Up All Night Long: From Lust to Love (Romance Anthology) (76 page)

Chapter 21

Jon

"Hey, wake up, sleepy head."

Jon came to, the sharp sting of a slap against his cheek jolting him. He tried to reach up to wipe his eyes, the haze sitting over him thick and blurry. His arms didn't respond due to the ropes tied around them.

"Where am I?" He blinked a few times, looking around at the large empty warehouse. Seth stood to his left, his partner wearing a suit that didn't fit his personality at all.

"You're at one of my warehouses." Seth opened his arms and spun around. "You like?"

"What the fuck is going on, Seth?"

"I'm glad you asked. I do plan on making this short and sweet because I have a bitch to kill and the competition to stomp out, but things couldn't be playing out more beautifully."

Jon listened to the man before him as he glanced around the room, trying to discern how an escape might be possible. The shock that sat heavy on him due to Seth being involved in something as nefarious as the situation seemed, would have to take a back seat.

"I'm all ears. Let's hear it." Jon glanced back at him, his face expressionless.

"Where to start." Seth tapped his fingertips together in front of his chest, his smile wide and screaming of mental illness. "I know. Let's start with your baby brother. What a sick little fuck."

Jon ground his teeth together, heat rushing up his chest and flooding him with rage.

"Did you know that he was in love with your girl? I'm sure they fucked. And then you fuck her too... you knew didn't you? Wanted to tap something your little brother had tapped, I suppose? Bring you closer to him in some morbid dicked up sense?"

"Not sure what you're talking about, but I know a good doctor that could help you move past whatever's going on inside of you, partner." Jon tried to reach him.

"Kate's apartment is bugged. I drank a whole bottle of red wine last night, listening to you try to turn the trashy bitch into a woman." Seth laughed, dropping his hands and slapping them against his thighs. "Was it good? I plan on trying her on for size once we're done here. Not in the loving manner that you sought to achieve. I'm going to tie her up and spend hours desecrating her. She needs to know her place."

"You better not fucking touch her, you sick fuck." Jon lifted up, struggling against his binding.

"Oh. Hit a nerve. I like it." Seth rolled his shoulders, reaching up and removing the overly priced blue jacket he wore. "So, I found your brother and decided to bring him in to my operation, that part was honestly just the hand of God. I had no idea he was your little brother and it really was irrelevant until this new mother fucker moved into town and decided that he wanted my territory."

"You're the drug lord we've been after all these years?"

"Not all these years. Billy Turner had this fine organization before me, but once I decided to join the police force, well... it was easy to get help in taking him out." Seth shrugged. "I was his right hand. Dumb old bastard never saw it coming."

"Marcus works for you?"

"He does. He's my right hand." Seth smiled and moved to pull a chair in front of Jon. "He hired Adam for me, and I have to wonder if he knew what he was doing. Smart fucker, that Marcus. Someone to watch out for, for sure. Too bad your girl opens her legs to him nightly."

"Shut the fuck up, Seth. I'm going to get loose and when I do, I swear to God I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands."

"Does she know?"

"What?"

"Does Kate know that you've killed someone before? Does she know that your past isn't exactly as clean as you made it out to be?"

"How do you know about that?"

"I know about everything because it's my job to know this city and all the tiny little people in it."

"What does this shit have to do with you kidnapping me?"

"When Victor Parence showed up a few weeks ago I knew I needed help... and quickly. He's from Russia and they're tough mother fuckers over there. I hear they eat glass for breakfast and shit." Seth shrugged as if they were carrying on a casual conversation. "Anyway, I needed to take him out, but that would require diverting him to believe me to be someone else."

"You made him think that someone else is the original drug lord in this area?"

"Yes, Jon. Keep up please." Seth smirked. "He thinks it’s Kate."

"What? Why?"

"See, I paid Adam a lot of money to become a rat for me. The kid was perfect at making friends, so sweet and innocent and yet... not. He went to work for Victor too, but he fucked up. He smoked up the first shipment Victor gave him, the meth from overseas seriously a thing of pure beauty. I'm not saying he wasn't forced to smoke the shit until he was sick over it. But from their point of view, the boy fucked up and they came after him." Seth shrugged. "That's just how this shit works."

Jon sat in stunned silence, his partner a monster, one that rode beside him in the car for the last two years. What kind of detective was he, that he never suspected anything?

"Adam wasn't looking for Kate that night at the bar." Seth laughed loudly. "Fuck, I'm sure he almost shit himself when she opened the door. He was looking for Marcus, his mentor. When Kate walked out and held him as he died, my plan locked into place perfectly."

"Your brother gave the Russians a perfect view of her being either his lover or his boss. If I could simply pin on her the ownership of my ring... they would come after her and one or two things would happen. Marcus would kill them all for hurting his girl, because you know she really belongs to him, or they would kill her and Marcus."

"How does them killing Marcus and Kate help you at all?"

"It didn't until I got you assigned to your brother's case. I knew Kate was your type and that damsel in distress with big tits and dark features would send you over the edge. They kill her and you wouldn't stop until you found them." He laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. "So fucking brilliant."

"But I'm sitting here. This makes no sense."

"Kate killed Paul today. The right hand of Victor's empire and there is no one able to step up and protect the boss for the next few days... I took you so that Kate and Marcus would go after Victor. She's going to find you missing. Your bike's out front. Your phone right in front of her door. If she's dense and misses that, I'll be sending her a text tonight from you with lots of sorries and a lovely save me."

"You're sending Kate and Marcus to a blood bath." Sickness washed over Jon in waves.

"Exactly."

"I thought Marcus was your right hand."

"He was and I'm sad to lose him, but sometimes greatness requires sacrifice."

"You're sick. I cannot believe I didn't see this shit."

"Not sick, just very focused on my empire. I'm a bit surprised you didn't see it too."

"Where is Adam's body, Seth?"

"Why would I take it?"

"Why wouldn't you? You've not done anything I would have expected thus far. Did you take it?"

"I did. The drug inside of him is hard to produce, but we're harvesting his organs. A few of the scientists who work for me here can gather all they need in order to help me recreate it."

"You son of a bitch."

"He doesn't feel anything, Jon. He's dead, remember?"

Jon let his head drop as bile rose in his throat. Kate was on her way to her death, Marcus beside her and Adam was gone, his body being hacked up by someone Jon would have called friend without question.

"It's time for you to die. I have nothing else to say to you and I have some aggression I need to get rid of." He stood up and walked to a large stack of boxes, pulling a baseball bat from behind one of them.

"You're going to beat me to death?"

"Pretty old school, right?"

"You should untie me and earn the right to kill me. It's a pussy move to take my life without any effort on my part. You're scared though. I get it. I beat you over and over in our training class. Remember that?"

Seth tapped the bat on his palm and shook his head. "I do. I've hated your ass ever since."

"I can see why. Untie me."

"Nawww... I like pussy moves. I hope they kill Marcus today and just fuck Kate up a little. I heard her and Marcus fucking the night before you got a hold of her. Seems like she's not let anyone give it to her in the ass yet. I'm thinking I'll be the first." He laughed and moved toward Jon, his eyes filled with madness.

Chapter 22

Kate

"I think not." Kate moved out from the open door at the far end of the large warehouse, Marcus standing right beside her, fuming.

Seth turned and smiled. "Oh good... You're here. Marcus, tell them how we planned this so well."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, you sick bitch."

Kate moved away from Marcus, unsure of anything in the moment. She knew the truth of their past and felt rightness in his promises, but after understanding who Seth was and all that Marcus had done to play a hand in the various pieces of the puzzle, nothing seemed right.

"Kate. Get the fuck out of here." Jon looked up and yelled loudly in her direction.

"No. I want her here. She can watch you die." Seth turned to Marcus. "Grab her and let her watch."

Kate moved, turning toward Marcus and lifting her gun. "Don't you come near me."

"Kate... seriously?"

"I don't think he's involved, baby," Jon yelled again as he grunted loudly.

Kate moved toward Jon and Seth, her gun still pointing toward Marcus as she tried to figure things out. They hadn't spoken much in the car on the way over, both of them a bundle of nerves. Nothing was as it should be lately, so why would this be any different.

"I don't have time for this shit." Seth pulled out his gun and turned it on Kate, a single explosion resounding in the large space around them.

Jon came up out of his chair as Kate moved toward him, another dark figure walking out of the shady part of the warehouse, holding the smoking gun. Seth fell to the ground in front of Jon, his bat clanging on the concrete floor.

"Get me out of these." Jon looked up at her as she ran toward him, his words pouring from his lips. "I'm so sorry baby. Seth had me fucked up and turned around thinking that you hired Adam, you killed him and you took his body from the morgue this morning."

Kate worked fast, looking around Jon as Victor moved toward him. Marcus moved in front of them, his voice deep and commanding.

"Slow your roll, old man. Don't come any closer."

"I have to say, I was almost fooled by this clown you worked for. He has been busy twisting reality, has he not?" Victor smiled and moved to his left a little, kneeling down to make himself eye level with Kate.

She shivered, fear rushing through her. "What do you want?"

"What we all want, little girl. I want to rule the world and I want the perfect woman beside me when I do it."

"Well, you're under arrest," Jon barked out as he stood, Kate finally getting the ropes off of him.

She stood in time to see Marcus put a hand on Jon’s chest as and turn to press the cop with a look. Kate moved out to stand beside Marcus, her need to run to Jon stifled for a minute.

"Be more specific or I'll put a bullet between your eyes just like I did that hillbilly lackey you left to rough me up today." Kate took a step toward him, her gun safely in her hand.

"Yes, sorry about that. I assumed you were the boss that you're not." He chuckled. "But you should be."

"The world you live in offers nothing but grief and death. Count me out."

"Me too. Fuck you and all of this." Marcus reached over and wrapped an arm around Kate.

"Not that easy." Victor shrugged, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He glanced toward Jon and back to Kate. "Now that Seth is dead, Marcus is his replacement. You have a week to make a decision as to whether we are going to work together... or not."

Kate lifted her gun and smiled. "I don't think you get to make those demands."

"Oh... I have Jon's mother locked up. She seems to think Jesus will save her, but I don't know. I've never met the guy before." He laughed as Kate let her arm drop, Victor having pulled out a card that no one could trump.

"If you touch one hair on her head, I'll slaughter you, you sick mother fucker."

"Oh, I know you will." Victor chuckled. "I've seen your record."

Kate swallowed her questions and took one last step toward him. "What do you want in terms of working with us?"

"I want you to move into Seth's spot."

"Not happening." She shook her head.

"I'm not asking. You're moving into his spot and Marcus will work for us both. I have a different product than you do. We will be partners, Miss Jarret. There is no way around this."

She glanced at Jon, his face pale, his eyes filled with fury. "And what of the cop?"

"He stays on the force and helps us. He's not the innocent dove you think he is." Victor laughed and turned toward Jon. "You get the girl and keep your life and job. What do you say, detective?"

"What choice do I have?" Jon bit out through clenched teeth.

"Oh lots... you can say no, but someone will pay for your decision."

"And if I say yes? Will you release my mother?"

"I will. And I'll promise to never come near her again. But you and I will share many things over the years to come."

"Done." Jon moved up and shook Victor's hand, Kate standing in shock at the handsome cop’s quick decision. Family meant more to him than it would have to Kate.

"And for the two of you... One week to decide. Any events we hold together, you will pose as a married couple. It’s part of a game I'm playing. Really... you're going to love it."

"If we agree to this, you stay out of our shit." Marcus moved beside Kate, his body almost pressed to Victor’s.

"I will, as long as you treat me like a partner in all things." He glanced toward Kate, his eyes moving down her body.

"Fuck no." Jon stepped up, the four of them in a little huddle.

"Oh Mr. Peterson, you've already agreed to sharing with me. No taking back your word, Sir."

"Fuck you," Kate whispered.

Victor laughed and turned to walk away. "My demands are simple. The three of you and I... We're going into business together. We'll be intimate in lots of ways and we'll make loads of cash to make you feel better about your personal sacrifices."