One New Message (A Dark Romance Novel)

by Vivian Ward

  Leaning into her personal space, my chest hovering only inches from her face, I let her inhale my cologne.

  “Gage Miller,” I extended my hand. “And you are?”

  Her cheeks flushed a nice shade of coral, and her lashes fluttered uncontrollably as she tried to hide her smile.

  “I, um, Danielle,” she shook my hand.

  “Danielle, huh?” I noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring. “Do you have plans tonight?”

  Her mouth fell open, and she dropped the folders she had been straightening. “Uh, yeah,” she tried to pick them all up.

  I knew she was lying, and she knew that I knew. “Really?” I bent down, helping her pick the folders up off the floor. On the way back up, I took a moment to check out her legs. It looked like she wore heels every day with the way her calves were nicely developed.

  “Mr. Miller?” a tall man, I’d guess in his late fifties came walking from the hallway that led behind the desk.

  “Yes,” I stood up and handed her the folders back.

  “I’m David Sanders,” he shook my hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling at Miss Bashful.

  “Come on back to my office. I was worried that you wouldn’t make it today when I looked at the flight schedule,” he carried on as we started making our way back to his office.

  Passing Danielle’s desk, I licked my lips as I eyed her up and down. I bet she’d be a good fuck; the prissy office types usually are. They’re all formal and business-like during the day, but at night, they’re fucking freaks in heat who can’t get enough.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Miller,” he pointed to the chair opposite of his as he sat behind his golden oak desk.

  “Call me Gage,” I took my seat.

  He didn’t seem the type that would need private security. His suit was neat, his hair near perfect, and I noticed a wedding band. He might have owned a multi-million-dollar company, but from the looks of it, it didn’t appear that he’d need someone like me to protect him.

  “Sorry, Gage.” Sitting across from me, an awkward smile spread across his face, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m new at this, and I’m looking to bring you on as private security because of my daughter, Bethany. My usual guy had to have back surgery, but when I saw your resume, I was impressed.”

  When I met him during that initial meeting, he looked more nervous than the woman at the front desk, but I can’t say that I blamed him.

  His daughter was into some real bad shit, and he wanted me to monitor it before things got out of hand. I would say that he was about four months too late for things getting out of hand.

  To help me out, he assigned a computer tech to me, Henry Wu. After sitting down with Henry, who was inevitably a pain in my ass, I figured out that she was doing a lot more than the old man had ever imagined.

  I didn’t like the thought of working with a computer guru; I’ve always been the hands-on type. Fuck sitting behind a keyboard. I prefer putting my hands on a man, not researching him. But she wasn’t in trouble; she was down right out of fucking control.

  Comparing her to the girls back home made me think about Anita. The thought of her even remotely doing something as stupid as Bethany pissed me off. I’d kick her ass myself if she ever got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

  Anita was a good girl; a good girl who I’d stripped of her virginity and fucked her real good every night before I sent her back home. She was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, and I hadn’t stopped thinking about her since I watched her sweet ass sway up the porch stairs of her house the last time I saw her.

  Just thinking about her perky tits and tight ass was making me hard but my blue jeans stifled my cock as it took on a mind of its own. Sure, I’d gone through plenty of chicks over the last two years since I left Tennessee, but they weren’t anything compared to Anita.

  They might have been the ones in my bed, but it was always her face that I imagined. Hell, I imagined her face even when it wasn’t on top of another woman’s body.

  I had thought about calling her a few times but thought different of it when I replayed my last night with her in my head. She was so pissed off when I dropped her off.

  Knowing her, she’d probably never want to see me again, and I wasn’t about to apologize. I had to leave when I did. I did nothing but get into trouble back home. It was always the same, drinking and bar fights; just me looking for my next crusade.

  When I found a job working private security on the Internet, I knew that I had to take it. The pay was amazing; it got me out of Millington, and it would give me a fresh lease on life. Nobody would know me as the town’s troublemaker, and it would give me a chance to start over.

  I was grateful that Shawn, Anita’s dad, had given me a job when I was home, but I didn’t want to work as a mechanic the rest of my life and nobody else was willing to give me a chance to turn over a new leaf.

  As for the boss’s daughter, Bethany had been hanging with men who smuggled more than a little dope; they still smuggled dope, but they also smuggled humans. She was about to enter a human sex trafficking ring and had no clue how far in over her head she was.

  When I told her old man about it, I thought he was going to keel over dead from a heart attack. The poor bastard couldn’t believe his spoiled little princess was that washed up.

  There was one problem, though: she was grown. Nineteen years old. There wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do or say to her. She had a free will to do whatever she pleased, and all I could do was babysit her ass and wait for her to land herself into some trouble that she couldn’t get herself out of. When I first arrived in California, she was mainly hanging out in private clubs and going to exclusive underground parties.

  Henry, my new sidekick, helped me track the guys that she had been hanging out with and conducted background checks on each one of them.

  There was one in particular that caught both of our eyes; his name was Brandon Shepherd, but he was known on the streets as Mask. They called him that because he was always hard to find and nobody knew much about his personal life.

  He was the ring leader behind everything, and he was like chasing a damned ghost. Not only did he cover his tracks, he could also appear and disappear without a trace, and with him calling the shots, we needed to stay one up on all of his moves or we’d get too far behind the eight ball and lose sight of what he was doing, and that’s exactly what happened—for a couple of months.

  That was how I ended up back home. Princess, as I had taken to calling her spoiled ass, had been missing and after tracking down a couple of the scumbags that worked for Mask, I learned that she was on her way to Tennessee. Mask was on his way to Florida, along with Bethany, to work out a deal.

  What that deal meant, I had no clue. The two dirtbags weren’t sure if it was a drug deal or a sex deal, or so they claimed which put me to work on them.

  Henry was with me when everything went down and stopped me when he swore I broke one of the guy’s jaws. He could never be the muscles behind any operation; he was too much of a goody-two-shoes.

  In my opinion, he was better off sticking to what he knew. He had expert knowledge in security systems and firewalls. There wasn’t a thing you could do online without him knowing about it—which was how we tracked our little group to a hole-in-the-wall hotel Memphis, just outside of the FedEx Forum.

  There were multiple charges on Mask’s credit card for strip clubs, restaurants, and titty bars. When we first got to Tennessee, we headed straight to Memphis, but they had already checked out of their hotel. I called in to let Mr. Sanders know the situation.

  “Can Henry tell where they went?”

  “Not yet. The activity on the card dried up after they checked out of the hotel but he’s working on finding out where they are.”

  I looked over at Henry, who nodded his head in confidence, confirming what I said.

  “Fine, good work. That sounds just like them; always cutting off accounts and using new ones t
o make their trails harder to find. They know what they’re doing, and that is what scares the hell out of me.”

  He was flustered, I could hear it in his voice, and I felt bad for the man. His doctor increased his meds quite a bit since I had met him and he was taking more heart meds now than ever before.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, sir. We’ve kept a close watch on her for nearly two years, and we’re not about to lose her now. I’ll let you know once we learn more,” I said, ending the call.

  Looking over at Henry, I could tell he didn’t like me lying to the boss. His eyes narrowed, and he crumpled his brows.

  “Why did you tell him that?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Say something that’ll give the old man a heart attack?”

  “You didn’t have to lie to him,” he stuffed his laptop back in its black case. “What are we going to say when he calls back tomorrow, and the next day?”

  “I’ll tell him that you’re behind the ball, and you’re coming up empty-handed,” I started driving toward Millington.

  “What the fuck? You can’t throw me under the bus like that?”

  I smiled at him as I looked over my shoulder to change lanes. “I can, and I will.” I punched the gas pedal to the floor, “I suggest you get on it or he’ll can your ass.”

  “This is wrong on so many levels.”

  “I know,” I laughed, checking my mirrors.

  “Where are we going anyway?”

  “Eh, I figured since we’re only about twenty miles from my hometown, we could crash there until we figure something out.”

  “You’re shitting me! You used to live around here?” he asked, gawking out the window.

  I cranked up the stereo until we exited the highway and pulled into a hotel parking lot. It felt like it had been ages since I’d been in Millington, but it still gave me the same vibe it always had.

  I didn’t feel welcome even though it had been almost two years since I had set foot in my hometown. Henry followed me inside where I saw a cute girl named Cheyenne working behind the counter.

  “Can I help you?” she eyed me up and down. I noticed that the tattoo on my forearm caught her eye.

  “Yeah, we need a room for two—separate beds—please.”

  She punched a few keys on the keyboard before her eyes scanned the screen. “We have a unit on the upper level that’s available.”

  “Whatever,” I waved her on.

  “How long?” she asked.

  “We’re not sure.”

  “No, I meant how long since you graduated?” she nodded at my tattoo.

  “A while,” I studied her.

  I should never have gotten our school mascot tattooed on my arm, but I was young and thought it was a good idea at the time.

  All it did was serve as a constant reminder as to how bad I’d fucked up since getting out of school. I never knew how bad I’d want to get away from Millington or how bad I never wanted to be associated with this town.

  Grinning at me, she slid a small envelope containing our room keys. “Here are your keys and all of the rooms here have microwaves and refrigerators. If you need anything else, just give the front desk a call,” she patted the phone on the counter beside her.

  “What’s our next move?” Henry asked as we tossed our bags onto the beds.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s grab some food for the room and then you can get on your computer to see what you can find out.”

  “That’s it?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  “What else do you want? Yeah, that’s it. You better start working your magic, or the boss is going to find a replacement, and maybe the next one won’t be a little Chinese guy.

  Maybe I’ll talk him into hiring some muscle, so I have a little help, or maybe a hottie with some legs and tits that I can sink my teeth into.”

  “Asians are cool, man. You’re never going to find anyone else who can sneak out of tiny bathroom windows to pull the car around when you’re getting your ass handed to you at the bar.”

  “True,” we high-fived.

  That was all before I ran into Anita at the store. I expected her to be happy to see me, or at least that was my initial thought. I assumed she’d be happy to see me.

  No, I wasn’t exactly planning on things picking up back up where they left off, but I hoped it would be someplace close.

  The way that she talked to me, though? It ripped my heart in half. Part of me wanted to throw her right over my shoulder, spank her ass and remind her of what she had been missing out on, but the other part of me wanted to tell her what a bitch she was being and get the hell away from her.

  As much as I wanted to do the latter, I couldn’t do it to her. My blood was boiling, and it felt like bleach was burning my insides. Before I said something to her that I would regret, I grabbed Henry and got the hell out of there.

  “What was that?” he asked, still turned around staring at Anita.

  I grabbed his shoulder and jostled him forward. “I’ll tell you later,” I growled.

  The crisp evening air burned my lungs as I inhaled a deep breath in the parking lot and rested my hands on my knees. Henry’s eyes were focused on me, trying to figure out what happened inside the store but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Not until after I had a few drinks.

  “Let’s get out of here and head to the bar.”

  I got in the car and left him leaning against the trunk when I fired up the engine. He hopped in the passenger seat as I threw the car into reverse and peeled out of the parking space, hurling us towards the closest bar.

  Reds were only a few blocks away, but I couldn’t get there fast enough. There wasn’t enough liquor in this shithole town to cover up the salty wound that she had torn open, but hopefully, the alcohol would sterilize it again—or at least make it numb for a while.

  Pulling up in front of the bar, I could tell that it wasn’t busy which was typical for a Tuesday night. I had changed, but not a damned thing in Millington had—not even Anita. She was the same girl I’d left behind.

  She had a point. I did leave her behind and walked out on her, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do—it was what I had to do. If I didn’t get out of this God-forsaken town, I was going to end up just like the rest of my family: a washed up loser who only knew a life behind bars. That’s not what I wanted; I wanted to be normal like everyone else, except I didn’t know how.

  The only way I knew how to be normal was by fighting and fucking. At least working a steady job doing private security had curbed my drinking habit, and I hadn’t touched a joint since I started working for Mr. Sanders. In a weird way, seeing him on all those meds made me realize how much of my life I was throwing down the toilet, just wasting it away.

  Henry sat beside me at the bar, silent and still. Even though we’d known each other all this time, he was still trying to get used to me and figure me out. He didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and I’m pretty sure I’d made himself piss his pants a few times, though he’d never admit it.

  “Two shots of Patrón,” I motioned to the bartender.

  “Oh, I don’t want any,” Henry said, keeping his voice low.

  “Good, neither of them are for you.”

  She slid me the shots, and I slammed ‘em, barely tasting their sharp bite as the liquor rolled across my tongue.

  “Two more,” I slid the glasses back to her.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened back there or what?”

  “Fuck. Where do I start?”

  I knocked back the shots that she lined up in front of me on the counter. The fourth one hit me, and I felt my chest heating up as the liquid made its way to my stomach.

  “We had a thing if that’s what you want to call it. I never did the girlfriend thing, but I spent more time with that girl than I had ever planned.”

  “Another shot?” the bartender interrupted, wiping the counter down.

  “Bring me a pitcher of beer, and a couple of glasses.” I nodd
ed at Henry as the bartender started pouring our beer.

  “Anyway, the last time I saw her, we spent a perfect night together before I dropped her off.”

  “Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” he poured a glass of beer from the pitcher. “But it doesn’t explain anything.”

  “Fuck,” I growled. “I told her I was leaving to take a job, and just up and left.” He looked at me, waiting for an explanation. “That’s when I flew out to California.”

  “Ah, so you just kind of left on a moment’s notice with no explanation or anything?”

  “Something like that.”

  I didn’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. All I wanted was to drink my problems away for the night. I hadn’t planned on seeing her, and I sure as hell didn’t think that if or when I did, all those feelings would come rushing back like that. The bartender finally kicked us out at closing time; a few pitchers and several shots later.

  Thinking about the time we spent together and how good she felt beneath me every night made all the blood pool to my dick. My balls felt heavy and ached.

  It must have been at least a week since I had been laid, but I saw a saucy little number hanging around the hotel lobby, all by herself wearing nothing but a skin tight, red mini dress with rhinestones reflecting off the top of it. She looked like a neatly packaged candy bar, and I couldn’t wait to take off her sparkling wrapper before sinking my dick into her.

  “You’re on your tonight,” I said to Henry as I pushed his face away with the palm of my hand after I decided she was coming back to our room with us.

  “I can’t get my room,” he pleaded. “All of my personal credit cards are shut off, and I only have the cash that I brought with me.”

  “Fine, sleep in the living area, and I’ll close the door to the bedroom.”

  I barely had the door to our hotel room shut when my lips came slamming down on hers, covering her mouth as our tongues danced and my cock pushed against the zipper of my jeans. It had been so long that I couldn’t wait to start fucking her hot pussy before I ripped off my belt and pushed down my pants.