by Robyn Nyx
“When you’ve moved the money across and the deal’s done, I want you to get Dawkes over there straight away. I want the refurbishment started as soon as possible.” Therese pushed in harder. “Do you understand?”
Nat struggled for breath. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Nat’s hand grasped at Therese’s wrist as if to stop her, but Therese just jammed her fingers in brutally. Casheen was oblivious. She’d fallen back, and her fingernails clawed at the deck as Therese thrust into her, her body arched with the flexibility of a Cirque du Soleil contortionist. Therese’s hand pushed down on her perfectly flat stomach. Therese pushed harder inside Nat, and she released her wrist. “Yes, what?”
Nat exhaled deeply. There was no choice here.
“Yes, I understand.”
Satisfied, Therese continued to fuck both women, intrigued to see if she could get both to come at the same time. Nat wrapped her fingers in Therese’s hair. Therese synchronized the rhythm of her hips and hand and concentrated purely on how she felt inside them. It was during sex when she felt at her most tumultuous, as beautifully chaotic as she felt when she was killing or mutilating someone. Violence and sex were her two favorite pastimes.
She quickened her pace in response to the increasing volume of their moans. Nat’s other hand had snaked its way to Therese’s breasts, and she teased her nipple in the way she knew would help her orgasm. That, combined with the cock base pressing on her clit, was driving her straight there. Nat was pushing her luck, trying to get Therese to come before they did, and she knew it. It was a question of control, which one of them had the strength of will to hold their release. Therese never lost this game, and she fucked her even harder. Nat surrendered, and she eased up, still grasping her breast but no longer competing for supremacy.
Casheen pulled back up to ride Therese’s cock hard and deep. She slid her hand down Nat’s jeans and squeezed her ass. Nat clutched a handful of Casheen’s long hair and kissed her, sucked and bit her tongue. She tried to pull away, but Nat held her there. Therese could see what she was doing, fucking her mouth, angry at her intrusion, but she allowed it. Casheen cried out as she came again, and Nat quickly followed, howling her orgasm like a banshee. Therese seized Nat by the hair and yanked her to her mouth. She held on to her own orgasm a few necessary moments longer to illustrate her consummate control, before she bucked wildly and moaned into Nat’s mouth. She closed her eyes and focused on the aftershock pulsating through her body, pushing Casheen off her cock, pulling her fingers from Nat, and releasing Casheen’s hands.
“You can go now.”
Casheen looked wounded and wanting, but she gathered her clothes from the deck and was gone in seconds. Nat had already straightened herself out when Therese addressed her. “Have you heard anything from Reed?”
“I passed your message on. He knows what’s at stake.”
Her response was curt, and Therese bristled. “Don’t give me attitude, Natasha. Even you’re not irreplaceable.”
Nat held her stare for a moment before she averted her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just…you know I don’t—”
“I don’t have the time or patience for your jealousies. You know that. Don’t bring that bullshit to me. How close is he to identifying who the second package went to?”
“He says he had to back off for a little while. His supervisor was asking questions. Apparently, the package has had a little world tour, but he thinks it ended up in L.A. He’s pretty certain he’ll know with who by the end of the week.”
“I don’t need this, not when I’m so close to setting up the U.S. clinic.”
“We’ll sort it, Therese. I promise.”
Therese sneered. “Don’t make promises your talents may not be able to cash. It could be bad for your health.” She looked down at her cock and the cum Cash had left all over it. “Right now, you can use your talents to clean me up. On your knees.”
Nat frowned, humiliated, but she knew better than to keep challenging her. She knelt down between Therese’s legs and opened her mouth, gingerly taking the big cock down her throat.
Therese watched as she meticulously polished her cock with her spit. “Damn, girl, you’re a good cocksucker. Taking you off the streets was one of the best moves I ever made.”
Nat looked up. Her eyes watered as she fought her gag reflex. Therese could feel her love. She just had no use for it.
Chapter Nine
When she left Elodie in the restaurant, Madison drove to the LAPD to chat with one of her contacts, Ash, in the hope that he’d be able to shed some light on Gillian Johnson. Best-case scenario was that she’d been arrested and was locked away somewhere. Unfortunately, she couldn’t dismiss the very real possibility that Gillian had been discovered putting together the information Madison had asked for.
Madison waited by the roach coach outside the station, and it hadn’t taken long before she gave in and bought a tempting veggie burrito. She’d wanted to stay for lunch with Elodie both to spend more time with her and to satisfy her growling stomach. He emerged from the building as she swallowed the last bite.
“Thanks for taking some time for me, Ash. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Madison.”
Madison smiled, glad that she had at least one remaining friendly face inside the LAPD. The exposé she’d written on the misogyny rife in the department several years ago still meant she wasn’t welcome inside the building. “Is it good news or bad?” She pointed at the manila folder he was holding.
“We should sit. Let me grab something to eat.” He pointed to the dribble of green hot sauce that had escaped the confines of her tortilla. “I can see you’ve already eaten.”
As Madison went to the nearest table, she avoided the blatant glares of the other officers and concentrated on the takeout coffee cup as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. She hated confrontation. She knew her words invited it. When challenging prejudices and fast-held beliefs, that was unavoidable, but she tried hard not to engage with the aftermath. Madison had way too much aggressive history in her family to cope with it in her adult life. The moment someone raised their voice, her stomach dropped, and her entire body became tense. She’d prepared herself for battle so many times as a child that her capacity for it now was long diminished.
Ash dropped his folder onto the metal table, and she jumped a little.
“Nervous much? Too many bullets whizzed past your head in Afghanistan?” He shoved a taco into his mouth as he sat.
“If only they’d just gone past my head.” Madison smiled and automatically reached under her tank strap to the spot just below her collarbone where the bullet had entered her body. It was barely half an inch above her body armor. “So should I be worried about Gillian Johnson or not?”
Ash tapped his finger on the folder. “Take a look. I’m figuring you’re still not squeamish.”
Madison took a deep breath. It was too late to fear the worst. Ash’s flair for the dramatic simply confirmed her fears. She flipped open the folder and was faced with a close-up of a charred face. Flicking through the rest of the photographs simply provided more detail of two bodies, burned beyond recognition. She assumed one was Gillian.
“Who’s the other body?”
“Her mom.”
Madison raised her eyebrows questioningly, hoping for Ash to expand, but instead he leaned in closer. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin and closed the folder.
“What’s your interest in this one, Mads?”
“She contacted me two weeks ago before I left for the Russian assignment. She said she was involved with one of the largest organ trafficking organizations in the country, and she wanted to provide me with information to close them down.”
“An attack of conscience, eh?”
“Maybe. I asked her to get me some concrete evidence, details of those involved, photos, recent organ transactions, that kind of thing, and we agreed to meet yesterday. She didn’t show. Now I know why.”
Ash
tilted his head slightly. “You can’t blame yourself for this. Johnson was a bad woman, and she didn’t get out clean like she’d hoped.”
I think I can safely blame myself. “I know that. The cliché about dying by the sword couldn’t be more appropriate.” The particularly graphic shot of Gillian’s mother and her wide-open throat pushed into her head. “Although I don’t know what her mom was doing there. Is there any evidence to suggest she was involved somehow?”
“No, she didn’t have to have anything to do with it. These people, these gangs, if you cross them, they take out your whole family. There’s no mercy.”
“Do you have any leads on who she was working for?”
“Nothing solid, and certainly nothing we can act on. Now that you’ve said she was going to whistle-blow on an organ trafficking racket, it could be the gang we’re calling the Hunters. They’re pretty prolific, and their leader is particularly vicious. The details are sketchy, but there’s a rumor that their leader is a woman, and she likes to skin people alive. It wouldn’t be a stretch to connect her with this. I don’t know that I believe it, though. I think it’s just smoke and mirrors to keep us off the scent.”
Madison had already been hoping the Johnson lead would be her next big assignment, but with the added possibility that this gang could be led by a woman, it made the story even more appealing. She could see the front cover of Time magazine already. No doubt there’d be some notional comparison to Aileen Wuornos, still America’s most notorious female serial killer after over twenty years. There was something about the double standard of how female murderers were treated compared to their male counterparts that irritated Madison. As if all women were supposed to be sensitive, compassionate, and incapable of such rage and aggression. And despite Ash’s insistence that she wasn’t to blame for Johnson’s death, it was added motivation to investigate and bring the gang down.
“I’ve seen that look before, Madison. Surely you can’t investigate this cold?”
“It wouldn’t be cold.” She smiled and tapped the folder on the table. “I’ve got you.” Madison was hopeful her confident tone was convincing enough to make Ash see that he absolutely had to help her and feed her any and all information on this gang.
He shook his head. “I don’t know about that. You’re not exactly a favorite around this place.” He glanced sideways toward some of his colleagues who’d been staring and blatantly gossiping about her throughout their conversation.
“We’d be helping each other out, Ash. If I could find out who this mysterious gang leader was and bring you enough evidence to take them down, we’d both win.” She could see him contemplating the enticing potential of putting an end to the “Hunters.”
“You’d need to be careful, and more so than you usually are. I don’t want to be pulling your charred corpse from your car.”
Madison shook her head. “I’m not green, Ash. I don’t take unnecessary risks. You might need to keep it quiet, though. Johnson mentioned they had connections in the FBI, and it’s not like the LAPD has the best reputation when it comes to corruption.”
He mock-punched Madison on the shoulder. “Hey, some of my best friends are corrupt officers.”
Ash sounded like he was joking, but Madison felt the darker undertone beneath his words.
“Lucky for me, you’re one of the good guys.”
He leaned in a little closer and said quietly, “Some days it feels like there’s not many of us left.”
“Hang in there, Ash. The last thing this place needs is to lose great cops like you.”
He smiled and nodded slowly. “Thanks, Mads. That means a lot coming from you. How is your dad?”
Madison’s jaw tightened at the mention of her father, the decorated LAPD officer who was a legend here. He’d said her exposé was like a betrayal, but it was from him that she first learned the meaning of misogyny and how it could manifest.
“He’s fine. Enjoying retirement in Florida like a regular cliché.” She had no idea how he really was. In truth, she hadn’t spoken to him for over a decade. He’d apologized for what he put her through as a child, using the age old excuses of “that’s all I knew” and “that’s how I was brought up too,” but they didn’t ring true, so she chose to distance herself from a past that impacted far more on her present than she wished it would.
“Next time you speak to him, tell him I said hi. We could do with a few more of his kind around here.”
“Of course.” Absolutely no way. She picked up her iPhone, flipped open Ash’s folder again, and began to take photos. “Where did this happen?”
“It was in the back of the old garment factory in the South Figueroa Corridor. It was reclaimed by the city for development plans a while back, so it was empty. The perfect place for a sadistic barbecue.”
She made a note of the location on her phone.
“If you have to go out there, don’t go alone.”
“It can’t be that bad in the middle of the day, surely?” She pushed her phone into her bag, desperate to get going.
He shook his head, clearly frustrated. He’d known Madison a long time, and she thought he knew her better. She followed her leads wherever she needed to, and a dangerous neighborhood wasn’t going to stop her. And besides, she was already engrossed with the possibilities of the investigation. She thought of the 2014 Pulitzer for Explanatory Journalism finalist and his exposé on a Mexican drug cartel—something like this did have the potential to win her a second accolade. And maybe prove the first one wasn’t just due to Geva’s involvement, another thing her therapist wanted her to recognize.
She pushed her chair back and stood. “Thanks, Ash. If you come across anything that might be useful, give me a call.”
“I will. Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t know anywhere near enough about this gang as I’d like.”
“Even more reason for me to follow it through.”
Chapter Ten
“What do you want?” Elodie read the scripted line and looked across the table to Brad for his response.
“Is it done?” His Russian accent needed some work.
“Yes.” Elodie looked away.
“You did it precisely as instructed, yes?”
She was supposed to have murdered his rival after luring him to bed with another woman for a torrid threesome. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought. “Yes.”
“How did he take it?”
“Why?”
“Do not answer a question with another, Elya. Answer me, how did he take it?”
Elodie smirked. “Like any other man. Pitiful and weak.”
Brad shook his head. “Do not push me, Elya. You are not indispensable either, yes?”
Elodie smiled and made her contempt obvious. “That is what I am counting on.”
“You are still very useful to me. Do not wish for a quick ending to all of this.” Brad’s laugh had a believably cruel edge.
Elodie sighed and shook her head slowly, drawing on the emotional strain of the forced separation of mother and daughter. “I am no longer capable of wishing. I stopped wishing years ago when it became clear to me your word means nothing.”
“And that’s where I slap you,” Brad dropped his accent and motioned to strike Elodie. “You may not think anything of your own life, but do not forget the life I hold in my other hand.”
Al Fox jumped up from his seat and smacked his hand across the shoulder of his assistant director. “That was gold, people, absolute gold. I hope you extras are all watching this master class in magic.”
Elodie smiled. “You flatter us, Al.”
“Let him. Some of us need that kind of attention to get our best work.” Brad laughed. “Are you sure you want me to slap you for real? That’ll be weird. I’ve never hit anyone before.”
“What can I say? I like realism in a movie.”
“I hope your last film didn’t have too much realism in it.” Lela Darvis, the actress playing Kiana, had been sitting beside Brad, but s
he got up and rested her ass on the table, close enough for Elodie to smell her perfume.
Elodie shook her head in disdain. “What do you think?”
“I hope you had a body double.” Lela winked at Brad as he and Al walked away to attack the craft services table.
“Did you watch it?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you really think I need a body double?” Elodie always resented any implication she wasn’t in good enough shape to show whatever was needed on set.
“I didn’t say you needed a body double. I’m just hoping it was.”
“Well, did you watch it?”
“Yeah, I watched it. Everyone’s watched it. You had to if you wanted to be part of any conversation once it was released. It was all anyone was talking about.”
“So do you think I used a body double?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a while. I didn’t memorize your every contour.” Lela smiled seductively. “But I think it was you.”
Elodie winked and smirked. “It was me. If my name’s on a movie, it’s all me in the film.” Elodie was indignant and a little annoyed, but she played along and didn’t show it.
“Relax, I was only kidding.”
Elodie knew Lela was trying to placate her, and she found that even more irritating.
“I read your interview with Madison Ford. You’re really putting your heart and soul into that work.”
Elodie was glad of the change of subject, and the mention of Madison’s name made her smile. She was bummed Madison hadn’t stayed for lunch, and she’d spent the rest of the day berating herself for the “I’m already looking forward to it” line. It was too cheesy, and Elodie didn’t want Madison to think she was coming on to her. Not that she wouldn’t if Madison seemed open to it, but there was something closed off about her that made Elodie think that wasn’t an option.