“Oh…”
Dante couldn’t find any other words. Surely Daltrey would have come to him, shared this threat, if it had indeed existed prior to the shooting? They were brothers! How had they ended up so disparate?
“If that’s it? I really have to wrap up here and get home. I haven’t slept in twenty-six hours. Daltrey was just the tip of the iceberg mate. All these killings, that’s London for you. Sorry.”
Kitchen hung up and Dante roamed his apartment, trying to find evidence of how his flat got clean again. Finding nothing, he surmised that perhaps his mother had been here to sort things out.
Anyway that didn’t matter.
Even though it was late, he didn’t feel tired. Suddenly he was energised. He began making coffee and planned to spend all night trying to think of something – anything – which might shed light on his brother’s murder. If it wasn’t anything to do with Shay, then who was it to do with? No way did Shay have the powers to order a hired kill. She was the sort of passionate person who’d surely do the deed herself if indeed she had enough beef with Daltrey to warrant killing him. She’d barely spent five minutes in his brother’s company so that ruled her out.
He desperately tried to put the events of earlier out of his mind but thoughts of her naked and beautiful, panting as he marked her, came back to him. Even in grief, the thrill she’d gifted him through her submission had eventually worn him down and made him hard.
But it was tough, because she couldn’t be trusted. Nobody could.
He opened his laptop and searched the internet for some illegal software with which he could hack into people’s email accounts. He wanted to hack Kitchen and see if there was any more information the fastidiously square policeman had neglected to mention to Dante.
Then he’d hack his brother and Shay, in fact everyone they knew, and he’d find out what had really happened to Daltrey.
Nine
Five Years Later…
DANTE HAD SPENT THE PAST five years building his self-made world, no idea what he was doing with himself, only that he had to find Daltrey’s killer. He owed it to his brother to find out the truth. The hacking had progressed to working with other hackers and when he’d become defeated after realising the killer really hadn’t left any evidence behind, he decided there were other cases out there to solve. There were other people who needed justice, people he could perhaps provide justice for. Maybe something would turn up eventually and maybe then, he’d be in a position to nail Daltrey’s killer.
Dante still had Pernox and the annuity from that, but he barely went near the place. He didn’t trust himself and besides, he didn’t want a woman in his life. He didn’t have time for it. So he hunted through dominatrix clubs, looking for women who reminded him of Shay, but weren’t her. Shay – the woman who could have potentially been an instigator or an influence in Daltrey’s murder. He hadn’t ruled that out, but having spent time with her – and given she liked pain inflicted on her more than anything – he couldn’t see why she’d take pleasure in killing someone. Besides, he didn’t think she had the money to order the sort of clean kill someone had put out on Daltrey – so clean not even a speck of evidence got left behind. Or maybe she had money he didn’t know about… he really wasn’t sure.
In the immediate weeks after Daltrey’s death, his father Dick had become ill and depressed. Collette had gone abroad to a clinic for alcohol dependency and his parents had decided (via lawyers) to divorce. This gave Dante an idea…
Seeing how vulnerable and depressed his father was, he wondered if Dick couldn’t be persuaded into selling up. Dick had always talked about eventually living abroad.
With the £500,000 in his bank account that Daltrey had left him, plus with a number of prudent investments under his belt that he’d made with his inheritance from Barlow, Dante was able to offer Dick a chance to be bought out of the family business if he wanted to be. Using the spa as a guarantee when he went to the bank for a loan, Dante had enough to buy not only Import Clothes but also a shiny pile of new equipment for his growing scavenger business. Some of his fellow hackers had started calling him the fixer, because often someone came to him with a problem (or a person) to sort out, and Dante sorted it, no questions asked. He relished helping people who couldn’t help themselves, even thought he was doing good work. He’d seen first-hand how good, innocent people got hurt and he wanted to do what was right for those people with problems.
After Dick snapped Dante’s arm off and sold Import Clothes to him, he heard his father moved out to Nevada to start spending what he’d earned from the sale of Import Clothes in casinos, on prostitutes, and in bars. Dante couldn’t have cared less. He now had a dummy operation to cover up what he was really doing. Profits from fixing were ever growing and he didn’t want people to become suspicious of how he was earning obscene amounts of cash, given he didn’t have a real job.
His old school friend Gillian was in marketing but he trusted her and knew she could run his company, in his stead, no questions asked. Anything else she wanted, was fine. He agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend if it meant Import Clothes ran smoothly and gave him a healthy annual profit, which it did. More than healthy. Gillian knew what she was doing and Dante paid her back with expensive holidays, the use of his houses and the use of his skills in keeping her sordid affair with the family gardener a secret. If her family found out she’d been sleeping with him since she was fourteen, lord only knew what would happen…
HAVING got bored of all the high-end dominatrix clubs, where it had all become so fucking sanitised, Dante had taken to sniffing out clubs more off the beaten track – clubs that stayed open a couple of months and moved to another house, because they were also dealing in drugs. These clubs however were the sorts where real women worked – women not scared of real conversations or sharing intimate details. It was conversation he required more than anything. Granted, the pain his dommes administered took his mind elsewhere, for a time, but he was lonely and all the relationships he held with women in his life were kept professional. He just needed somebody he didn’t have to be professional with.
He’d been working through all the girls at Miss Lindy’s when he had almost given up hope of finding a woman to actually talk to; a woman who wasn’t on script and would banter – and could hold a debate. Dante missed the debates he and Shay used to have – missed them so much.
He knocked on the door of his last hope but wasn’t expecting a girl in school uniform.
“Come in,” she said, in a strong Irish accent.
God, this is going to be another disaster, I may as well go now.
He shuffled in, feeling tired, already defeated and dejected. His life was a waiting room and in it, everyone flitted in and out, but never stayed long enough to know he was deeply lonely and scared. The world terrified him.
He flung his coat over the dressing-table chair and sat on the bed, head in his hands.
She shut the door and he glanced at the vile surroundings. Cheap, nasty and badly put together. This was a nightmare.
“I’m Cleo,” she said, but he didn’t care about her name, pretty sure it wasn’t her real name anyway. No Irish parents he knew would call their kid that. A cat, maybe. Not a little girl.
Because this was a little girl.
“Call me Saint Clair.”
“All the words? Or just Saint? I’ve always been partial to a bit of Val Kilmer.”
God, she seemed pathetic. Really, how old was she? Was she even of age? She could have been thirteen for all he knew.
“Saint Clair,” he repeated, annoyed.
Names didn’t matter to him, only gaining the nullity he required. What had Shay gained from being spanked? It still puzzled him. The adrenalin and hormone release, the body’s natural painkillers – sure, all that was good for him too – but what had Shay really got from him? He didn’t, nor couldn’t, understand how a woman could have loved to be spanked so hard. He felt shame for it everyday of his life. He felt pain, mostly
. A pain he refused to submit or admit to. A pain he couldn’t face. He’d not just mourned Daltrey, he’d mourned her too. No matter what he said to anyone, he’d mourned hard and in the quiet of his own house, he’d cried for his brother several times. Cried for the children Daltrey would never hold. Cried for the wife he’d never love – and cried for all the children’s lives he’d never get to save now he was gone. He’d cried a lot but crying never helped. Only pain, helped. The kind of physical pain that blocked out everything else, so that his mind became so focused on the pain, everything else floated away.
Somehow he knew this Cleo girl wasn’t going to deliver him any real pain. She barely looked strong enough to thump him, let alone spank the life out of him.
“Trixy told me you like pain but it’s not something I really do for my guys,” she said.
Quelle surprise. I should go… now.
“Perhaps you could be the naughty teacher, watching through the gap in the door of the girl’s toilets as I do my make-up?”
A consolation prize? Worth a try, I suppose…
He nodded briefly and she motioned behind the Chinese curtain at the back of the room. He stood and unfolded it, then got behind the wooden drape. Through the slight slits, he perved on Cleo. As she did her make-up, her shirt rose and flashed him a good look at some incredible, pronounced dimples in her lower back.
As she began applying make-up more thoroughly however, he got a really good look at her face for the first time. She was so beautiful, probably the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. How didn’t he see this when he walked in? He’d been blind, that’s why!
Such delicate features and smooth skin. Big green eyes, set prettily into her face. Black hair, ebony, plaited into pigtails. His eyes fell on her mouth and he got instantly hard thinking of her lips around his cock.
It was lust at first sight.
She glanced his way and he tried to hide the fact he had only really been looking at her face, surely the prettiest part of her. She took to painting on more make-up, something she didn’t need. Without a patch of colour staining her flawless skin, she was an enthralling sight with beauty he’d never seen before…
Having lost his ability to reach arousal years ago, the fact he was hard now was astonishing. Sure he often woke in the night with his cock stuck to his boxers, a wet dream having made him come, but conscious arousal had eluded him for quite some time. He knew he shouldn’t waste this one-time thing.
He tried to slide his zip down without her hearing. It’d been literally years since he’d had a good wank. Looking at her had him actually lusting for the first time in years and years.
He was alive again.
She seemed to have finished her routine and asked, “How’s that, Mr Saint Clair?”
“Beautiful. If you’d just stay there…” He already had his hand wrapped around his cock and was pounding it, trying to be as quick as possible. He didn’t want to frighten the girl, but at the same time, she’d caused this… she’d made him hard.
Thankfully she waited patiently until he was done.
“Tissues!” he begged.
She passed him a pack of wipes. “These are all I have.”
He folded up the Chinese curtain angrily, his hands struggling with the rusty hinges. She tried to help but he flinched and cursed, “I can bloody do it.”
He didn’t want a woman near him. He couldn’t trust anyone, not a single person.
When he’d folded it away, he looked at Cleo and barked, “Is that it then?”
In retort, she slapped him really hard.
From the look in her eyes, she’d shocked herself too.
“Do the other side,” he barked, “so I’m even.”
She did as bade, a sign she might obey him in future.
He smiled. “I’ll be back again. Make sure you wear the same outfit.”
As long as she remained looking childlike, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to touch her.
He left the room and spoke with Miss Lindy outside.
“How bloody old is she?” he asked.
“Eighteen, why?”
“Looks a lot fucking younger is all.”
“That’s the point. Doh.” She dug her knuckle into her side, leaning her fat frame lopsidedly into the wall.
“What’s her real name?”
“What? We don’t give out that info.”
Sinclair took out a fifty pound note. “What’s her name?”
“Ciara,” she snapped, and snatched the money from his hand.
God she is so beautiful.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“You men always come back.”
Lovely, so lovely, he thought, although he had to remind himself she was still a girl.
She is too nice for you!
He walked away with a smile hurting his face that night, his facial muscles having forgotten what a smile even felt like.
IT wasn’t many weeks later that he offered Ciara a contract and a chance to escape Miss Lindy’s. He made her his charity case, convincing himself he was giving her a better life. In reality he was already in love with her and didn’t have a clue how to convey that. He didn’t trust anyone and the person he trusted least with her, was himself. The thought of anyone else hurting or touching Ciara drove him mad, to the point where no amount of punching and kicking at Krav Maga could eradicate the sinking, gut-wrenching worry inside him. When it came to her, he couldn’t control himself. Everything else in his life was easily controlled. His work. His staff. His driver. His chef. His homes. Everything. That was all easy. He had high-functioning anxiety which he was able to curb with his routines, his control and regimen. The job he did kept his brain busy enough to cover up the anxiety; to distract him from his dark thoughts. He could deal with lists and finances, any amount of work, any sort of job. That came easy to him. But love? Love was alien and frightening. The anxiety he felt at just the thought of her leaving him made him feel so severely sick sometimes, he couldn’t even work. He was so in love with her.
He loved her sharp tongue but most of all, he loved how caring and pure she was and never wanted to taint that. Ever.
She spanked him eventually, although she didn’t like doing it. He knew she was loath to deliver him pain, which he needed to take his mind off things. Sometimes the thought of her giving him pain was the only thing that got him through the day, knowing all his worries would be taken care of under her lash, if only for a little while. Didn’t she know she was his escape from past pain, long scabbed over, but never quite healed?
His life was so complicated, with the webs he’d woven around London’s political and social circles so intertwined, he couldn’t live a normal life which meant anyone remotely close to him couldn’t live normally either. Like DC Kitchen once said, “This is London. People get murdered everyday.”
Sinclair had to make sure Ciara never got hurt, not in the same way Daltrey had.
He didn’t know any other way to protect her, except to cage her in.
Never would he allow harm to come to her.
Not her.
Never.
Part Two: Present
Ten
June 2016
SHE PACED THE LIVING-ROOM FLOOR of our current abode in Knightsbridge, chewing her nails, a nasty habit I had told her off about numerous times. Now, I forgave her it. Whatever passed the time easier.
“We should go, take your money… and run,” she said, nodding, indignant.
“That’s not something we should do, but something we could do.”
The drapes in all the rooms we’d closed, the window locks we’d checked, the doors all double bolted.
Last night we’d jetted back home from Vegas and slept the moment we got indoors. We woke around noon but hours on, I still felt fidgety… and nervous.
Neither one of us had sat still all day, merely paced, and while she’d chewed her nails I’d pulled my hair. It was now eight o’clock at night and the air felt static
. A June night burning bright, I would have given anything for a smattering of rain to quench me.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she said.
“Neither do I. Listen, we have to go to the club at some point and make arrangements.”
Pulling one of her nails almost right off, she winced in pain when blood dribbled from her cuticle. “No. Please. I’m frightened. We should leave the country… not go back there.”
“We could.”
“Why not should? Please, tell me,” she yelled, hands in the air.
Walking to her, we stood in front of the unlit fireplace together. “Ciara, listen to me. She ran, remember? People don’t run unless they’re guilty. We stay put.”
Her eyes watered. “I still can’t believe it! How could she–”
“Yes, I know. Neither can I.”
Taking her by the shoulders, I directed her to the sofa and cuddled her in my arms.
“It had to have been her on the footage… and yet…”
“Maybe she had a partner,” I stumped up a theory, “we don’t know.”
“That could be the case. Teddy…”
“No,” I asserted.
“No?”
“No. I really don’t think so.”
“You didn’t think Shay was capable, either but look how that turned out. Tssk, trusting her was a big fucking mistake.”
“I still don’t what’s going on. Right now, we both know as much as one another, which is pretty much nothing. For the first time ever, there’s nothing you don’t know that I do, Ciara. We’re both equally in the dark, equally in shock. There’s so much we don’t know. I can’t just leave. This has been ten years of my life. This was–”
“Your brother… and the matter of his life.”
“Yes,” I sighed, “and now I have a duty to the clients that the person masquerading as me is trying to swindle.”
“I wish we could just go away, you know?” She wiped her forehead, sweating. Ciara never sweated. Ever. I too wished for a breeze. A cool whisper against my neck. From Vegas to here, and I didn’t know which was worse – the desert there or the humidity here.
The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2) Page 9