Chapter 14
Aaron
Karsten Drummond’s room is outside the hall, and we followed his underling a short distance through a hallway in the resort to his door.
The man knocks, opens it, announces us, then scurries away.
I enter first, nod to the man where he sits behind a desk that looks like it escaped from a principal’s office.
A nice, private-school principal’s desk, but still, I’d bet a million he doesn’t like it.
Karsten loves his ostentation and his money.
“Sit, gentlemen.”
“We’re gentlemen today?”
“You are for now.” He smiles and rocks back in his leather chair, props a foot on the desk. His shoe is probably worth a thousand AUD alone. He makes that much a second, on good days, on the futures market.
Wisely, Tomás is letting me do the talking. I’m a full member, while he is not. To Karsten, the local CNC Fraternity head, that gives me certain status and rights.
No one else is present and I pull over two plush blue chairs from near the wall, offer one to Tomás, and we both sit.
“So. What is the reason for this?”
“Your submissive, Juniper Skye, is or was a friend of Riley Freyers, the recently deceased woman who falsely accused Nathan De Brit of rape.”
“And?” I’m not taking the bait. My poker face is great, and Tomás could out stare a charging rhino.
“And Nathan is missing. The cops here have no ideas but think he went swimming. Problem is his car is also missing, and it is not the sort of car that just goes poof into thin air.”
“Let me connect the dots. You think Juniper might know where he is?”
“Do you have any knowledge I need to be informed about? Because”—he sits forward, lets his foot slide off the desk—“if I find out you did, and you do not inform me, there will be hellfire raining down on you.”
“A threat, Karsten? I’m not some small fry.
A lot of the people out there in the hall use the syndicate.
To be clear.” I rap the desk. “No, we don’t have any such facts to tell you.
She’s a hot girl I used to know from my younger days, and I was pleased to discover she likes getting fucked over and fucked by two very sexy men.
” I offer my fist to Tomás and we fist-bump.
It’s a gesture guaranteed to piss off Karsten.
He grunts. “You overestimate your influence. You’re treading close to the edge here, Aaron.”
The edge of what? Why is he, and the CNC Fraternity presumably, so worried about a woman who is a nobody? Not many men would assume a female friend of a friend would go kill or kidnap Nathan. I cannot quite understand the undercurrent here.
For a full minute, Karsten stews, moody as fuck from the storm in his eyes.
He can’t really know what Juniper did. I had an inkling her identity might ring a bell for the fraternity, but we have covered her tracks, and the cops are not interested in her.
So, I wait him out. Finally, he sits forward.
“You can go, Aaron, Mr. Zambrano. If you learn anything, make sure you inform me.” A phone on the desk buzzes, and Karsten picks it up, turns away from us to answer it.
“Will do.” I stand and head for the door. Tomás follows me without speaking, and Karsten never confronted him or asked him to say anything. I might be getting paranoid, but it seems odd.
I’m reaching for the handle, when Karsten says, “Wait, please.” He’s holding up one finger while he listens.
“Your girl has interfered with the privacy of other guests.” A long pause.
“I hope this isn’t connected to the other matter.
” Pause. Again, I simply say nothing. “I expect some public punishment of her for this. At the least. Go. And be careful with what you say to her.”
I resist making a biting remark, like fuck the hell off. Since when do we treat fellow members like children?
Once we’re outside the door I ask Tomás, “How well do you know Karsten?”
“I have done some work for him, for the fraternity. I’m supposed to keep that private.”
“Okay. Understood.” Through the crowd, I see the big door guard, Shawn, standing next to Juniper, and she is kneeling. “What are we going to do?”
“To her? Something tasty. Something up there?” He indicates the stage where the crosses are set up, probably for shows all the attendees can watch. “If she’s done what he said, we should make the apology public.”
“Yes.” Past the crosses are a couple of table-height benches and some machinery I think I recognize. “That’s settled. Now we find out exactly who the fuck she offended.”
As we come to a halt before her and Shawn, she looks up, pouting—those lips are pink, pillowlike, and inviting desecration of the filthiest kind.
I jerk my focus off her to speak to Shawn. “What happened?”
“That happened.” He points to a door. “Herself went in while they were happily engaged in doing stuff. Things went a bit assways.”
“Assways?” The accent sounds Irish. I could hear the R in assways from a mile off. “So, people got angry? And herself went in.” I tsk at Juniper, who has the grace to look sheepish. “Anything else I need to know?”
“I am not supposed to say names. Go easy on her, though, she seems a sweet…” He clears his throat. “Not-so-innocent girl.”
“That might not be possible. Karsten has instructed us to punish her.”
For a second, there’s a speculative heat in his eyes. “Fair play. I have to get back to work.” He clicks his tongue at Juniper before walking away.
“You made a friend?” I ask her.
She purses her mouth. “He was okay.”
“Okay?” I muse. “Considering you fucked up in there that is a shock.”
“What did you do?” Tomás moves in until we are both standing over her. She has her bound hands clasped meekly between her knees. “Is the clamp still on?”
“It is.” She shifts her knees and winces. “Can you take it off?”
“It’s not been that long yet, has it?” I ask him.
“No. It can stay on a while longer. What did you do, exactly?”
She tilts her head and puts on that woeful look from before. The girl is acting, I think. “I went in there to see if they had any scars you-know-where. It was Baxter and Ethan and some others. They didn’t, so that’s good?”
I bark out a laugh, imagining the scene. The balls on this woman. In a hall of weird strangers, and we are thoroughly weird, rich, and powerful, and she dares to interrupt some of them while they’re fucking. Have I ever been this dedicated to avenging anyone?
No. I have not.
Tomás has been quietly shaking his head, as if he cannot believe what she did.
This doesn’t change anything, even if I am impressed.
“Are you planning on checking every cock in here?”
She nods, and I can only laugh. I must remind myself she murdered a man with a shovel, and I kidnapped her, because I’m not fucking Prince Charming, and how often do I normally laugh at one of these parties?
Tomás merely stands there, saying nothing.
“Let’s get her over there. I think naked would be good. Before you stand you will kiss our shoes and say, thank you for not doing anything worse than what we are about to do.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows do a small wiggle then she hurriedly says, “Thank you for being kind.” And she leans over and does as I asked—kisses our shoes.
Kind, not sure this will be kind, but it will be satisfying. “Up.”
Slowly, she gets to her feet and wraps her arms about herself.
“Naked?” I ask Tomás.
He stirs from whatever fugue state he was in. She has both of us thinking in circles.
“Yes. I’ll strip her.” He goes to her and pulls down one strap of the dress, circles behind her and does the other side, roughly dragging the garment partway to her waist. The rope stops it falling further.
“I’m not cutting my rope. Do the dress.” I get a few things from the bag and toss a knife to him. “Be very still, Miss Fucktoy.”
She grimaces at the label.
“You don’t get to be called by your name until you pay the price of your sins.”
“Sins?” she scoffs then spits out, “You owe me those clues.”
“You were supposed to obey. Do that to earn the clues. You just earned a gag.”
Except Tomás has lowered the knife and he comes to me. He flips the knife out, handle first, offers it. “Before we do this, I have something to say.” He looks about. “Somewhere private.”
“What? Okay. I guess. Like a room?” I’ve no idea what this is, but if he wants to do this, it’s important. Juniper is standing half-stripped, the loops of dress material slipped down her arms, and looking as uncertain as I am feeling. “Bring her.”
After I take the knife, he scoops her dress back into place then leads her with the rope. I make sure he’s following as I stroll along the wall, checking for a vacant room. The fifth door along has a green looped tag on it. “In here.”
Like all these rooms it has a super king-size bed, a sofa and two armchairs, and nice décor, with a small bathroom. I’ve seen better ones in the castles in Europe. Still, it’s nice. I pat the bed, and he gets Juniper to sit next to me, but he remains standing. “What is it?”
“Wait. The clamp.” He drops to one knee, pushes his hand beneath her dress while she watches with her face already tensing.
A second later, she flinches, and he pulls his hand from underneath, with the clamp in hand.
“I’d kiss it better but maybe later.” At least his sense of humor has returned.
He stands and takes a step back, puts the clamp in his pocket.
When this man is serious, the world is off kilter. He’s escaped murder squads and death camps, crossed leaky borders in South America with only what he could carry in a backpack, and I only know the broader details, and he did not panic.
“Spit,” I tell him.
“First, Karsten is still going to want her punished. What I say to you must not change that or he will suspect something.”
“Uh huh. Within reason, sure. I’m not his lapdog.” What is he about to say?
“Also.” He heaves in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t sure this should be said, but things feel wrong, and I trust those. Gut feelings saved my life, many times.”
“You’re building this up, man. Say it. We’re friends.”
“I know, and I am grateful, chamos. Here it is. Do not hate me, please.”