“Alec! Alec! I’m sorry, I’m so late! Alec, where are you?” It’s Ann’s voice and she sounds so happy.
I stand and put the gun to Alec’s head, he freezes in his chair, looking stiff and uncomfortable.
“Alec, I-” Ann stumbles when she sees us, panic races across her features then recognition. “Daddy?”
She’s dressed in a cream skirt with matching jacket. Her hair is up in chignon, my girl looks so much older than sixteen.
“Hey, baby girl, I’ve come to take you home.”
Ann shakes her head. “No. I love Alec, I'm happy.”
“You were sold to Alec and you belong at home.”
“Dorogoy, it’s okay, we’ve been having a nice chat. Come here.”
Ann takes a step toward us and I pistol whip Alec across the head, knocking him out.
“No!” shouts Ann as she rushes to his side. “What have you done?”
I grab her by the arm and pull her away from him. “I’m taking you home.”
“Home?” Ann yells at me. “To what? A father who’s never there and a mother who wishes she wasn’t? Alec loves me. He married me!” Ann thrusts her hand in my face showing off her rings.
“It’s not love, Ann. You’re a possession, something he owns.”
“You don’t know!” hisses Ann as she pulls out of my grip. “You don’t know me! E!”
Not liking what I have to do, I grab her in a choke hold until she passes out. I place her limp body on the ground then tie up Alec Petrov.
I pick up my girl and throw her over one shoulder. The house is quiet and I slip out the way I came in. No one gets in our way.
***
I take Ann to Switzerland. There’s a camp here that specializes in deprogramming of brainwashed people. It’s brutal and I’m not allowed to see her. Ann is convinced that that piece of shit Petrov loved her. It’s not going to be easy. I’ve got contacts in his organization who believe that he is genuinely worried about her. Petrov has even posted a reward for her safe return.
I’m going back, I’m going to find him and I’m going to drench myself in his blood. Ann will see him for what he is and he will see me for what I really am.
The Wraith seen shortly before death.
THE END.
About Kathleen
www.kathleenkellyauthor.com
Dedicated to:
The faithful readers who’ve been there since the beginning, proofreading, beta reading, bringing me Jell-O shots to book signings...
Ladies, you are amazing.
This one’s for you.
CHAPTER ONE
Jessica
“I am not too safe. My market research is thorough, and my focus groups are on point. That doesn’t make me too safe, Chad, that makes me a responsible advertising director,” I ranted to myself, wishing I would have made that point during the meeting with my work nemesis. Of course, Chad would know about the importance of research and focus groups if his designs were based more on client needs than the desire to flaunt his penis. “I mean, what’s with that ad you created for the Mission Health Group? It’s not a freaking nightclub, Chad,” I spat as the elevator stopped.
The doors opened, letting me out on the third floor of my apartment building, putting an end to the argument I’d been preparing through nonsensical mutters and wild hand gestures that would no doubt have people staring if anyone was around to witness my behavior.
But there was nobody, because not only was I ‘too safe,’ I was also ‘too chicken’ to cause a scene, and telling Chad—who was now my boss—that everyone knew why he really got this promotion would create one heck of a spectacle. And probably get me fired and blacklisted from advertising agencies across Seattle and the entire Pacific Northwest. So instead, I’d taken an early lunch to come home and deal with my emotions like an adult. More specifically, I planned to gossip with my roommate, Carly, about how LaTisha had forgotten her purse at work and came back to catch Chad and the owner doing the nasty in a closed-door after-work “meeting.”
Apparently all my hard work and dedication couldn’t compare to Chad’s ability to take it up the ass.
Knowing Carly would be every bit as disgusted by Chad’s underhanded power grab as I was, I couldn’t wait to tell her all about it. I was still muttering to myself like a lunatic when I pushed open the door and called out her name.
No answer.
Carly should have been home. When I talked to her this morning, she planned to drop her five-year-old son, Trent, off at school and come back to spend her morning off cleaning and doing laundry.
Irritated by her unfortunate absence when I needed her steadfast solidarity, I stepped into the kitchen and froze in my tracks, taking in the scene. A half-eaten soggy kid-sized bowl of Rice Krispies sat on the kitchen table, guarded by an arc of plastic Army men.
Something was wrong. No matter how busy she was between her two jobs and her son, Carly never left a mess. And, Trent lived for cereal. Rice Krispies were his current favorite, and there was no way he would have willingly let them go to waste.
“Carly?” I shouted again, rushing down the hall and checking her room.
No response, and nobody was home. Their room looked like it had been ransacked. A few empty dresser drawers hung open, the closet had been cleaned out, and their suitcases were gone.
Something had spooked Carly.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I dug my phone out of my purse and checked it for missed calls or texts. Six months ago, Carly and Trent had been so desperate to escape something that they drove her little Civic into the ground to get to Seattle. Carly remained closed-lipped about her past, but between her request to keep her name off the apartment lease and Trent’s nightmares about the bad man finding them, they were clearly hiding from someone. Afraid their past had caught up to them, I called her cell phone.
“Hey Jess, how’s work?” Carly answered.
Relieved to hear her voice, I let out a breath. “Work is… ugh. Chad beat me out for the promotion, but I have so much dirt to share with you about that. Where are you? It looks like you left in a hurry. There’s a bowl of cereal on the table, and your room is all torn up. What’s going on?”
“Oh, yeah, I was gonna message you. I didn’t expect you to come home for lunch. Sorry, that must have looked bad. We’re totally fine, though. Wasp came and picked us up and we’re gonna stay with him for a few days.” She didn’t sound fine. She sounded stressed. Wasp was her ultra-buff, super-hot boyfriend. He belonged to the motorcycle club that owned the bar Carly tended in the evenings while I watched Trent. I could see her running off with Wasp—heck, I’d run off with Wasp—but she definitely shouldn’t sound stressed about it. Something else was going on, and it didn’t take a super sleuth to know she wasn’t telling me the whole story.
Wasp said something in the background while I tried to make sense of her sudden absence. “Are you moving out? What’s really going on? Are you in trouble?”
She was still talking to Wasp, not even listening to me. “Yeah, Jess. I hate to cut you off, but I need you to lock the door,” she said. Her tone had changed, and her words were clipped, hurried, laced with panic. “Stay in the apartment.”
“What do you mean, lock the door and stay in the apartment? Why? What’s going on?”
“There’s a guy chasing me, and Wasp is afraid you’re in danger.”
While she continued to speak to Wasp, I ran to lock the apartment door.
“What kind of danger?” I was so confused. How could I be in danger inside my apartment? “Carly, what the heck is going on?”
“There’s a guy from my hometown—Nate—he’s… batshit crazy. I never told you about him, because I was hoping to leave it all in the past. I’m so sorry, Jess. I didn’t think he’d find me here, but he’s been following us. He left a note in Trent’s bag, and when I found it, I panicked. I didn’t even think about you being in danger. I just had to get Trent to safety.”
“But you guys are okay? You’re safe n
ow?”
“Yes. We’re at the Dead Presidents’ clubhouse. It’s you I’m worried about. You shouldn’t be in that apartment. I should have called and warned you. I should have… Shit. I’m so sorry, Jess. You’ve been nothing but amazing to me and Trent, and I never meant to put you in danger. You know that bouncer I work with, Spade?”
The name rang a bell. “The one who volunteers at Trent’s school?”
“Yes. He’s on his way to the apartment. Wasp and Havoc will be there soon as well. Just hang tight until they—”
Before she could finish, my apartment door came crashing in. Fake wood splintered and the door bounced off the wall as a man wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt and faded jeans barreled into my apartment. His dark hair was buzzed, and his brown eyes were wild, his gaze darting around my apartment before settling on me.
“Where the fuck is Carly?” he asked.
Still in shock at the way he’d literally busted in my door, I shook my head.
He stalked over and poked my side with something. I glanced down and saw the metal of a gun as the sour stench of sweat, whiskey, and cigarette smoke invaded my nostrils.
“Where the fuck is Carly?” he asked again.
I still had the phone pressed to my ear.
“Ohmigod, Nate? He’s in there with you?” Carly asked, her voice so high she was practically screeching.
He ripped the phone out of my hand and put it to his ear. “Carly?”
I didn’t hear her response, but he blew out a breath and relaxed his shoulders.
“You left me.” He sounded crushed. Devastated. Not at all like the terrifying man who was pressing a gun into my side. “You said you’d think about it, but you left. All your shit was cleaned out of your house and I tried to call you, but you turned your phone off. You know I love you. Why would you do that to me?”
“I’m sorry, Nate,” Carly replied. Nate was standing so close to me that I could hear her clear as day. “I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry, but I needed some time to get away and think. I should have told you where I was going so you wouldn’t worry, but that has nothing to do with Jessica. She’s my friend and I won’t ever forgive you if something happens to her. Do you understand?”
He looked me over. “Then you need to get your ass here. Right now.”
“Okay. I’m coming. I’m like ten minutes out, but I’ll be there. Just don’t do anything until I get there, okay?”
“Hurry,” he replied before ending the call and tossing my phone on the sofa. Looking around, he homed in on the broken door. Tugging me with him, he tried to shut it, but it wouldn’t stay closed. “Come on,” he said, dragging me down the hall toward the bedrooms.
“Is the gun really necessary?” I asked. “It’s digging into my ribs.”
He shoved me into my room and followed me in, closing the door behind us as he repositioned the pistol in my side. “Quit your bitching, Carly’s coming.”
I didn’t know which one of us he was trying to reassure, but he clearly didn’t know Wasp. Carly’s boyfriend wouldn’t let her anywhere near our building or this whack job. More likely, Wasp and company would show up and handle him. All I had to do was stall and try not to get shot. Piece of cake.
Minutes stretched out, feeling like hours, before Wasp finally arrived. “Jessica? You here?” he called out from the living room.
Relieved, I started to reply, but Nate rammed his pistol in my gut, cutting me off. “Shut the fuck up.”
I could hear movement outside my bedroom door and wondered what the guys were up to. Nate scooted himself half behind me, turning me into his human shield, as he watched the door.
“The cops are on their way, Nate,” Wasp said. “You can still let Jessica go and get out of here before they arrive. Nobody has to get hurt or arrested.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Nate asked. “And why does he know I’m here.”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I replied, “Wasp. He’s Carly’s… uh… friend. She must have told him.”
“Nate? Jessica?”
Nate’s eyes were cold, and his glare was hard as he kept his attention on the door, waiting. The doorknob moved.
“Jess? You okay? Nate? Let’s talk and figure a way out of this.”
“Fuck off,” Nate growled. “Get Carly here, then we’ll talk.”
“She’s on her way, man, but I need you to be cool until she gets here. You know she’s gonna freak out if you hurt her friend. You don’t want to piss Carly off now, do you?”
“Carly doesn’t know the fuckin’ meaning of friendship. She said we were friends, but she lied. Then she left. Friends don’t do that shit.”
“Dude, friends don’t ask each other out, either. You stepped over the line and scared her. She didn’t want to hurt you, but her ex had just died. She wasn’t ready for a relationship. You should have waited, man. Hell, I bet if you would have contacted her and asked her out again when you got here instead of giving her kid a creepy-ass note, she would have gone out with you.”
I had no clue what was going on, but either Wasp was making this stuff up as he went, or Carly had told him a lot more about her past than she’d told me. That smarted a little, but now wasn’t the time to worry about my hurt feelings.
Wasp talked his way into the room. The door eased open and he crept forward, his hands in the air like he was surrendering. He left the door open behind him and I could see two men in the hallway. One was a big black guy I recognized immediately from the news. Havoc’s face had been plastered all over the papers when he’d put Mayor Kinlan’s son in the hospital for raping some girl. Standing well over six feet tall, with muscles on top of muscles, he looked entirely too large and intimidating for my narrow hallway.
On Havoc’s left, stood the most attractive man I’d ever laid eyes on. He looked like a young Antonio Banderas, but with muscles, tattoos, and facial hair. Okay, he looked nothing like Antonio Banderas, but he did have that Latino sex appeal that made me want to curl up at his feet and be the Puss to his Boots. Like Wasp and Havoc, he wore a black leather vest over a short-sleeved T-shirt with worn blue jeans. The patch on his vest introduced him as Spade. Tribal tattoos covered both of his muscular, light-brown forearms, his eyes were dark and mysterious, and his lips were framed in a well-kept mustache and beard. It was his expression that did me in, though, somehow both protective and lethal as his gaze locked on mine.
“Yeah, man. For sure. I mean, you love her so much you drove all the way here to tell her. Chicks dig that romantic shit. She’ll eat it right up,” Wasp said, flinging more nonsense at Nate.
Nate’s grip on me loosened. Sensing my opportunity, I eased forward. If I could just get to the door, I’d be out of the way so Wasp could do his thing without worrying about me.
“Put down the gun, Nate. Let me help you,” Wasp said.
Spade beckoned me forward, reaching out a hand. He looked like salvation wrapped in sin, and I was more than happy to escape the crazy scenario behind me and lunge toward him.
“Wait,” Nate said.
I was already flying through the air. A flicker of movement came from Wasp’s side as Spade grabbed me midair and threw me to the ground, covering my body with his. All oxygen left my lungs with an oomph.
Two shots were fired.
Someone screamed. Probably me. I waited for the pain of Nate’s bullet to hit me, but felt nothing other than the welcome pressure and heat of Spade’s body. Tucked into the safety he provided, I whispered, “Are you okay, Spade?”
“Yes. So are you. I got you, babe.” His warm breath tickled my cheek as his dark, deep, slightly accented voice made me all too aware of the length of him growing against my stomach. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Spade was getting hard. That knowledge, coupled with the masculine scent of leather and sandalwood, and the fact that this man had literally risked his life to keep me safe, heated my blood and made all my girly parts tingle.
“That’s right, motherfucker, we are not friends,�
�� Wasp growled. “You hurt Carly. You took away two people she loved, and you scared the shit out of her. I promise you, she will never know that kind of fear again. Trent will never have another nightmare, because this ends today.”
Nate’s response was garbled.
Spade lifted himself off me and stood, offering me his hand. As he hefted me to my feet, I took in the scene. Nate was bleeding out on the carpet at the foot of my bed with two gunshot wounds in his chest.
“He didn’t shoot,” I observed aloud.
Wasp nodded. “He tried. I’m faster.”
“But we want him to shoot.”
Wasp’s eyebrows shot up as his gaze met mine. “That crazy motherfucker should have never even gotten his hands on a gun. Now he’ll never shoot anyone again.”
I shook my head. My mind was spinning, but I couldn’t seem to get the right words out.
Spade squeezed my hand, drawing my attention to the fact that we were still connected. “What do you mean, Jessica?”
Sirens screamed in the background, drawing closer, and I knew we didn’t have much time. “The cops. You should fire off a shot with his gun. Erase any doubt that we were all in danger. Make it look like he shot first. Or at the same time.”
Wasp’s eyes widened.
“Smart thinking,” Spade said, squeezing my hand again.
Havoc grabbed a shirt off the top of my dresser and wrapped it around his right hand.
“You have to use his hand to shoot for the residue…”
Havoc cracked a smile at me. “Yeah, I’m not new to this shit. I know what I need to do. Spade, take Jessica into the living room. Wasp and I will handle this.”
Spade tugged me down the hall. “Come with me, beautiful.”
Beautiful? I’d been called a lot of things in my life, but only my family ever called me beautiful. I was about to tell him as much when the final gunshot interrupted me.
CHAPTER TWO
Spade
I’VE ALWAYS HAD a thing for nerdy women. My attraction stemmed from my eighth-grade crush on Ms. Rosales, a brilliant young teacher with perky tits and a narrow waistline she drew attention to by wearing low-cut tight blouses. Dark-framed glasses made her eyes look big and innocent and every time she sucked on the end of them I almost blew my load. I beat the shit out of two of my classmates to earn the privilege of sitting in front of her desk so I could enjoy the peep show provided every time she leaned forward to grade papers.
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