by HELEN HARDT
I smiled against the comforter.
Her hands, so good, so right, so perfec—
The boy screamed.
A thick finger breached his behind. He was being torn in half. Ripped apart. Thousands of needles forced themselves into him. Nothing could ever hurt so much. He screamed in agony.
“Stop that! You’re hurting me! Mama! Daddy! Help me! Please!”
This wasn’t normal. People didn’t do these things. Not to kids… Not to…
His blood curdled as a high-pitched screech ripped from his throat. More pain. Shards of jagged glass tore into him, stretching him, breaking him.
“That’s it, boy. Take it all.”
The boy would never recover. He would die right now. This was the end of his short life. The end…
“Talon!”
I was on my knees, my hands clamped over my ears. The noise. So much noise. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! A blood-chilling screech. Malignant and wretched.
“Talon!”
Through the noise, a sweet voice called my name. Talon. Far away, someone called…
God, please, the noise. Make it stop make it stop make it stop.
“Talon!”
The noise stopped. I looked at Jade. She was beautiful. So beautiful. But fear, terror, laced her steely eyes.
“My God, what’s wrong?”
And I knew. The deafening noise had been coming from me, my voice. What had happened? I looked at her. So beautiful, so innocent. She had been taking such good care of me, massaging my thighs, my lower back, my ass, and then dipping…
She had touched me there—on my anus.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Cannot go there. Will not go there.
“Talon, let me help you. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I stood. My cock hung flaccid. I had been so looking forward to making love with her again. Yes, making love. Not just fucking.
But this would never work. I put on my jeans and boxers. Then I picked up her dress and handed it to her. “Leave,” I said.
She arched her eyebrows, and her beautiful lips formed an O. “Leave? I don’t understand.”
“You know what the word means.” I looked away.
She walked to me, still naked, holding her dress. She cupped my cheek and forced me to gaze into her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you. Please, let me help you.”
How I wanted to believe her. How I wanted to grab her in my arms, hold her against me until the last monster disappeared into the fog of the night. Could I try? Could I risk everything and keep her with me?
I shook my head. “You need to leave. Now.”
“I don’t understand. Please. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and help you.”
I gritted my teeth. “No. Leave.”
She bit her lip, and two tears, one from each eye, rivered down her cheeks.
I had never loathed myself more.
She put her sundress over her head and covered her shapely body. She sniffed and said, “All right, Talon. I will leave. But tomorrow, we’re going to talk about this. You can’t push me away. I won’t let you.”
I didn’t want to push her away. All I wanted was her. She was all I had ever wanted. I had never wanted anything until I met her. But I had to push her away. I had to protect her from the horror that was my life.
I grabbed her arm. “You’re not understanding me.”
“Talon, I have never understood you. But right now, you clearly need me to leave, so I want to leave. But we will talk tomorrow.”
Except that we wouldn’t talk tomorrow. We wouldn’t talk tomorrow or any other day.
“When I say leave, I’m not talking about leaving for now. I want you out of this house.”
Sadness shone in her beautiful eyes. “You can’t mean that.”
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”
“When I tried to leave before, you wanted me to stay.”
Hell, I wanted her to stay now. But what happened tonight had been like a freight train running me over, crushing me into dust, and forcing reality into me. I couldn’t give her anything. She needed to get away from me and have a life. She was wonderful, the most wonderful woman I had ever met, and she deserved to find someone who was capable of giving her what she deserved.
An anvil of jealousy hit me in the gut. God, another man touching her… Fucking her…
Loving her.
I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to erase the images from my mind. Have to let go. Have to let her go.
“Things change, Jade.”
“We just made love. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did. I was massaging you, and then—”
“Enough!” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Leave my room. Leave this house.”
“I-I can’t leave tonight.”
“First thing in the goddamned morning, then. I don’t want to see your face here again.”
“But…what will I tell Marj?”
Thank God my sister was in the city tonight. “I’ll deal with Marj. You just get your ass out of this house in the morning.”
Her beautiful lips trembled, and her hair fell around her shoulders in unruly waves.
She turned and walked out of my room.
Out of my life.
Taking my only chance of happiness with her.
Hot breath singed the back of the boy’s neck. He had learned to separate his mind from his body. It was the only way to survive. But still, the breath. Always the breath, no matter how far away he was into his mind.
He had stopped fighting back. He had stopped begging them to leave him alone. It was useless. They seemed to like it when he resisted.
He was used to the pain. Tonight was bad though. The one with the tattoo went first, and he was the biggest.
The boy winced and cried out when Tattoo breached him. He hated himself for screaming. Each time he promised himself he wouldn’t scream, and then he did. Next time, he said to himself. Next time I won’t scream.
Tattoo grunted as he forced his way into the boy’s body. As much as the boy hated being penetrated, it was better than having it stuffed inside his mouth. He threw up either way, but at least with penetration he could hold off until they left. Then he would heave and empty his stomach.
“Yeah, give it to him good,” Low Voice said.
The three men always wore black ski masks, so the boy had no idea what they looked like. Just as well. He didn’t want to see their faces. This way, not knowing what they looked like, he could think of them as inhuman. Pure evil.
“You like that, don’t you, boy?” Tattoo said, pumping into him. “You like being fucked in the ass.”
The boy said nothing. The first couple of times he had screamed, “No. I don’t! Stop this! I hate this!” And he’d paid for it with a beating as well as a fucking.
“Come on, boy. Tell me you like it.”
Still, he remained silent except for a few wails and sniffs.
Until a cool metal blade touched his neck.
“You say you like it,” Low Voice said. “Say you like his big hard cock in your ass, or I’ll slit your pretty little throat.”
I like it.
I’d said the words. Like a goddamned little pussy, I’d said the words to stay alive. Alive in the hell that had become my life.
Why? Why had I bothered to stay alive?
Cold desperation paralyzed me.
The boy. He was me.
He is me.
God help me.
Chapter Twenty–Nine
Jade
I cried into my pillow until finally, my nose clogged, my face swollen, I fell asleep.
I woke the next morning, rose, and walked into my bathroom. A look in the mirror was a terrible reminder. My eyes were swollen from sobbing, my nose red. My hair was matted with tangles. I grabbed my brush and put it through my hair, wincing when I hit a knot. I brushed it through, reveling in the pain of tearing the tangle out of my hair.
&
nbsp; It hurt, but no tears came. I was all cried out. I turned the shower on, and the whoosh of water was somehow comforting. Once the bathroom was good and steamy, I stepped in, letting the hot water scald my skin. I stood there for a few minutes, not washing my hair, not washing my face, just relishing the hot water on my body.
After a few more moments, I shook my head, sniffed, and squirted some shampoo into my palm.
Time to move forward.
When I finished washing, I stepped out of the shower and dried off, taking a dry cloth and wiping a circle in the steam on the mirror. I still looked like hell, but my face would recover from the crying jag. My face, my body—they would show no sign of my time with Talon Steel.
Not so for my heart.
I toweled off, dried my hair, and went back into the bedroom. I grabbed some underpants out of my top drawer.
My top drawer.
It was no longer my top drawer. I was no longer welcome here.
I thought about Marj. She would tell me to stay, no matter what Talon had said.
Which was exactly why I wasn’t going to wake her. She had gotten in late last night from her cooking class. I’d heard her after midnight. Today was Saturday, and she would be sleeping in. I could pack up fairly quickly, call a cab, and go to Grand Junction. It would be a hefty fare, but I didn’t care.
I’d have to call Larry and quit my job. I actually liked the job, but I definitely had issues with Larry’s ethics, so I’d find a better job in Grand Junction. I’d find work with lawyers I respected. I would have liked to give Larry two weeks’ notice, but that wouldn’t be possible, and I couldn’t very well commute from Grand Junction without a car. The cab fare alone from here was going to take all of my spare cash.
I bit back more tears as I pulled all my underwear and socks out of my top drawer and walked over to my bed to set them down.
I gasped.
On my pillow sat one perfect red rose.
I had scarcely gotten settled in my hotel room when my cell phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
Silence for a moment. Then, “Jade?”
The voice was familiar, so like my own. Even though I hadn’t heard it in years, I knew exactly who was on the other end of the line.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Jade, darling, how are you?”
Seriously? How did she think I was? And if she really cared, she would’ve asked a long time before now. But I was not in the mood to get into anything with her. After what I had been through with Talon at the ranch, I didn’t want any more drama. “I’m fine, Mother. How are you?”
“How nice of you to ask. Things are going well for me. I’m dating a wonderful new gentleman, and I’m going to write my memoirs. Can you believe it? Me, a writer.”
Yep, always about her. Classic Brooke Bailey. I say “fine,” and she gives me her life story.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“I’m in town, darling. Nico—that’s my new beau—and I would love to take you to dinner.”
“You’re in Grand Junction?”
“Yes, isn’t that just a hoot?”
A hoot, indeed. “What are you doing here?”
“Nico is originally from Colorado, and he has family here. So we came for a short visit. You’ll have to tell me how to get to your ranch, though, and we’ll pick you up.”
“That’s not necessary, actually. I’m in Grand Junction now. I moved off the ranch.”
“You did? My goodness. Well, tell me where you are, and we’ll pick you up.”
And that was that. No questions about why I had left the ranch. No questions about what I was doing in Grand Junction. No questions about me at all. Did she know I’d passed the bar exam? Hell, did she even know I’d gone to law school?
“There’s no reason for you to pick me up. I have a car and I can come to you.” A lie, of course, but I didn’t want her to see me in the seedy hotel I had rented by the week until I could find an apartment. Not that she would care, but I had a little pride.
“That would be fabulous, darling. We’re at the Carlton Downtown Grand Junction. They have a marvelous restaurant here. I thought we could have some dinner and then an evening swim in the hotel pool. It’s such a gorgeous night. So don’t forget to bring your suit.”
I hadn’t even said I’d go yet. But hey, a girl had to eat. Since I was no longer getting free food at the Steel ranch, I’d much rather eat at a five-star restaurant than have a fast-food burger, which had been my plan. “All right, I’ll meet you at your hotel. What time?”
“How about six o’clock? That will give us time for some cocktails before dinner. I’m just dying to hear all about what you’re up to.”
She didn’t fool me for a minute. If she had any interest in what I’d been up to, she would’ve asked before now. I wasn’t sure what Brooke had up her sleeve, but it wasn’t any grand desire to see her long-lost daughter.
“Sure, Mother. That sounds great. I’ll see you at the Carlton at six.”
“Perfect, darling.” She made a kiss noise into the phone.
And I nearly threw up.
“Ta-ta. I’m so excited for you to meet Nico. Until then.”
I ended the call and flopped down in my bed. Just what I didn’t need. Whoever this Nico was, he would be footing the bill this evening. My mother’s second husband had drained her coffers dry with some investment scam. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to get money out of me. Not that I would give her any even if I had it.
But dinner with Queen Brooke would at least keep my mind off Talon. It was inevitable. Brooke would talk about herself all evening, I wouldn’t get a word in edgewise, and I wouldn’t have time to think about Talon.
Turned out, I was wrong. As Brooke droned on and on at dinner about this new opportunity and that new opportunity, I tuned her out quite easily, and Talon crept into my mind. I tried to erase him. Truly I did. But I could no longer hide from the truth.
I loved him.
I was in love with Talon Steel. All six-feet-three inches of screwed-up man. I didn’t delude myself into thinking he could ever love me back. He had too much baggage. I only wished I knew what it was so I could help him. But did he even want my help? He’d made it pretty clear he didn’t.
Jonah’s voice still haunted me. Don’t go snooping. It’s none of your business anyway, and you might not like what you find.
There was a riddle in those words, and also a warning. I could go digging myself, but where would I start? And here was the irony—had I stayed at my job with Larry at the city attorney’s office, I would’ve been an investigator. I would’ve had all his investigative tools at my disposal. I could’ve learned a lot in that job, whether or not I respected my boss.
But I’d had to leave. I couldn’t take any more of Talon and his drama. It had nearly destroyed me.
How could I have fallen in love with him?
“Don’t you think so, Jade?”
I jerked my head up, forced out of my thoughts. My mother had spoken to me, but I had no idea what she’d said.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I was just saying that if Nico plays his cards right, within a few years he could be a candidate for president.”
I looked over at my mother’s new love interest. Nico Kostas was a good-looking man. A dark Mediterranean type, he had black hair, olive skin, dark-brown eyes, rugged features, and a stocky, muscular build. He was graying at his temples and had laugh lines around his eyes. I guessed him to be in his early fifties.
He had been perfectly polite to me all evening, and he treated my mother like a queen. But something was off about him. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about him rattled my nerves a little, made my skin crawl.
“I don’t pretend to know much about politics,” I said. “But I wish you the best of luck if those are your aspirations.”
Nico smiled. “Oh, I think every politician dreams at one time or another of
getting to the White House. But right now, I’ll settle for just being one of the two senators from Iowa.”
I nodded. Maybe that was the weird vibe that I was getting from him. Merely that he was a politician. So many of them were crooked. No…something else wasn’t right, and even though there was no love lost between my mother and me, I didn’t really want him near her.
I let out a sigh. None of this made sense. I took a sip of my merlot, which Nico had ordered. It was boring and a little sour. I had learned so much from Ryan at the winery. I could’ve chosen a better wine.
My mother picked at her striped bass, leaving most of it on her plate and scraping all the creamy sauce to the side. Still a supermodel, still afraid to eat.
I, of course, had cleaned my plate of my chicken piccata.
No doubt about it, my mother was a gorgeous woman. She was taller than I easily by three inches and probably weighed about twenty pounds less. Of course, she had no boobs. Mine had come from my father’s side.
She hung on Nico’s every word, never letting an opportunity to touch him pass by.
The waiter came and cleared the table, asked if we wanted dessert.
“Oh, heavens, no,” Brooke said. “I absolutely couldn’t swallow another bite.”
She hadn’t swallowed too many bites yet anyway.
“Just coffee for me,” I said.
“Excellent idea, Jade,” Nico said. “Make that three coffees, please. And I’ll have a Courvoisier also.”
“What a wonderful idea, Nico,” Brooke bubbled. “Make that two on the cognac. Jade?”
I shook my head.
When the waiter had left, Nico said, “This will give our stomachs a chance to settle before we go on our evening swim.”
Yes, the evening swim. I’d skip that.
But when the time came, Brooke would hear nothing of it.
“Of course, darling, you must come along. Nico looks amazing in his Speedo.”
Oh, God. Just what I didn’t need—to get a good look at my mother’s boyfriend’s package.
But what the hell? The fleabag I was staying at didn’t have a pool, and even if it did, I wouldn’t set foot in it for fear of contracting some kind of disease.