Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

by Kate Stewart

  “That was my sister!”

  Daniello ignored my scolding completely as he fed, and my screams followed.

  “She’s got that guy with her. They are holed up in some high rise.” I white knuckled the wheel to my truck as Lucy whimpered next to me. “It’s locked up tight, Laz. There’s no way for me to get in.”

  “Then you fucking find a way, Derek!” Lucy turned to me with wide eyes and let out a shriek as I jumped a curb and made a beeline for her apartment. It had been a long night of running supply, and I felt a crash coming.

  “No can do, Laz. I’m telling you, brother, they both have armed guards too.”

  I gathered my conclusion. “Cedric.”

  “Yeah. He’s got a hawk eye on them both. New security on all fronts. He’s not fucking around.”

  That piece of shit always had a hard-on for Taylor. It wasn’t news, and I was sure he would lay his life on the line for her. I would make damn sure he lost it because of her. But tight security meant they were scared. It also meant it would be a fuck of a lot harder to get the job done once the time came.

  “I just don’t know how were going to get past some of this shit.”

  “Figure it the fuck out.”

  “I’m on it, man.”

  I hung up just as I took a parking spot in Lucy’s complex. Lucy opened her door and began to cry in a pathetic attempt to gain my sympathy. I walked the path that led to her apartment with her hot on my heels. She didn’t bother to wait until we were safely behind it to start her begging. “Please, Laz, I’m sick. Please, just give me one hit.”

  I picked up my pipe from her table, lit it, and inhaled before I blew a cloud of smoke in her face. “And what are you going to do for me?”

  Her skin was ripe with new scabs, and she was pale and filthy. Her faded red hair was matted on the top of her head.

  Her lips trembled as she scratched at her arms. “I feel like I’m dying.”

  “You look like it too.” I smiled down at the almighty Lucy Hardin. The girl voted most likely to succeed. The prom queen and pride of Dyer. She was ruined, and she deserved it. Her mouth was the reason my son was no longer with his mother or me.

  “Please, Laz, I’ll do anything.” She moved toward me in an attempt at seduction. I rolled my eyes as my phone buzzed in my pocket. She ran her hand down my chest. “Tell me what you want.” My spine pricked as she lowered her head and dropped to her knees, rubbing my dick through my jeans. “I can be anything you want.” She pulled the button free of my jeans and released my cock. She licked the underside of my length and gripped the head as she began to pump, her eyes down. “I can be her.”

  I ripped my body away as she went down on all fours. I gripped her hair and pulled it back as I looked down at her. “You can be who?”

  “Taylor. I can be Taylor.” I bent over, level with her face. “You don’t even come close.” I yanked at her head with a fistful of her disgusting locks and dragged her down the hall as she screamed for me to stop. Inside her bathroom, she shrieked as I kept her in my fist while I turned on the scalding water and discarded her in the shower.

  Lucy screamed as the boiling water hit her flesh. “Take a shower, you fucking reek. And don’t ever say that goddamned name again. Don’t ever compare yourself to her!”

  Lucy stood and quickly tempered the water and stripped. Just before I made my way out of the door, she spoke.

  “Everybody knows you still love her.” I moved toward her with a raised hand. Wide-eyed, she cowered in the corner.

  I pulled my hand away as fear raced through her. “Not so high on the hog, now, are you, Lucy?”

  “You’re a monster, and you will burn in hell, Lazarus Walker. Mark my words!”

  “This is hell. Your hell.” I slammed the door and heard her cries behind it.

  “I said I’m sorry! Please, Laz, please just let me go!”

  I rolled my eyes as she pleaded for me to stop. I would have to cut her loose sooner or later for my own benefit. Even for an addict, she was high maintenance. I’d held her at gunpoint with a rehearsed script when she called her parents, and it seemed like enough. They were socialites in a town without Joneses to keep up with, and they would eventually require her presence at some bullshit benefit to better the shithole they reigned over. She was becoming more of a liability, and though I’d instilled enough fear in her to keep her quiet and enough meth to make her the slave I needed her to be, it could still backfire. The Hardins had enough money and connections with the Feds to chase me across state lines. But for the moment, I held the cards, and I had to play my hand just right.

  I inhaled a stream of smoke again as I checked my phone.

  Amber: Can we talk?

  I dialed her number, and she picked up on the first ring.

  “Laz, we are close to a court date

  “When?”

  “Soon, less than a few months.”

  “You getting cozy over there, Amber?”

  “I’m clean. I have a job.”

  “That’s not what I fucking asked.” Her long pause was enough.

  “It’s different here, Laz.”

  “Not fucking homesick, are we?”

  “I miss our son.”

  And there it was, the one fuck I gave about the world wrapped up in a single word.

  “Then get him the fuck home.”

  “Laz, Taylor—”

  I ended the call and scrubbed my hand down my face. I had three counties chomping at the bit for my supply. I had no one I trusted enough to care for my business, and I was losing control of Amber.

  Goddamn you, Taylor.

  She’d manipulated her sister the way she had me. I was completely helpless to it all until my son was legally back in his mother’s arms. And even when that happened I’d have a fight on my hands.

  And Taylor hadn’t, for one second, forgotten how to do that. Lucy blistered my ears from behind the bathroom door while I rubbed at the scar on my leg.

  “Laz, you think rich people are happier?”

  Taylor was staring out the window of my truck, her body present, her mind somewhere in a daydream as we drove down the back roads toward another sunset.

  I looked her way. She had on the same jeans she’s worn the past three years and a lightly stained tank top, her ratty clothes did shit to taint her beauty. “I don’t think money solves everything, Red.”

  “I think it does.” She looked over at me with glossy eyes.

  I shook my head. “Look at George Hardin. Big house, beautiful wife, he owns half the county and fucks his secretary on the sly. That ain’t happy.”

  “I’ll never get married.”

  “The hell you won’t,” I said with a wink her way. “You’re going to marry me.”

  Taylor rolled her eyes and looked out the window again as we passed the Rucker farm. It had been the latest in a string of family farms to go bankrupt.

  “We can buy that place, make it our own.”

  Taylor’s head snapped to me before her eyes narrowed. “We aren’t staying in Dyer.”

  I shrugged. “What’s so wrong with home? It’s where we met. Nothing wrong with staying close. Hell, if it will make you happy, we can move two counties over. I’ve got friends out there.”

  Mouth parted with accusing eyes, she scoured me. “Are you serious?”

  “Why the hell not? This place is as good as anyplace else.”

  That was the moment I lost her.

  It took me years to figure it out. But I saw it that day, in her eyes. Her decision. A month later, she put a hole in my leg.

  “She became Ray Tyco’s whore when she left here, you know.”

  “What?” I turned to see Lucy wiping her hair with a towel while a satisfied smirk played at her lips. She had my attention, and she knew it. “He was my father’s business associate. Ray Tyco, he—”

  “I know who the fuck he is.”

  Her smile went full Cheshire. I would knock every tooth from her lying mouth. “Give me a hit
, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

  I pulled the gun from the back of my jeans, and she shook her head. “Do whatever you want, Laz, but I’m not telling you shit until you let me hit that pipe.”

  With a plan to make her pay, I motioned toward the pipe, and she snatched it up without a second thought and inhaled deeply. Once she was flying, she began to sing like a canary. It was the first time Lucy Hardin’s big fucking mouth had ever been useful.

  “Where are we going?”

  Daniello drove my Chevelle with ease as he navigated his way through the crowded peninsula.

  “It is a surprise.”

  “I’m not a fan of those.” Armed with only my purse and my clothes from the previous night and a slight headache from the whiskey, I was forced to play along. Daniello’s mood was light and playful, and I was curious to see how our day would pan out. He glanced my way as I winced at the sun invading the car.

  “I may need a little hair of the dog.”

  Daniello pressed his lips into a line, his eyes full of question.

  “A shot of whiskey,” I explained. I spotted a liquor store. “Can you stop here?”

  Daniello parked. Armed with a small bottle, I rejoined him in the car, uncapped it, and took a hearty sip.

  He scrutinized the bottle, looking for answers. “Hair of the dog?”

  “The same of what you drank the night before to get rid of the headache.”

  Daniello’s lips twitched. “And do you feel better?”

  “I will.” I took another pull of the whiskey and the corner of his mouth lifted while he raised his brows. “I suspect it is time for more south woman.”

  I capped the bottle and threw it in the back seat. “Not a chance. Take me home, please. I want to change.”

  “You can change when we get to where we are going.” There was no sense in arguing, so I let him drive. “Daniello, we can’t go far. Amber may need me.”

  “Rocco is watching Amber.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  Daniello turned to me. “He will not let harm come to her.”

  Cedric was also watching her along with a team of bodyguards. It was more protection than I could offer. I sank back in my seat.

  “Tell me more about Barga.”

  Daniello paused in thought before he spoke. “My villa is on the outside of the city. I live there alone now when I do not travel. My mother died a few years ago.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She slept into her death.”

  I saw no emotion or change in his posture. “You weren’t close?”

  “She lived her life. I do not have emotions for death.”

  “So, you don’t get sad at funerals?” I had only been to one.

  “I do not attend funerals.”

  Daniello turned onto the interstate, pulled up a small black box, and placed it on the dash.

  “What’s that?” I moved to grab it, and he swatted my hand.

  “It is not a toy.”

  “Fine,” I said, massaging my reddened hand. “Barga.”

  We drove for hours past the Georgia and Florida state lines as Daniello spoke in cliff notes about his life. He spoke of his favorite bakery. Of the olive trees that surrounded his property. About his sister, Tula, and nine children and how she ruled her home with an iron fist. I had to admit I was curious.

  “She is stronger than any man I have ever met and has hard will close to yours.”

  “Iron will,” I corrected carefully.

  He nodded. “Iron will. She and I are very much the same. We are very protective of each other.” His eyes were transfixed into a distant memory he didn’t share.

  “When did you meet your wife?”

  “Before I left for the army.”

  “You were in the army?”

  “For a short time, yes.”

  I pressed for more. “And then you became a bad guy?”

  Daniello paused and then turned to me. “We spoke of this before.”

  “But you know my secrets.”

  “Do not ask me again,” he threatened, his voice full of finality.

  Mafia.

  He had to be connected. Of that I was sure. The intimidation he brought with just a look spoke volumes and only confirmed the fact that he was a shot caller.

  The more I swore I wouldn’t press, the more curious I got. And the less he revealed to me, the more I was convinced that no matter what, when I was ready to resume my position at Scott Solutions, Daniello would have to be far removed from my life. I felt the clock begin to tick on our involvement at that moment and dread coursed through my veins.

  “Whatever it is, Daniello, you can trust me.”

  “It is not about trust,” he gritted out. “But you have made it difficult.”

  I felt the jab, knowing he was referring to the night I let Damien kiss me.

  More doubts seeped through, and I could only think of darker scenarios.

  “Have you ever killed a lover?”

  “Goddamnit, Taylor!” Daniello cut off every car in the lanes to the right of us as he pulled onto the shoulder and glared in my direction. “You are still reckless with your tongue, with your life. Even with my warning. You demand patience, but you expect too much!”

  “I just want to know who you are!”

  “And I am giving you all that I can!”

  Out of nowhere, a truck pulled up a few hundred yards ahead of us on the shoulder and began backing up in our direction. It came to a halt just inches from my bumper. The angry driver—no doubt a result of Daniello’s erratic parking—got out of the truck and came barreling toward us as I gripped Daniello’s arm. He had Daniello’s weight by at least a hundred pounds and was covered in tattoos. Daniello didn’t so much as glance in his direction, his eyes fixed on me. “You want to know?”

  I glanced at the man as he stalked toward us. “Daniello, don’t. Oh God, don’t. Daniello, please don’t.”

  “Get the fuck out of the car, asshole!” Hundreds of cars whizzed past us while he beat on Daniello’s window with an intent fist.

  Daniello moved in close, his lips a whisper from mine. “Don’t close your eyes, Phoenix.” In a flash, he was out of the car. The man had one threatening word out of his mouth before Daniello made his move. In seconds, the man was screaming in pain, mutilated and bloody, as his eyes searched fruitlessly for help and met mine through the windshield. Before I could open my door, the screaming stopped, and the man went completely limp. Daniello dragged his body to his truck, placed him in the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and made quick work of getting us back onto the interstate.

  All of it lasted fifteen seconds.

  It took fifteen seconds for Daniello to show me who he was.

  We pulled to a stop at a hotel on Amelia Island, a sleepy beach town off the Florida coast. A valet opened my door, and Daniello tipped him as I moved in a zombie-like stupor into the hotel. I waited by the elevator as Daniello checked us in and then followed him into the small space as he pressed the number to reach our floor. He gripped my arm by the elbow and guided me into our room. I sat at the edge of the bed in the massive suite with my eyes to the floor.

  “I am hungry.” Daniello loosened his tie and opened the mini bar fridge. He plucked a Jack Daniels mini from it and tossed it on the bed next to me. I eyed the bottle and then looked to him.

  Daniello’s expression was completely void of remorse.

  Death was his business.

  I uncapped the bottle, swallowed all the whiskey, and motioned to him for another. He brought this bottle to me and tilted my head with a fistful of my hair and brought it to my lips.

  I swallowed the bottle as he stood with me in his grip until my throat was coated with whiskey. His eyes danced over my face with a touch of apprehension before he freed me.

  “I will not force you to stay.”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “I will leave you to your decision.” He picked up his jacket and walke
d out of the room.

  “You alone?” A woman took the seat next to me at the hotel bar. She smelled of too much perfume. I glanced her way as she smiled at me. “I could use some company, handsome.”

  She brushed her leg against mine, and I expelled a harsh breath as she forced my reply. She was a woman in her late forties and wore too much makeup to disguise it. “I am in no mood for company.”

  “Oh, I love your accent! Come on now, don’t be shy.” She had a southern accent that made my chest tighten. She slid a careful finger down my arm. “We’re in this beautiful place; we should have some fun.”

  The bartender greeted the spirited woman with a smile. “What’ll it be?”

  She wrinkled her nose as she sniffed my drink. “Strawberry margarita.”

  I pulled some money from my pocket and threw it on the bar in front of her. “I wish you well.”

  “Bummer,” she said to the bartender as I took my drink and walked poolside and took a chair to stare at the sea. I had no business here. I had taken too many liberties with Taylor. Her tantrum with that man at the bar still cut me deep. She wanted truth, pushed me for it, and now she had it. She would never look at me the same, and it was for the best. I had to instill fear into her. I had to make her believe. It was the only way we could continue. The only way. I had just taken a man’s life, but I would do anything to keep her.

  Anything.

  Death was easy. Too easy.

  It had been my life, my way, my reason for existing on this fucked up Earth, until I saw her at that club in Savannah. Years of living like a savage had forced me to a place where very little light existed, but Taylor’s light forced her way under my skin and into my veins.

  I had seen all sides of her and accepted them. But even with all her strength, she had human limits I’d grown immune to over time. For years I’d watched unimaginable and vicious slaughter due to man’s greed and became indifferent to the effect of death, to the act of taking life. I had just shown her the darkest part of me. And it was just a glimpse of my capabilities. I was a trained killer. Emotion played no part in it. It did not affect me to take a life, not the type of life that I felt I had to extinguish. And I did not spare her from the truth.