One New Message (A Dark Romance Novel)

by Vivian Ward

  “Oh, Greg,” she moaned.

  I didn’t give a shit if she had my name wrong, all I cared about was getting in and getting out, busting my load right inside her. I rolled on a condom, pushed her down onto the mattress and stripped her of her tight little dress and panties before I sank into her.

  With Anita still fresh in my mind, I had to get fucking this chick out of my system before the liquor coursing through me stopped clouding my judgment long enough to think.

  Anita and I weren’t a couple; everything that happened between us was in the past, and I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that I had hurt her, but no woman had ever made me feel the way she did. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get my dick good and wet, fuck a few more girls that didn’t mean anything to me. Yeah, that’d do it.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Slapping her ass, I fucked her through the night, burying my dick deep inside her until the sun started to come up. By the time dawn hit, we were both snoring in bed, out cold. The last thing I remembered before passing out was Henry turning the volume up on the TV to drown out the sounds of my balls smacking off her wet pussy.

  Morning turned into early afternoon when I woke up to Mr. Sanders calling to check on our progress. I motioned for the previous night’s whore to get out of my room as I slid my pants up over my hips and fastened them. Henry was on the couch in the living area, nursing his sissy hangover from the few beers he had at the bar.

  “Yeah, Henry’s been hot and heavy, working on their trail,” I rushed over to him. “Here, he’ll tell you what he’s found himself.”

  Chapter 3: Anita

  My dad had been talking about expanding the car lot for a long time, but with the amount of business that we had been having, it was no longer a vision; we had to do it—and fast.

  He had to bring on two more buyers to help him bid on cars at various auctions to keep our lot filled and since spring had just started, that only meant we were going to get busier as the weather got nicer.

  Years ago when our family settled roots in Millington, my great grandfather had acquired a large chunk of land—almost twenty-one acres.

  Most of the land was heavily wooded, except our home and the family business. All in all, we only used about four acres of the land and never really gave much thought to the wooded area until we spoke of expanding the car lot.

  “You’re here early,” my dad said as he hung his jacket on the wall hook.

  “Yeah, I had to get some things done.”

  It wasn’t a complete lie. There were plenty of invoices to file away and paperwork to fill out. I had just left out the part that I had laid in bed all night thinking about that pompous ass, Gage Miller.

  No matter how much I tried to get him out of my mind, I couldn’t. He was like a bad drug, and I was going through withdrawals, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d left me—and our son—high and dry almost two years ago.

  Our son.

  My guilt weighed heavily on my heart. What kind of person was I? I could have told him about Bentley right then and there at the store, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. What if he wanted to walk in and out of his life like he did mine?

  What kind of example would that be for him? And how would he feel, thinking he wasn’t good enough for his daddy to stay around every time he saw the back of his head getting smaller and smaller as he disappeared?

  “Do you think you might have time to go on a walk with me?” Daddy asked, pouring himself a paper cup of water from the water cooler.

  “A walk?”

  “Yeah, I need to walk our property to see how far out I want to expand the lot. I figured you might want to come with me.” I looked at him unamused; I had too much on my mind. “I’ll let you spray paint the trees,” he held up a can of neon orange spray paint. “Come on,” he pleaded. “It’ll be lonely if I have to walk by myself.”

  “Okay,” I grabbed my sweatshirt.

  While we were walking our property, we noticed something unusual. The ground was disturbed and didn’t look right. Upon closer inspection, we noticed a marker next to the area that was unearthed. After poking around for a minute, dad uncovered something that alarmed us.

  “What the hell?” he said, shuffling the dirt around with his foot. “Is that a cell phone?”

  I bent down and picked it up. “Yeah, there’s a few of them.”

  It was on old flip phone—they all were—but they didn’t look ‘old’. They were brand new, and with the soil so rich and dark, it was obvious that it was freshly dug.

  “What do you think this is all about?” I asked, nodding toward the marker on the ground.

  “I’m not sure,” he shrugged his shoulders and crinkled his face. “I’ve never seen nothin’ like this before.”

  I didn’t know if we were being watched, so I casually dropped the phone back on the ground and kicked the dirt back over it. “Come on, let’s keep going so we can get out of here. How many more trees do you want to mark?”

  “How about if we go right up to the creek, and then we’ll head back that way,” he pointed, “so we’ll loop around and cover that area, and then we’ll be finished.”

  Walking through the woods, we stumbled across a second unsightly scene and found another marker but this time, there were no cell phones buried. It was much more gruesome.

  Instead, we discovered homemade pipe bombs that would never be used for recreational purposes. The sheer size of the deadly explosives conveyed the lethal force that they were capable of.

  Fearful that they might go off at a moment’s notice, I froze and looked at my dad. I pictured Bentley and what he looked like that morning as I handed him off to my mom before leaving for work.

  He had already fallen back to sleep by the time I kissed his chubby cheek, and his bottom lip hung open, allowing a small puddle of drool to trickle from the corner of his mouth.

  My heart leapt into my throat, forming a hard knot and all the blood drained from my face. Every sound echoed around me and faded to a dull background noise. I no longer heard the birds chirping or the stream of the creek moving along.

  What the hell was I supposed to do if the damned thing went off? I wanted to get a closer look but was afraid that getting too close to it might set it off. The last thing that I wanted it to do was to blow my face off if I leaned over it.

  Dad was busy studying everything, surveying what we were looking at. His hand cupped his chin, and he crossed his arms. After a moment, he arched his eyebrows and shook his head as though he was trying to unsee our grisly discovery.

  “Let’s go,” my dad said, carefully drifting sideways.

  It was like we were sitting on the world’s biggest secret and he must have had the same thoughts as I did: nothing seemed real anymore. I had never heard of anything like it, and there was no way anyone would believe us. Who would we even tell? How were we going to get help?

  Skirting along the perimeter of the disturbed soil, we took special care not to step on anything that looked like it had been freshly dredged up. There was no telling what else was buried on our property, and I was too scared to find out.

  It was already too dangerous knowing the little information that we had, and I feared for my life what might happen to my family if the person or people, responsible for it found out that it had been discovered.

  Sure, we lived close to the military base, but they wouldn’t be using our private, family-owned land to bury things. And they sure as hell wouldn’t bury old cell phones or explosives where a civilian would have access to them, or might get hurt by them. Who would do something like this?

  We remained quiet our whole walk back to the house; partly out of fear of being overheard if we were being watched or listened to and partly out of shock as we tried to gather our thoughts. I couldn’t make sense of anything because it was like I had taken a route to Strangeville with a one-way ticket and no bus stop in sight to get back home.

  Even though I wasn’t sure what we had bumped into, o
ne thing was for certain: it wasn’t going away and whoever put it there was going to come back for it.

  Whatever it was, it was bigger than us, and we needed help. The problem was, if we went to the authorities, they’d have every inch of our property marked off with police tape which could ruin business—the business that my father worked so hard to build—and it would mean the people responsible for putting it there would know that we discovered it.

  What if there were even more dangerous things buried on the property that we didn’t know about? They might assume we knew about that too—and they could kill us!

  I could see them killing us for shedding light on the situation to local law enforcement or for thinking we knew more than we actually did. It was a no-brainer that we couldn’t tell a soul about it. I’d keep my mouth shut; Bentley was my main concern. They could bury whatever the hell they wanted as long as my baby was safe.

  I wished that I would have moved out before I’d gotten pregnant with Bentley, but being a single mom, I couldn’t afford to live on my own. It also helped that I had the support of both of my parents by living with them. If I didn’t live at home, I wouldn’t have had as much of a concern. Mom and dad could have come to stay with me, but that wasn’t the case.

  We were all sitting ducks living in the house next to the car lot. Poor mom had arthritis so bad that she could no longer work. It was hard on her even to watch Bentley, but I made sure that I always had him dressed in outfits that were easy for her and made his bottles up before work, so all she had to do was take them out of the fridge and warm them up.

  But what if they’d kill us anyway? With that amount of explosives—and we had only found the one pile—they were already bound to take out lives. What would a few more mean to them? Nothing.

  “Anita,” my dad said as I slipped my hoodie off and draped it across the back of my office chair. “We’ve got to do something about what we saw today.”

  I shook my head. “No, we can’t do that. We don’t know who’s behind it. What if they’re killers? Are you crazy?”

  “Exactly. What if they are killers? Who is the most defenseless?”

  He studied my reaction. I knew what he was getting at and what he was trying to do.

  “Bentley, and your mother. They’re the most defenseless, so we have to protect them. We’ve got to figure out something fast.”

  “Dad, who are we going to tell? If we go to the cops, they’ll have so much crime scene tape wrapped around the place that it will kill business. All these invoices?” I pushed them across my desk. “Will be history. We won’t have to worry about anyone buying cars and we sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get jobs once all the rumors and gossip start about our property.”

  My dad stared at me, “Who do you think put that stuff there?”

  I had been asking myself the same thing our entire walk back home. “It’s not the military base; I can tell you that. But who would want to bury stuff on our property? We’ve never had any enemies.”

  “Whoever buried it out there wants it to be secret, and if they’ve got bombs, they’re not going to be shy about killing anyone.” He rubbed his head, “That’s probably their intentions and my guess,” he paused for a moment, “they’d do anything to keep their plans secret.”

  Oh God.

  I could picture it. One night after coming home late from the car lot, I’d cuddle Bentley to sleep like usual and fall asleep with him in my arms only to be awakened by someone ripping him away from me and holding a knife or a gun to me while he cried out for help.

  My poor mom would be cowered down in the corner of the room with a man towering over her, threatening her with our lives if she didn’t obey his every command.

  I couldn’t let that happen. Not any of it.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, hopeful he’d have the perfect solution.

  “Let’s think about our options for a minute,” he sat across from me at my metal desk.

  My slate gray metal desk was old and weathered; it had seen better days. The paint was peeling—in the areas where paint still existed—and there was a worn, dark gray circle in the center of my desk where folders and clipboards had passed over a few thousand times.

  I remember always wanting to sit at this very desk when I was a young girl because it was the first thing you saw when you walked into the office, so I always viewed it as the most important spot to be in. Now I realize that the person who sits at this desk does all the tedious grunt work; that person was me.

  Staring at my dad’s hands as he folded them on top of my desk, I realized how much older he had become. As a girl, I used to hold his oversized hands everywhere we went and loved how they swallowed my petite hands right up. I always knew I was safe with him.

  His once smooth, strong hands were now old and wrinkly. I remember thinking how he was invincible, but as a grown woman, I realized that nobody is truly invincible. Looking at my own hands, they were smooth and more in line with the size of my dad’s hands; we’d both aged over the years.

  I wish I knew—or even understood—what our options were. Searching his honey-brown eyes, he seemed to already know the answer, which relieved me because I was drawing a blank.

  “What do you think we should do?”

  He licked his lips and leaned in, whispering. “What about your…connections? Could you make it work?”

  Connections? Was he insane?

  “What do you mean?”

  With our car detailer in the next room, he kept his voice low. “It’s no secret that he’s back in town; been here for almost three days.”

  My eyes grew wide, and my jaw went slack. How in the hell did he know? I had barely seen him myself at the store.

  No, no. No!

  “What? I mean,” my voice trailed off as I tried to find the words.

  “Anita, come on,” he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, eyeing me down. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t know that Gage was back in town. As madly in love with him as you are, I don’t—”

  “No,” I snapped. “You’ve got it wrong. I used to love him. Used to is the key phrase there; I’m over him now.”

  Yeah, I said it. Did I mean it? I couldn’t honestly say. When I saw him, all of those warm, tingling feelings hit me right in the gut, and I remembered how much fun we had together. I remember how good it felt to have his body wrapped around mine like a glove, and I never forgot how good he felt inside of me.

  But, I also remember how hurt I was that he just up and left. He never bothered to call or communicate with me once he was gone.

  What would one phone call have hurt? I wasn’t an old shirt that he could discard and pick back up whenever he wanted. It burned my ass to know that he could walk out of my life at a moment’s notice and not give me a second thought.

  “The thing is, we can’t get the police involved. Not until we figure out what’s going on. You made a really good point about this killing the business,” he stopped. T.J., our car detailer, walked in to pour himself a cup of coffee.

  “Morning boss,” he tipped his hat to my dad.

  “Good morning, T.J.,” he smiled at him. “Ready for a busy day?”

  “Always.” He turned to me, “Morning, Ms. Anita.”

  “Hello, T.J.”

  After he had walked back out to the garage, we picked up where we left off. “Dad, we can’t get him involved. What if he starts snooping around and finds out about Bentley? I don’t even want to know what he’ll do if he finds out about him.”

  All this time I had been so strong and suppressed all of these emotions and feelings, but now they demanded my attention. Gage Miller being back in town meant dealing with everything that I had tried to forget. It wasn’t my fault that my birth control pills had failed me; I did everything that I was supposed to do—except tell the father.

  It terrified me to think about his reaction to Bentley. If he found out, I could always deny it and not admit anything. It’s not like his birth certificate list
ed Gage as the father.

  On the other hand, he was so light-skinned and had his daddy’s eyes; there was almost no denying that they were biologically connected. Fuck me. What was I supposed to do?

  “Okay, I’ll do it. Tell me what you want me to do,” I sighed at my father, slumping back into my chair. I could already feel myself sinking. That heavy pressure in your chest right before you drown? That was all that was keeping me weighted down in my chair.

  “Cheyenne, the girl who works the front desk at the hotel?” my dad started.

  I nodded, knowing exactly who he was talking about. She was a year below me in high school and had only lived here since her junior year.

  Cheyenne was a military brat and that her daddy spoiled her rotten; if she wasn’t bragging about it, her attitude showed it. I was surprised to hear that she was working to tell you the truth.

  This was getting worse by the minute.

  “Don’t tell me that I have to go talk to her,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Maybe. Her mom came up to the lot yesterday with her, looking for a good car, and she was talking about her job and how Gage was staying there. She said he was with some guy, and they didn’t know how long they were staying. She might be able to tell you which room he’s in before he leaves.”

  “And why do you want Gage to have anything to do with this?”

  “Anita, he’s always been able to take care of things and get things done—off the books. I know he’s got a past, but he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Why are you so sure of him? He always said himself that all he ever did was get into trouble. What if bringing him in is a mistake?”

  “Cheyenne said that he’s here with some guy, and according to the guy he’s with, they’re private security for someone very prominent, and they’re here working on a mission.”

  I knew the guy he was talking about. It was a Chinese guy, the one at the store who eyed me as they walked out. This shit was getting stranger by the minute. Trouble-maker, drinking bad boy Gage Miller, the father of my child, was here working on a mission as private security?