GREED Box Set (Books 1-4)
Page 47
***
The floors creaked more than he'd ever noticed. Heel to toe, he walked barefoot down the hallway, then banked left. Unable to maintain his balance, he grazed the textured off-white wall, leaving a gray, jagged mark from the weighty object attached to his hand. Two well-placed nightlights guided his path. He took five stairs downward, then another left. He stopped at the mahogany double doors and listened to the nonstop, resonating hum from the AC system. It matched the persistent thought driving his every movement.
Zachary blinked twice and touched the end of the metal object with his left hand. He recalled the scene of watching his father and brother embrace, sharing the kind of love that only parents and kids can share. Unconditional love. The kind of love that he, apparently, wasn't worthy of.
Bursts of images exploded in his mind, each one related to his mom and dad ignoring him, his problems. Had they forgotten to love him? It couldn't be. It had been a deliberate choice.
Gingerly, he pulled the door lever downward and pushed the door forward. Two silhouettes lay horizontally on a bed. Zachary could hear a soft snore from his dad's side of the bed.
Zachary knew he was an addict, and he couldn't control his urges. All of the shrinks and self-help rituals would never work. He was a loser. He would never live up to what his parents expected or wanted. He hated them for all of it. If he wasn't worthy of their love, then they weren't worthy of his respect. None.
He took three more steps then stopped. A single tear rolled down his face. He raised the revolver and fired two shots, then paused and fired one last time.
The pain and torment had forever ended. Now the unbearable suffering would begin for everyone else.
Acknowledgments
The writing of LETHAL GREED took me down many paths, both in my research and in my own soul-searching. Addiction is a powerful force that attacks every aspect of a person's life. I hope this story brings to light the insidious links across the world of drug use and addiction that permeates our global society, regardless of socio-economic status.
To acknowledge everyone who influenced me or provided perspective or knowledge that is related to this book would literally open the door to listing hundreds of people from living over four decades.
Special thanks go to my beta readers, who offered valuable feedback for an author who was trying to find his mojo: Pete Mefford, Lyn Mefford, Chas Andrews. Your input not only positively influenced this book, but also many books I've yet to write. Thank you!
As always, thanks to my WordVerve team—Robin Krauss for the cover, Billie Hobbs as my proofreader, and the impeccable Jan Green. There are editors, and there is Jan. If you've ever met Jan, or worked with her, you know what I mean. Thanks for pushing me to open my mind to new ideas. Keep them coming!
WICKED GREED
A Novel
By
John W. Mefford
Greed Series: Book Three
“Greed is like a dark side of every man, and you could not see it from the appearance of a man, but in the inside the greedy beast is already dominating you.”
– Steven Eric Chen
Chapter One
Ten Years Ago
“The Hollywood of Europe,” the young man read aloud, but could hardly hear his own words. A trio of musicians—playing an accordion, a fiddle, and a banjo—had captivated the frivolous crowd, which responded by singing and clapping to the harmonized tune, bodies swaying this way and that. He was certain nearly every one of them was under thirty years old and inebriated.
It was only two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon and the whole town was shitfaced. God love Ireland, he thought.
The twenty-one-year-old college junior with a sculpted physique, thumbed the name God love Ireland next to the quote on the laminated card. He licked his lips, thinking back through the catalog of Bond movies, and recalled the sultry actress in her prime, sauntering across the beach, more curves than a road twisting through the French Alps, landing on top of the cheesiest of Bonds, Roger Moore. He snapped his fingers and recalled the movie—God love Ireland God love Ireland. Was there irony in that title?
Sitting on a wobbly wooden stool on the second floor of the seaside public house, he noticed two separate pockets of dancers quickly evolve from the mass of people...like boils ballooning from a grease burn.
He shifted his toes inside his Doc Martens and felt warped calluses scratching argyle socks. He eyed frothy suds at the bottom of his pint and allowed his mind to drift away. Bacon crackled and popped on the stove, chafing wounds stung his ankles and wrists, his mouth stuffed with an old pair of underwear. Then, a shot of unbearable pain exploded throughout his body, his toes forever scarred, his mind not far behind. Hidden pain. Breakfast was usually followed by playtime. God love Ireland playtime.
He blinked the image to the back of his mind and gently touched his face in three places, remaining steadfast to purge every thought from his past and to reinvent his future—molded by his own instinctive desires. He would become a man on this trip. A man with a purpose in life.
“Can I getcha 'nuther pint?”
Startled by the personal engagement, the man lifted his eyes to see the whitest, purest skin set against a sea of kinky red hair. He loved the Irish lilt in her voice. A wave of adrenaline enveloped his body, manifested by a brief appearance of goose bumps.
“Cat gotcha tongue, man?” She arched her eyebrows, highlighting playful turquoise eyes, and lifted his empty glass. “Guinness?”
He was ready to show the world he was finally a man, with undeniable charm, wit, and magnetism.
“If you're serving, I'm drinking,” he said, and released a confident smile, knowing it would cause a slight dimple in his cheeks and a spark in his eyes as blue as the ocean.
“From across the pond, are ye?”
“Guilty as charged. Cuff me?” He winked, wondering how it would play.
She looked away, her tongue pressing the inside of her cheek. Was she going to unleash an Irish storm and smash the glass over his head? He didn't want things to get violent—although there was a strange feeling lurking beneath his conscious thoughts. He couldn't put a finger on it. Right now, the hunt was on, and he didn't feel like performing a psychoanalysis.
Her eyes narrowed, and shifted to his, as if she was studying him. He began to wonder if she'd noticed something about his complexion, or even worse, his deepest thoughts.
Without leaving his eyes, she sat down the glass, untied her blue-checkered waitress apron, and flipped it over a stool. She took his hand and brought it to her face. His pulse began to quicken, and he looked around, somewhat embarrassed by her public show of affection. No one noticed, and he realized he shouldn't care anyway.
She moved the beefy section of his palm, just under this thumb, across her lips. Then, she bit it. Softly at first, then with more force, her eyes fixated, not blinking. He did his best not to flinch, believing this interaction was everything he'd hoped for.
“Come with me,” she requested, then grabbed his hand and led him like a dog on a leash through the throng of human bodies. Downstairs, she traipsed through the kitchen, dodging cooks and servers and bartenders. She kicked open a black metal door and turned on a dime, moving left down a narrow alley lined with trash bins and stained, gray stone walls. Near the end of the alley, an older woman huddled next to a grocery cart. Homeless, most likely. She glanced upward just as he passed, and he had an instant flashback. Something about her wrinkled skin flapping as her body moved.
The bouncing red hair in front of him re-engaged his senses, and his purpose.
Her pace picked up, and so did his pulse. She hung a right into another alley, then walked down a flight of stairs and turned left twice in twenty yards. He was lost, but he didn't give a shit. No words were spoken, but he couldn't help but eat up this game of...what? Cat and mouse? God love Ireland, he wondered?
She got to a smallish, rounded door and opened it. Despite it being late afternoon, her brownstone was dark and damp,
and absent of any sound.
He couldn't help himself. “What's next?”
“Quiet,” she said. She leaned up and kissed him, her fang-like teeth tearing skin on his lower lip. “I'll be back in a quick minute. Meanwhile, drop the clothes, would ye?”
The first blood drawn was his. He chuckled. “Did I tell you I like your accent?” That was lame, he knew.
She didn't respond or turn around, as she disappeared into a dark corner.
He'd play along. Isn't that why he'd convinced his dear old dad to fork over ten grand for this trip anyway? Of course, he'd fabricated an entirely different story for his out-of-touch dad. He'd told him it was all about his exposure to new cultures, new ways of thinking—an opportunity for growth and fulfillment. How Dad ran a multimillion-dollar company perplexed him. Dad was so fucking gullible.
The crack of a whip pierced his left ear, and he literally jumped two feet in the air.
“You don't listen very well, do ye?” she asked, sounding more militaristic.
“Shit, you, uh, surprised me.” He began to unbutton his shirt, his heart hammering his chest, a touch of fear invading his thoughts, and he eyed her outfit, full of metals studs, leather, and all sorts of piercings in places that normally were hidden.
“Three lashes for ye then.”
He knew she was serious, and he ripped off his clothes. For the next hour, she played all sorts of games with her student, leaving welts, breaking skin, and drawing blood. He wasn't as experienced, but he caught on to the game, and knew her ultimate purpose. Finally, she jumped on top of him.
“Now, I'm ready to ride ye all the way home,” she said with lust in her voice. She gyrated and clawed his ribcage with nails nearly as sharp as a scalpel.
He looked at the whole package: her pierced nipples, outlined in some type of leather bra, metal studs circling both biceps. Through the smell of sex and copper, he caught a waft of strawberry, as her soft curls swept his chest, then his face.
She began to groan, and she took his hand and rubbed her chest, then wrapped his fingers around her throat. He found it soothing, but also very erotic. He massaged every inch of her ashen skin, feeling every indentation.
Suddenly, the old lady in the alley flashed through his mind, which instantly leaped to a connection to the bitch who used to play her own games with him—when he was young, too young. He recalled hearing her babble on the phone, then releasing a torrent of curse words at him for interrupting her conversation. Her razor tongue would cut right through him, slicing his self-confidence into tiny pieces. Always wearing her stained, yellow-floral robe buttoned to the top of her chest, her jowls jiggled each time she barked, her voice the sound of phlegmy marbles.
They never jiggled as much as they did when she was laughing her ass off when he screamed bloody murder, his flesh burning from hot grease. Tied up and gagged, he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
His chest burned inside, a flame of fury building like an inferno. His whole body broke out in a sweat. He realized he'd been squeezing his eyes shut, and he popped them open and saw his hand gripping the Irish beauty's neck. The whites in her eyes grew larger, but she didn't try to stop him.
And he wasn't going to let go. Slowly, his grip grew stronger, his teeth and jaw clenched to enforce more power, more pressure. He could see a bit of fear in her eyes, and she touched his hand, but she still withheld the urge to yell and hit back.
She obviously thought it was all a part of the game. But he'd just rewritten the rules, and he wasn't removing his hand. Blue veins popped from his forearm, and he could feel sweat roll off his sideburns. Each second that passed, his grip tightened. Harder he squeezed. There was no going back, no stopping his own ecstasy, his destiny. Finally, she stopped gyrating, and dug her nails into his wrist. It only fueled his rage even more. She gasped for a slight breath. He could see panic in her bulging eyes, but he wouldn't let go. He couldn't let go. Her face turned purple and she swatted in desperate, stiff spurts. A swinging nail caught his cheek, drawing more blood, but he only growled like an animal at the height of climax.
Finally, her frame became completely limp. He held on for another full minute, not wanting to release the power he held over her—and his foster mom from so many years ago.
***
It was early evening as he maneuvered through cobblestone streets, a chilly mist lingering in the air, his mind and body tingling from the incredible sensation he'd just experienced. He exhaled a foggy breath, feeling more alive than any time he could recall.
Ireland. The home of lush, green hills dotted with herds of white sheep and majestic castles. Visitors could kiss the Blarney Stone or admire a bronze statue that highlighted the ample cleavage from the fictional seventeenth-century fishmonger, Molly Malone, the subject of Dublin's unofficial anthem of the same name. Ireland was the birthplace of whiskey and the shamrock, and home to four-hundred-year-old brownstones. But it was this seaside town of Brey, the second stop on his spring-break trip, that would forever hold a special place in his heart—if he truly had one.
He'd never forget the setting or the girl who'd finally allowed him to be the man he was meant to be. God love Ireland
Indeed. Ireland was the bomb.
Chapter Two
Today
“Okay, I admit it. God love Ireland is the third one.”
I flapped the warm, printed paper and licked my lips as my wife Marisa raised an eyebrow—the not-so subtle invitation for me to get on with it and recite the words staring at me. Phlegm caught in my throat, and I coughed twice, then reached for a glass of perspiring ice water sitting on my oak desk. A circular water stain threatened to settle into the desk wood, so I quickly swiped my hand across the wet ring, then used a paper towel as a makeshift coaster.
A deep breath. “Look, I didn't tell you about the other two because I really didn't feel like it was serious.”
“That's not what your editor thought.”
We turned our heads and stared at my editor Brandon Cunningham, who hadn't said a word since my wife of two years had stepped through my office door thirty seconds earlier. Marisa crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, while I shot mental, poisonous darts at him, and as associate publisher, my darts carried a fair amount of venom.
“You've gotta work on your delivery,” I said to Brandon.
“What delivery?” asked Marisa.
“The one that got you so riled up about a couple of innocuous emails.”
Brandon had run into Marisa at lunch and happened to mention the two previous pieces of communication that had been sent to our God love Ireland “Letters to the Editor” inbox. Apparently, he thought I had already shared those with my wife of almost two years now.
“Michael Doyle, I don't equate innocuous with the word 'kill,'” she said.
She'd uttered my first God love Ireland last name. Not a good sign. I leaned forward to comment, but she held up a finger and continued. “But from what I overheard walking in here, the first two emails aren't the real issue. The one we need to be concerned about is fluttering in the wind.”
A thin smile escaped Maria's inflexible mouth, and that was difficult to attain, given her voluptuous set of lips. I could see that she'd drawn the conclusion—rightly so, I admitted to myself—that I was hiding something I thought could hurt her. If your hand is ever burned, you only think about never getting near another flame. If it's the hand of the one you love, you'd rather stick a needle in your eye than allow her to feel that type of agony again. My overprotective nature had been too protective for everyone involved, I realized. As I stood before the love of my life and my soon-to-be ex-editor, I knew by trying to avoid drudging up painful memories from her past, our past, I'd allowed my emotional connection with Marisa to screw with my threat compass. And I guess I'd decided that avoidance was my only way to deal with all of this...God love Ireland
“Realize, this one just hit during lunch, so it's fresh off the press.” My stomach twisted into anxious knots, knowing I'd
been circumventing anything that would remotely bring Marisa close to the stress level—the unmitigated nightmare—from nearly a year ago when she was kidnapped at gunpoint and watched her mother murdered and beheaded right before her eyes. She'd suffered through many sleepless nights and cried more tears than could fill up drought-stricken Lake Texoma. Still, she'd always possessed an innate quality to bounce back from life's biggest tragedies and put them behind her, once again able to open her heart and reclaim her vivacious, spontaneous outlook on life.
She was awesome. And right now, she was pissed.
Two sets of arms were now folded, my audience obviously annoyed by my stalling tactics.
I couldn't avoid it any longer. “Here it goes.”
God love Ireland
God love Ireland
God love Ireland
God love Ireland
God love Ireland
God love Ireland When Harry Met Sally God love Ireland
God love Ireland
Chapter Three
The three of us traded stares. Brandon's leg swayed back and forth, and shoelaces from his red and blue high tops slapped the metal leg of his chair. Marisa held her gaze at me, and I knew the thoughts and memories that were battling for supremacy in her mind.
I popped two knuckles and inhaled a deep breath, not wanting to go down this path again. We'd experienced a lifetime of gut-wrenching drama in just the last two years, Marisa in particular. I could never again watch her endure that type of pain—emotional or physical.
Marisa had just returned from a five-day cruise through the Bahamas. Knowing I couldn't get away from the paper, I surprised her with the expensive Christmas gift, and even sprung for her friend, Carrie, to tag along and be her sidekick. From what Marisa shared, Carrie turned out to be more of a sideshow than a tag-along pal. Carrie had spent most of her time trying to snag the most eligible bachelor on board the five-story ocean liner. In fact, one night Marisa was forced to sleep upright against the hallway wall when Carrie's tryst became an all-night marathon. Still, the ladies enjoyed their share of girl time too—relaxing, snorkeling, shopping, and drinking. Marisa returned less than forty-eight hours ago looking like she was twenty-three, instead of the thirty-three on her driver's license. Her youthful energy and playful spirit had been fully restored, and that brought a huge smile to my face.