Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (16 page)

“S
he shouldn’t have left us alone,” I said, more to myself.

“She’s probably just outside the door.” With her eyes on the floor, Lenny leaned against the door, refusing to take another step inside. “She’s worried you’re becoming like your asshole dad.”

I reached out to touch the bruise but she flinched. Like an idiot I asked, “Does it hurt?”

“No it’s great,” Lenny replied, sarcasm like a snake bite. “I’m surprised they don’t offer this in spas. You know, get a facial, a mud mask, and then a one-two punch.” I laughed despite the circumstance. Lenny always had a way with words, even when she had a fucking black eye. I took a step closer, expecting her to flinch again, but she held her ground.

Lenny glared up at me, Atlantic eyes stormy. “You’re not well, Vic. You might even be mentally ill.”

I laughed. “You think everyone is mentally ill.”

Lennox punched her cheek out with her tongue. “Yeah that’s great, deflect. I kept wondering these past months why you were so goddamn adamant that I get help—”

“I wanted you to be well.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s all it was. It couldn’t be that you were projecting or anything.” She pointed at her bruised eye and I looked away. “You’ve been to war, you grew up in an abusive home, and you
never
talk about your birth mom. Are you really going to try and sell me that shit as diamonds? You wanted me well? Sure, okay.”

I stepped back at her accusations. Even after years of living with her, after a constant slew of Lennox, I had somehow gotten it in my head that I could prepare myself. Her words cut through me, nestling deep inside my abdomen like acid. She had such an uncanny ability to strip raw everything I worked to strengthen.

Now was not the time to be raw. I needed my defenses up and unwavering. Superman doesn’t carry kryptonite into battle. I hardened my jaw, placing a hand on her shoulder to kick her out.

Our eyes locked.

“You’re such an asshole.”

There it was again, that fire inside her. For a while it had been so hard to see, but it was back and it was a fucking bonfire. She raised her fist, knocking free the hand I’d put on her shoulder and nearly crashing her own against my mouth. I grabbed it at the elbow. She frowned harder, but it was a mask. I could see the glow inside her, burning away at the facade. She raised her other fist but I caught that one at the wrist.

“Let go of me you wife-beating ass,” Lenny said, struggling in my grip.

“You’re not my wife,” I pointed out.

“Oh excuse me, you’re right, I should really get the nomenclature right when talking about my abuser.
Ass
. Did I get that right? Ass—” I covered her lips with my mouth, shutting her up with a kiss. At first Lenny resisted. She pushed at me and elbowed me, but she was my drug. I needed to have her, and I knew Lenny felt the same way. We were like two heroin addicts who housed each other’s personal brand of heroin.

Lenny bit my lip and pulled it between her teeth. With her now free hands she pounded on my chest. Still, that wasn’t enough. She grabbed my hand and forced me to touch her face. She made me feel it, the place I had hit her. I tried to pull away, because fuck if I wanted to cause her any more pain, but she refused to let me.

Through it I felt everything. I felt her tears fall as my touch caused agony, an agony I had created. Our kiss never broke. I pushed Lenny back against the door and lifted up her shirt. With my free hand I cupped her breast, ecstatic that this time her hiss was of pleasure and not pain.

Lowering my lips from hers, I placed kisses along her skin. From her collarbone down I lavished her skin, watching her face change as I inched closer to her nipple. With my mouth to her tit, I lowered my hand beneath the seam of her pants.

It wasn’t sweet. It was anger and confusion marked by our passion. It was punishment. It was a lashing literally done with tongues. When I entered her with my finger, she grasped the hand that still lay on her cheek, as if I could ever forget.

The orgasm I pulled from her was rough and visceral. She wanted to look away but that was the one thing I forced from her. I wanted her to look into my eyes when she came. Too many days she’d looked away or been lost to me. I caught her chin as her body moved against my hand.

Sure, I loved the feeling when she came over my hand. I loved how wet she got and I loved knowing that it was me who got her there. I loved the sounds she made. I loved how she let loose and couldn’t contain herself and it made me feel like a fucking god knowing I undid her like that. Still, nothing got me higher than her look.

There was a moment when Lenny came. A brief, few seconds when I could see inside her. Right before her eyes rolled back, a few seconds before she got that blurry, starry-eyed gaze, I saw her soul.

I gripped her chin, forced her gaze, and though she fought it, I could see it coming as quickly as she was. Lenny took her lip between her teeth and as her orgasm washed over her, so did she let me see into her soul.

Lenny heaved, her breath rocky and weighted. Her pussy was hot in my hand, her hair was messy and sweat-soaked, and she was content. For the seconds she rested on me after her orgasm, everything was right with the world, and then it shattered.

“Fuck you!” Lenny pushed me with such vehemence I stumbled. “God, fuck you Vic!” Eyes shiny, Lenny looked at me with hatred. “How…how dare you? You think you can just do that to me and I’ll forget?” Adjusting her shirt and pants, she looked away from me again. Were those tears on her cheeks? I wanted to push her back against that door and demand she look at me, but instead I said,

“Maybe,” and tried to affect that cold tone we needed. Whatever had happened between us moments before needed to be forgotten. Fact was, Lenny was still in danger whenever she was around me. “I mean, you are fucking crazy.”

“I hate you, Vic Wall.” Lenny tore the door open behind her and rushed out. She was halfway down the hall when she spun around and said, “You’re just like your dad.” Her proclamation lanced me deeper than a knife and stronger than bullet, but I didn’t follow. Maybe now she would finally be safe.

W
as this what a dead man felt like? Not a man dying of cancer, but someone sitting in a cell waiting for the hangman. Someone who had truly come to terms with their death. There was a certain morbid freedom in it. I wasn’t clawing at hope. I knew my loved ones would be left better off.

That wasn’t a martyr complex, either. Because now instead of hiding in some mountain or foothill, they were going out to movies and getting food. It was better this way. Still, all I had left of them was a little red dot. A ping on the app I used to track their GPS. It had been days since any other human interaction, my last being Lenny; her tearful curse the last words I’d heard.

It had been almost four days since then.

At first I’d tried to distract myself. After Lenny ran out the door, I went upstairs to smother my thoughts in music, but every goddamn song had reminded me of her. So I shot the vinyl player.

I’d built that vinyl player by hand. It was one of the first things I added to the apartment, one of the first things that was truly my own. It took more than a year to learn the proper wiring and buy the vintage parts, but only seconds to destroy. I spent another eleven bullets blowing out the tubes on the amplifier I’d taken an additional year learning how to build. Then I turned my attention to the records, annihilating a collection I’d been amassing for more than twenty years.

When I was finished, I stood among the remains. Black vinyl littered the floor like shrapnel, cardboard jackets were blown to cotton. You know what fucking record survived my assault? It stood out like the goddamn sun in its yellow jacket, practically taunting me in my darkness.

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.

It was one of the first records Lenny listened to from my collection. She’d probably listened to it at least once a month since.

It pretty much went downhill after that. I either smashed or shot every inch of the apartment, every last bit of technology except the one that let me know Lenny and the gang were safe. I couldn’t imagine that was what my instructor had had in mind when he was teaching us the Bs in the ABCs, but who knew for sure. They killed him a month later when they discovered what he’d let slip.

You will be hunted.

Now I lay on the floor of our—no, not ours, not even mine, just “the” apartment, flicking the black card up and down. I’d retrieved it from the corner a day ago and turned it into a ball. It was my only form of entertainment, since I’d shot every book and smashed every bit of tech.

I’d even shot the oven. The oven, though… I glanced at the oven as the ball spun into the air. Two casings were lodged into the glass, making it look like a grim face. I’d shot that fucking thing right after Lenny left. The oven died alone.

When I heard the lock being picked, I knew my time had come. The hangman had arrived. I flicked the ball up and down once more, watching it spin in the air. When the card landed in my fist, I sat up from the floor, preparing myself for the last face I’d ever see.

“Wow.” I let out my breath in a whistle. “I didn’t think they sent the queen to collect from the peasants.”

“I was intrigued.” Alice leaned in the doorway. Except for the haircut, she looked exactly as she had the first day we met. Then again, that didn’t surprise me. I knew she’d already started the embalming process. Alice continued, “Not every day you get to see someone fall so far from grace.”

“You haven’t been watching enough reality TV,” I said, standing up. “Admit it, Alice. You still love me.”

“And you
have
been watching TV?” she asked, acknowledging the bullet casings lodged in the flat screen…and pretty much everywhere else. “Been doing some redecorating?”

“I wanted the place to look its best in anticipation of you.” I gestured to the shit hole that used to be my haven. Leaning against the wall opposite her, I waited for her cue. Was she going to shoot me fast and be done with it? Or were we going to cuddle after?

“I knew you were a lot of things, Vic, but a wife beater…” Alice closed the door and made her way into the apartment. Awesome, there was going to be cuddling. Not many times in my life have I said “shoot me now” and honestly meant it.

“You underestimated how much I dislike her.” We met in the kitchen, separated by the granite island.

“Did I?” Alice jerked her chin in my direction, eyes clear. “I mean, what was all of this for, if not so you could have some happy fucking fairytale? Your moment in the sun?”

“Yeah…” I pulled out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses, stifling my urge to sneer. Only Alice would compare me and Lenny to a fairytale. “The thing fairytales don’t tell you is what happens after the happily ever after. Turns out, the princess has a mental illness.” I poured the bourbon into the tumblers. After drinking the first glass, I shot the second.

“Oh really?”

“Yep. Total fucking nut bag.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if she died?”

“Whatever,” I replied, pouring myself another shot. “She’ll kill herself eventually anyway.” My eyes darted to the bullet holes in the oven before focusing on the brown liquid in my glass. My poker face had never been an issue before. I was always even; it was one of the things GEM had hired me for. With Lenny, though…fuck, I was a mess.

“Vic.” Alice’s saccharine call pulled me from the bourbon. “Take a look at this.” She held out her smartphone for me. Briefly, I saw myself smacking it out of her hand and taking her by the neck. Instead I complied. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, the quality of the video was so poor, but then I saw: Lenny. She was sitting on the steps of a café with Lissie and Zoe.

Alice watched me for signs of emotion. I blinked, summoning every ounce of training I had to remain steady. I knew what the video meant. Someone was watching Lenny, waiting for the signal to end her life. It could mean they had a sniper on her. It could mean they had someone waiting with poisons. It could even mean they’d hired a fall guy, someone who was waiting to take the rap for a murder in exchange for money for his family. The possibilities were virtually limitless. The only hope Lenny had was the cover I’d been concocting for months.