Make Me Yours Evermore, Book 3 (23 page)

“Someone you knew?”

“Not anymore.”

I thought that through. “Your boss won’t like attention being attracted to this area.”

“Attention? The crocs are hungry buggers. Nothing left for the cops to find. The wind just sent some smoke our way. Nothing will happen. You’ll see.” He rubbed the scar on his face, gave me a last, black look then walked away.

What the hell? He’d killed someone? Everything around me seemed to give a little quiver. My world adjusted to the idea of casual killing.

I walked back up the stairs slowly and went out to the deck. I leaned on the railing, letting the sea calm me, and was still thinking when Andreas and Kat came back through the beach gate.

What had I brought down on us? Keeping separate from what they did was becoming ever more difficult. I never wanted to hurt Andreas…or Kat for that matter. These were fucking dangerous waters in which Scrim and Vetrov swam.

With his hand on her back, Andreas guided Kat up the stairs. Her clothes and her hair, face, and body, were so disheveled. He’d been doing stuff to her. Obviously. I smiled to myself. Both envy and pride were in my head. I liked them together yet I wanted some of what Andreas was nurturing between them. I just didn’t know if it something I could do or if she’d accept a relationship closer than what we had.

I stayed leaning on the railing, chin on hand, as they reached the top steps. “Have fun?” The shark tooth swinging from the chain on her neck glinted.

Shit. Andreas, you bastard.

“Yeah, we did.” He smiled down at her, his hand caressing her back and Kat peeked at him. There were twigs and sand in her hair, a few tears in the see-through dress.

He’d made a little claim on her. I knew how much that tooth meant to him. That was okay though, surely? We were sharing.

Get a grip. She’s mine too.
I crammed my instinctive jealous response down a notch or three.

Kat looked submissive through and through.

I’d never seen her like that without being roped and forced with pain. Or even so…happy, not since we’d abducted her. What did he have that I didn’t? Shit. The instructor needed to learn from the pupil. Though when I looked closer, harder, her coy expression faltered and turned blank.

“Happy, Kat?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Such a quick reply. I never knew the truth with her. Walls within walls.

At lunchtime we supervised from the living room couches as she made sandwiches. Seeing as I didn’t have tacks or arsenic in the kitchen cupboards, I was fairly safe.

“You put the knives elsewhere this time?” Andreas murmured.

“You know I did. Asshole.”

“Just checking.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “I like you better without holes in you.”

“Huh.”

Kat looked up from putting the chicken and salad on the bread. That contemplative expression made me wonder if she’d heard us. For a woman with so much venom, she had the most innocent face.

One eyebrow went up. “What? Sir.”

The Sir never quite made the grade when she said it to me – like it was a fraction of a millisecond too late.

I shook my head and waited for her to bring the sandwiches over then kneel beside us. I put my hand on her head, enjoying the feel. I didn’t know sometimes what I wanted from her, but it was more than I had. Maybe Andreas was right? Maybe a bit of gentle now and then would work?

“Go outside and clip yourself to the chair, Kat. I’ll call you when I want you to return.”

I waited until she’d done that then turned to Andreas. He’d already stuffed one sandwich in his mouth and had picked up another.

“Eat slower. I need some too. It’s like living with a piranha.”

He smiled but kept hold of the sandwich. “Spit. What did you want to say?”

“The future.” I rested elbows on knees then rested my mouth on my clasped hands.

“And? Actually I was wondering…”

“What?” I glanced up from my study of the rug.

“What happens in a week or so? We’re leaving but what did you have planned? How are you going to keep her…safely? And you know I want to be there too.”

“My friend, Klaus, is letting me buy his house. It’s good for what we need. Trust me, it is.”

“Okay.” He swallowed some more sandwich, and I took one up a second before he reached down again.

Three left. “Leave some for Kat, you hungry bastard.”

“I will! She wore me out. I need the energy.”

I snorted and sat back, ate some sandwich. It might’ve been good but I was too worried to taste it. “You know you’re welcome to move in with us.” Us, funny, first time I’d thought of Kat as part of my
us
. Maybe Andreas was influencing me? I’d never be soft like him though. “If it fits in with what you want to do. You can’t be planning to rely on the stock market? That’s dicey stuff even for the pros. You need big money, patience, big balls.”

“Maybe. To both.”

“Big balls?”

He smiled. “I want to get a solid engineering job too. I can do it locally. Oil rigs just pay better.”

“I bet they do.” I looked out at Kat. From the way she stared she was attempting lip reading. “It’ll be a lot safer for everyone if you’re with us.”

“Good. It’s settled then. One day, maybe, we might be able to trust her enough to let her out in public.”

“I don’t know.” I collapsed back into the couch. “Scrim brought in a group of kinksters. I told him to stay away from us, and he wants us to do the same. Deep role play, Master and slave stuff, so don’t be surprised if you see or hear anything unusual over there.”

His eyebrows rose and disappeared under his hair. “Sure. We need to be super careful then.”

“We do.” I sat up and signaled to Kat. She’d stayed where she’d been told to. She was learning – it just took time. Someday I’d get her to truly submit to me.

“Beautiful,” Andreas said quietly as she walked toward us, hips undulating like a harem dancer.

“Yes.” My gut ached for a second as I recalled the other women and I flashed to an imagined scene of her being taken away by them. “Never,” I whispered.

“What?” He turned back.

“Nothing. Just nothing…”

Late that afternoon I checked my emails. Vetrov had sent one.

Scrim will visit you tonight. You’re to allow him in. He is bringing you a gift. Accept it for your services over the years. Do not refuse.

There was only one thing I could imagine the gift could be. No. Couldn’t be.

Yet when I opened the door that night, there was Scrim accompanied by his hulking partner, Pieter, and a girl kneeled at their feet.

All that ran through my mind was,
oh shit, oh shit, oh shit
.

“Here she is.” Scrim jerked his head toward her. Prim, cute, smaller in build than Kat with curly brown hair like one of those women from the 1920s who did the crazy dances. Flappers?

I crouched to look in her eyes but catching her gaze was harder than trapping a butterfly. She looked everywhere but at me. They had her in a little red dress with bright red lipstick on a mouth as rich as cherries.

“Where’d the lipstick come from?”

Pieter only glowered. Scrim shrugged. “There’s heaps of makeup and girly crap. Boss said to make her look sexy so we told her to put it on.”

“Right.” Trying to tempt us? “Name?”

“Uhh.” He scratched his head then threw a questioning glance at Pieter.

“Zoe,” the big man grunted out. The piranha tattoos leaping along his arm looked ready to bite.

Zoe.
“What do I do with her? And…” I listened and was sure Andreas was deep inside the house. “Where’d she come from?”

The grin on Scrim’s face was positively voracious. “Do whatever you like to with her hot little bod. S’long as you don’t damage her. Or get her pregnant. She came from nowhere. Not your business. Be careful what you ask.”

I ignored the skulking threat in his words. “It’s not me that’s the problem. My partner might ask her questions.”

And what the hell would I do if she begged for help?

“She won’t talk. If she says a single word to any of you she knows I’ll cut out her little tongue and feed it to a croc. You hear that…Zoe?” He bent and eyed her with her chin in his tight grip.

Zoe checked me out then Scrim then made an
mmm
sound. I guess her silence started early.

“Good girl. We’ll be back in two days to get you. Be good. Be very, very good.” From the back of his jeans the metal butt of a pistol showed. He straightened. “No more questions, Chris?” The leer was so insubordinate I wanted to smear it across his teeth.

I hated that he knew my name. “No. None.”

So. She wouldn’t talk. If she did, though… How was I going to explain it to Andreas?

Ice ran with my blood. Why? Why was Vetrov doing this? He’d have his reasons and I couldn’t see them. I was already in so deep he didn’t need anything on me. I gathered my wits before they ran off down some mouse hole. People thought I looked too tough to get scared but this, yeah, it scared me. Big unknowns did. I hated being out of my depth.

I hated the possibility I could destroy my friendship with Andreas. This was the biggest failure of trust ever.

I was so wrecked I couldn’t take that next step. But I couldn’t leave her out here forever.

While I was still standing there paralyzed, with her waiting for me to command her to go through the door, Pieter came back up the stairs, taking three at a time. He raised his hand and offered me a key on a chain.

Ah. She had a chain locking her wrist cuffs together as well as a stainless steel collar.

The man leaned in, scowling. “Like he said, don’t damage the merchandise.”

What the… Was that a warning? I followed his retreat back down the stairs with my eyebrows still raised. His last subtle gesture had been a pat on Zoe’s head as he went by, so secretive I nearly missed the significance.

“Come on in, Zoe.” I held the door open as she crawled past. That I hadn’t told her to crawl, but she’d done it anyway, said they’d had her for more than a few days. Cowed, already.

Did it matter to me, when she was going back in a couple of days? “Look up at me, Zoe.” Green eyes. What a sweet face. Was she a tourist caught while backpacking? A girl who had her drink spiked on a night out clubbing? I’d never know. But, no, this wasn’t my problem.

What was my problem was the mess Vetrov had created. Why? If Andreas found out, surely his whole operation was at greater risk? If Zoe talked, though I guess that was unlikely. Scrim had scared the crap out of her. But…she might.

“Come. You can stand up.” I led her into the study and had her wait on the spare chair. I fired up the laptop.

No new emails had come from Vetrov. How did I say this?

I had nothing.

I have your gift. Why are you doing this? If A finds out, your risk is increased.

He started a chat. I sat back. Thank god. Maybe I could get rid of her?

V: No. I need your friend to get dirty. Dirty hands, I have less risk.

He didn’t know Andreas. The man might, just might, get the urge to save the woman from slavery. I wasn’t sure anymore. I massaged my fingers into my eyes. I didn’t want to find out. I may as well dump a load of rocks on our friendship.

C: If he gets dirty, did you mean to tell him the truth?

V: Perhaps. Up to you for now. Do to her whatever sexy things you like. I know you like the girls.

Shit. But, I imagined letting Andreas fuck her under the pretense that she was kinky and wanted it, then him finding out the truth. The fallout of that lie would be a monster compared to what I already had to deal with.

Then and there I decided I wasn’t going to do this. But sending her back to Scrim untouched was dicey. I didn’t know for sure how far Vetrov would go to ensure Andreas’s silence.

“Shit!”

Zoe looked up, startled, frightened.

“It’s fine.” I put my hand out. “Don’t worry.”

She just blinked at me and trembled.

I stared back. I did not want this on my conscience. “You’re not going to talk about anything here, okay?”

She nodded.

“I’m not going to touch you, neither is the other man, or…”

If Kat did things to her, that would be Vetrov’s dirty hands effect again. A small hold on Kat if ever I needed that sort of thing. And we could tell Zoe this was what we perverted men wanted. It might be enough for Vetrov. Voyeurism. It had to be. I wasn’t going anywhere near this poor woman with my cock.

I chained her to a wall anchor point, went into the living room and explained to Andreas the whitest version of this deception that I could. Zoe was kinky and bi and role playing the silent captive. I hadn’t been able to say no to her so we’d play along with her depraved desires and pretend, pretend hard, because we couldn’t afford to let slip that Kat was a real prisoner.

Then I fetched her and turned her over to Kat. If I didn’t tell Kat otherwise, she’d think this was just another abducted girl, which she was. Win, win, surely? Only I had a feeling I’d missed something important. What the crap was it?

Who was this?

Chris brought her over to where I sat on the floor before the couch. Slowly she lowered herself.

“Meet Zoe.”

Frightened eyes.

Pretty thing with all the kink paraphernalia – collar, cuffs, and the silver chain that Chris removed. Little red flouncy dress that came to her upper thighs and clung to her curves. Red lips, tousled brown hair just long enough to grab if someone wanted to kiss her. She was the sort of girl I’d have eaten up if she’d delivered herself on a platter…back then, when I had my own life.

I sighed and whispered to her, “My name’s Kat. Who are you really? I’m a prisoner. You?”

She stayed mute, maybe a little worried, mostly I couldn’t figure her out. A glance at Andreas and Chris where they stood either side of the couch gave me alarm bells in the head. Mixed signals. My heart went into tango time and I could feel it thump. I looked from her to them again.

What was going on?

“Kiss her, Kat. She wants you to. If you don’t Scrim will punish her.” Chris looked amused.

When I’d asked that first question of Zoe, he’d actually looked smug for a second. Why?