Since she had exposed her feelings for him, somewhere along the way, he started to believe her. When she said she was going to back off and give him space, he felt as if a rug had been swept out from under him. Now Ginny’s forgiveness was righting his world again.
Reaper hated himself for accepting it when she would have done better telling him to leave. For her well-being, he was worse than the virus taking over the country. At least with the virus, she would have a chance at a normal life when it was over. Loving him, her chance of being happy plummeted to a probability of zero.
Ghosts weren’t granted happily ever afters.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Are you sure this is the right house?”
The dark house gave him the fucking willies.
Aaron watched Lena take out her cell phone, to double-check the numbers brightly lit on the exterior of the house under the porch light. “I’m sure. Look, there’s the bench with the red cushions that he said would be there.”
Looking through the windshield to where his wife was pointing increased the trepidation he was feeling.
“We should just go, Lena. This doesn’t feel right.”
“You promised me we could do this.”
Her scornful glower at him conveyed the view she had of him as a wimp. The many times she blamed herself for ever marrying him in the first place were too numerous to count. Each marked by his refusal to halt the risky sexual encounters she thrived on. He had never fulfilled her sexual needs, and she made sure he had been told that fact frequently. Blaming him for being a coward and leaving her to take the incentive to find the gratification she craved—which he was unable to fulfill.
“I told you I checked him out. Whitney and Derek already made another appointment with him.”
“You’re trusting them when we’ve only talked to them a couple of times?”
Every facets of his wife’s life was cut-throat. He had seen her fire someone just because an employee had come to work one minute late. She ruled their checkbook, making him payback if he spent five dollars over what she expected to spend, yet when it came to sex her standards were lower than those of a slut.
“What else was I supposed to do, Aaron? It’s not like you’ve made any effort to replace Slate’s assistance at finding us partners.”
“I wouldn’t describe them as partners.” He tentatively looked around, seeing there weren’t any other houses nearby. The last one they had passed was a couple of miles away. Jesus, he should just file for a divorce. He would, but he was too afraid of Lena’s maliciousness directed at him in a courtroom. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t be vengeful enough to spill the beans about their sexual diversions and place the blame on him.
“Come on. Are we going to do this or not?”
“Slate told us to hang tight until he contacted us again.”
“I didn’t marry Slate, and the last time we used him, the piece of crap he gave us wasn’t anything to brag about. Of course he’s not going to want us to find someone else—he won’t be pocketing the money we’re giving him.
“I’m going. You can stay here if you want,” she hissed through pinched lips. “I’ll tell you what you missed when I come back.”
“I’m coming.” He reluctantly got out of the car and walked up the steps with Lena to knock on the front door.
Anxiously waiting, he was about to tell her that he would wait for her in the car when the door opened, exposing a man wearing shorts.
Desire overrode his worry. Deep down, this was why he had stayed married to the horny bitch. The sensual man opening the door wider for them was fucking sex on a fucking stick, or he would be when he was finished with him. He thought about the whip he bought with a dual purpose in mind.
“I have everything set up for us downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” Lena was the one hesitating, stopping them from going down the carpeted stairs he led them to off the expensively furnished living room. The sixty-five-inch television hanging on the wall was the latest in technology.
“We can do it up here if you want.” He shrugged. “You paid extra for me videotaping us, and my camera is set up downstairs. The only reason I set up downstairs is the guest bedroom is larger than mine.
“Whitney and Derek said you might be skittish the first time. If you want, we can have a couple of drinks and reschedule for another time. I wasn’t too keen to doing this, anyway, with the virus going around. Of course, if we do reschedule, I don’t give refunds—”
“Never mind,” Lena said anxiously when no refund was mentioned.
The man took off, and they followed him down the steps, his lean, muscled back on display.
The basement was decorated in the same style as the living room with another television mounted down there with theater chairs placed in front. There was even a fucking popcorn machine set to the side.
“You want some popcorn? I just made it a couple of hours ago,” he asked inanely as he went to an open door on the side of the room. The room was set up just the way Lena had requested. “Take your coats off.” The man motioned to a small fridge. “Make us a drink. It’ll loosen us up.”
Lena went to the small fridge, taking out premixed cocktails in little bottles.
“I’ll take the Mai Tai.”
“Bob?” she asked, using the fictitious name they had decided on.
“Whatever you think I’ll like.” Laying his coat on a chair, Aaron started unbuttoning his shirt, his eyes on the thick bulge under the navy shorts the man was wearing.
Giving the man on the bed his Mai Tai, Lena opened her bottle to take a sip, waiting for Aaron to finish removing his clothes.
Carry the bottle of Punching Kangaroo to the bed, Aaron sat down. Taking a drink, he ran his hand down the man’s muscled thigh as Lena started to undress. Lustfully watching the muscles on the man’s throat work as he swallowed, Aaron felt his erection swell.
“Abby said your name is Bob.” Taking another drink, he edged his hand under the leg of the man’s shorts.
The man caught and placed on his knee. “Let’s wait for Abby, then I’ll start recording.”
“Almost there.”
Aaron turned at the sound of a thump on the carpet, seeing his wife had passed out. Jumping up, he grabbed his head at the wave of dizziness hitting him, sending him to his knees. Stupidly staring at the drink that was spilling onto the carpet, he looked up to see the man they had come here to fuck get off the bed to stare down at them with hatred pouring out of his eyes. “Fuck,” he gurgled out.
“Yes, you are.”
* * *
Lena woke up, then wished she stayed passed out. Lightheaded, she managed to raise herself onto her elbows to stare in terror at the room she had never seen before.
Seeing her husband lying on the dirt floor, she started crawling toward him. As she moved, her head began to clear, and it became easier to move. Managing to sit up by her husband’s side, she started shaking him.
“Wake up!” she screamed, becoming more terrified the longer Aaron took to wake. “Wake up!”
Lena laid her head on his chest, trying to hear for a heartbeat and sobbing out when she felt him moving under her ear. Rising, she shook him harder, crying louder when Aaron opened his eyes.
“Get up!” she screeched. “You’ve got to get us out of here.”
Helping him sit up, she crawled behind him at the sound of a door opening across the room.
The man cruelly watching them seemed familiar, yet Lena couldn’t remember where she had seen him before.
“Right on time. Moon said he could get you to take a drink. I shouldn’t have doubted him; he always gets the whores to do whatever he wants.”
Lena looked at her husband, seeing the same puzzled frown on him that she had on her face.
“Do something,” she whispered, petrified, scrunching behind Aaron as much as she could to hide from the cruel eyes boring holes through them.
“There’s nothing he can do.”
&
nbsp; Peeking over Aaron’s shoulder, she saw a gun pointed at them.
“You should have listened to Slate’s advice and laid low. Fortunately for me, I knew sooner or later a few of his sick rats would want to come out and see what they could scavenge.”
“If you know Slate, then you know we have money. We can pay any amount you want to release us and help us get away from the man who took us,” Aaron bargained.
Cruel laughter filled the room. “You’re asking for my help? That’s fucking hilarious.”
“There’s nothing funny about this. Is this a joke?” Her husband managed to get to his feet.
Left exposed, Lena got to her feet to hide behind him again.
“No joke. And there’s no amount of money in the world that would entice me to help you. You want out of here, you’re going to have to dig yourself out.”
“Oh God! I remember who he is ….” Lena grabbed her husband’s waist to pull him back to her, waiting for the sound of a bullet to go off.
Aaron turned around to look at her. “Who?”
A tsking sound drew his eyes back to the door.
“I’m disappointed you have forgotten me so easily,” the man mocked. “I remember everything about you, Brad. You, too, Cami. How could I ever forget the performance you gave for me? I’m so disappointed.”
As he tsked them again, Aaron looked horror-stricken. He turned his head to see his wife nodding hers in acknowledgment.
“You’ll never know how nice it’s been renewing our friendship, but I don’t have all night to keep you company.”
“Don’t leave …,” Pleadingly, she started begging. “It was Aaron’s idea. I had to go along with it, or he threatened to give me to Slate. I swear—”
“You lying bitch!” Her husband jerked away from her. “It was all your idea! This mess is all your fault, too!”
A shrill whistle had them both looking at the fearsome man who was watching them.
Amber eyes were the only part of the man that she remembered from the night she and Aaron tricked him into believing they had been kidnapped and were at Slate’s mercy. He had tried to help them and, in return, they had spent the rest of the night raping and torturing him until he hadn’t even been able to scream.
“He’s going to kill us.” Going to the wall, she hunkered down into a tight ball, praying it would be quick.
“Aw … No, I’m not.”
Lena started shaking, too scared to believe him.
Aaron did.
“How much do you want? You have to go or take me to an ATM—”
“I’ve already had my laugh for the day, so I’m going to make this short and sweet. You want to live? You’re going to have to earn that right.
“I dug two holes. One will have a key to the door; the other will have a gun. The gun will have one bullet. If you find the key first, you can open the door and will be free to go. If you find the gun … then it becomes a little tricky. Only one person is leaving this room alive. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one. I don’t give a fuck who does. No, wait, I take that back. I’m rooting for you, Brad. From my experience, she’s a real bitch. Good luck!” Scornfully, he went out the metal door, locking it behind him.
Aaron ran to the door and started pulling on the handle. When that didn’t work, he started shouting to get out, banging his fists on the unyielding metal.
“What are we going to do?”
Lena was already frantically digging, scooping up handfuls of dirt while her husband whined at her, as if she could magically wave a magic wand and get them the fuck out of here.
Clawing through the dirt she saw Aaron drop to his hands and knees to start digging. If he found the gun first, she was as good as dead. The coward knew she wouldn’t hesitate to snuff him out to save her own life.
Killing her husband wouldn’t even faze her, she didn’t have a conscience on the other murders she had committed.
The stupid suckers she’d killed who responded to their ads got what they deserved. The only reason she hadn’t killed Aaron was his usefulness at helping her steal what they could load into their cars while their victims lay dead.
Madly scrambling to another mound of dirt that seemed higher than the rest, she started digging, her hands already tiring; she had to reach the gun first. The key would be useless without the gun ….
She had to find the gun, Lena told herself over and over as she dug. She had to find the gun … before he did.
* * *
Reaper gunned the motor of the truck on the empty interstate, satisfied he would make it back to Treepoint before the time he was scheduled to drop the truck off with Rider. The plan the evening before had come off without a hitch, or would have if he made it back before Silas or Ginny awoke and realized he was missing. He had been showering as Silas and Ginny were readying the firepit to cook the steaks for dinner. Getting out of the shower, he returned Viper’s call.
“I received a reply to one of the ads you posted.”
“Which one?” Reaper stood on the bath mat, dripping wet, making no effort to reach for a towel.
“Make Me,” Viper replied sardonically.
“They send pictures?”
“Sending. Hammer believes it’s one of the couples you had interactions with.”
Interactions isn’t what I would call their raping and torture of me, he thought to himself as he moved the phone from his ear.
The picture was low quality, but he recognized the couple instantly as he hadn’t been drugged when they had first come down to the basement. That was what happened when their faces and what they had done to him had been burned into his mind.
“Reaper? Do you recognize them?”
He put the phone back to his ear. “I recognize them. Slate called them Brad and Cami.”
“They replied as Bob and Abby.”
“At least one of them has an imagination.” Reaching for a towel, he began drying off. “Have you responded back?”
“Not yet. I was waiting for you to confirm they were one of the couples you were searching for.”
“Send me the link to my burner phone.”
“You’re not thinking of going out, are you?”
“Just send me the link.”
Getting dressed, he went to his room to take out the burner phone that Viper had packed for him. He heard the front door open and close, then light footsteps going up the steps. Ginny had said that she was going to take her shower once Silas put the steaks on.
Turning the phone on, he pulled up Viper’s text messages, then pressed the link.
Reaper still felt the rush of adrenaline when he realized, if he planned it right, the Coleman’s wouldn’t even know he had left. Brad and Cami deserved his personal good-bye.
Responding to the request, Reaper then turned the burner phone off. He wouldn’t turn it back on until he was well away from Treepoint.
Calling Viper back, he set his plan in motion. “I need wheels.”
“You’re going to leave the Colemans? Let one of the brothers handle it … We can keep them on ice for you.”
“I’m doing it tonight, with or without your help. I’ll be coming back here. I don’t have to get close to them to do what I want.”
“What do you need?”
“Wheels.”
“What type?”
“Big, with a lot of horsepower.”
“When?”
“Nine. I plan to have an early night. Park it at the Colemans’ turn-off. Make sure it’s spic and span. I don’t want to carry any germs back here. Pick up in the morning by 0600 hours. I’ll make sure it’s just as clean for whoever does the pickup.”
“Have you gotten the test kits from Arin?”
“Hennessey delivered them an hour ago.
“Going to need a couple of brothers who won’t mind being up close and personal with Brad and Cami. They’re going to text me a video of them taking their temperatures, but I can vouch for how good they lie. If none of the brothers want to go, then I can
go on my own. Just find someone to take over for me here.”
“Already have two volunteers. Moon and Jesus can stay at Jesus’s sister’s rental house. Make sure you keep your distance from them to keep the Colemans safe.”
“To save time and so I don’t have to listen to you bitching, I didn’t plan on getting close to either of them, or Cami and Brad.”
“You need anything else? I’ll put a box of the test kits for you and the Colemans in the truck for you. Arin’s lab doesn’t have approval for the tests yet. She’s giving them to us as research subjects. If they work, it’ll take at least one worry off our minds.”
“They’ll work. Arin has the best private lab in the nation.”
“Don’t forget to take them when you drop the truck off.”
“I won’t.”
“Be careful. I hope you get them. May the motherfuckers rest in hell.”
“Resting will be the last thing they’ll be doing when I’m done with them.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I haven’t seen him this happy since he’s been here.”
Ginny kicked her heels back on the siding of the house as she sat on the edge of the porch. Feeling Silas drop down beside her, she worried her inner lip, afraid of what he would ask. She couldn’t lie to Silas, as much as she loved Gavin.
“The mountain air is good for him.”
“Yes, it is.”
Though Silas seemed to agree, Ginny knew she wasn’t off the hook yet. Her brother had helped raise all of them; he was an expert at letting you walk into a trap of your own making. Unfortunately, her knowledge of that didn’t keep her from barging ahead.
“He’s probably just relieved that all of us tested negative for the virus. I’m glad The Last Riders were able to get testing kits.”
Silas twisted sideways to lean his back on a porch post, staring at her intently.
“Funny how he didn’t tell us last night before we went to bed that he was meeting Viper this morning.”
Reaper’s Wrath: Road to Salvation: A Last Rider’s Trilogy #2 Page 25