by Hazel Parker
And so really, that was it. If Burke was here, I was the only person who would find him. The staff wouldn’t help.
“OK, thanks,” I said, walking away slowly.
But if he knew I was here, which he was too good not to, he’d know how to hide—or how to come to me.
I sighed. This was the bed I’d made for myself. Now, it was time to lie on it.
“Guess I should have listened to myself when I told myself to move on,” I said quietly to myself.
I began the long trek home, keeping to myself, the warmth of the air now feeling like a sweat-inducing, sticky, gross feeling. It was funny how, just by shifting the context of the walk, things felt much different than they had on the walk over.
The nighttime wasn’t a quiet chance to walk and collect my thoughts. It was a void in which dark things entered; robberies, kidnappings, rapes, all sorts of ugliness I didn’t want to think about.
Burke’s absence wasn’t a chance to prove myself as a future single mother. It was a tragedy that my kids would only know him from a distance, like a faraway uncle or aunt that got seen only when life allowed it.
I was a stubborn idiot who had pushed away potentially a great opportunity.
I’d definitely brought this on myself, but I’d done so not realizing the weight of it all. I had no choice but to accept the consequences, but boy, there were times when I wished the consequences weren’t so damn heavy.
I swung my head around.
There was nothing but some pedestrians, an elderly man and a woman a little younger than me, walking about thirty feet behind me.
But there was something that felt very off about the moment. I felt like I was being followed. And not in the “surprise!” good way that Burke following me would imply.
I moved my hands out of my pockets and closer to my chest, ready to strike if need be. There was no one still.
The thing about being followed, though, was that as soon as you felt like you were being followed, that feeling did not go away until you were safe in your apartment—and even then, there was a window where you couldn’t help but worry that someone might have jumped into the room to try and do something to you.
Hopefully, it was all just in my head. Burke was maybe the one following me, if anyone, and when I woke up tomorrow, I’d realize the swarm of activity in my mind was just fucking me over.
Hopefully.
I kept looking back, never seeing anyone aside from the old man and the woman. At one point, the younger girl looked at me in confusion and with something starting to approach a scowl, but by that point, I could see my apartment. I didn’t have many friends there, but at least I saw familiar faces and people who knew me, if someone tried something, they’d see it and call 9-1-1.
It was all for nothing, however, as I got to the lobby doors untouched. I let my shoulders sag, the muscles holding them up on the verge of tensing and twitching. I headed to the elevator doors, got on with two guys in their early thirties, and nodded.
The two looked like they wanted to say something to me, but neither said a word as they got off five floors below me. Alone, the elevator took me up to my floor, and I walked with my head down to my place. I unlocked it, opened it, and stepped inside.
I kicked my shoes off and headed for the kitchen. I went to flick a switch on in the closet when…
The closet light was already on.
Rough hands grabbed me from behind. One went over my mouth. The other grabbed my waist and squeezed tight.
“Now, now, you be a good girl and stay quiet for me,” a rough, thick voice said.
I couldn’t even see who my intruder was. It sure as fuck wasn’t Burke. What the fuck?
I screamed, but I couldn’t get anything past this man’s hand. It didn’t just cover my mouth, it made breathing difficult.
“The quieter you are, the quicker this will go,” he said, leading me to my room.
No, no, no, no, this couldn’t fucking happen. I opened my mouth just slightly, got as much of my teeth apart as I could, and bit down, at the same time trying to deliver a punch to his groin.
“Stupid bitch!” he yelled, briefly giving me space.
I tried to duck under him, but he grabbed me quickly and slammed me into the wall. Dazed, I felt myself being lifted and carried to the bed. I tried to move, but there were so many stars…so much confusion…my world kept spinning…
By the time I collected myself, I was tied to the bed. My feet were painfully bound to the respective posts of the bed, my hands were tied over my head, and my mouth was covered with duct tape. Before me stood a man with long blonde hair, a tattoo of what looked like an enormous python coiling up his arm, and the most wicked glare I’d ever seen.
“What are you doing?” I said.
In reality, it probably just sounded like muffled noises. I tried to shake my feet and my hands free, but whatever this man had done, he was too good. If anything, I was going to lose circulation.
“My name is Snake,” he said. “And your boyfriend has been an absolute fucking nightmare on my back for far too long.”
Boyfriend?
Burke?
What the hell—
Oh no. He warned me. He fucking warned me…
“Your kidnapping me?” I said.
Snake tossed his head back and laughed. It was the most horrible, cruel, malevolent laugh I had ever heard.
“Kidnap?” he said. “No, honey, we’ve tried that a couple of times already. As fun as that game is, playtime is over with the DOM boys. No, I’m going to enjoy you, and then I’m going to kill you very slowly and very horribly so that they know what will happen to the rest of them.”
Panic hit my chest. I had to fight back. I had to!
I screamed as loudly as I could. I feared it didn’t even make a sound. Snake hardly seemed concerned at all, laughing as he took off his shirt to reveal more ugly, terrible tattoos. He was a fucking sicko—he didn’t just want to do this to me, he relished it. It was like there was no place he’d rather be.
“I’ve never fucked a pregnant lady,” he said. “It’s too bad I’ll only get to do this once before I have to kill you.”
Burke, where the hell are you! Burke, please, please, please!
I wriggled and squirmed and did everything I could to try and make Snake think twice about taking me. If I was going to die, I at least wanted to make it as difficult for him as possible. After Snake got his shirt off and stared at me, he pulled out a knife and held it to my thigh.
“I have this over an artery right now and could end everything for you in a very painful fashion,” he said. “Or you can shut the fuck up and let me fuck you, and then you’ll get a bullet through your skull, with the rest designed to look like it happened before. Your choice.”
I slowed down. I wasn’t done fighting, but I had to play the part.
“Smart girl,” Snake said, putting the knife on a nearby dresser. “I guess you’re not as fucking stupid as—”
The door swung open.
“What the fuck?”
Chapter 22: Burke
From the minute Emily had entered the hotel, I’d followed her the whole way back.
When she entered, all she’d had to do was scan the environment a full 360 degrees and she would have seen me. Alas, she did not have the training I did to check her surroundings.
When she left, I continued to follow her. It was too easy, never once did I do anything to draw any attention to myself. She looked back a couple of times, but it looked like any woman being semi-aware of her surroundings.
But why didn’t I go up to her and say anything? She’d clearly come looking for me. She was clearly interested in talking to me. So why hadn’t I?
Because, as fucking bizarre and strange as it was to say, I was scared.
Yes, I would not say it a second time, and it was fucking strange to say, but it was true. That was how I felt. To realize the possibility of something serious could still be there, to realize I could still be invol
ved with Emily, to know that I could be a part of my kids’ future…
I followed her the whole way back to her apartment. I almost decided to just give her the space to be. But with Snake being anywhere nearby, something told me I needed to go a little bit further.
And so, using the same elusive techniques that had worked before, I made my way up to her apartment and got to the front door.
“I guess you’re not as fucking stupid—”
Snake.
All thought went out the window as nothing more than instinct took over. It didn’t matter that my body was still suffering from the gunshot wound from before. Emily’s life was in danger. If she’s not already fucking dead.
I grabbed the door handle and rammed the door open. Not in the living room. The bedroom.
I sprinted, following Snake’s voice, the “what the fuck” that he yelled in shock.
I paused only to take in what I saw as soon as I entered the room. The fucking bastard was shirtless, standing over a tied-up Emily.
“Ah, Burke, your cheating girlfriend—”
I didn’t give him more than a fucking second and a half to speak. He was going to fucking die for everything that he’d done to DOM!
I tackled him to the ground, seething in pain as everything in my chest and shoulder seemed to catch fire. The tackle at least hurt Snake, though, because he cursed loudly, likely because his back had slammed into something hard behind him. I lined up a punch and hit him square in the jaw, but the victory was short-lived.
He bumped me off of him and into the bed, delivering a knee to the gut that, though not very powerful, stunned me just long enough that Snake got up and delivered another punch to the head. I rolled away, still trying to collect my bearings. Snake stood just inches above me, but I drove everything I had into his ankle, awkwardly knocking him down.
I hurried over and mounted him, dropping a sharp elbow into his groin. Stunning him enough, I clocked him in the face, drawing blood and leaving him temporarily immobile.
Using the chance, I stood up, found Emily—still clothed, thankfully—and undid one of her foot restraints. I then moved forward and got her hands undone about halfway before Snake yanked my legs out from underneath me.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I roared to Emily before turning my attention back to Snake.
We rolled and tussled on the ground. Only one of us was going to get out of this mess alive, and that wasn’t some dramatic statement. It was a simple truth—we both hated the other too much to let them live.
At one point, I thought I had the upper hand when I got a hold of Snake’s head and slammed him into the bedpost. He looked dazed and wobbled, and the side of his hair had blood all over it. But Snake was a motherfucker, a tough asshole that didn’t go down merely because he’d had his bell rung. He grabbed me and did the same to me.
Finally, I stood up and backed away. Emily had already left, thank God. I could die at this point, I didn’t care. Really, I hoped that she was calling the police, anything to trap Snake in. I’d gladly get arrested and face consequences for crimes I didn’t commit if it also meant that Snake wound up in jail.
But at the rate our fight was going, whoever did get arrested was likely going to jail for murder.
Snake delivered a wicked hook punch that left me reeling, but it actually almost served as a blessing in disguise. When I turned, I saw a knife on a cabinet. How neither of us had gone for it yet was a mystery to me, but I sure as hell didn’t care.
I grabbed it and plunged it straight into Snake’s side.
“You…motherfucker…”
I twisted it, and he winced in pain, collapsing to the ground. I let him fall and stood over him, taking a moment of triumph.
“That…that actually hurt,” he said, sounding like he was down to his dying breath.
Good. For all the shit this bastard had done to hurt the world, he deserved to suffer some before he died. He needed to feel some of what he’d done to all the girls and families he’d destroyed.
“I’m glad you can die knowing you did something to me!”
He reached out and swept my feet underneath me, and then, in the most surreal thing I had ever fucking seen in my life, Snake pulled the knife out of his side and brandished it over me. The man had no fucking right to be standing on his own feet after that, let alone even alive, but he was a fucking monster. That was the only goddamn explanation for this moment.
I kicked him, but he seemed to have regained some superhuman strength. He swung the knife at me and barely missed. I wouldn’t have time to get off the ground, not without either getting extremely lucky or extremely cut up.
He had me backed into a corner. I wouldn’t fucking die like this, not trapped in a corner.
“Pathetic,” he said. “At least now I’ll get the rest of you assholes out in the open and make short—”
Glass shattered over his head, making him stumble forward. I saw an opportunity. I got up, ignoring any pain in my body, and broke his wrist, removing the knife from him. I bent down as he still howled in pain, grabbed the knife, and slammed it through his fucking neck.
He looked at me wide-eyed, brought his hands up, and then had his legs give out. He looked up at me like he wanted to say something, but the knife stopped the words in his throat. It was just as well. An asshole like this didn’t deserve a chance to say one more evil word.
And finally, with one last wicked smirk on his face, as if a taunt to the world as he left, Snake died.
DOM had finally done it.
We’d fucking killed one of the most notorious international criminals, the mastermind behind a shitload of horrifying kidnappings, rapes, and God knew what else.
DOM had accomplished its biggest mission yet.
And it…it had fucking taken Emily returning with what looked like a glass vase and smashing it over the head of Snake to stun him long enough for me to get the upper hand.
“Holy fuck,” I said breathlessly.
I looked at Emily. She was never going to forget this scene. For better or worse, you didn’t forget witnessing someone die with a knife through their throat.
But at least she could recall such a scene in peace. She’d never have to fucking worry about Snake ever again. No one would ever have to fucking worry about Snake again.
“You OK?”
She nodded. She actually looked much more composed than I would have assumed. I guessed I’d underestimated her some. She had, after all, dealt with Sean and she wasn’t a rookie at this sort of shit.
“You?” she said.
I grimaced and nodded.
“I appreciate you coming in. I thought you’d run away.”
“I almost did,” she admitted. “But I wanted to stick around in case you needed help. I had one hand on the door handle, though.”
“Sorry about your place,” I said. “I know it’s going to take some cleaning up.”
“What the hell are we going to do about him?” she said, pointing to Snake’s corpse on the ground.
His eyes still open, his lips curled up in a smile, it looked like one of those unsettling sculptures from the Middle Ages. I wanted to change his face, but I also didn’t want to fucking touch him. He was as good as gone by now, but the very idea of touching Snake like that just seemed so…wrong.
“I’ll take care of the body,” I said.
“How?”
I shrugged.
“It’s not my first rodeo Emily.”
Body disposal was one of those things that was best left done and not said. But suffice to say, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to dispose of a body. Edgar Allen Poe had taught me a thing or two, it turned out.
“I’m going to need your bathroom for a bit,” I said. “I’ll take care of shit. You do whatever you need to do. I’ll come back after I take everything out.”
By the time I had taken care of Snake’s body I just wanted to collapse and sleep for the next year. And it wasn’t because I lacked sleep from the last few d
ays, but from years and years of dealing with this motherfucker. Snake was the monster under our beds that we could never quite kill.
Oh, we’d come close before. Scott and Liam, when they’d rescued Kaylie, had apparently had a decent shot. In the past, before this whole venturing to kill him shit went down, we’d all had him in our scopes before other priorities took over.
But never before had we done it. He always eluded our grasp, laughing and taunting us with each task. It became a weight we could not shed.
But no more.
He was gone.
I got to my car, stuffed him in my trunk, and figured I’d take care of the rest later. For now, I had someone to get back to.
I found myself able to move more freely, more calmly, as I made haste back to Emily’s place. I again eluded her security—even with Snake gone, I told myself we’d need to get a better-guarded location—and went up to her room. I knocked so she wouldn’t be surprised and let myself in when I heard her voice.
I came into her room. She’d actually done well in cleaning up. It was messy, and I could see signs that something violent had happened, but it didn’t look like a crime scene anymore. It just looked…regular messy.
I stood in the door frame, let out a long sigh, and gave a small smile. It was the least I could do after killing Snake.
“Can we talk?”
Chapter 23: Emily
For someone so frazzled and so disheveled, Burke looked damn handsome.
I’d decided while he took care of Snake that while I would probably eventually have to see my therapist for all the shit I’d gone through, for at least tonight, I would only feel relief it was over and figure out whatever I needed to with Burke. Suffice to say, he’d shown me that he wanted me around and cared about where we went.
I had no idea what was to be said, but the man had quite literally saved my life twice now, and on top of that, he’d saved my dignity before things got ugly and scarring. I could have lived with my life if I’d been raped, but Burke had thankfully prevented anything worse than an abduction and binding from happening.