by Riley Moreno
“Sir, in my mind, that makes you more of a monster that I ever hoped to have to encounter. If I could see the needle pushing to your arm, I would be a happy woman. But…”
Greg’s face started to fill with hope, but Warner lurched over the bench and sneered.
“But the only thing in my power is to see that you are locked up for a long time. And I hope that every other inmate knows who you are and what you are.”
Slamming her gavel to the wood, Warner moved around her robes and stepped away from the bench. Julie watched her mother wind her arms around his neck, kissing him for what might be the last time, and Julie felt sick to her stomach. Flying away from Ethan’s side, she found a cracked window and a small pocket of air. Gulping it down quickly, she started at the feel of hands on her back. Expecting Ethan, she turned quickly.
But there was only Kim.
“Are you okay?” Julie asked.
“Been better,” she said. “House is kind of lonely without Mom.”
Touching her hollowed cheek, Julie started to hold her when she suddenly pushed back and just took hold of her hands.
“Kim… why… you know that wasn’t how it went down?”
“Wasn’t it?” Kim challenged. “I was there a hell of a lot more longer than you.”
Right on cue, Ethan appeared, and he pulled Julie back to his chest as Kim spoke.
“And Greg isn’t the only one at fault,” Kim said. “Just the man on the hot seat right now.”
Brian was at Kim’s back and insisting that they leave when she turned her head over her shoulder and smiled sadly.
“One day… one day everyone will pay, Jules,” she said. “And together, we’ll see total justice.”
They slipped way, and Julie’s knees buckled as Ethan kissed her cheeks.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“Of course I am. But… but they had to see…”
“Not anymore,” Ethan insisted. “Not now.”
He covered her up with his arms and his coat, and she fell into his chest as he cradled the back of her head and whispered into her ear.
“Now you’re safe,” he promised. “You’re free.”
She strained to kiss his lips when Ethan muttered under his breath.
“Can’t say the same thing about Kim.”
He glanced in the direction of her departure, and despite the ring on her finger, Julie wondered if he was looking to Kim as someone else he might be able to save.
“You want to go after her?” Julie asked.
“Go after…”
“Maybe she needs you now,” Julie muttered. “You always said that you would have saved her if you had the chance.”
Ethan’s eyes grew wide, and Julie started to push away from him when he pulled her close and lowered his lips to hers.
“I would have,” he confessed. “But you’re the only one that I want to take home.”
13
“Come on, Connie. Come back to bed.”
Morales stood naked before his window and let the draft wash over her body. Looking back, she saw Leo with his arm outstretched as he beckoned her back to the sheets. Sighing through her skin, Morales stepped back to the bed and slipped to his side. Leo held her tight, his lips trailing down her neck, and Morales breathed into his chest as she ran her fingers down his limbs.
“You must be feeling pretty proud of yourself,” she muttered.
“It was a good day,” Leo chirped as he curled her closer. “Feels good to nail a least one of them.”
And there it was. Despite Kimberly Beyer’s version of events, Morales couldn’t help but feel that a lion’s share of the blame lay at the feet of the men that had done the raping and the torture. And Troxel and McCord were free, probably munching on filet mignon as their wives sat at their side. If Kim was truly in earnest, she would have wanted their heads on silver platters along with Greg Heller’s.
“I want them all to pay,” Morales murmured as she turned her back to Leo’s taut chest.
“Connie…”
Leo kissed her hard and held her tight. Savoring the taste of his lips, she backed away with a whine and ran her fingers through his hair.
“But this is what we have to go on now,” he said. “And Greg Heller will never see the light of day again.”
“Sort of feel like he deserves far worse,” Connie said. “Like much worse.”
Leo strained up against the edge of the bed. Cradling her body in his arms, he kissed her brow and met her eyes when she failed to fall into him again.
“I did my best,” he whispered. “Just too many twists and turns when it came to this case.”
“So are you beaten?” Morales teased as she danced her fingers across his cheek.
“I would hope that you knew me better than that, Connie.”
Nodding into his neck, she accepted his arms and trailed her hand down his broad chest. His heart still thudded under his skin, and Morales rested her head to his neck as her eyelids fluttered shut.
“I know you,” she said. “And I think that life without parole lacks the ring that you want most.”
Leo pulled away from her with a sharp groan and turned to his side. Morales was quick to bring her arms around his back and pull him close as he pounded the pillow with his fist.
“Better to see them all fry,” he confessed.
“What happened to old school Leo?” she asked. “Don’t you always say that the modern ways are too merciful?”
“So you do listen to me? Guess that’s something.”
Crushing her lips to his in a quick kiss, Leo’s tongue swirled around hers, and Morales only backed away when she needed air. Holding his face, she rested her free hand to his heaving chest and searched her mind for the retired forms of torture most worthy.
“String them up by their unfeeling necks until their lungs burst for air,” Morales said. “That’s what you’d like.”
“And you understand.”
He kissed her quickly and turned her body to her back. Hovering over her, Morales let his lips run up and down her sides, and when their mouths met again, Leo paused and stroked her cheek.
“But of course, we can’t do that,” he sadly.
“Why not, Leo?”
“It’s this pesky little thing called the civilized world. Always get in the way of everything.”
Morales nodded her head and strained forward to meet his kiss, his lips warm and soft against hers. Better to forget and wait to fight another day. His hands moved down her legs, and Morales curled her limbs around his waist when she took hold of his chin and licked her lips.
“Might be nice to find a way around all that,” she said. “Didn’t you one say that you’d break any man that tried to touch me?”
Leo couldn’t deny his own words, but he still hung his head and laughed in strangled tones as he fell to his back and played with her hair.
“Just wanted you to know how much you mean to me,” he said. “But I’d… I mean… if that ever came to pass, I’d have to play by the rules.”
Unable to meet his eyes, Morales nodded and nibbled her nails.
“Of course you would,” she said. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
“Only one?” he teased. “And here I thought I was offering you endless---”
“Stop talking, Leo. We just made up.”
Kissing him hard and fast, Morales curled her fingers around his back, and she felt the thrum of his heart pushing through her fingers as she met his eyes and stretched her fingers down his cheek.
“Just tell me that they will pay,” Morales asked.
“Connie, you saw the sentence. You---”
“I mean the rest of them,” she said. “All of them. It’s what they need now.”
Leo smiled and winded his fingers through her hair.
“I’ll do what I can, Connie.”
“What does that mean?”
Leaning over him, she saw the defeat in his eyes, and Morales started to turn away when he grabbed her a
rm and pulled her back to his side.
“Don’t hate me if I can’t make it work,” he started.
“So they will walk,” Morales said with a sad sigh.
“Maybe. Maybe not. It’ll take some doing. Can’t put Ethan Graff on the stand.”
“Even with Kim to confirm the story?” she asked. “Might make the whole thing play better.”
“No,” he said as he shook his head slowly. “He just had to go and fall in love with the girl. That poisons the well at the fucking source.”
It shouldn’t, but Leo was right. What man in his right mind would want damaged goods at his side for all time?
“He’s still a good guy” Morales said as she kissed his cheek and felt him slipping inside her.
“Tell that to the court,” Leo said. “Tell it to Kim.”
She only wanted to tell it to him, and her lips were nearly at his ears when Leo grabbed her face and twisted his head from side to side.
“Tell me that you still trust me,” he said. “I’m working with what I have here.”
Morales started to speak when she simply sighed. His body started to curl under and around her, and she moved to meet him.
“Don’t be dumb,” she muttered into his skin. “Of course I trust you.”
“Really?” he asked as he pulled away with a quick wink. “Sometimes I’m not so sure. Like maybe you think you could do a better job before the judge and the jury.”
“Well that goes without saying,” Morales teased as she tweaked his nose and ran her finger down his cheek. “I’d mop you under the rug if I had the chance.”
“Now that would be something to see,” Leo said. “You and me. Sparring from opposite sides of the table. Have a feeling that I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Just a feeling?” she asked. “Leo, you can be sure of it.”
Drawing her back to his lips, Leo kissed her quickly even as he stayed on his back. Taking his unspoken cue for everything that it was worth, Morales slid her knees against his thighs and felt her flesh encasing his body as she grabbed his hands and pushed his palms over his head. As he started to pulse inside her, she met his thrusts beat for beat and added a few sudden twirls to keep him surprised. When he started to mirror her movements, his body quick to anticipate her stops and starts, she bent down and brought her teeth to the nape of the neck. Leo’s body seemed to quiver under her sweet assault, but when she bit down harder, her started up and grabbed a hunk of her fallen hair.
“Why so rough, Connie?” he asked.
“Don’t you like it?” she challenged. “Don’t you… don’t you like knowing that it can be like this if the flesh is willing?”
Leo left her and pulled the sheet around his body as he stared at her hard.
“Stop that,” he said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked as he let the sheet fall and moved to pour himself a drink. Admiring the contours of his ass as he drank quickly, Morales crawled to the edge of the bed and sat up on her hands and knees as she licked her lips.
“So maybe they won’t lock me up and throw away the key,” she spat. “To hear you tell it, not happening to Troxel or McCord either.”
“Connie, I’m trying to---”
“But not hard enough. And Julie has to be okay with that. Same goes for me, right? So let’s just drink up and call it a day.”
Taking the glass from his hand, she downed what was left of his brandy. Passing the empty glass to him in the hope of a second helping, Leo gingerly peeled the glass from her fingers and slowly shook his head.
“You know I’m on your page,” he insisted. “But Kim muddied the waters, and---”
“Then go back to Ethan,” Morales said. “He saw it all. I mean… I mean can’t you just do this for them?”
“Connie, it doesn’t work that way. You of all people know that much. Why… why are you fighting me so hard on this?”
Even as her body stiffened, Morales let him take her into his arms, and she relaxed in his hold.
“Of course it doesn’t,” she said. “Would be much too easy.”
Nodding sadly, Leo dragged her back to the bed and settled her body against the sheets. His lips were light and gentle as they raced up he legs, and when his kiss drew close to her neck, Morales started forward and absorbed his bite before their eyes locked again.
“And it would be better” he muttered. “But we have to go by the book. Connie…”
Leo moaned into her hair as his hands traveled down her back. Squirming for all of a second, Morales moved into his embrace and clenched her limbs around his thighs. By the book. Therein laid the problem. But it wasn’t like she was going to act on her impulse and strike the men down in broad daylight. That was suicide; that was something that she felt sure that she wouldn’t attempt. Even Leo couldn’t spin such an act in the right direction, and Morales started to push away when he pressed his fingers under her chin.
“But I… I can bite you if it’s what’s you’re really down for.”
Needing to know, desperate to understand what the girls had endured and thankful that she could solve the riddle in safe space of Leo’s arms, Morales nodded and beckoned the man and his teeth to come closer.
“Make like a vampire, Leo,” she said. “Take the bad away and make it all right.”
His firmness invaded her soft flesh again, and Morales started to writhe around him when her mind started to drift to ways to make them pay. Maybe it was wrong, but vengeance was still the order of the day, always at the forefront of her mine, and she met his eyes and forced a smiled.
“Feels good to send Greg Heller into the thick of it, no?” she asked.
“Whatever happens to him behind those bars is fine by me.”
Leo tried to kiss her again when she drew back and clutched his cheeks.
“Still all a little convenient, no?” she asked.
“Connie, can we please just let it---?”
“That she came home now,” Morales continued. “She could speak a blue streak, and we’d send the others down the same river. So they could suffer.”
Turning to his side with a great groan, Leo pressed his hands behind his head and stared hard at the ceiling.
“Maybe she doesn’t blame them,” he reasoned. “After all, they were the ones that got her out.”
“You really buy that?” she asked as leaned over his chest and tousled his hair.
“I… no,” he started. “I… I can only hope that they slip up again so we make it right some other day.”
Kim deserved better than that. So did Julie. But when the man was right, he was dead on. For now, the matter was sealed, and even the next trial of the little shit and his convenient father-in-law, when it inevitably came to pass, was bound to be a circus sideshow that only appeased the public so that the men could go free and return home without the benefit of surveillance to their desperate wives. Like Leo, she hated losing a battle, and Morales tensed as she fell back into his arms.
“Let’s not think about it tonight,” he murmured. “Can we… can we just let it go for a little while?”
His lips beckoned her closer, and Morales managed a nod as she wrapped her arms around his neck and strained forward for his kiss.
“Guess a little while isn’t going to change anything.”
14
“Juliet?”
Somehow she had slept, and for that she was grateful. Juliet woke slowly, and she smiled at the sight of Ethan hovering over her with a steaming cup of coffee and a fresh rose.
“You’re been talking to Danielle again,” she murmured.
“Perks of having someone on the inside,” he said with a grin. “I’d like to keep you in fresh flowers every morning.”
Juliet’s fingers curled around the stem, and she sniffed the petals, drinking in the perfume before she met his eyes again and craned closer to his lips.
“I’ll just take you,” she said. “Can you just take me?”
“Juliet…”
<
br /> Her kiss was soft as she ran the flower down his back. Her arms tightened as she trailed the flower down his sides, and when his fingers surrounded her wrist, she peered up into his eyes and blinked fast.
“Talk with me,” she murmured.
Ethan smiled as he settled against to her side, and he slowed his speech as he curled close to her breasts, the rose still pressing between their bodies as she reached for his face and made him meet her eyes.
“I… I keep thinking about what Kim said.”
“Juliet, don’t---”
“Don’t you think about it, too?” she asked. “Maybe… maybe my father was always after her.”
“And you, too,” he said. Ethan kissed her quickly and caressed her hair. She seemed ready to savor his touch when she suddenly pulled back and sat up straight.
“But she paid the price,” Juliet said. “And now… now I have you.”
“Always, Juliet.”
Her kiss was warm, and Juliet wrapped her arms around his neck as she snuggled nearer to his body. As her hands travelled down his face, Ethan groaned.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Just the thought of having to go to work,” he said as he stroked her hair. “I’d much rather stay here with you.”
She traced the line of his parted lips with her small finger. All she had to do was say the word, and he’d make up some brilliant excuse to put his bosses off for one more day.
But instead, she shook her head.
“Can’t do that,” she reasoned. “You need to start saving up your time.”
“For what?” he asked.
“Did you already forget?”
Flashing the ring before his eyes, Ethan took hold of her hand and softly kissed her wrist.
“We only need one day to tie the knot,” he teased.
“What about after that? I mean, aren’t you planning on taking me somewhere special?”
“Hmmm… hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But maybe one night in a hotel…”
Ethan let his voice trail off as a stunned expression crossed her scarred face. Daring to hold her in suspense for a few seconds longer, he finally released a light laugh, and she playfully punched his shoulder.
“Don’t be mean, Ethan. Unless you don’t really want to---”