her to bed. I did everything I could to take the stark white fear out of her eyes, but it wouldn’t budge. We both knew it would happen again, and each time it would get worse.” If I could have taken the beatings for her, I would have. It doesn’t work that way with Alain, though.
“Anyway, we fell in love
. I don’t know how we managed to avoid it as long as we did, but in the end, it was inevitable. She was such a sweet, gentle thing. All I wanted to do was keep her safe. We were very careful. We knew where the cameras were and the areas that the guards patrolled. We stole a few moments together where we could, but we knew we had to get out. I had a few contacts by this time, so I arranged an exit strategy. We were off to Mexico, but as you know, Alain caught us in the act. I still can’t figure out how he found out. My contacts to this day have sworn they never breathed a word of it to anyone, but I guess I’ll never know. What I do know is that when Alain and Geraud caught us trying to escape, it was a fucking disaster on an epic scale.” I shudder just thinking about that day, and I know Lois will pick it up.
Sighing, I plough on. I need to get this over with and the best part is yet to come.
“Alain wanted to gut me there and then. He was going to string me up, break out the knives, and start removing body parts one by one. They’d decided to make Alaina watch, so she knew what would happen if she put a foot out of line in the future. They’d managed to get me tied to the whipping post and stripped naked before I could blink. I’ve never been so fucking scared in all my life. The thought of someone taking chunks out of me, one by one, while Alaina watched nearly made me pass out. I wouldn’t have been able to take pain like that back then, and I’d have gone down screaming. Alaina wouldn’t have been able to take it.”
“Somehow Adie found out. He went ballistic. I have no idea what deal he made with his brother that weekend, but whatever it was, he managed to get him to spare my life. Ever since I have owed him one from that day. Anyway, safe to say Alain was pretty pissed I got to walk, and he made sure my life was a walking hell from that point on. I never got to see Alaina again. He locked her up, on her own, for twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day as punishment for defying him, and when people did go in to see her, they weren’t allowed to talk to her. She hung herself with her bedsheets two weeks later.” I go quiet after that. I can’t say anymore. My throat is clogged up with emotion and my eyes sting. Lois wraps her hands around my waist and offers what comfort she can. This kind of pain she understands all too well.
“Permission to speak, Sir,” she whispers.
I place a kiss on her temple and clear my throat. “We’re out of scene now, Lois. Speak freely.”
“It isn’t your fault. No more than Kiel’s death was mine. We can blame ourselves all we want, but it won’t help, and it certainly won’t bring them back. There’s only one solution to this problem.” She tips her head up at me and we share a look. We both know what that solution is. I reach for her hand and she places it in mine.
“Are you scared of me, Lois? This weekend, there’s a good chance I might get you killed. Why aren’t you putting as much distance as you can between us? Why aren’t you trying to run?” I know why she isn’t running. She’s fallen for Adie. Although she was careful to keep her expression neutral while Alain pulled his stunt with the bomb, inside she was a mess. Those eyes of hers tell me everything.
“I’m not scared of you, or what might happen. I’m already preparing myself for the worst, but I swear I’m going to go out with a bang. If you have to bury me, there’s only one thing I want in return, and you know what that is.” Lois laughs darkly.
Lois is messing with my head. One minute I hate the ground she walks on, and in the next I’m telling her my darkest secrets. I don’t know which version of her I believe right now, but my gut instinct is telling me she isn’t the bad guy in all of this – and it’s usually right.
“I wish you would talk to me, Lois,” I whisper. Her silence unnerves me because it leaves a lot of variables. When I do something, I like to be sure of the outcome. At the moment, everything could backfire on me if I get it wrong. Lois doesn’t say anything. To be fair, I don’t expect her to. If she was going to talk, she would have done so by now.
A flutter underneath the door immediately draws our attention to a dark black leaflet. There’s a Fleur-de-Lys pattern all over it, and it can only be one thing: our itinerary for the next three days. If I’m honest, I don’t want to look at it. Once I see it in black and white, it’s real. Dealing with the unknown isn’t any better, though.
“Do you want me to get it for you?” Lois’s curiosity is obviously getting the better of her, so I guess we might as well get this over with.
“Yes. Go crawl and pick it up with your teeth. We’re back in scene.” I push her neck down, to let her know I mean business and she quickly complies. She’s learned a lot in the past few days. Now, when she crawls, she sashays her hips from side and side, giving everyone an excellent view of her ass. Everything she does is designed to titillate and tease, and we’ve been working hard on her posture. There won’t be too many dominants who will be able to spot her for a fake, unless she makes a stupid slip-up. I’m desperately crossing my fingers that we won’t.
When she hands me the form in her lips, they leave a red wax imprint on the paper. I smile. She then sits up obediently, hands behind her back, and waits for further instructions. Opening the leaflet carefully, I scan the contents inside.
“Fuck,” I spit. I stare at the leaflet, unseeing, as the words all blend into one. I can’t believe this is happening. Damn you, Alain, I think. The next couple of days aren’t just going to be hell on wheels. They’re going to be hell on twenty sixteen-wheelers worth of wheels, all of which have spare tyres in the back.
When I’ve recovered from my funk, I hand it to Lois, who, on the whole, takes it a lot better than I do.
Itinerary:
Meet and Greet – Partner Swap
Human Furniture
Night-Time Fun
Predicament Bondage
Gun Play
Pets
Harem Master
MM and FF
Chapter Thirteen - Lois
James looks green, and it’s a sickly shade that is somewhere between lime and chartreuse. This isn’t good. Scanning the contents of the leaflet for myself, I decide not to linger too much on the words and take each session as it comes. There are a couple of things on there that I don’t like the sound of, but it might not be as bad as it sounds. There is no point in worrying, either way. We’re here to do a job, and that’s all that matters.
“You can speak, Lois. I know you have questions.” Standing up, he walks over to the wardrobe and withdraws a sleek, aluminium case. Inside are two guns and enough ammo to sink a ship.
“Will you be required to fuck me?” I whisper.
“Almost certainly, and probably more than once. That’s part of the fun.” I bite my lower lip. James has already taken this into account. We need to get what we came for and get out of here as soon as possible.
“What’s gun play?”
“Hopefully, it’s someone shoving an unloaded gun into your mouth, pussy or ass.” James rams the ammo into his gun with more force than necessary and then shoves it in his pants. I don’t ask him what the alternative side to gun play is. I can already figure that out for myself.
“And ‘Night-Time Fun?’” The terms sounds a bit ambiguous. I wonder if James has an idea of what it may entail.
“I don’t know. That one could be anything. They’ll tell us nearer the time.”
“And what about M/M? Are you prepared to do that, if it comes to it?”
He gives me a tight smile. “It’s not on my Christmas List, but if it comes to it, I’ll bend over and take it. It won’t be the first time and I daresay it won’t be the last, so don’t worry about me.” I do worry about him, though. He’s been through enough. He’s as close to breaking as I am, probably more so.
“What are you most worried about?” The question comes out of nowhere, but it’s a good one. I study his face.
“With regards to our stay here?”
“Yes.” There are a lot of directions that question could go in. I must remember to be more specific in the future.
“I’m worried about lots of things
. I’m worried I won’t be able to protect you. I’m worried that they’ll pair you with a monster who’ll beat you bloody. I’m worried that I’ll have to sleep with you. Basically, I’m a fucking mess.” James gives me a crooked smile. It makes my heart melt.
“You shouldn’t worry about me. You should hate me.” This tactic isn’t working, but I try it one more time, anyway.
“So you keep telling me.” He then lobs something my way and I catch it. It’s a small metal tube. I turn it over in my fingers and examine it. I’m guessing it’s some kind of concealed weapon, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what. “I can’t give you a gun, or a standard knife, because you won’t be able to hide it. That is a spike, and you can use it to stab someone. You release it by pressing the two ends together simultaneously. You can hide it by rolling it up in your hair, but for fuck’s sake pin it tightly. If one of the guys sees it and knows what it is, you’re done for. It will be a risk wearing it, but I figure I’ll give you the choice. The thought of sending you out into that lot of rabid dogs unarmed makes me crazy.” James is currently loading the other gun which he then puts neatly back in the case. Lifting up the corner of the wardrobe, he then stuffs it underneath the base. It’s not an ideal hiding place, but it’s the best we’ve got.
“You do remember I’m a trained assassin, right?” I can’t help but smile. James’s concern is touching, but I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.
James’s lips tighten. “I do, but you’ll be restrained most of the time. You can’t fight back if they tie you up.” That’s a very good point.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen here?” I always like to know the worst case scenarios. Then if it ends any other way, I can still be upbeat about the whole thing.
“The worst-case scenario is that one or both of us gets killed.” James is lying. I can see it in his eyes. He’s not as good at hiding his emotions from me as he used to be. I was baiting him. I already know what the worst-case scenario is. That would involve him sleeping with me more than once and being delivered back to Alain ready to be slaughtered. This is what Alain is gunning for. It’s the whole purpose of this exercise. I would put money on it.
Embers: A Dark Romance Love Triangle (A Special Agent Novel Book 5) Page 12