The Virgin Master (44 page)

Jeremy smiled and easily slipped the blow.

“You shot Evan and you thought you were just going to get away with it?” Jeremy’s smile turned menacing. “It looked pretty serious. I can’t let you go.”

“What, toy? What are you going to do about it?”

Frank gulped suddenly as Jeremy loomed over him, noting that the slave had at least a six inch height advantage, and was armed with two metal crutches. Suddenly remembering Jeremy’s heavily muscled body and realizing that they were alone and unobserved, Frank’s breath caught in his chest. Jeremy saw the minute Frank felt fear.

“Yeah, well, I may be Evan’s toy, but I’m going to kill you. Slowly. Not only for what you’ve done to him, but for what you’ve done to me.”

Jeremy jabbed Frank in the stomach with his right crutch hard enough to make him double over. He then began to calmly and very carefully beat Frank with the crutch, trying to make each blow painful, without knocking him out, or giving him time to do more than try to dodge blows. Jeremy wanted Frank to hurt. He had
reached a cold dark place in his mind
. H
e didn’t feel hate so much as acknowledge the need to express it. Jeremy already had a reach advantage on Frank; adding the length of the crutches to that existing
expanse rendered
Frank helpless, unless he charged Jeremy. Frank finally understood the logistics of the situation and flung himself bodily at Jeremy, overbalancing the larger man and taking him to the floor.

Jeremy flipped them at once, crushing Frank between the floor and his much larger body. He put his hands around Frank’s neck, but didn’t squeeze; not yet.

“Okay, genius. You wanted us on the floor, now what?” Jeremy smiled at Frank.

Frank’s arms were trapped between his body and Jeremy’s and he began flailing to try to get at least one of his arms free so he could try to defend himself.

“You slave scum. You animal. You’ll die for this. You know that, right?”

“It didn’t look good for Evan. You think I want to be alive if he dies?”

“So you admit it! You are in love!”

“Yes. But there’s only you and me here; you’ve been thoroughly discredited. Killing you will be worth whatever happens to me.”

Mark came up behind Jeremy at that moment very carefully.

“Jeremy.”

Jeremy breathed a curse under his breath. He had hoped to survive this…but…

“What, Mark?”

“I don’t see you here. I heard nothing. Mr. Owens suffered a fatal fall down the stairs.”

Jeremy jerked his head around and saw Mark’s face.“He did? Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”

Mark slipped some plastic restraint cuffs out of his pocket and, together, they held Frank down while they quickly tied his feet and hands together. Handing Jeremy his crutches,
             
Mark put Frank on his feet. While Jeremy held open the door to the stairs.

“Stop, Jeremy.”

“Why?”

“There’s a security camera in the stair well. If I disable
             
that
one, and all the others, how in world can that be explained
             
except that someone in security had a hand in this?
"

“Yeah, Jeremy,” Frank sneered and struggled. Jeremy
             
just looked at him.

“Get these restraints off him.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“That’s better. Mark, I’m not even going to mention your name. Jeremy, instead of having you killed outright, I’m going to buy you from Evan’s estate…
"

Jeremy grabbed Frank by the throat and lifted him off the ground slightly with one hand. “Shut up.”

Frank gasped for breath and pawed at Mark as the restraints were cut off.

“Okay, now what?”

“Open the door.”

Mark opened the door,
and stood back, giving
Jeremy
room
.

“Good-bye, Frank,” Jeremy said, almost cordially.

Being careful that no part of his body could be within the security camera’s range, Jeremy flung
Frank
backward toward the stair railing, hoping he had the right angle. Frank flipped over the railing and howled as he fell twenty-two stories to smash into the concrete below. The wet noise as his body exploded and the splat of the blood spray were both clearly audible to Jeremy and Mark.

Mark and Jeremy exchanged long looks.

“I don’t think there will be any marks that can be told from the ones already there from when he was arrested; but if there are we probably won’t get away with this. I don’t know what they’ll make out of the bruises. I’ll call internal security and 911 again for an ambulance.”

“I did this all by myself, if foul play is suspected. Evan?”

“Still alive when the EMT’s took him to the ambulance. He went to University Hospital. I think, if you call Jeff, he would be glad to take you over there.” Mark lowered his eyes. “Remember your leash.”

Jeremy nodded. “We need to talk after all this is over.”

M
ark smiled. “We will. By the way…don’t worry about the security feed showing you bashing in the camera, or the feed from the stairwell.”

“Why would you do that for me?”

“
Evan…has been good to me. I hated seeing him sink into whatever you want to call that awful place he was before he had you. He’s back now. I think you’re responsible for that. We all missed him. I’ve known him since he was in middle school---he’s been nicer and more interested in me than my own family. That man? Total trash.”

Jeremy sagged into his crutches. “Thanks, Mark.”

“See about getting to Evan. He’s going to need you.”

J
eremy swung back to the apartment, considerably less easily than when he left. Everything in his body screamed at him. He expected to feel guilt or remorse, but he only felt relief about killing Frank. His mind kept replaying the image of blood
fountaining
out of Evan’s chest as his head rolled back and he fell to the conference room floor like a bag of rags.
Jeremy’s
anger passed
, replaced by
fear and sorrow roll
ing
over him. His need to see Evan overwhelmed his other senses. He realized that Mark owned him now, but he would deal with any fall-out from that when the time came.

With the dissipation of the adrenaline rush of chasing Frank, pain crashed into him with a vengeance. He noted that the wounds on his thighs were bleeding again and his ass felt like someone had plunged a lit match up into him. He barely made it to the door of the apartment; Marta met him there and helped him get inside and onto the sofa. Wordlessly, she handed him his phone, and went into the kitchen.

Jeremy called Tom first.

“Dr. Hatcher,
it’s
Jeremy.”

Tom couldn’t find his voice for a minute. No slave had ever called him directly before. Recovering, he answered, “What happened?”

Jeremy sighed. “Frank Owens shot Evan this evening at the board meeting.” Emotion flooded him and he struggled to keep from just screaming. “I chased him on my crutches and now my legs are bleeding again. I need to get to the hospital to see Evan. What do I do?”

“Shot! Jesus, Jeremy, I’m sorry. How bad is it? No, wait. I’m in the building waiting for Alexa to finish some shopping downstairs. Let me come up and look at you. We’ll talk then.”

“Okay.” Jeremy disconnected the call and just sat on the sofa staring into space. Evan might die. Might be dead right now. From what Jeremy could tell, it would be a miracle if he survived. A deep hole opened up inside and Jeremy wanted nothing more than to just fall into it. To be senseless
;
to never
have to
know; to die with Evan. He had killed someone. He wondered how that would
change him.
H
e felt totally lost and completely helpless. Should he go to the hospital at all? He would have to ask Tom and Jeff, what they thought. Would
Allen take his call? He decided to try it. Allen answered on the first ring.

“Mr. James? It’s Jeremy. This is probably totally inappropriate and I will be sure to tell Evan I did this so I can be
disciplined…”

“Son, I was just about to call you. Hush with this inappropriate shit. As far as I’m concerned you’re my son-in-law. Evan is in surgery. One of the doctors just came out to tell me that it doesn’t seem to be as bad as we all thought at first. He has a good chance to survive.”

Jeremy tried to stifle a sob, but Allen heard. “He’ll want to see you. Can you get here, do you think? If you can, I’ll ask one of Evan’s friends to meet you with a wheelchair.”

“I, uh, tore open my legs a few minutes ago and Dr. Hatcher is coming to check the stitches and do new dressings. Is Jeff already there? I know I can’t be out without a citizen holding my leash.”

“Yeah, Jeff’s here.” Allen put his hand over the phone, but Jeremy could still hear him ask Jeff to come pick up Jeremy. “He’s on his way.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t mind?”

Allen laughed. “We have to sit down and have a long talk about what you’ve done for Evan and how grateful we all are. Any of us would do almost anything in the world for you. Do you know if Frank got arrested?”

Jeremy decided he shouldn’t know anything about Frank. “I haven’t heard anything. I’ll ask Mark to keep me posted.”

“See you in a few minutes, Jeremy. Maybe, with Frank out of the picture, Evan can have a normal life now.”

“I hope.”

“Son
up to now, this has been harder for you then it has been for him. Don’t think we don’t all know that.”

Jeremy couldn’t take much more. “Please. I’m on the verge of a break-down here. Don’t say anything else nice to me or I’m going to lose it.”

Allen chuckled. “Okay. We’ll see you in a little while.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jeremy stared at his phone for a while trying to process what was happening.  Evan had to live. He had to. He would look for Jeremy as soon as he was conscious, appropriate or not. He stared at the blood stains slowly spreading on his thighs, the blue denim turning purple and then black as it became more saturated with blood. His back itched maddeningly and the pain in his rectum let him know that some stitches had probably popped there as well.

If they all survived tonight he hoped that he could have some time
in the future
without having to deal with painful injuries. The image of Evan falling to the floor seemed to have been branded into his retinas
. I
t repeated over and over again
,
overlaid on what he was actually looking at as if it were projected on a translucent screen between his eyes and the rest of the world.

*****

Marta let Tom in and he found Jeremy on the sofa, still bleeding, visibly shaking as if chilled to the bone.
Shock. He’s in shock.
Tom gripped Jeremy carefully by the shoulder and forced him to lie on the sofa. He then elevated Jeremy’s legs with cushions snatched from other pieces of furniture.

“Marta
…
I’m certain that Jeremy is going to want to go to the hospital to be with Evan. These jeans are ruined. Can you get me another pair from his room?”