Bound by Rapture (4 page)

“What is it?” Cole asked. 

“Where did you find this guy?” I stared down at the blood on my fingers. 

“Cops arrested him earlier today.”

I glanced up at Cole who was standing over me. “Arrested him? For what? How did you get him?” 

“He matched the description you gave the cops. Money talks.” Cole shrugged. “He kidnapped a woman last week. A few people saw him and got a good ID on him. Someone saw him this morning, recognized him and called the cops.”

“Where’s the woman?” I asked, though I don’t know why I did. A part of me already knew. Maybe it was because I had almost become that woman.

Cole hesitated. “I’m not sure. Randy didn’t say.” But I knew the truth. It was painted all over his face. Probably part of what Randy had been whispering to him when we walked in. But Cole was trying to protect me. I wanted to laugh. Protect me from what? I was on my knees before the man who had cut my throat and ruined my life. The only person in this room who needed protecting was the sick fuck bleeding on the floor.

I glanced back at the monster before me. His lips were crooked up in a bloody smile. “He hired you, didn’t he?” I asked Jay. I didn’t think it could be true before, but all the signs pointed there.

“Who?” Cole asked behind me. 

“Your little men haven’t figured it out yet?” I found it almost laughable. I jabbed a dirty hand at the symbol on Jay’s shirt. A symbol so familiar it made me sick. “He’s a rig buddy with my ex.” I turned to look at Cole. “He knows Kevin.”

“Who’s Kevin?” Jay asked from his not so advantageous position on the floor. 

I ignored him, staring up at Cole. He was so fucking perfect, even here in this basement surrounded by sparkling stripper shit, a bloody criminal at his feet. He looked like a god standing over me, his shoulder length hair tied back, his jaw covered in a couple days growth of a beard. Dark jeans hugged him in all the right places and a white v-neck t-shirt encased his muscles. Even here, even now. In this fucked-up moment I wanted to paw at him, see if I could make him hard. 

“He works with your ex?”

“Yeah, that’s the same place Kevin works and I saw Kevin in the gas station just a few weeks before Jay attacked me.”

“You saw Kevin?” Cole clenched his fists. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Something sinister covered his features. “What happened, Julia? What did that motherfucker do?”

“He didn’t do anything when I saw him.” I considered that night, how Kevin had looked at me, a look that promised retribution.
Kevin always keeps his promises.
“He,” I ran a hand through my hair and slumped back on my butt. “He was pissed. I could tell. Still pissed at me from the past. For running.” My hands started shaking. “I never thought he would do this, though. He’s the kind of person who handles shit himself. The kind of guy who wouldn’t let someone else hurt me, but didn’t mind hurting me himself, you know?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He crouched down next to me, his voice lethal.

Anger bubbled under my skin, replacing the fear. “You were off fucking your fiancé, if you must know.” I pushed at his shoulders. “Don’t give me shit about not telling you.”

“I didn’t fuck her,” he hissed, getting only inches away from my face.

“What?” 

“You heard me. I didn’t fuck her.”

My mouth gaped open. I wanted to believe him, but then I thought of Elaine’s petite form perched on Cole’s desk. “Whatever.”

“I didn’t, Julia.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest.
Could it really be true? He didn’t fuck her during that time we were apart?
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words never came out. Cold metal wrapped around my neck from behind, jerking me backward against a hard chest. 

“I’d love to sit here and listen to your fucking love spat, but I’ve got places to be. Especially now that I’m not with the cops anymore. I’ve got a border calling my name,” Jay said against my ear. 

I flailed, trying to pry his grip off my neck, but he only pulled tighter. A hissing sound escaped my lips. The skin on my face was suddenly hot, my mouth gaping open like a fish. 

“No!” Cole shouted, his big body looming over us. I expected him to try to bargain with him. To talk the guy down. To promise him something—a way out, a new life, anything to get him to let me go, but he didn’t do any of those things. Instead he pulled a black gun out of his pants and pressed it to Jay’s head. I didn’t have time to wonder about it, like where he got it, or when he put it in his pants, or even to be afraid there was a gun just less than a foot away from my face…because Cole pulled the trigger. 

Time seemed to stand still, moving in slow motion. The click of the gun was deafening. Just a simple tiny sound that seemed to burst my eardrums, the noise racketing through my brain like a semi-truck. Then everything was silent. Utterly silent and slow. It seemed to go on forever and then the ringing started, blaring in my head as the chain wrapped around my neck was pried free. I stared up at Cole in wonder, shock, awe.  

He didn’t fuck her. 

My heart thudded hard in my chest. Bursting with joy.

He was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear him, the ringing was too loud, like a fucking annoying bell. 

He kept talking and eventually his voice started to pry its way through my blaring mind. “Julia, baby, are you okay?” He brushed my neck with his hands, my face, smearing wetness. 

I reached for my throat and touched the sore flesh. The skin wasn’t broken. I was okay. I knew I was okay. Because he saved me. 

“You really didn’t fuck her?” My voice came out strong.

An amused smile spread across his lips and he shook his head. “I didn’t. It’s only you for me. Always.”

The ringing was still in my ears, but it was quieter now. I grabbed his shirt and jerked his head down to mine, mashing our lips together, our teeth clanging painfully. Something sticky rubbed from my face onto his.

I wanted him. I needed him now, even though I’d just had him hours ago. I pulled at his shirt and he jerked it over his head mashing his lips back against mine. 

“I need you.” I moaned into his mouth. He fumbled with my yoga pants, wrenching them down. 

“Fuck, Julia.” He sounded as lost as I felt. 

“Are ya fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Randy’s voice echoed through room. His deep tenor ripping through me like I had been doused with cold water. I looked over at him; there was a splatter of blood on his shirt from earlier.
Blood.
“Come on, pull ya fuckin’ pants up. Ya gotta be kiddin’ me with this shit.” He ran a hand over his bald held. 

I looked up at Cole as he jerked my pants up, but his movements seemed sluggish, like he was in slow motion. Something red was on his face. The color dark, thick, smeared around his lips. I frowned at it. I reached up and touched my own face, feeling the stickiness, remembering the sensation from when we’d kissed just moments before.
Blood. 

There couldn’t be blood on my face.
Blood. 

Cole said something to Randy, but I wasn’t listening anymore. Just staring at his face. At the red. The blood. 

Where did it come from? It’s not my blood. 

But it was on my face. I blinked slowly. The voices of Cole and Randy were constant now, angry, but they were just background noise to the buzzing in my head. 

I looked away from them, trying to clear the thickness clouding my mind. But then my gaze lit on something on the floor, just feet away. The body of a man in a pool of blood. Jay’s body. The man who cut my throat, who destroyed my life. The man who tried to kill me. There was a hole in the side of his head, and blood. So dark against the concrete floor. It pooled around his body, a warm puddle, with a trail that led to where I sat. A path of bloody fingerprints along the floor. I looked down at my hands, at the crimson coating them and back at the body.
Blood. 

“It’s on me.” I closed my eyes trying to push the image away, but I was back there. My back against rocky pavement, his big body looming over mine. The pain in my neck. I shook my head, trying to make it go away. It only shifted until there was something heavy weighing down on me. I tried to push the weight away, but my fingers met nothing but air. 

“No!” I shouted. Someone touched me, the heat from their skin scalding my arms. “Please,” I begged, but the darkness seemed to swallow me, pull me down. I could feel the blade embedded in my neck, the numbness spreading through me. 

It’s not real.
But it was, it had happened, it was happening again. 

Someone shook me, fingernails biting into my skin, but it was too late, I was sinking down into the darkness, into the blood, until I was certain I would be lost forever.

THREE

Cole.

“Julia!” I shook her shoulders, but her head lolled to the side. She was unconscious. Blood was all over her face, in her hair, pieces of the monster who’d tried to kill her. “Shit.” I checked her neck. The skin wasn’t broken where he’d wrapped the chain around her, but I didn’t know if there was some sort of internal damage, especially since she had so recently suffered a trauma. I scooped her up, letting panic wash over me. 

“What are we gonna tell the cops?” Randy asked. “They wanted Jay back by five tonight. We made a deal.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Something is wrong with Julia. I don’t have time for that shit.” I pushed past him and Leon. “Leon, call Dr. Lewis and tell him to get the fuck over to the apartment, now. And tell him to bring a nurse. I can’t take her to the hospital.” Julia’s head was pressed against the crook of my arm. She was breathing, I could feel it, but something else was wrong. She shouldn’t be out like this. 

“So that’s it. Ya gonna run and go play doctor and leave me to clean this mess up?”

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and spun around. “That’s your job.” I paused. “Pay the police off. Money will solve it. Take his body somewhere and get rid of it.” 

“What about figuring this shit out, man? Just cause that piece of shit is dead, doesn’t mean our problems are solved. Someone bigger is behind the scenes pulling the strings.”

“You think I don’t know that?” If I hadn’t been cradling Julia I would have lunged at him. Randy was a good guy, I trusted him with my life. But sometimes he was fucking difficult and I wished I didn’t respect his opinion as much as I did. Otherwise I would have fired his ass a long time ago. “We have a lead. We didn’t need him anymore anyway.” I paused and glanced down at Julia. “Plus he hurt her. Again.” My pulse thrummed in my chest. “I would kill him over and over again if I could.”

Something softened in Randy’s eyes. He had a soft spot for Julia. “Did he kill her?”

I frowned. “Who?”

He ran a hand over his bald head. “Mandi.”

I glanced at the dead body on the floor, remembering Mandi had been hanging out with Randy recently. “I don’t know.” I considered the possibilities and decided against it. “I don’t think so. They found that other chick in his apartment today, determined she died last night sometime. So, probably not.”

He nodded. “And the cops, how much do you want me to give them?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just give them enough to shut them up.” Leon was already off the phone, standing silent next to Randy. “They coming?” 

“Yes, he is leaving the hospital now,” Leon said.

I nodded, feeling relieved, and started up the stairs.

“And the family of the woman who was found dead this morning?” Randy asked.

I sighed. “What about them?”

“Will you be sending them money too, since they won’t get to see their daughter’s murderer brought to justice?” 

I stopped on the stairs and glared over my shoulder. “I don’t have time for this shit, Randy. I don’t know what made you grow a pussy in the last twenty-four hours, but you need to undo it and buck up. Clean up that body and quit being all extra with the feelings.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond, but took the stairs two at a time, all but running back to the truck.

I sat quietly next to Julia on the bed in her apartment while Dr. Lewis pressed gently on her neck. It was pathetic how incredibly jealous it made me to watch his fingers move against her skin, pressing on the scarred flesh. The urge to jerk his hands away grew with each passing second.