Chapter 5
Chapter Five
E zra
On the fourth day after the beating, a nightmare ripped Ezra from sleep. He lay perfectly still, images of the last time he’d seen his ex still projected on his close eyelids. Though in reality, Brian’s back had been toward Ezra, in the dreams, that rare, pleased expression on his face as Brian had taken someone’s life was always present. And the fear Ezra had felt then had turned the reoccurring dream into something that made him dread sleeping. Because it came back more than doubled each time. And in every dream, Ezra was the man tied to a chair and begging for his life around a gag.
Groaning, he scrubbed at his eyes and willed the remnants of the nightmare away, focusing instead on the state of his body. He was in slightly less pain. In some areas. Others felt worse. He rolled onto his back in bed, not really ready to face another day of feeling like this. He hated the painkillers he’d been prescribed because they made him feel too funky, took away his control too much, so he’d been trying to get by on over-the-counter stuff. Which wasn’t cutting it.
And after two days of having a silent bodyguard, Ezra still wasn’t used to him. He was too noticeable with his unbelievably sexy good looks. For the first time in years, Ezra’s fingers itched to hold a camera. To use Alaric as a model because Ezra could only imagine how photogenic he must be. The elf was insanely fucking hot—big, with wide shoulders and strong, lean muscles. And Ezra, being himself, couldn’t resist digging into that austere exterior. Poking at him.
No matter what he said, Alaric barely responded.
But man, Ezra liked looking at him. He’d catch himself staring and had to work to try and do it without the bodyguard noticing. He had the feeling nothing got past this guy, though. Including the erections Ezra kept getting. Couldn’t seem to stop them—his dick not caring one whit that most of his body was in pain. He just kept imagining being naked with Alaric. Despite his cold attitude.
Would the elf be that stoic in the bedroom or would he let loose? Pound Ezra into the mattress? Gah, just the thought had him sweating.
He got out of bed, threw on some sweats and a T-shirt, and padded into the living room.
Alaric was in his usual place, standing against the wall. He wore tight-fitting dark jeans and a loose white shirt. Sexy knee-high black boots on his feet, crossed at the ankles. His black curls were pulled back in a thick tail at the nape of his neck, which made his features all the sharper. The elf had a rather large nose, but it looked good on him, regal, and now that he’d ditched the contacts, the bright purple eyes with rings of gold kept pulling Ezra’s gaze.
Nobody should be that hot.
He made Ezra weirdly nervous. He wasn’t used to that feeling. Not since he’d stopped caring what people thought of him. Since he’d accepted his family didn’t care if he lived or died. Not to mention his disaster of a marriage. But he didn’t want to think about that, so he went into his kitchen to make coffee.
What he really needed was to get out of the house. What better way to do that than to start questioning the people on his list? Decision made, he walked back into the living room. “There’s fresh coffee if you want some. I left you a mug on the counter.”
“Thank you,” Alaric answered, pushing off the wall to stroll into the kitchen. Damn. The man even walked with a sexy, sure stride.
When he came back, Ezra handed him his notebook. “I’ve laid around the apartment enough. This is a list of people I want to talk to about this.”
Alaric scanned the page. “Jake Langford is first?”
“He’s one of my ex-husband’s bodyguards. The only one who was nice to me. I doubt he’ll talk, but it’s worth a try. It’s his day off, so today’s a good day to get him.”
“Who is your ex-husband?”
“Brian Kemper.”
Both black eyebrows lifted immediately.
“Know of him, do you?” Ezra asked with a smirk.
“I do, though I’ve never actually seen what he looks like since he’s never in public and avoids all publicity. You were married to him?”
“I was the unfortunate winner of the arranged marriage lotto. My father had one use for me, and it was to help tie our families together.”
“Why did you go along with it?”
Ezra shrugged, making his sore shoulder complain. “Just call it one last attempt to appease the master. I stuck it out for a few years, but there was never anything real between us. It was a disaster really, so I left earlier this year. He wasn’t happy. Kemper doesn’t like to fail at anything.”
“Was he mad enough to hire assassins?”
“Don’t know. Probably. He’s drawing out the divorce. Refusing to sign the papers. I’m going to have to confront him.”
“You’ll do that with me present.”
Ezra snorted. “Of course. I’d planned to meet him somewhere public, anyway. Just not yet. Not until I’m healed.”
Something flickered through Alaric’s expression, but he schooled it—just not quickly enough. Ezra narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about my ex?”
“That he has his hands buried in the dirtiest of crimes. But he’s good. Covers his tracks well. Not to mention the people actually willing to turn on him tend to go missing. He’s dangerous, Ezra. Very.”
“It was nice of my dear father to pay him off with me, wasn’t it? I didn’t know just how bad he was until I moved into his mausoleum. Which is a fitting description of that house, because the man is dead inside. Completely and utterly dead.” He glanced at Alaric’s stoic face and decided to poke the bear again. “Sex was like being with a robot.”
Alaric briefly closed his eyes as if his patience was barely hanging on by a thread. “I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”
“Well, it was bad. I don’t even think he liked sex. The kicker was, he ordered me not to get sex elsewhere. I was like some kind of possession that he trotted out for appearance’s sake. The ultimate trophy husband, just because my last name was Forsberg. He never failed to crow about that, like owning his enemy’s son was some kind of coup.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Three long years. My father was so angry when I left, he refused to speak to me. I just couldn’t…take it anymore.” Plus, he’d seen something that had scared him so badly, he knew he couldn’t stay in that house another day. Jake had actually been the one who helped him escape. The hired guard had a surprising soft side, despite who he worked for.
Ezra watched Alaric take a sip from his mug, his gaze lingering on the elf’s Adam’s apple as it bobbed. He wanted to put his mouth there. Maybe that would elicit a reaction.
This fierce attraction he had toward Alaric frankly flummoxed him. He liked sex, but he’d never felt like he needed it badly before. He hadn’t been lying that sex with Brian had been lackluster. Lackluster was actually too nice a word for what it had been like. Brian was a cold fucker—both literally and figuratively. He fucked like he was a corpse and had a soul that was made of ice. He did everything with a perfunctory manner that had left Ezra feeling like nothing but a hole. Brian hadn’t even liked to give or receive oral sex—said it was too unsanitary. Fuck, he’d been weird.
The sad thing about the whole situation was that at first Ezra had expected something different. Yes, he’d gone into the arranged marriage hardly knowing Brian, but the man was seriously handsome and had been attentive in the beginning. Ezra had actually believed they might be able to make it work at first. But Brian had been donning a mask of kind humanity. It hadn’t taken one week before Ezra had realized there was zero chemistry, and that Brian wasn’t even capable of feeling. He was a true sociopath who acted his way through life. They’d only had sex a handful of times in the entire three years he’d lived there. Not at all in that last year, which he’d been thankful for. He wouldn’t have been able to fake his way through another one of those awkward experiences.
Plus, he’d seen enough to know Brian was just…evil. Ezra knew that had nothing to do with his mental condition. Not all sociopaths were bad people. But Brian was. All he cared about was amassing wealth.
Which could be the reason he might be the one after Ezra. With what he stood to inherit, Brian could want it all.