The Angel (The Original Sinners) (20 page)

Michael shook his head and turned his eyes back to the vista
below. After all, he didn’t have any friends to show any pictures to.

The helicopter set down on the landing pad of some building in
Hell’s Kitchen as the sun finally sunk over the horizon. Michael followed Nora
and Griffin as they headed for the roof door. In his plain cotton pants, white
shirt and black jacket, he felt terribly undressed compared to Griffin in his
black leather pants and black silk shirt. Nora wore a black suit too—fedora,
suspenders, red shirt, black tie…the whole nine yards.

As they descended the stairs, Nora looked back and grinned at
him.

“I’m going to keep you outta the papers, kid. Don’t worry. I’ve
got a private room set up for us already. You’ll go there first while Griff and
I cause a ruckus.”

“I love a good hard ruck…us,” Griffin said, grinning back as he
took off his sunglasses and shoved them in his pocket. Michael blinked and
forced his eyes away. He really needed to figure out how to stop staring at
Griffin all the time.

They reached the bottom of the staircase and Michael heard the
first strains of music. Nora went up to the door and knocked hard—three quick
taps followed by two heavy ones.

“Secret code?” Michael asked in a whisper.

“Morse code for S&M.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Griffin shrugged and winked at him. “I have no idea.”

The door opened and a man stepped out into the hallway. Michael
looked up at him and kept looking up. And up.

“Boys, say hello to my friend Brad Wolfe,” Nora said with an
elegant and obviously facetious nod at the only man Michael had even been this
close to who was taller than Father S. “Otherwise known as—”

“The Big Brad Wolfe,” Griffin completed, stepping forward and
extending his hand. “You’re a legend.”

The man, who Michael guessed was about six foot six with as
much muscle to him as height, took Griffin’s hand and shook it. He looked about
forty years old and handsome in a way somebody like Nora would describe as
“roguish.” He thought Griffin was the height of male perfection. But women
seemed to like Brad’s look—chest hair and beard stubble. Nora obviously did from
the way she smiled up at him.

“How’s my Big Brad Wolfe?” she asked.

He raised a dark eyebrow at her.

“Little Red Riding Crop, what are you doing in my neck of the
woods?”

“Causing trouble. Care to help?”

“I don’t know. You still with…” Brad’s voice trailed off and he
glanced meaningfully at Michael and Griffin.

“With my priest?” she finished for him. “Yeah, still together.
Don’t take it personally. You’re still the second-best sadist in the city.”

“Damned with faint praise,” Brad said, chucking Nora under the
chin. “But I can never say no to you, green eyes. What do you need?”

“I reserved a booth for the show. Can you get Junior to it
without anyone seeing him?”

Brad looked at Michael, who squirmed slightly in place.

“Nora…how old is he?”

“He’s legal,” she said without batting an eyelash.

“Legal for what?”

Michael coughed.

“I can drive.”

“Good God,” Brad said, laughing and rolling his eyes. “You
might actually be more corrupt than Kingsley is, Nor.”

Nora batted her eyelashes.

“You flatter me. Let’s go.”

Nora grabbed Griffin by the sleeve and the two of them
disappeared down another flight of stairs.

“Come with me, little boy,” Brad said with a voice that
suddenly seemed even deeper than before. Michael swallowed.

“Yes, sir.”

They entered the club through the back door. Michael kept his
head down and his eyes on the back of Brad’s shoes. But he couldn’t help but get
an eyeful of the craziness going on inside the club. Everywhere he looked he saw
celebrities, or at least wannabe celebrities, dressed in costumes. Well, they
were dressed like kinky people—or at least how he imagined non-kinky people
thought kinky people dressed. He saw lots of latex catsuits on the too-skinny
women and the guys wore leather vests and harnesses. It looked more like a
super-fancy Halloween party for too-rich teenagers than a sex club to him.

“You work here?” Michael asked as Brad led him to a
cordoned-off booth surrounded by a red curtain.

“Someone has to lend an air of authenticity.” Brad closed the
curtain and lit a smattering of candles. “I’ve got my own dungeon—the real
thing. Ask your mistress about it sometime. I funnel the few real masochists who
come here into my place.”

Michael started to ask a question but Nora and Griffin burst
into the booth, laughing riotously.

“How did it go?” Michael asked as Nora and Griffin collapsed
into the booth.

“Perfect. I hid my face behind my hat,” Nora said, flipping her
fedora up her arm and perching it at a rakish angle on her head. “That got their
attention. They probably thought I was way more famous than I really am. Then
Griffin threatened to punch a photog.”

“You did?” Michael turned to Griffin. “Can’t you get arrested
for that?”

Griffin shrugged. “They love getting threatened. Gives them
street cred. Plus I paid him two grand to make sure we hit Page Six.”

“Mission accomplished.” Nora took a glass of red wine from a
leather-clad waitress. “Showtime,” she said with a wicked glint in her eye.

At the opposite side of the club was a stage. As the club
lights dimmed and faded, the stage lights went up. Four shirtless young men
carried a beautiful olive-skinned Amazonian woman out to center stage on a
divan. The club erupted into applause.

“Wow,” Michael said. “She’s…tall.”

“She’s a dude.” Griffin winked at him. “Mistress Nyx.”

“Seriously?” Apart from the height Michael couldn’t make out
any male features on the Amazon.

“Seriously,” Nora said. “There are some hot male dominatrixes
out there. Men can hit harder. Something to be said for that. Don’t tell though.
Nyx keeps that on the DL.”

Michael nodded. Nyx now had one of the young men by the throat.
She bodily forced him against an X-shaped cross and the other young men of her
harem strapped him to it.

“St. Andrew’s Cross.” Nora leaned over the table to whisper
loudly at Michael. “You know St. Andrew?”

“Um…a martyr?” Michael hazarded a guess. He might be Catholic
but there were more saints out there than stars in the sky.

“Exactly,” Nora said with an approving smile. “According to
legend he requested that he die on an X-shaped crossed instead of T-shaped as he
did not feel worthy to die like his savior. And he was bound and not
nailed.”

“Poor guy. Should have gotten nailed before he died,” Griffin
said and Nora swatted him on the arm.

“That’s so weird,” Michael said, laughing at the story. “Poor
St. Andrew.”

They watched the show in silence for a few minutes. Nyx had a
cat-o’-nine-tails, which she used to flog the bound young man, who writhed and
screamed on the cross.

“She’s pulling her punches,” Nora said with a knowing look.
“She’s barely hurting him at all.”

“You can tell that?” Michael asked, suitably impressed.

She nodded. “First of all, she’s hitting him all for show.
Going too slow and hitting him with the flat of the tails and not the tip.”

“But she’s hitting him pretty hard, it looks.” Michael narrowed
his eyes at the scene on the stage.

“The tip of the whip is the business end,” Nora said and
reached her arm out and touched Griffin’s face. “It’s the difference between
this…” She ran the full flat of her hand over Griffin’s cheek. Griffin sighed.
“And this.” She turned her hand and flicked Griffin’s ear with the tip of her
fingers. Griffin flinched and grimaced.

“Ow, Nor. I’d say my safe word but I forgot it.”

“It was
platypus
. So yeah, she’s
putting on a good show but not hurting him at all.” Nora pointed at the stage,
where the young man on the cross continued to cry out dramatically. “We can go
to Brad’s dungeon Dark Forest for some decent S&M after. It’s RACK-rules
there.”

“Rack?” Michael asked. “Like a real rack?”

“Not a rack-rack. RACK stands for ‘risk-aware consensual
kink,’” Nora explained. “As opposed to SSC rules.”

“Safe, sane and consensual,” Griffin said, rolling his eyes as
Nora yawned. “Exactly. SSC is tamer. It’s for the moms and dads in the suburbs
with the furry handcuffs under the bed.”

“RACK is for people more like us,” Nora said. “People who do
the rougher stuff, edge-play, no safe words, et cetera.”

“You and Søren ever play without safe words?” Griffin leaned
back and rested his elbows on the back of the booth. Michael’s temperature rose
at the sight of the black silk of Griffin’s shirt stretching across his broad
chest.

Nora shook her head.

“I said I like the hard stuff. I didn’t say I had a death
wish.”

In front of them on the stage, Nyx allowed her harem to free
the young man from the cross. He crawled on all fours to her and kissed her
booted feet.

“Aah…” Nora sighed. “The good old days. I miss foot worship.
Nothing sexier than a male sub doing homage.”

“Can’t disagree with that,” Griffin said, nodding.

“Are there a lot of male subs?” Michael asked as the young man
kissed his way from Nyx’s toe to her knee.

“A lot more than people want to admit,” Nora said. “Men
especially. You, Angel, are something special but you are not unique. There’s
probably as many male subs out there as male doms.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Mick,” Griffin chimed in. “And not just in the gay kink
scene, either.”

“The number-one sexual fantasy reported by straight men is
having sex with a beautiful woman.” Nora took a deep drink of her wine. “But
number two?”

Griffin grinned and held up two fingers. “Number two,” he said,
“is being tied up by a beautiful woman and then fucked by her. Even I was fine
with that.”

“More than fine, if I remember correctly…” Nora sighed
wistfully and winked at Griffin.

“If there’s so many of us,” Michael asked, “then why—”

“Why do you feel so alone?” Nora gave him a long look.

Michael nodded silently.

“You aren’t alone,” she said and Griffin reached out and gave
his knee a friendly squeeze. Unfortunately that friendly squeeze caused a very
more-than-friendly reaction inside Michael’s boxers.

“Male subs paid for my house, Angel,” Nora continued. “They
bought my cars. They made me a very wealthy woman. I had every walk of life in
my dungeon—poets and artists, priests and rabbis, cops and robbers.”

“Cops?”

“Oh, yeah. The bigger and tougher they pretend to be, the more
likely they are to want a woman to call them a slut and put her foot on the back
of their neck.”

“Or another guy.” Griffin glanced at Michael as he said the
words.

“Hey, hush, boys, act two is starting.”

Nyx had led her harem offstage. Within minutes they returned,
but this time Nyx wore the robes of a Roman goddess. And she rode in on a
chariot being pulled by her young men. They had bridles in their mouths and
harnesses on their chests.

“Oh, my, pony play. How adorable. I love a pony.” Nora leaned
forward and rested her chin on her hand. “They are fun to ride.”

“Whatever.” Griffin rolled his eyes. “Like you’ve ever been on
a horse in your life.”

Nora sat up straighter. “I’ll have you know, Master Fiske, that
I’ve been horseback riding on multiple occasions. Well, like three occasions. My
old intern, Wes, was from Kentucky. Apparently everyone in Kentucky rides
horses.”

Griffin shrugged. “Not exactly. Mostly just the Central
Kentucky blue bloods. Horses are very expensive pets.”

Nora grinned. “Wes Railey? A blue blood? Kid couldn’t even
afford a decent car. Drove a Bug. Poor thing.”

Michael looked at Nora, who was smiling. But her smile seemed
strange, forced even. Nothing like her usual smiles.

“Railey?” Griffin cocked his head and stared at Nora. “Like the
Kentucky Raileys?”

“Well, he’s a Railey and he’s from Kentucky,” Nora said.

“Know his parents’ names?” Griffin turned away from the pony
show onstage and gave Nora his full attention. Nora seemed suddenly
uncomfortable.

“Well, his mom’s name is Caroline. I used it in my book that
just came out. And his dad’s name is—”

“Jackson.” Griffin finished the sentence for her. “Jackson
Railey?”

Nora’s eyes widened.

“Griffin…how did you know that?”

Griffin chuckled and the chuckle turned into a laugh.

“Griffin…” Nora’s voice dropped to menacing levels. “Why are
you laughing?”

With a heavy exhale, Griffin dug his iPhone out of his pocket,
made some quick taps on it and then smiled at whatever it was he’d pulled up
on-screen. He handed his phone over to Nora without a word.

“Son of a bitch,” she breathed. Slowly she handed the phone
back to Griffin. Then she quickly got up from the table.

“Where are you going?” Griffin demanded.

“Make sure Michael gets home safe. I’ll meet you back at the
house later. Gotta check on something.”

Nora disappeared into the crowd, and Michael found himself
suddenly alone with Griffin. He didn’t like how much he liked that.

“Griffin?” Michael whispered. “What did you show Nora?”

Griffin slid Michael his phone. Michael picked it up and
studied the screen. It took a minute to wrap his mind around what he was looking
at.

Michael breathed one word in response.

“Fuck.”

14

Suzanne wandered around Father Stearns’s living room
while he excused himself to change. Such a beautiful home…a stone fireplace,
hundreds of leather-bound books and the most beautiful grand piano she’d ever
seen. On top of the piano sat a book of John Donne poetry. Opening the book to a
page marked by an ancient embroidered bookmark, she read:

Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,

Not to dreame all my dreame, let’s do the rest.

“I’m allowed to read John Donne,” came Father Stearns’s voice
from behind her. “He was a priest.”

“An Anglican priest who wrote anti-Catholic screeds,” she
reminded him.

“I don’t take it personally.”

Suzanne smiled nervously as Father Stearns took the book from
her and sat it back on top of the piano. He’d showered, obviously—his blond hair
looked darker wet—and wore his clericals once more. Damn. She really liked
looking at his throat.

“You play?” She pointed at the piano.

“I could play piano before I even learned English. My mother
taught me. “

“Your Danish mother?”

Father Stearns gestured to an armchair and he took one opposite
her. The sun had set and only one small lamp cast its low light around the
room.

“My mother was eighteen years old when she came to the United
States. A music scholarship to a conservatory in New Hampshire. The scholarship
only covered tuition. So she took a position as a nanny in my father’s house.
His wife had just given birth to a daughter.”

“Your sister Elizabeth, right?”

“Yes. My father’s wife had a difficult pregnancy, a difficult
birth. After Elizabeth, she could have no more children. During her recovery, my
mother became a mother to Elizabeth.”

“And caught your father’s eye?” Suzanne asked, smiling. She
could see where this was going.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Father Stearns did not smile.

Suzanne’s smile died as the subtle inflection on the word
unfortunately
told her all.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“My father was a monster. I don’t use the word lightly. His
anger over his wife’s inability to give him more children…he took it out on my
mother. He raped her repeatedly until she conceived. She lived as a hostage as
he threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she told anyone or ran away.”

Suzanne covered her mouth with her hand.

“I was born ten months after she came to live with my father.
The doctor who delivered me told me years later he’d never seen anything like
it…a young woman in agony giving birth in utter silence. She didn’t want to
scream. My father would have enjoyed that too much.”

“He was a sadist?”

Slowly Father Stearns nodded.

“I was born shortly after midnight on December 21st. She named
me Søren after her grandfather. The doctor wrote that on the original birth
certificate that he hid from my father. The official birth certificate reads
Marcus Lennox Stearns. Marcus was my father’s name. That is why I far prefer to
be called anything but that.”

Suzanne said nothing at first.

“December 21st,” she repeated. “The longest night of the
year.”

“It was the longest night of my mother’s life, she once
confessed to me. Although I was a child of rape, she loved me. She remained in
the home of her rapist to care for me. My father wanted to raise me as his
child, his and his wife’s. He might never have another son to inherit the family
name and wealth. When he deemed me old enough, he sent me to school in England.
She returned to Denmark and spent years trying to find me. My father had amassed
incredible wealth and power by then. She told no one of what happened to
her.”

Suzanne stood up and walked over to the cold fireplace.
Told no one…

“My brother Adam,” she began and took a deep breath. “He loved
the Church. Altar boy at age ten…he’d already decided he wanted to be a
priest.”

She turned back and met Father Stearns’s eyes. He said nothing,
only nodded for her to go on.

“We found out after he shot himself in the head at age
twenty-eight…the note said he’d been raped by our priest. Repeatedly, for years.
The Catholic Church had amassed such wealth and power…” she quoted Father
Stearns. “He told no one, either.”

Father Stearns came to her. He laid his hand gently on her face
and she saw her tear trickle over his fingers.

“Because he committed suicide, the church denied him Catholic
burial. Fucking Catholic Church,” she said, swallowing what felt like a
rock.

“Suzanne, I’m so sorry.” Father Stearns gently stroked her
cheek with his thumb.

“You just called me Suzanne, not Ms. Kanter.”

He smiled.

“I did.”

“What do I call you then?”

“The children at church have called me Father S for years. Less
intimidating than Father Stearns, I suppose. Those closest to me, those who
truly know me, call me Søren.”

“I’d like to know you…Søren.”

“You’re starting to,” he said, moving away and sitting in the
chair again.

“Can I ask what Nora Sutherlin calls you?” She sat back down
and pulled her legs in. She stared at him from over her knee.

“Eleanor calls me every name in the book,” he said and they
both laughed. “But mostly Søren. She says my name is appropriately
pretentious.”

“I can’t believe she said that to you. Seriously, I’ve met
four-star generals and they’ve got nothing on you for intimidation.”

“Eleanor is a fearless woman, always has been.”

“You speak of her very fondly. Don’t tell me you’re not
close.”

“We are close. She had a nasty run-in with the law at age
fifteen. The judge had me supervise her community service. Her parents had
little to do with her after that. I suppose you could say I had to become her
father.”

“Are you proud of the way she’s turned out?” Suzanne asked,
certain of the answer. Erotica writer, dominatrix…all-around bad girl.

“I couldn’t begin to be more proud of her. Her joie de vivre,
her intelligence, her strength…we should all turn out as well as she.”

“Strong, is she?” Suzanne had seen pictures of Nora
Sutherlin—little slip of a thing.

“Strong enough even I can be weak around her.”

Suzanne grinned.

“You weak? I think I’d like to see that.”

Søren turned his eyes to her and gave her the coldest, hardest,
steeliest stare she’d ever seen. Her blood went cold, her hands went numb, her
heart fluttered.

“I assure you,” he said with quiet menace, “you would not.”

Suzanne wanted to flinch, to hide, to turn away, to run…but
something held her there, something kept her from running. Yes, he intimidated
the hell out of her. But beyond that stone wall that was Father Stearns, she
caught a glimpse of something else, someone else that lived behind that pristine
collar. She had to see him, had to know him.

“Tell me more about Eleanor,” she said, somehow intuiting that
to know her would be to know him. “Nothing secret. Nothing personal. Just about
her. What’s she like?”

“What is Eleanor like?” He nearly laughed the question. “You
might as well ask me what God is like. She’s not God, but she’s nearly as
difficult to explain. It could take all night.”

Suzanne sat back in the chair and studied him…his aquiline
nose, his strong masculine jaw, those strangely sculpted lips. Her eyes moved to
his hands. A pianist’s hands, graceful, agile, precise. What would they feel
like on her…in her? She did want to see him weak. She wanted to see him any way
she could.

“I have all night.”

* * *

Outside of Sin Tax, Nora grabbed a cab and gave the
driver an address in Manhattan.

“You sure about that?” the driver asked. “That’s no—”

“Just go,” Nora ordered and the driver promptly shut up. In a
few minutes they pulled up to a black-and-white three-story town house. Nora
threw money into the front of the cab and got out without a word. She raced up
the front steps and through the doors. At once four rottweilers charged at her.
“Shh…down, kids.”

All four dogs whimpered and sat on their hind legs at her
words. Usually she took the time to play with the dogs, who had a fearsome
reputation but a deep love of affection. Nora headed up to the third floor and
down the hallway. At the end of the hall she opened the door to Kingsley’s
private office.

Files…she needed files. Nora scanned the office. So many filing
cabinets. She hardly knew where to begin.

She opened the top drawer of the first cabinet and found rows
of files neatly labeled with names—last name, comma, first name and a number. In
the third cabinet in the second drawer from the bottom, she found
Railey, Wesley (John), 1312.
Nora flipped the folder
open.

“God fucking dammit.” She closed the folder, slammed the drawer
and leaned against the heavy ebony wood of the cabinet. She’d forgotten Kingsley
encoded all his files. No, she corrected, Kingsley and Juliette encoded his
files. And Juliette, Kingsley’s beautiful Haitian secretary, loved doing
anything she could to piss her boss off. That would certainly include helping
Nora decode one of the files. Flipping open the file again, Nora counted the
pages—four. Surely Juliette could…

“
Chérie?
What are you doing
here?”

Nora didn’t even glance up.

“It’s midnight, King. Isn’t Juliette going to get cold without
you on top of her?”

“She’ll survive a few moments without me. And you haven’t
answered my question.”

“Needed some light reading.” She flipped again through the
file, hoping to make some sense of it. “How did you know I was here?”

“I alarmed the office.”

Nora looked up sharply at Kingsley. Alarm? Kingsley never even
locked the doors at the town house, much less alarmed it. He loved flaunting his
sense of security. All of New York, at least the criminal element, knew better
than to cross Kingsley Edge.

“Whoever stole my file…you’re scared of him, aren’t you?” Nora
asked.

“
Oui
. And that means you should be
scared too. That means you shouldn’t be in town without your master’s
permission.”

Kingsley stood directly in front of Nora. Over the top of the
file she saw Kingsley’s bare chest—olive-skinned, handsomely muscled and riddled
with old wounds, inside and out. Kingsley took the file from her hands, and Nora
reluctantly met his eyes.

“Why are you here?” Kingsley asked, his voice soft but not
unthreatening.

Nora said nothing at first.

“Answer me,” Kingsley said. Nora glared at him. She took orders
from Søren these days and no one else. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed
to be upstate with Griffin. Not in my office in the middle of the night.”

Nora said nothing. Kingsley, wearing nothing but dark gray
trousers and an unbuttoned white shirt, glanced down at the label.

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “I see. Your pet…you miss him.”

“Wesley was my best friend and my roommate and my intern. Not
my pet. And tonight we saw a pony show and I started talking about horses and
Wesley and Kentucky and Griffin—”

“And Griffin knows. And now you do too.”

“Tell me who my intern is,” Nora demanded. “Griffin showed me a
picture of him. He was at the Kentucky Derby talking to Prince Harry. The Prince
Harry. And the caption on the photo said—”

“‘The Prince of Kentucky compares racing forms with a Prince of
England,’” Kingsley finished for her as he flipped open the file to the last
page and showed her that very photograph. “I’m quite familiar with it.”

“Goddammit. You knew. You knew who he was and you didn’t tell
me. How could you do that?”

“He never told you. It was his choice. It was not my place to
tell.”

“It is now. Tell me who my intern is.”

Kingsley walked to the desk and sat at the edge.

“First, tell me why you want to know. You sent him away. He’s
gone.”

Nora laid her hand against her chest over her heart.

“Not here. He’s not gone here.”

“He deserves better than this,
le
prêtre
does.”

Nora couldn’t argue with that. “I know. I know he does. You
wanted me back with Søren.”

“I wanted
le prêtre
happy again.
For some reason, you make him happy. But this…” He raised the file. “This will
not make anyone happy.”

Nora sighed. She walked to Kingsley’s desk and collapsed into a
chair across from him.

“I was going to go back to him, to Søren.” She stared at
Kingsley’s bare feet. So strange to see him not in his signature knee-high
riding boots. Only sex got him out of those boots. Somewhere in the town house,
Nora knew Juliette was wondering where her master was. But Juliette would have
to wait.

Kingsley laughed deeply. “How much have you had to drink
tonight,
maîtresse?
You did go back to him.”

Nora smiled to herself.

“No…I mean I was going to go back to Søren a year and half
before I did. It was a Wednesday in September. That whole week…I don’t know why,
but for that entire week I could hardly breathe for how much I missed Søren. I
had good days and bad days without him. That day started out bad. Bad enough I
decided I’d give it up, humble myself, grovel at Søren’s feet until he took me
back. But I didn’t. You know why?”

Kingsley didn’t speak at first. After the space of ten
heartbeats he finally answered.

“Pourquoi?”

“Because that was the first day I taught that stupid writing
class at Yorke, and I went into that classroom and saw these beautiful big brown
eyes that looked at me as though they’d never seen anything like me before. I
met Wesley. And I just forgot. I forgot I meant to go back to Søren.” Nora
swallowed the tears in her throat. “Oops.”

“I will pretend I never heard that.”

Nora laughed miserably.