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Come to Me
Book Three in the Owned Series
Copyright © 2016 by Mary Catherine Gebhard
A Trendlettrs Publication
Salt Lake City, UT
www.MaryGebhard.com
All Rights Reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Eric,
This series is for you.
I’m so glad you’re not fiction.
Title Page
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Two
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Acknowledgements
Books by Mary Catherine Gebhard
TWO MONTHS BEFORE
“I’m done, Vic! I’m done!” she’d screamed.
Now, twenty-four hours later, I sat across from the devil, saying the exact same thing.
“You don’t get to choose to be done, Vic.” I frowned at Alice’s response, but it wasn’t unexpected.
“The last assignment I did almost cost me my family.” I touched the spot on my head where porcelain fragments had scraped over the skin.
You could say it hadn't been a very happy reunion. The minute I’d returned home from the mission, Lenny had thrown a dish across the room where it shattered against the wall mere inches from my skull. Small pieces of the plate scraped over my skin, leaving a crisscross pattern like a brand on my flesh.
In her defense, I had told her I was done.
Then I'd disappeared for a week.
I don't know what I'd been thinking.
That’s not true; I was thinking she wouldn’t notice. I wasn’t accustomed to people noticing my absences, much less caring.
Alice took a slow sip of her red wine. “You don’t get families either, Vic.”
“Do whatever you have to do, I’m done.” I stood up, my chair grinding against the wood floor.
“Really,” Alice said, her demeanor unchanged. “You’re prepared to be burned?”
I shrugged at her obvious threat. Once you started working for GEM, to get out you were either burned or blacklisted. I used to think being burned was the worst thing that could happen. When you’re burned, no one will touch you. They basically destroy your person, putting your name on no-fly lists and sex offender registries—not to mention you’re excommunicated by the wetwork community. Once upon a time I thought a life where no company would touch me would be hell. I only knew blood and bullets, and to live without that was unimaginable.
Now…I touched my forehead, the blood scabbing over. Now I knew there was more to life than blood.
“Yeah.” I shrugged at Alice. “Burn me, I don’t care.”
“You’re prepared to be blacklisted?” She ran her finger around the edge of her glass, a small smirk playing on her lips.
I laughed at her bluff. “You don’t care enough to blacklist me.” I nearly said she didn’t have the power, either, but stopped. Bending over, I placed my hands on the wooden table covered in scratchy linen. A single tea light separated her glare, nearly burned to the wick.
I should have realized then there were things about Alice I didn’t know. Alice was a far cry from the woman I’d married all those years ago; then again, I was also changed. Transmuted. We’d come a long way, and if she wanted to ruin my life, she would.
Burn me, fine. I had enough money saved up that I didn’t need to worry about work, civilian or otherwise.
Blacklist me… I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life fending off hired mercenaries. I had more important things to worry about, like fending off Lenny’s wrath. Lenny and I had built our foundation on sand and the tide was finally coming in.
I smacked the table as I stood up, causing the candle to fall over. It was just hot wax now so it only caused a small stain on the linen. For a moment I paused, wondering if I would have preferred the fire, even if that meant I would have been caught in it. At least then Alice would be dead.
“Would you bet your life on that?” Alice’s voice drifted over my shoulder as I left the small restaurant. My fingers rested on the wooden doorway, her words twisting in my gut. Would I bet my life she wouldn’t blacklist me? That she would leave her petty vendetta alone?
I think I just had.
“I’m fucking done, Vic.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to sigh at her words. If I had a nickel for every time I’d heard Lenny say that, well…me and Mr. Gates would be smiling at each other on the Forbes list. I’d stopped counting when it became a weekly thing.
At first it hurt, having her threaten to leave me. Now it just was. I had to admit there’d been improvements, though, because now she mostly threatened while we were at the therapist.
Yeah.
A therapist. If the guys from GEM could see me now. No longer crouched on a rooftop avoiding bullets, trying to get the best intel, but here. In an office. Talking about my feelings instead of ignoring them to finish a job. But that’s not who I was any more. I don’t work for GEM, so those thoughts were irrelevant. I shouldn’t have even been thinking that…
“Do you see?” Lenny gestured to me. “He’s not even paying attention.” I sighed, tying my hair in a knot. The doc had said I needed to work on my “outward cues” or some shit. Apparently I gave off a vibe that I didn’t care.
I cared.
Obviously I cared.
I was in fucking couple’s therapy.
“You say that every week,” I finally said. It was the fifth week Lenny and I had been in counseling. We’d started going a few months after my sister, Grace, showed up. I hadn’t handled her arrival with much…well…grace. I’d left without a word to do an assignment for GEM, and that had put a thorn in my relationship with Lenny.
Another thorn to add to a fucking briar
patch, if we were being honest; it was therapy after all.
If you were to look at a guy like me, though, you would probably have suggested therapy years before Lenny. I didn’t come from warm and fuzzy and as I aged, I never found even the smallest blanket. Still, the reality of the situation was, as long as I kept ties with GEM, my emotions had to stay locked tight.
You can’t exactly go on a mission and then talk about how it made you feel.
But we were in the present now, and without GEM I didn’t need to keep those pesky little emotions on lock all the time. When I came back from that catalytic mission, Lenny was ready to leave me. It took a hell of a lot of begging to get her to stay. What really kept her, though, was me promising to break ties with GEM. Still, thorns remained in our relationship. Years of lies and deliberate miscommunication made it nearly impossible to just start clean. So, this was how we were trying to clean up.
With fucking therapy.
“Well this week I mean it,” Lenny said, shooting me a glare.
“Sure you do,” I replied, not even trying to mask my irritation. Boys who cry wolf and all that shit. Lenny had cried “done” more times than I could count.
“Do you hear him?” Lenny waved her hands at me while talking to the therapist. “Do you see how disrespectful he is?”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do? You’re threatening to break up with me.” Irritation was giving way to frustration and frustration would break into all-out anger. It was the vicious cycle Lenny and I always spun. “Which, by the way, you promised to stop doing.”
“Did you know he still hasn’t divorced his wife?” she said to the therapist, ignoring me.
“That isn’t true.” Leaning back into the couch, I waved a finger at her. “The divorce was finalized this week.” I was sure Lenny was looking at me, but I refused to match her gaze. I kept my own out the window, wondering if we were paying for the therapist or the view.
“Well why did it take so long?” Lenny asked. I nearly groaned at her question. She knew why it had taken so long, knew Alice had refused to sign the papers. I could have told her the lengths to which Alice was willing to go, but that would open up doors I would rather keep closed.
“You’re deflecting, Lenny.” I pulled out my own mirror, shining the sun back at her. “You’ve been off your meds for months and you’re looking for anything else to talk about besides that.” It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you’re into metaphors and shit. When I discovered that Lenny was off her meds, I all but forced her into therapy. She said she wouldn’t go, not unless I went. So there we were, sitting on a too-plush couch, paying out of our nose for some parasite in a pantsuit to give us her opinion.
“I hear a lot of anger and resentment,” the therapist finally said.
“No fucking shit,” I spat. It was no secret I hated our therapist. I thought she was an overpaid, glorified listener. I didn’t think that about all therapists, just ours. She didn’t do anything save sit in her comfy chair, adjust her glasses, and occasionally hum and haw.
That wasn’t therapy; that was laziness. It took everything but a bulldozer to get Lenny here, though, so we were stuck with Dr. Doodles-On-Her-Notepad.
“And what is that?” Lenny asked. “You said you’d come to couple’s counseling and you don’t even try.” She turned to me, glowering.
“Oh, I’m trying Lenny.” I turned to her, teeth gritted. When our eyes locked, the tension was palpable. Her blue eyes, dark like the ocean at night, refused to capitulate. She’d been angry with me even before Grace. She resented me for hiding Alice. She resented me for my job. She resented damn near everything about me.
But we couldn’t talk about those things. Not just because I couldn’t talk about my line of work in therapy, but because our goddamn therapist said talking about the past was bad. So, we had to pretend the pile of regrets that had mounted like a heap of garbage in our life didn’t stink. We had to pretend our resentments didn’t exist when in fact, they were so large it was nearly smothering.
“I have homework for you both.” The therapist spoke again and Lenny broke her eye contact.
“What homework?” we asked at the same time.
“Have dinner together.” I nearly clapped my hands together in sarcasm. Bravo, doc. Dinner? We did that every night. “But don’t mention your problems. Don’t talk about Lennox’s mental illness, and don’t talk about Vic’s past transgressions. Eat dinner, talk about the weather or what book you’re reading. Just enjoy each other’s presence.”
I frowned. Lenny shifted uncomfortably. We let the weight of her homework settle, but neither of us said a word. When the time was up, she reminded us that our sessions were going to be postponed because she had to visit her family.
“It will be a month or two. I won’t know how much help they need until I get there. You have the number of the therapist I recommended?” We both nodded. We had the number, but we both knew we wouldn’t be meeting with her recommendation. We would let our relationship slip through the cracks, just as we had before.
On the drive home, Lenny kept her gaze outside. Dusk had settled a tawny burnt color across the sky and black night was seeping down from the heavens. It was winter, which didn’t mean much in California except the days were shorter.
“It’s difficult to talk to a therapist when 99% of our issues can’t be discussed, you know that Lenny,” I said, trying to spark a conversation between us. Lenny scoffed, keeping her eyes trained on the moving picture outside.
“You’re upset with my job, and we can’t discuss that with a therapist,” I pressed. The therapist said not to press things. She said when Lenny wasn’t in the mood to talk, I had to let her be silent.
We’ve already established I couldn’t give a fuck about our therapist, right?
“The world doesn’t stop and spin around you, Vic,” Lenny spat. I looked up at the darkening horizon, trying to settle the fire Lenny’s attitude stoked.
“I can’t keep doing this, Lennox,” I said. “Either get on meds or I’m done.”
“Okay, bye.” Before I could think, Lennox opened the car door and started to climb out. Wind whipped inside, pulling at my clothes and tugging at my hair. The gale was like an ear against a seashell. I swerved on the road, reaching out to grab her and pull her back in.
“What the fuck was that?” I yelled, pulling the car over.
“You said you were done.” Lennox shot daggers with her eyes. “I’m done too!”
“What is wrong with you?” I yelled. In response, Lenny ripped open the car door and slammed it in my face. I followed furiously after her. She jumped over the guard-rail and started descending the hillside.
“Nothing a little lithium can’t fix, right?” Lennox called out, her voice mixing with the whooshing of the highway. “Or Lamictal, or Depakote, or Neurontin, or Topamax, or why don’t we just skip the middleman and lobotomize me?”
“Lennox stop!” She was going to fall if she kept up at this pace. My feet slipped in the sand as I tried to catch her. She kept going, not even bothering to turn around. Wind caught her auburn hair, thrashing it up and swirling it around.
“It’s so easy for you to say ‘go on meds!’” Lennox jumped over a rock and started to run. “Do you know what the side effects of those drugs are? Tremors. Memory loss. Nausea. Vomiting. Diarrhea. Fatigue. Pain. Fever. Oh, here’s a fun one: death!” By the time I caught up to Lenny she’d already reached the ocean. She stopped short of the water, the tide nipping at our toes.
“And that’s not even…” Lenny bent over, catching her breath before standing up and facing me. “You know, some days, I would prefer death.”
“I know.” I reached out to touch her shoulder.
“No you don’t know!” She snapped away from me. “You have no clue. You think I’m suicidal because that’s what crazy people are: they’re suicidal. You don’t realize that the very drugs you want me on make me suicidal. I don’t want to die. I want to be normal. I want t
o stand in the sun and feel the rays and actually enjoy it. I don’t want to wonder why there’s a pit in my stomach that keeps expanding. I just want to feel…feel something real.”
Reaching down, she traced a small picture in the sand. The ocean washed it away before I could see what it was. “I love you Vic.” She turned up to me and tears were in her eyes. “I love you so much it hurts. But maybe it isn’t supposed to hurt.”
Silence settled, which for anyone else might have meant it was over. Lenny wasn’t anyone else. Lenny was a storm. Silence before a storm meant chaos and ruination. I stared at her as she looked out over the ocean and waited, preparing myself, battening down the hatches of my mind.
“Do you think I want to be like this?” She shot me a glare. “Do you think I like hurting the people I love? Have you even researched bipolar disorder?”
I opened my mouth to respond but then shut up. I hadn’t. I hadn’t done any research.
“What do you think the symptoms of bipolar disorder are?” She pressed, her mouth forming into a disapproving line.
I folded my arms. “That’s a loaded question.”
“It’s not.” Lenny sighed and sat down on the sand. After a few moments she said, “I promise I won’t get mad. I just want to know what you think it means to be bipolar.” Putting my hands in my pockets, I stared out at the ocean. We both were looking at the same thing, but I knew we saw something different. The sun had long since set and the only way to tell the difference between the water and the sky was the moon. It was all inky blackness. When I looked back to Lenny, she was staring at me, waiting for my answer. “You get mad and happy really easily, like there are two sides to you.” Lenny looked away from me and back to the ocean, tears in her eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what most people think, and it’s pretty fucking incorrect.” I shrugged, not sure what to say. “There are times when I don’t even know what I’m feeling. When I feel like an alien trying to live among humans. When the only way I know what I’m feeling is wrong is by the way people react to me. When every step and move I make feels like being in one of those fucking temples from Indiana Jones. I don’t do this on purpose. I don’t start arguments because it’s fun. I don’t hurt people because I like it. I just genuinely don’t understand.”
Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Page 1