Chapter 16
Georgia
The helicopter landed on the roof, and I have no idea what city we are in.
No one has told us, though Rafael was keenly eyeing the buildings around us after we landed.
The trip downward in the elevator is slow.
That might be because I’m nervous. Eighteen stories of flexing my hands, staring at the doors, and being very aware of this collar on my neck.
I’ve not seen any images of what happens at the frat events, have only listened to Juniper describe them, so trying to imagine the board of directors of this organization is like drawing in soup. I’m almost as green as Lazlo.
A pair of hands slide onto my shoulders and rest there—Lazlo’s. “Relax. This can’t be that bad. Rafe?”
How did he progress to calling Rafael that? The man turns from where he was watching the numbers count up the floors. His haute couture suit is so perfectly black the buttons and edgings disappear into the dark color. He must have bought that in London.
“I’ve not been to a board meeting but they won’t eviscerate us, as far as I know.”
“Promising,” I mutter.
“Eviscerate, as in pull out our guts? That meaning? I’ll take that as long as they don’t use a spoon.”
“You are so weird,” I tell Lazlo. He only lightly smacks my ass. The elevator halts.
The door slides open revealing a long corridor. To the left, a man guards a pair of shiny gray doors and he beckons to us.
“Wait.” Rafael turns to face me and fishes from his pants pocket a metal leash that he lets uncurl to the floor, keeping the clip in hand. He comes to me and adjusts the collar. “This goes on you before we go in there.”
He clips it on. The metal links swing down in an arc and I’m left staring at the chain.
It’s odd being claimed so starkly, but Lazlo takes my hand and interrupts my thoughts, while Rafael leads the way to the double doors with my leash in his hand.
“Sirs, miss.” The guard said something else into a lapel mic before we reach him. He swings aside one wing of the door. “Robard will escort you from here.”
Robard is presumably the silent man, just inside, who ushers us down a short corridor and then into a large room dimly lit from above.
A huge, U-shaped table, half the size of this room, lies before us with only six people sitting around it at the very top.
We’re left standing between the open ends of the U.
The leash chain subtly tinkles as Rafe lets it dangle between us.
All of the board members are masked. They’re prettier than a forest of animals and creepier.
On the left is a woman with an eagle mask and steel fingernails long enough to slit your throat. Then there’s a man in a phantom of the opera mask and suit to match.
The next woman wears a bright-red, medusa style headdress and emerald-colored gown and she speaks first. Some alteration is being done to what she says and her speech sounds robotic.
“Good evening, Rafael Navarro. Since Sir Benjamin Somersby is unwilling to attend, this is only a partial meeting.”
Beside her, to the right, is a man with a green gargoyle mask.
The fifth member wears a dark suit and an enamel harlequin mask of shiny reds, blacks, and golds.
Though the gaping lips are gold and white triangles of shiny sheet music curl above his head, his real mouth shows between them.
A white cane with a gold knob at one end lies on the table before him.
After him is a hooded man with a plague doctor mask.
The harlequin speaks. “You’re only here so we can emphasize some crucial points. Lazlo Fox, yes?”
“That’s me.” He takes a half step. “Sir Benjamin apologizes for his absence and wished me to say a few words.”
“Go ahead.” The gargoyle says, leaning back in his chair.
“He acknowledges the help his family has obtained from your fraternity. He pledges to help your members in return, within reasonable and legal limits. He cannot do anything criminal.” Lazlo pauses.
“And of course he needs further help in finding out who killed his son, and who kidnapped Miss Georgia Carthan here.”
“And you want us to administer justice once he or she is found?” Medusa, or Queen O, whose name tag I can now read, clasps her hands on the table.
“Because that justice is likely to need to be illegal.” Her lips show and I can see her smiling.
“Although we cannot put this in writing, it is nevertheless considered binding by us.”
“By the fraternity,” the Gargoyle elaborates. I can’t quite read his name tag, but the Harlequin has Domino splashed on the golden nametag pinned to his chest.
“He understands this. And also that the degree of help you give must be matched by him.”
“Excellent,” says Domino.
Now I remember that Juniper said most of the members at events used pseudonyms. Being billionaires and millionaires I suppose some of them hate being identified as extreme kinksters.
And I am being ignored while they speak to the men.
Half expected, they probably elevate the dominants, and since this Queen O has status she is likely one.
Reaper is the hooded one, then there is Phantom.
Gargoyle face is simply labelled Monster, and the eagle woman is…
I squint and read Claw. Okay, not volunteering for her treatments though Reaper might be worse.
Domino continues, “And as a reassurance of your employer’s participation, you are going to be attending our events, or at least one of them, in person, Mr. Fox.”
“I am, sir.” He’s adopted the parade rest position. “With Rafe here and Georgia. We will be sharing.”
“Yes, and you have her collared and leashed. Wonderful.” I can hear the cruel approval coming from Domino.
“That said, here is a condition of Rafael’s, and your, continued ownership of her.
You must control her. No further excursions will happen.
Any hint that you are losing control of her and we will take her from you.
Where she goes after that is up to us. Clear? ”
The silence feels deadly, as if violence could erupt. I’m imagining it, I’m sure, though Lazlo looks back at me with a stark expression I’ve never seen on him before.
Me, if I could, if I thought it wise, I would debate this. I would say that I am me. That I should have a say.
Fruitless. From this elaborate set-up, I’m an ant to them. Something squishable. I pinch my mouth in a straight line and say nothing. Besides, I have my own agenda, my own to-do list, and I will be ticking off all the items, somehow, in blood and in guts.
Rafael raises his head from where he was studying the floor and seems to peruse each member, his head moving left to right. “Okay. You’ve been heard. Is that everything?”
“Yes.” Domino picks up his cane and raises it as if about to hammer the table.
“Wait,” Lazlo says. “Isn’t there something you’re meant to give me? A list of those who were on that boat. Sir Benjamin said it would be here.”
Queen O looks to Domino, her animatronic snakes writhing as she turns her head. In the dim downlights they could almost be alive. “Were you successful?”
“I was. This list has been obtained but it must remain with your employer, once you give it to him, safe-kept, preferably inside a safe, and burned once it is of no further use. Here.” He offers a plastic folder and Robard appears from behind us, striding forward to take the list. He brings it to Lazlo.
“Yours, sir.”
“Ta.” On unclipping the folder, he leafs through the sheets of paper.
“Four pages of dead people. Wow.” He checks the last page.
“Okay. This is it then. From experience, I understand your caution. Getting this from the police database without detection would be difficult. I don’t know how you managed it. Thanks.”
No one elaborates on their methods. A mole in the upper echelons of the police force, I assume. Maybe even the Minister of Justice, or whatever is the police department here.
“Meeting adjourned?” Domino raises his cane and when no one says otherwise, he raps it across the table.
“Safe travels,” the Gargoyle says. “The helicopter is waiting.”
On the way up, Rafael leans in. “When we get back, you will be sleeping between us.”
“Sleeping only? How average of you.” I couldn’t help the barb after having to withstand being made less than human by the board.
Neither of them says more, but they exchange a glance then reach behind me and both squeeze my butt, hard.
Though I wince, I refuse to react much.
Lazlo hip bumps me. “What’s the punishment? Spoon evisceration?”
“Probably.” For the first time in a while, Rafael sounds amused.
I sigh. I might not survive the boy jokes, let alone the kink.
We board the chopper and as the rotor blades start spinning, an envelope comes back to us from the co-pilot.
Rafael opens the flap. The engine sounds are building and he quickly reads the note then passes it across to Lazlo.
I get to read it too, after he unfolds the stippled, gold-edged notepaper.
“You’re cordially invited to a private CNC Kinkfest, masks and costumes will be provided. Tell the pilot if you’d like to accept.”
At the bottom is a scrawled signature that takes up a third of the page: Domino.
“Is it a yes? Because I’m keen to try.” Lazlo glances at me. “So is our little voodoo doll.”
I’m not getting a say but that’s pretty much what I signed up for. I already know the answer because it’s written all over Rafael’s face.
He leans forward and says, “Our answer is yes.”
The pilot nods and the helicopter surges skyward then climbs away and turns, skimming below the starry sky.
Okay. Okay. Here we go. I know the theory of what they do but this is as new to me as it is to Lazlo.
We end up circling above a house in the countryside, where floodlights paint a circular landing pad and tennis court.
Other, ground-based lights throw their yellow illumination onto the facade of a three-story house and a separate two-story building beyond.
White columns ascend the front portico but most of the bay windows are unlit and seem like black holes to nowhere.
It looks larger than the house Sir Benjamin lives in. It looks formidable.
The chill that runs through me, making goose bumps rise on my arms, has nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with that night on the boat, and my stay in the House under the knives and chains of those evil assholes.
The choking sensation, the lump stuck in my throat, ditto. It’s from that.
I grope for Lazlo’s hand, to my right, not Rafael’s where he sits on my other side, and he holds mine, just holds it.
“Hey. Georgia.” Lazlo takes my hand to his lap. “You’re not drunk or drugged or among strangers this time. Tonight is for fun, right Rafe? I think she’s panicking a little.”
Grimly, I nod. “I am. Sorry.”
Rafael grunts then tilts my face toward him, studying me before he bestows a soft kiss on my mouth.
“I’m in no hurry. Neither is Lazlo. Like I said before, you’re mine.
Ours for the moment,” he nods at Lazlo. “I won’t damage you, mentally or physically.
Enjoy this.” His fingers run partway around my neck where the collar meets my skin.
My panic has settled somewhat, and I return the examination he gave me. “Okay.” I guess I do still trust him, in this respect if not in everything.
“Good girl. You can have a word to use, just for this time. Voodoo. A small word, so Lazlo can remember it.” The man snorts at the insult.
Rafe hooks the collar with his finger and pulls me in to kiss below my ear and murmur, “Use it without thinking and I’ll be very unhappy.
To say thank you, you’re going to have to do something for me. At the front door, if I say so.”
The warm tingle from his breath brushing my skin lessens the threat.
He runs fingers into my hair and kisses my mouth again, much…more…thoroughly.
When he pulls away, still cupping my face, I’m panting and more than a little aroused.
I lift my hand to find his only to have it caught and kissed and laid across his thigh. Now both my hands are owned. I’m going to like being played with, if it’s always like this.
Though…
“Do something?” That’s as suspicious as it comes and there’s glee in the slight upcurve of his mouth and his eyes. Funny how that also reassures me. The panic has gone away, now I just want to blow a raspberry at him.
Maybe not.
Later, when I’m not so vulnerable, and can run away and hide.