by J. D. Cavan
Copyright © 2019 by J. D. Cavan
www.JDCavan.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Table of Content
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Final Chapter
Acknowledgement
Cover art: Deranged Doctor Design
http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/
Copy Editor: Keith R Gordon
Special Acknowledgment: Ray B.
A Lila Stone Supernatural Crime Thriller Series
Book 1 The Immortals
Book 2 The Dead City
Book 3 The Druid Witch
Book 4 Twin Witch (coming soon)
Other Books by J.D. Cavan
The Final Form Series
Book 1 Thought Changer
Book 2 The Serial Seven
Book 3 The 7 House
If you want to find out more about Liam’s story get a free copy of Temple Warrior Liam O’Brady Vampire Assassin by joining my email list! Visit: https://jdcavan.com/
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Prologue
IT WAS SO hard for him to do what he was about to, but he’d been so terribly lonely. Since the loss of his wife, Thomas Miller had suffered.
His wife, Danielle Miller, was killed in a car accident on her way back from their beach house in the Hamptons. It had been over two years since her death, and yet Thomas couldn’t bring himself to even consider dating again. But standing on the grand balcony of his penthouse, night after night, gazing out onto the city lights simply wasn’t working. The loneliness was tormenting him.
There was a knock on his apartment door. He felt the guilty anticipation immediately. Then he changed his mind. He just couldn’t do it.
Thomas quietly hid in his apartment, pretending he hadn’t called the escort service. Hopefully she would just leave. They could bill him. He waited, listening for another knock. There was silence. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, stunningly enough, Thomas heard his front door open. Someone walked inside.
“Hello?” a young woman said. Her voice echoed down the long hallway.
Thomas wondered how she’d gotten in—he was sure the door was locked. But he hadn’t been in his right state of mind lately, so perhaps he had forgotten to lock it.
He straightened his hair and cleared his throat. “Just a moment,” he replied. He inhaled sharply and then turned the corner of his living room to face her. He peered down the hallway. There was a woman in a long black overcoat standing in the foyer.
“I hope that it’s okay that I let myself in?” she said. “It was open.”
“That’s fine. But I’m very sorry. I think I’ve made a mistake,” Thomas said. It was silent.
“I see. Would you like me to leave?” She had long, dark hair and pretty features.
Thomas ran his hand over his face nervously. “I’ll pay for the evening. I’m just not ready yet.” But then he stepped closer to her, taking a better look.
She smiled kindly. “We can take it slow, I won’t bite.” She came across as comforting, more sincere than Thomas imagined from an escort.
“It’s just…” He paused, reconsidering saying anything too personal to a complete stranger. “I lost my wife.” He dropped his head.
“I know,” she replied. Thomas Miller was a young multi-millionaire leading the way in creating shared forms of capitalism. He was known to give business loans to people who couldn’t otherwise get them. Thomas Miller was rich, but he was one of the good guys.
“I’m being rude,” he said after many moments had passed. “Please let me take your coat; come in. If just for a moment.”
Thomas took her coat. She was petite and wore a tasteful black dress. His wife had been small and he wondered if that had been a factor. The escort service had asked him a series of uncomfortable questions regarding his preferences. He had been vague for the most part, outside of some physical requirements.
He hung up her coat in the hall closet and walked her inside.
“This is lovely,” she said, admiring his enormous living room. It was lined with couches overlooking floor-to-ceiling windows. The city lights below reflected off the glass. There was a spectacular fireplace in the center of the room. Thomas had her sit on one of the couches while he stood awkwardly over her.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
“Not for me, thank you. But please, can I make you something?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
She smiled again, warmly. “Have a seat, relax. I’m here to help you.”
He plopped down on the couch and exhaled. Perhaps he should relax. She was just there for the company. That’s all. He’d been so lonely.
“You seem like a scotch man.” She stood up and strolled over to the glass bar.
“That would be fine.” He noticed her body. It was strong and in good shape. She was twenty-six or twenty-seven, he guessed. He was thirty-five but had met Danielle when they were both twenty-six.
She came back over with his drink and sat down next to him, close. She handed him the scotch.
“Thank you.” He held it awkwardly before taking a sip.
“My pleasure,” she replied.
She had a pleasant scent, a soft fragrance that he couldn’t quite place. It had been years since he’d been this close to a woman, or felt cared for by anyone. All she’d done was bring him a drink and gaze into his eyes. Even these small acts aroused him.
“They said your name was Anastasia. Shall I call you by that name?”
“If you like. But what’s really in a name?” she said, showing a perky side.
“That is what I have always believed.” Thomas found himself grinning, something that didn’t happen often. He began to loosen up before pulling it back in. “I’ll finish this drink and then call it an evening.” But there was something about her and the drink that soothed him. He drank it slowly and they sat quietly together. He appreciated her decency. Her reserve.
“Perhaps I’ll have one more,” he said.
“I’ll fetch it for you.” She took his empty glass and headed across the room.
Thomas felt a stroke of heat rise up from his belly to his brain. Fetch, he said to himself. Danielle used to say that whenever she was caring for him. He watched Anastasia carefully make his drink. Feelings of attraction rushed over him. Fetch was a common enough phrase, he decided. But probably not for an escort, he countered. But Anastasia was from the most elite escort service in the city. The best of the best.
“This all seems very different than I expected.” He took his second drink from her.
“I hope for the better,” she replied playfully.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she said. Her eyes sparkled, captivating him further.
“I’m honestly not sure what to do, and I always know what to do,” he said.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” she uttered softly.
His eyes flickered. “Romeo and Juliet—one of my favorites!”
“They were not bound by names but by love,” she replied. “So don’t be bound by trying to name things, bad or good, or this or that.” She reached up and touched his jaw, stroking it. She loosened his tie. Her hand touched his. Human touch, it had been so long. She ran it over his leg. He leaned back and permitted it.
After some time, she stood up. She took his hand and led him toward his bedroom. Thomas hesitated as they approached the door. But then he acquiesced.
She had some kind of power over him, but he knew that he was allowing it. You couldn’t be seduced unless you wanted to be. He’d been overthinking everything, in his head for so long, suffering. He needed to be seduced. Anastasia was the perfect cure.
The Shakespeare quote blew him away. Not only was she delicate and sexy, but intelligent. He definitely hadn’t mentioned anything like that during the escort preference questions. A beautiful escort that quoted Shakespeare seemed unlikely. But it didn’t matter. He wanted her now, and would do to her what he desired.
She sat down on the edge of his bed and he stood over her. More windows surrounded the expansive bedroom, the city alive around them.
Thomas removed his tie and held it in his hand. “It will be easier for me this way,” he said, gently placing the tie around her head and over her eyes.
He ran his finger down her cheek and touched her lips. He took another tie from his closet and then bound her wrists.
“Yes,” she said. “Do what you will to me.”
Do what you will to me… It raced in his mind. Danielle’s words exactly when he would tie her up and do the same thing to her. It was uncanny.
He kneeled down and removed her high heels and then slowly brought his hand up her soft legs. Up and inside her thigh, gently inching upward. He fought his own pleasure for a moment and then, overcome again, tugged her hair back tautly. Her head bent, exposing her neck. He touched it, ever so lightly, before stopping.
He played with his own emotions, denying himself the feelings, ceasing it, and then dissolving back into it. It was maddeningly pleasurable. He could only do it for so long before giving in completely.
“Are you ready, Thomas?” she said in a hush as if she was reading his mind.
“I am,” he replied.
“Are you ready to give me everything you have?” she said, desire in her voice.
“Yes.” He could no longer hold back.
“Everything?”
“Everything. I will give you everything I have,” he said. That was all she needed to hear.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she whispered.
He dropped to his knees, his hands finally reaching up between her legs. He went to take a deep breath the pleasure was so great. But nothing came. No air entered his lungs.
He struggled oddly, confusion crossing his face. It was as if he was choking on something. He reached to touch his throat and felt something around it. It was his silky tie. It was tightly wrapped around his neck. He lurched backward, tugging at it. But it only squeezed tighter. He tried to mouth the words help, his eyes as big as saucers.
The tie that had been around her eyes was now strangling Thomas Miller. He yanked on the end of it but it crushed his windpipe. He gasped for air hopelessly, the dizziness starting to overtake him.
He stared at her in panicked bafflement. She was sitting on the edge of his bed, her wrists still bound. Her nurturing eyes danced deviously now. The corners of her mouth turned into a wicked grin.
No! he shouted to himself. Impossible! How had she done this? He took a step away. If he could get to the kitchen he could cut the tie with a knife. But as he turned he tripped over his own feet and collapsed to the floor. He tried to stand but couldn’t. The lack of air was doing him in.
Thomas could only drag himself across the floor, grasping with both hands, inching himself desperately toward his bedroom door. Without oxygen, he only had moments of life left.
He stopped short of his door. His body wrestled. He drove his fingers into the floor’s wooden cracks, a last-ditch effort to reach the kitchen. But it was no use. The fight was over. He rested his head on the cold floor.
Thomas Miller thought of his wife, Danielle. It gave him solace as the seconds of his life ticked down to its end.
“Everything is mine now, Thomas,” she said. He was drifting off to the other side, her words barely reaching him. “I will create something so great it will be worth it. I promise you.”
Chapter 1
THERE WAS NOTHING like a police escort. If you needed to get someplace in a hurry, it was the only way to go.
“What do we have, Dean?” I asked as Liam raced the Tesla up Broadway. We followed a line of NYPD patrol cars, sirens blaring and lights blazing. There was a bank robbery in progress in one of the largest banks in Manhattan.
Dean was on the car’s speakerphone reporting to us from our headquarters, the Society of Justice. “I hacked into the bank’s cameras. I can see everything inside. Talk about spooky!”
“Get to it, Dean. We’ll be at the bank any second.”
“There are four tellers, two managers, and about twelve customers.” Dean paused for a moment. “I can see why they called the Society of Justice; definitely the supernatural category. Everyone in the bank is clearly under some mind control. All they’re doing is repetitive movements, robotic and mindless, zombie-like.”
I glanced at Liam. He raised his shoulders. We pulled up in front of the bank. NYPD police cruisers surrounded us. The area was cordoned off with barricades.
Liam and I got out and moved through a line of cops toward the front of the bank. Not that I was noticing, but each cop seemed to nod to me as I walked by. I even heard some of them murmuring my name.
“That’s her. Detective Stone,” a veteran cop said to a rookie. I didn’t care about deference, but I appreciated the respect. The Society of Justice had saved the city from a demon catastrophe only months ago. That had given me some serious street cred.
We reached the front doors of the bank and Jake met us. “Some nutcase is in the vault, huge overcoat on and a hood over his face. Most of the money’s gone, and a lot of it.”
Jake was dressed in his NYPD blues and wore his cap like the rest of the police. Jake was the best cop in the city as far as I was concerned. I put him at the top of my rather small list of people I trusted completely.
“What does the perp want?” Liam asked.
“Says the banks goin’ up in smoke unless he walks out with the last bit of the cash. We ain’t gonna let that happen.” Jake crossed his arms and looked out over the sea of New York City police officers.
I peeked in the door. It was just as Dean had reported. Everyone in the bank was roaming around aimlessly with blank faces and distant gazes.
“Somethin’s wrong with ‘em.” Jake motioned with his head towards the people in the bank. “And the creep in the vault says he’s got explosives strapped to him. Seemed like an SOJ kinda situation to me.”
“We’ll take care of it.” Liam took his Glock pistols out of their holsters. We walked into the bank and made for the vault.
The people in the bank were blindly moving about, as if they were on tracks. We dodged them as we approached the enormous vault. Liam opened the door and standing in the back was someone in a coat and hood, just as Jake had said.
An odd voice came from under the hood, like that of a child’s or an old woman’s. “Detective Lila Stone and Liam O’Brady. The big guns of the Society of Justice!” There was a black duffle bag at his feet, presumably filled with cash.
Liam aimed one of his pistols at the figure. “Where’s the rest of the money?”
“You don’t understand!” He opened his coat. It was lined with 4-C plastic explosives. “Enough here to take this city block out.”
“Yourself, too; how does that work for you?” I pointed out.
He pulled his hood down, revealing his features. I flinched at the sight of it. Gruesome bulging eyes, gray pocked skin, rotten teeth, a long nose, and a hunched crooked neck. One of his eyes was completely black and vacuous.
“A goblin,” Liam uttered in disgust. “I should have known. It’s Blackeye. He’s a known criminal in the supernatural underworld.”
“Gross.” The thing smelled bad, like garbage and puke.
“Doom! All gone,” Blackeye cackled. Drool fell from his mouth.
“And I’ll put a bullet in your head before you can say—poof!” Liam had the goblin in his gun’s sights.
Blackeye raised his arms and suddenly a dozen other goblins materialized out of thin air. They all carried semi-automatics and surrounded us. They were smaller than Blackeye but they looked and smelled just as horrible. They bounced around on their tiny feet, snickering and looking eager to blow holes in us.
“This is how it’s going to work,” Blackeye hissed. “I’m going to stroll out of this bank with this bag of loot and into my van and drive away. Now drop your guns, O’Brady, or I’ll have my boys fill you full of lead!” Blackeye slobbered as he spoke. His minions were rocking back and forth in glee.
Liam appeared to be lowering his guns, but then with lightning speed he thrust out his arms and drilled rounds into every single goblin. He dropped each one before any of them could get a shot off.
Blackeye screeched as green nauseating blood spilled out of his crew and all over the bank’s floor.
Liam aimed his gun back at the big goblin. “Lift whatever nasty spell you put on the people in the bank and maybe I’ll let you live.”