Owning Corey (31 page)

“Can you please release him, Ambrosio? He’s not going to hurt anyone or try to escape.”

Ambrosio laughs in that low, rumbling way of his. “You can’t stand to see him like this, huh? You care for him? He has really done a number on you, doctor.” He looks at Corey struggling on the couch, then back at me. “He likes it, you know. I’ve had him in these very cuffs, and this very same gag, plenty of times. If I wasn’t angry with him right now, I could make him come like a freight train, as you Americans say.”

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill anyone before, at least not with such immediacy or intensity, but my mind is conjuring up myriad ways for me to dispose of this asshole. The thought of him touching… I can’t even bring myself to finish the thought, it’s so revolting.

Corey slumps against the back of the sofa, but carefully, as if he’s trying not to mess up my furniture with his dirty clothes. It makes my heart ache to know that he could possibly be concerning himself with my neat-freak proclivity at a time like this.

“Well, can we at least take the gag out? He ought to be allowed to speak for himself. Have you even heard his side of the story? Maybe he knows where the rest of the money is.”

“He denied taking it altogether. Then I gagged him before he could attempt to manipulate me with that talented tongue of his. But I suppose you do have a point. Perhaps we can torture it out of him if he’s still unwilling to share.”

He moves in front of Corey and removes the ball gag with the precision of one who is intimately familiar with the apparatus, using his handkerchief to whisk away the saliva that escapes from behind it. Corey stretches his jaws open and closed repeatedly but doesn’t speak. He simply looks at his captor and waits.

“Hmmm, you were so eag
er to talk when I
was telling your new mark what you’re really all about. You don’t have anything to say now?”

“I didn’t take the money, Ambrosio. I swear it.” His voice is hoarse from trying to be heard around the gag.

“You look awfully guilty to me, darling. You disappear without even a word to me, and my money disappears at the same time. Then you go into hiding down here in this…
place
.” His voice drips with derision for the small town he’s been forced to visit.

“I may not have spoken to you in person, Ambrosio, but at least I left a note. I was afraid if I talked to you, I wouldn’t be able to go. I needed to go.”

Ambrosio narrows his eyes. “What note? You didn’t leave a note.”

“I did.” Corey nods frantically. “I wasn’t sure where to leave it to guarantee you would find it, so I gave it to Allister on my way out.”

“Allister?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going, but when I gave him the note, he wouldn’t quit asking questions. That’s the only reason I told him and not you.”

Ambrosio runs a jeweled hand through his hair and paces in front of the fireplace. “Allister never gave me any note. He said he didn’t know where you were. Then after I discovered I had some money missing, he told me he saw you climb into a cab with a crocodile bag like mine and ride away. Said he hadn’t told me because he didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Oh my God.” My exclamation gets both their attention. “I have never heard any of this, and even I can see what’s going on. You’ve both been played by Allister. Hell, even I got played. I knew there was something wrong about that guy.”

Ambrosio whirls to face me. “You’ve seen Allister? When? He is supposed to be visiting his mother in the hospital in Phoenix. I bought a plane ticket for him.”

“He was here a couple of days ago. Right where you’re standing. He showed up uninvited, we fed him lunch, offered to let him stay in the pool house…” Suddenly a thought occurs to me that just might end this nightmare once and for all. “Ambrosio, would you mind if I check my security tapes?”

Corey perks up. “Security tapes? I didn’t know you had a system, Ben. Why didn’t we know the investigator was creeping around here?”

“This is a small town, Corey. Not much crime. I thought the security system was overkill, so I quit using everything except the door and window alarms a long time ago. After we caught the P.I. spying on us, I fired it up again. I’ve got cameras on all four sides of the house now, and they were running when Allister was here.”

“Go ahead and let’s see what you have,” Ambrosio says. “It’s hard for me to believe he was here, but I’ll give you a chance to prove it.”

“One thing, though.” I nod my head toward Corey. “Let him out of his cuffs. I don’t want to see him like this anymore. He’s innocent, and he needs to walk into the office with us and help us look at these tapes.”

Ambrosio hesitates for a moment then leans Corey forward and releases the cuffs. I rush over and help Corey to a standing position, rubbing his arms gently, coaxing the blood, muscles and nerves back to a normal state.

Ambrosio rolls his eyes. “Oh Doctor Hardy, stop being so dramatic. I told you he likes it.”

When he turns away, Corey shakes his head and whispers in my ear. “Don’t believe anything he says. He’s a fucking snake.”

I don’t want to fraternize too much with Corey at the moment. We’re lucky Ambrosio agreed to release him, so I don’t want to risk pissing him off. He’s got a volatile nature, and witnessing anything akin to intimacy between me and his ex —
lover? employee?
— would be a major trigger.

It’s brighter in the office. Floor to ceiling windows line the walls to let in plenty of natural light. We crowd around the antique roll top desk that has been modified to house the computer equipment. My laptop is plugged into the enormous external drive that stores my security backups, and it doesn’t take me long to login and begin browsing the security footage from the day of Allister’s visit.

“Here he is.” I point to the screen, and Ambrosio stares with a mix of surprise and horror.

“That bastard,” he whispers. “I always knew he wasn’t the most dependable boy, but to be this dishonest…”

I keep flipping through the thumbnails of the footage, but I’m barely paying attention. His comment has me seething inside, and I have to say something. “You’re surprised he could be dishonest, but you automatically assume Corey has stolen from you? I only spent a couple of hours with Allister, and I could tell he was a sneaky little bastard.”

“You don’t understand, Ben. I never thought Allister was intelligent enough to fool anyone. He’s always been a drug addict, a fuck-up, nothing more. He always did everything I ever told him to do. Corey was…
is
… different. He has a mind of his own, and a rebellious nature. I knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he tried to leave, so when Allister told me his story, I had no trouble believing it.”

“Well, looky here,” I drawl, zooming in on one of the thumbnails. “It’s your boy, caught on tape doing the deed. Never dreamed we could be so lucky.”

I hit play, and after a few seconds Allister’s skinny body comes into view from around the side of the house. He makes his way quickly to the pool house, which is no surprise. At the moment he’s doing this, Corey and I are sharing a particularly steamy moment in the kitchen. The memory of it makes me flush hot, and I want nothing more than for this to be over so I can put my arms around him and pull him close.

What’s especially interesting about the security footage is that Allister is carrying what is clearly a large caramel-colored crocodile bag. He slips into the pool house, stuffs the bag under the sofa, and retreats back to the house, where he will interrupt mine and Corey’s kiss. Then he will act like a pure asshole and get kicked out of the house, and out of Corey’s life for good.

So much for being too unintelligent to fool anyone.

Ambrosio’s hands are shaking at his sides. “I don’t know what to say. I have made a terrible mistake. Corey, can you ever forgive me? Come home with me, and I’ll make it up to you.” He drops to his knees at Corey’s feet, resting his dark head against his thigh. “Everything you’ve wanted— it’s yours. Freedom to come and go as you please. Money of your own. And no more men, I promise.”

Corey tentatively touches the man’s head and speaks in a soft voice. “I appreciate the offer, Ambrosio, but I already have all of that. I went out and got it for myself.”

Ambrosio sobs against Corey’s thigh, rubbing his cheek along the fabric. “I don’t think I can take no for an answer, my pet. I came all this way to bring you back. And I’m on my knees.”

I see fear in Corey’s eyes, and a resignation so profound it breaks my heart.

“He’s not going anywhere.” I move to stand beside Corey, wrapping my arm around his waist and pulling him close to my side.

There’s a man with at least two guns standing in the other room, and I have to assume he will shoot me if Ambrosio tells him to. But I can’t stand by and watch him intimidate Corey into leaving. I may not know any details about what has gone on between these two, but a blind person could see that Corey is miserable at the prospect of going back with him. And I don’t blame him. Ambrosio is so wrapped up in his own desires, and so obviously used to getting everything he wants in his overly-privileged world, there’s no telling how far he might go to win. He’s like a spoiled child demanding a toy, but in his case, he’s got firepower.

“You don’t know me, Dr. Hardy. I can be very persuasive.” Ambrosio’s face shows no signs of sadness as he climbs smoothly to his feet, looking every bit as poised and intimidating as he did when we first met. His eyes are as dry as the banks of the Chattahoochee in drought season. “Besides, you have no claim. Corey belongs to me. Isn’t that right, pet?”

Corey tenses, and I squeeze him closer, letting him know I’m with him no matter what the outcome. It might be a foolhardy kamikaze move, but screw it. From the outside, Corey would probably be seen as a stranger, someone I just met, not worth risking my life over. But to me— a man who’s had no real emotional connection with anyone for years— he’s so much more. He’s the person who woke me from a perpetual sleepwalk and forced me to feel again. I can’t think of anyone in the world more worth putting it all on the line for, even if our story burns out right here in this room today.

“It’s you who has no claim,” I tell Ambrosio. “You can’t own another human being. Not in this country, and as far as I’m concerned, nowhere else either.”

He laughs, pacing gracefully to the window and back again. “I bought his life. If I hadn’t taken an interest in him, he would be dead now. The drug dealer he was working for caught him stealing cocaine from him one too many times. The last time was almost deadly. Lucky for him, it was a dealer who works very closely with my family.”

“And I appreciate that, Ambrosio.” Corey’s voice is pleading, desperate. “I have told you that a million times. But why make me suffer for it forever? It’s true, you saved my life. But I’ve had no life since you did it. Three years is long enough. You agreed to three years, and three years have come and gone.”

Ambrosio whirls on him, anger flaring in his dark eyes. “How can you be so ungrateful? I have given you a place to live, food to eat, the very best of everything. All I’ve asked in return is that you please me. As for the three year term we agreed to, you earned at least another year when you beat one of my most important contacts to within an inch of his life. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me?”

Corey throws his hands up in exasperation, anger eclipsing the self-defeat that had him emotionally weakened only moments before. “You were going to loan me out to him. To a man who is well known for killing his lovers and getting away with it. He’s sick. I should have killed him when I had the chance. He’s a fucking serial killer, and you people just look the other way like it’s nothing.”

“His family is very powerful, and you know none of that is proven.”

“Of course it’s not, or he’d be behind bars for the rest of his life. The fact that you were going to send me with him really bothers me, Ambrosio. Sometimes I wonder if you wanted him to kill me.”

“Why should I have cared if he had?” Ambrosio seethes, coming so close to Corey their noses nearly touch. “You refused to have anything to do with me for over a year. Threatened to castrate me with your teeth. I’ve had drivers and housekeepers more willing to please me than you. I should have forced you.” He paces away again, stopping to stare out the window at the nearly empty early-morning street.

“Forcing me is what caused the trouble in the first place,” Corey says. “Remember when you started putting me in the sensory deprivation chamber for more than twelve hours at a time? And when you had me bound so tightly I got nerve damage? I still haven’t got all the feeling back in my fingers. Trying to send me off with that butcher was the final straw. You people think you’re above the law, that you can use and abuse people however you like because you have more money than God, and because your families are powerful where you come from. Can’t you see I don’t want to be with you anymore?”

Ambrosio turns and pins Corey with a look of unyielding dominance that makes my skin crawl. “You belong to me.”

What I do next surprises even me, because I don’t actually remember making a conscious decision to do it. I step in front of Corey, between him and the tyrant, and when I speak, my voice has taken on a businesslike smoothness that mirrors Ambrosio’s quite nicely. “How much do you want for him?”

Corey gasps from behind me, but I can’t see his face, so I don’t know if he’s just shocked or if he’s offended as well. I don’t really care, either. This narcissistic Colombian asshole is not going to take him again.