Cake (56 page)

“
Yeah?”

A call has been received from downstairs. There is a car waiting there for you. Dennison said he’d send you down.

I struggled back into my tight leathers. My hair was drenched, so I briskly rubbed the towel over my head so at least there wasn’t water dripping down my back. Then, tying the laces on my shoes, I headed back out into the room.

Everything was the way I had left it; Shade was still holding her stance over the prone figure of Randall. I glanced through the broken window pane across to the other building I’d flown from, wishing I could have packed that rifle I’d left there. But where? I couldn’t even pack a stick of gum in the tight pants I was wearing.

Are you sure about this? I’ve got a bad feeling. I can’t go with you. I don’t like this.

Shade being protective towards me was a little startling. “He doesn’t know that his assassins have failed. Now is the only chance we’ll have to get close to him,” I told her, twisting my hair to squeeze out more water.

I saw Randy tense up, his eyes looking at me puzzled, and I realized I had dropped out of Silent Speak. I knelt and stared back at him.

“
I think you already know that she understands me,” I said, nodding my head towards Shade. “Once I get to Monahan’s, he may call you. Tell him what he wants to hear, and I promise you’ll die a merciful death instead of a lingering, painful one. It’s your choice, Randy.”

“
He’ll kill you,” Randall called out in warning.

“
He’s already killed me,” I told him, standing back up and casting my eyes over to the Hellcat.

Don’t kill him until we know he’s not needed. Wish me luck, pretty kitty.

Shade brushed up against my legs.

Slay Monahan quickly. Sunrise is approaching fast.

I nodded and then made my exit.

Getting out of the building was a hell of a lot easier to do than getting in and a little less dramatic. Standing in the elevator, I closed my eyes and concentrated on calming my breathing. I needed to appear cowed, docile. I had to pretend to be everything Marcus had tried to make me over the past year; a sex slave who took anything that was handed out, be it pleasure or pain or simple indifference.

As the elevator doors opened, I forced myself to relax as two men who stood waiting reached in and dragged me out into the lobby, their thick hands held tight around my upper arms.

Two more men stood outside of the building in front of a large, black sedan, and the uniformed doorman to the apartments was also there to make sure that I was thrown out of the building, I guessed, as I was tossed forward into the arms of one of the two thugs standing by the car. He hadn’t been expecting to play catcher, and he instinctively pushed me back, and I stumbled into the arms of the other hood.

“
Get off me,” he snarled, shoving me backwards, a look of contempt on his face. I took three steps back and then lowered myself to one knee, resting a hand on the floor by the side of my foot, just the same way Claudius had done in my closet. I bowed my head low, and my still wet hair hung in wet coils in front of my face.

“
Look at this, Hank,” the man that shoved me said. “Monahan’s new toy has already been trained. Come here and suck me off.”

I immediately stood up and walked over to him, thinking I was going to be sick as I dropped back down to my knees and reached for his pants.

The doorman came to my rescue. “There will be none of that, not in front of the building. You got what you came for. Now, move it.”

“
Stow it, Terry,” the man named Hank said. “Monahan said no touching; he’s his property, after all.”

Terry knocked my groping hands away as he groused off to the side of the dark sedan. “Why is your hair wet?” he snapped back at me.

I lowered my head meekly. This humiliating behaviour was making my stomach burn with rage, but still, it was just an act I reminded myself. “Master Randall had me shower, when he was finished with me.”

“
He sampled the goods?” Terry’s tone turned ugly.

“
Master?” I glanced up at him, a look of innocence on my face.

“
Did he fuck you?” The words were spoken as if to an idiot.

“
No, Master. I just had to perform for him.”

“
Get up. Hold out your wrists.”

Climbing back to my feet, I kept my eyes staring down at the sidewalk as leather cuffs were locked on my wrists, but they were linked together in front of me, a big mistake on their part. Then the man named Terry lifted my chin to examine my face.

“
Yeah, it’s that kid from the billboard, all right,” he said, picking up a wide collar from the front seat of the car and buckling it around my neck. “Monahan is going to be pissed when he finds out that his toy was already played with. Hank, come here and get his hair out of the way for me.”

I cringed inwardly as Hank came around and pulled on my hair, taking the liberty to rub a hand over my leather-covered ass at the same time, saying, “He ain’t got underwear on!”

“
He’s a whore, what did you expect?”

I’m right here, asshole, I can hear you, I thought angrily.

“
You think he’ll be made available like that other kid, that blond one? He used to cry when I made him suck…”

“
Probably not,” Terry said, cutting Hank off abruptly. “Monahan doesn’t share. Plus, they have a history together. This punk here used to be a computer programmer, or some shit like that. He got his hand caught in the cookie jar though, and it was supposed to have been sliced off. Does this look sliced off to you?” He grabbed at my crotch. “Marcus fucked up, and took this boy as his own, personal blow-up doll. Now Marcus is ‘forgiven’, and Monahan gets a new toy.”

“
Forgiven,” Hank snickered, laughing at Marcus’s supposed demise.

“
Just never get on the wrong side of Monahan, Hank. You might end up begging for forgiveness. I’m supposed to use this…” Terry held up a short rod in front of me. “One end gets attached to your collar, the other to your cuffs. It makes sure you cause no trouble. But I think Monahan would rather like to see that little submissive thing you do.”

“
I could get used to that submissive thing,” Hank jeered.

“
I will obey the Masters,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from telling them exactly what I thought of them. Hank especially needed a punch in the mouth and a boot up the ass.

Hank walked to the front of the car, while Terry pushed me towards the rear. “Get in and sit facing the back of the car, cause only decent folks get the good seats facing forward, slut,” he told me. “And don’t make any noise. No whining or crying, begging to be let go, or any of that lame, pussy shit.” He opened the door, and I climbed in and sat down, making sure to keep my face blank and my hair hanging down over my eyes.

Shade, I’ll meet you back home.

Be careful, my Lord Emperor
.

I could hear the concern in her voice, and I appreciated it, knowing that I couldn’t have gotten where I was now if she hadn’t taken me under her paw, as it were.

I will, thanks, Nightshade.

Looking out the back window, watching where we were going, I kept my still and submissive posture. I could tell that Hank kept looking in the rear view mirror at me. He was giving off so many creepy vibes, along with feelings of lust, that I pulled my mental shield tight around me. The last thing I needed was to react to someone’s perverted desires and go into Flame. The other guy, Terry, he couldn’t care less about me, his order for a blow job having been nothing more than a show of dominance, his way of showing the little red-headed slave his place.

The drive with the two goons was uneventful, silent, and quick. A brief brush of their minds revealed that they were hired muscle and not very intelligent. That fitted in with what I knew of Silas.

He never liked to have any competition in the brains department. He was the king in his little world, and he surrounded himself with enough dumb pawns to make sure that he remained so. When I’d worked for him, I didn’t bow to him. I was smarter than he was, and we both knew it. That was why he always went out of his way to make my life a living nightmare. The Boss from Hell or The Demonic Dickhead were just a few of the titles he was called behind his back.

The car pulled up in front of a huge security gate, and we had to wait for a moment as it clanked and rolled back. Silas sure lived lavishly for an entrepreneur who claimed five years in a row that he couldn’t afford raises or Christmas bonuses for his staff. Bastard.

I kept my disgruntled thoughts off my face, and what I couldn’t mask, I hid behind my hair as the car moved forward again, smoothly taking us up the paved driveway to the front of the house.

It was a mansion, done in a faux-Tudor style. It seemed like every single light was on inside the building, but even with the manicured lawn and the ornate iron carriage lanterns hanging on the outer entrance, the place didn’t feel in the least bit welcoming.

The sedan stopped, and my eyes flicked a glance out of the side window, noting the man standing guard at the front door. Carefully, I reached out with my mind and swept the area, sensing the presence of a few guards milling around the perimeter.

As Hank set the car into park, I lightly touched the doorman’s thoughts and learned that there were just those four guards patrolling at the enclosing garden wall, and one other who was in the office monitoring all the cameras. Being this late at night, the main contingent of security had gone home to bed. So that meant, aside from Terry and Hank, there were just the doorman and the office guy for me to worry about.

Hank was sitting there, waiting for us to get out.

Come with us.

I implanted the thought into the driver’s mind. I needed to herd them all together. It would only take one of them to sound the alarm, and the other guards would come charging, guns blazing. Claudius had stressed more than once that receiving enough bullets in a vulnerable area such as the heart or the head would quickly send a vampire to his eternal rest. So the goal here was not to get shot at by multiple gunmen.

“
My shift is over, I’m going home,” Terry said as he pulled me from the car’s interior and handed me over to the doorman.

“
What was that?” Hank frowned, getting out of the car and looking at him. “Mr. Monahan placed you in charge.”

“
He wanted Sex here, he’s here,” Terry answered, making a move to leave. I panicked slightly and grabbed at straws to get him to come with us to the office. What was a strong motivator?

You need to go to the bathroom.

“
What the hell are you doing? I thought you were going home,” Hank said as Terry turned back around.

“
I gotta go to the can. Got a problem with that?”

Hank lifted his hands up in surrender before flanking the other side of me, and then all three of us marched up toward the front door of the mansion. Things were working out good, but I still needed the doorman to come with us, so as he opened the door to let us pass, I dipped into his mind. His thoughts were centered on getting his cigarettes out.

You forgot your lighter in the monitoring office. Come with us.

He mutely joined us on our little march, and Hank looked at him somewhat puzzled as he led the way to the monitor room but shrugged it off. The man was doing his job.

The security guard looked up in surprise as the four of us walked into his monitoring station. “What the hell…”

At that precise moment, I lifted my cuffed hands and grabbed Terry’s gun from the shoulder holster under his jacket and pulled it free.

Four heartbeats later, and I was the last one standing.