12. Ezekiel
12
Ezekiel
I lead the way downstairs, stopping in the study to drop off the laptop and the gun before heading into the kitchen. Cynthia is taking a casserole out of the oven as we enter the kitchen. When I smell the gnocchi in her signature sauce, my stomach growls.
“Cynthia, you remembered,” I say, and she smiles. It’s one of my favorite dishes.
“Of course I did. It’s good to see you back, Mr. St. James.”
She glances at Blue, giving her a polite smile before setting the casserole down on the counter.
“Would you like me to set a table?” she asks.
“No, that’s all right. I’m sure my brother is anxious to have you back.”
“I’ll come in the morning then. Salad is in the refrigerator and don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll take care of it all tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Cynthia.”
“Goodnight.”
“Am I invisible?” Blue asks once she’s gone.
I gesture for her to take a seat at the counter where two plates are stacked.
“Cynthia understands the need for discretion.” I find a serving spoon and heap some of the gnocchi onto one of the plates and Blue’s stomach growls when I set it in front of her. “When was the last time you ate?” I ask as she digs in.
“Careful. I might think you care,” she says, shoveling food into her mouth.
I grab the salad out of the refrigerator and carry over a bottle of wine Cynthia must have brought from the main house. I open it, pour two glasses. I set one in front of Blue and serve myself some of the gnocchi.
“No thank you,” Blue says, pushing it away. “I learned my lesson.”
“You saw me open it. It’s not drugged.”
“Nope.”
I take her glass, sip from it and raise my eyebrows.
“I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself. When was the last time you ate?”
“Before my shift at The Cat House.”
“How did you know about The Cat House anyway?”
“Same way I knew about you.”
“The Austrian guy?”
She nods, scratches her nose.
I smile, knowing this is her tell. She scratches the tip of her nose when she lies. She’s completely unaware that she does it. “I doubt that. Was your father always abusive?”
Her fork stops half-way to her mouth, and she turns to me. “Why do you want to know?”
“I told you I want to know your past as well as your present. It’s how I’ll decide your future.”
“I don’t see why it matters but not to me, until that last night. He never hurt me before that. He mostly hurt Wren and mom. What arrangement do you want in exchange for protection?”
“Where is your mother?” I ask, ignoring her question.
She shrugs a shoulder and keeps her eyes focused on her plate.
“What caused your father to hurt you if he hadn’t until then?”
“You’d have to ask him. All I know is not all fathers protect their daughters.”
“I know that.”
She looks up at me, studying me for a long moment. She sets her knife and fork down.
“Finished?” She nods and I get up. “Follow me.” I lead the way to what must have been Carlton Bishop’s study once. The fire is lit in the grate. It’s a comfortable space with a desk against one wall and a sitting area that contains a sofa and well-worn leather chairs. I’ve placed a small, three-legged wooden stool that looks about a hundred years old in front of the fire.
“Is anyone else here?” she asks.
“Would it make you feel safer if there were?”
“Not really, no.”
“No, it’s just you and me.”
“Is this your house?”
“No.” She looks confused but I’m not here to answer her questions. “Sit.” I point to the stool.
She looks at it, then at me, and rubs her arms like she’s cold. “I’m fine.”
“Sit anyway.”
“Look, just tell me what you want from me, what arrangement. I’ll do what you want and then I’ll go. I’ll get out of your life forever.”
“That’s not how blackmail works, sweetheart. Sit.”
“I’ll get rid of everything I have on you while you watch. Erase all the files?—”
“Ah, but someone told me recently that not all things that get erased stay erased so that’s not going to work for me.” She opens her mouth maybe to protest, maybe to make some other promise, but I stop her. “I won’t ask again, Blue.”
She takes a deep breath in, exhales, then sits.
I pour myself a whiskey and take the seat on the armchair. I sip. “I assume you’ll pass on the whiskey?”
She nods.
I set my drink down, pick up the laptop and turn it on. “Password?”
“FuckthePatriarchy. All one word. Capital F, capital P.”
I glance at her and snort, then type it in and voila. I’m in. I don’t even have to search to find a folder titled Z on the desktop. I glance at her, open it, and inside I see several photos and video files of myself at the hotel in Austria. The copies of the newspaper articles. I watch a video of my brother having a conversation with that asshole Mitch Spencer and after my brother leaves, I watch Spencer glance up at the camera as he takes a remote out of his desk, points it at the camera and stops the recording.
There’s still nothing here that could put me in prison. But the duffel could be problematic.
There are two more files and I open each one to find the compromising photos Blue would have used to blackmail the other two before me. Unless there are files hidden within folders, and there may well be, I don’t find anything else.
I close the laptop and set it aside. I’ll give it to Robbie tomorrow. I turn my attention to her. Fire crackles in the grate behind her as I sip my whiskey. Well, Carlton’s whiskey, but he doesn’t need it where he is.
“You and I find ourselves in a predicament, don’t we? A conundrum. I rarely get to use that word.”
She shifts in her seat.
“See, I don’t believe you’re being wholly truthful with me.”
“I answered all your questions.”
“Not to mention my duffel bag allegedly stashed away in some locker in some bus terminal.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I’m getting to that. You’re not very patient. Tell me something. What was your plan if I paid you anyway?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Get Wren. Go to Canada maybe.”
“Did you call in the tip that got your father arrested?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. You were going to take your sister to Canada so he wouldn’t find either of you?”
She nods.
“That postcard, you went white when you saw it.”
She clams up at that.
“Is it from him?”
Nothing.
“You’re afraid he’s going to come after you? Even though he’s in prison.”
“He has friends outside.”
“The postcard is from him?” I repeat my question. She wrings her hands in her lap, and fear flashes in her eyes. She shifts her gaze away for a moment. I wait until she turns back to me and nods. “Tell me something else, how long do you think a-hundred-grand will last you when you’re paying for your sister’s medical care?”
“Look, what is this all about? You have me. And I’m guessing you figured out by now, like I have figured out, that I’m in over my head. So maybe you can just tell me what you want. You want to punish me? Fine. Do it. You’re not going to kill me.”
“No?”
She shakes her head. She’s right, though.
“What the hell do you want exactly, Zeke?”
I smile, and I imagine for the outside, for what she sees, I am calm. Reasonable even.
Her gaze narrows. “Is it sex? You want to fuck me? Is that the arrangement?”
I snort.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“But you’re funny.”
Her hands fist and she leaps to her feet. “Just fucking tell me so I can get it over with and get on with my life!”
“I didn’t tell you to get up.” She must see the change in my expression because she looks uncertain but then folds her arms across her chest and glares at me.
I swallow the last of my whiskey and stand. At that she takes a step backward but there’s nowhere for her to go.
Closing the space between us, I stand over her and she has to crane her neck back to look at me, but I note the still stubborn jut of her jaw. She’s not backing down.
The fire crackles at her back. I reach around to caress her hair.
“Na?ve little Blue.” I cradle her skull before weaving my fingers into her thick hair and making a fist.
She makes a sound and grabs my forearm as I haul her onto tiptoes. She sets her hands against my chest for balance as she stares up at me, big eyes betraying her panic. She’s very pretty, and the fear that’s coming off her, that I can fucking smell, fuck, it makes my dick hard.
“You think all I want is a fuck and you can simply get on with your life after you try to blackmail me? To destroy me?” I ask, walking her slowly toward the desk.
“You’re hurting me.” She struggles but she’ll heel. She has no choice. She will learn that tonight.
“I already told you once, I’m a little more complicated than that.” Once we reach the desk, I shift my grip to her throat and hug her back to my front.
She clutches my forearm, in a full panic as my fingers dig into the soft flesh of her neck, her pulse beating wildly beneath my thumb.
I dip my face down, inhale deeply at the crook of her neck before bringing my mouth to her ear and biting the lobe, tugging, hearing her whisper of breath as I press my erection against her ass.
“I smell you, Blue. I smell your fear. Tell me something, does it turn you on?” I tell her in a voice so low it’s a whisper that makes her shudder. “Do you want me to fuck you? Is that it?”
“Let me go,” she whispers desperately.
With a sweep of my arm, I clear the surface of the desk and push her down over it. Kicking her legs apart, I bunch her skirt up to her waist and smack her ass. She cries out, fingers closing around the edges of the desk, her back rigid when I grip the fleshiest part of that cheek and dig my fingers in.
“Not what you were expecting when you sent that first email, is it?” I ask.
“Zeke, I?—”
I bend over her. “Ezekiel. I don’t want to remind you again.”
“Please. I?—”
I straighten, look down at her bent over the desk, one of my hands splayed between her shoulder blades to keep her down, the other weighing that ass cheek. I squeeze, hear her yelp before I let go of her cheek to spank her again. She cries out as the sound of flesh meeting flesh reverberates around the room and my dick is so fucking hard, it’s threatening to tear through my jeans. “Dangerous games have dangerous consequences, Blue . You’re going to learn that lesson hard.”
I slide the hand between her shoulder blades down to her lower back and press it into the desk, forcing her ass up, and I begin to rain down the spanking of her life.