Chapter 10 #2
Shaking my head, I snort without humor. “There is no team.”
“Then how did you get all of us…” He waves his hand around. “Here.”
“I have my ways.” I smirk just to get under his beautiful skin.
“You’ve been with Harold for months,” Maxim states, for his benefit or mine, I’m not sure.
“Oh. I know. That was part of the plan.” I had to endure that prick for months.
The groping. The murders. Kissing. He’s one of those men who have spent so many years doing whatever he wants, with no consequences for his heinous crimes, that he believes he’s untouchable.
I’m here to show him just how fucking wrong he is.
“Fuckin’, Christ.” Maxim’s cheeks turn a pretty shade of red as he draws his knees closer to his chest and looks away, lost in thought.
I leave him to it.
He’s gotta come to terms with his mortality one way or another.
I’m sure he’ll beg for mercy or offer us money. They always do. Not that we give our marks that much time to talk. But it happens every now and again, and they almost always promise to do better.
Right.
Better.
Ha.
This isn’t rehab for sick fucks. We don’t have a twelve-step program on how not to be a trafficking piece of shit. There is only one step. Die. At least these assholes don’t deal in children. So they’re not the lowest of low. Ya! They’ve got that going for them. They’re not pedophiles.
Giving Maxim all the time in the world, I pick my nails for something to do, and when he’s done pondering life, he can get back to asking me whatever twenty questions he can’t help but ask.
Dark
Ava.
Ava.
Ava.
Curvy Ava.
Harold’s Ava.
The woman with the mismatched eyes.
Pale skin. Freckles.
“That was part of the plan…” Her words slam around in my skull.
Part. Of. The. Plan.
Fuck.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I exhale hard and will both my heart and cock to calm down.
I have an erection, and trust me, I don’t want it. It’s not that I’m turned on, but he is. He has a competence kink.
Smart women. Badass women. Women who look through me, just like Ava’s doin’ right now, patient and calculating.
A woman who spent months getting close to my father-in-law, to have this very moment with me sitting naked in this shitty building, in the middle of the woods, stripped of my dignity, with no chance of freedom. Yeah. He likes that.
Moving around so Ava doesn’t get a look at what’s goin’ on down south, I give him a few more seconds to shrink to half-mast before I open my eyes to find her just as she was before.
“When?” I ask.
“When, what?”
“When am I going to die?”
Ava peeks out of the open door. “Not today.”
“Tomorrow then?”
She shrugs a single shoulder, not all that concerned. “Possibly.”
“And Penelope?”
“She’ll die too.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Whenever my sister decides.”
Her…
“Ah.” I bob my head in understanding. If she has no team, there is obviously still someone else or multiple someones involved in her elaborate scheme to get us here. “Your sister’s the one who likes to make them scream,” I guess.
Ava nods. “Yes.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“That she likes to make them scream?” Her lip twitches as if she wants to laugh. “Should it?”
“I dunno. You tell me.”
“I just did.”
“Mmm,” I hum, trying to figure this woman out. “Do you do this often?” I nod to the shackles around my ankles.
“Not here. But killing piece-of-shit men. Yeah. We do that often.”
“Is it always men?”
“Yes, with the occasional exception.”
“Like Penelope.”
Lips pressed into a thin line, Ava nods just once. No wavering. No remorse. Just straight facts.
My cock perks right back up.
In a world where I lie and manipulate every moment of my life and never truly know someone’s intentions, it’s a breath of fresh air not having to read between the lines and piece together fragments of the truth.
Nobody’s ever this candid with me. Not even my ex-wife, my father, or my club brothers.
Sure, there’s a level of honesty, but it’s always covered in a shiny layer of bullshit.
Whether that’s to spare my feelings or protect someone else, it’s never as simple as laying it all on the table.
“Thank you,” I find myself blurting as I stare into Ava’s stunning eyes.
They widen in surprise, and a little crease forms between her brows. “What for?”
“Being honest with me.”
Getting up from the stool, Ava returns it to the corner before turning to face me as she heads for the door. “You’re a strange man,” is the last thing she says before locking me back in my prison.
I suppose that’s at least a little true.
Penelope bangs on the wall. “Maxim,” she croaks, desperate for an update.
Not ready to have this conversation, knowing where it’ll lead, I ignore Penelope in favor of stretching my legs out.
The shackles clank against the concrete.
With a thick, tired groan, I take my cock in hand and stroke myself root to tip, slowly.
A bead of precum bubbles at the tip, and I swirl it around with my thumb.
The pleasure’s dull as I jack off in a stuffy room with the dregs of daylight to guide me.
For a few minutes, I ignore where I am and what’s sure to happen tomorrow, and I savor the faceless woman who haunts my dreams. She moans my name as I sink into her soft, wet heat.
My heart beats for her. She’s everything.
Past. Present. Future. When I spill all over my fist, it’s just us, and for a breath of time, I’m desired, loved, and free.