A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (23 page)

Blood and killing I was used to. Other things were harder to swallow. I didn’t like people who preyed on the weak. These rich men did nasty things to kids.

I couldn’t handle it.

I had a thing against monsters.

That was why I kept a good distance from these perverts. Even in that moment, as I sat next to Scar in the bar, several feet of space rested between our table and the perverts. Chase Stone, Jason Koch, and the rest of the corporate demon bunch.

“Look at them.” I pointed at the whole deceptive lot. “The things rich people do behind closed doors would make the devil’s dick go soft.” I laughed. “I bet Satan would stand up, be shocked, and yell out, ‘Jesus Christ, people!’“

“Don’t joke like that.” Scar lifted his upper lip on the side as if he was going to hiss. “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“I just watched you crush a man’s skull tonight, and you won’t let me take the Lord’s name in vain?”

“I have my limits.” Scar’s last word sounded more like “lihehs” in his sort of gruff tone.

Scar could never be the director of security for Stone Industries. It had to be me, but I kept him with me the whole time. Didn’t have anyone else I could trust in this world but him.

“They say they want me to go to law school next,” I confessed, unsure of what Scar would think. In my life, I’d done enough to have many people to talk to.

My wife thought I was a security man working my way up the company ladder. She had never met the real Benny Nix. If she did, she’d shit her frilly pink panties.

“What do you think, Scar?” I asked. “Could I be in a law school?”

“You’re smart.” Two words. That was always Scar. Concise and to the point with no explanation. He spoke in short sentences or muttered a word here and there.

“Yeah.” I gestured for another scotch. “I am smart. Can you picture me at law school? I’d hate to see the professor that gave me the wrong grade.”

Scar turned to me. I stiffened. One never knew what was on his mind. Once he had coffee with me and a guy. The poor man said hello, and Scar sliced his throat. Somehow the poor bastard survived. The cut wasn’t too deep. I asked him why he did it. Scar claimed he didn’t like his shirt.

Nevertheless, I stayed on edge, when Scar gave me his full attention.

“What’s wrong, man?” Under the table, I held my gun and pointed it his way. With some buddies, I kept a weapon on my lap. Our occupation lured many sick guys. I could never let my guard down.

Scar targeted me with his gaze. “I’d talk to him.”

“Who?”

“That professor.”

“The one that would give me the bad grade?”

He nodded. “You’re smart.”

“Yeah.”

“He would die.” Scar returned to his drink, and I went back to my third one and relaxed the fingers on my gun.

“If I go to law school, I’ll be sure to study hard so no innocent professors won’t die.”

“You’re smart.” Scar tapped his glass against mine and finished it.

Then she walked into the bar.

Sophia.

Skin so rich with a deep brown color my fingers itched to dip into her skin and taste that sweetness on my tongue. Ebony hair fell to her waist. Jeans hugged her curves. A candy red top clutched two beautiful mounds of lushness. She spotted me, gasped, twisted around, and walked away.

“She know you?” Scar asked.

“Yeah. Sort of.” I jumped up, put the gun in its holster, slung on my jacket, and left three hundred dollar bills on the table. “See you later, man.”

Chase Stone and the rest of the designer perverts paid Sophia’s entrance and exit no mind. That was good. They were children when it came to desire. If the men spotted her, they’d want her, and I’d have to give her up. Again.

No.

Scar got up himself and trailed behind me. “I got your back.”

I almost laughed. What was he doing, covering me against a sexy woman? Surely if I could lay out two guys by myself, I could handle her.

“What you doing, man?” I stopped by a table and turned to him.

“She’s dangerous.”

“I like them dangerous.”

“She’s been with a boss.”

“She’s been with them all.”

“Not good.”

“I don’t like them good.”

Scar grunted. “I got your back.”

I checked the pervert’s table. They continued to laugh and barrel down more drinks.

“Look, Scar,” I said, “Sophia worked at Kitty Kat. That strip club right on the edge of South End that is gracious enough to be next door to the Meow Hotel.”

“Good place.”

“I met her through Stone. He thinks strip clubs are pussy markets.”

“He bought her?”

“He might’ve picked her up a few times after the club and seen how much she could meow.” I kept the rage off of my face. “He used to have me drive her home, when he was done. The first few times I didn’t care. I was at the hotel myself. The last night I took her home, I saw three little boys peeking out from her living room window.”

“Who watched them?”

“No one. I told her ass to never come back around Stone and them.” I gestured at the door that she’d booked it out of. “That’s why she hightailed it through the exit. She’d been ready to go over there to the perverts, and realized I sat in the bar.”

“She’s a free woman.”

“I told her not to mess with them.”

“She’s no virgin.”

“Men like Stone would chew Sophia and her kids up.”

“You sure she wouldn’t be chewing, too?”

“I’m not so sure.” I headed to the exit with Scar right behind me. “You’re going to follow me now?”

“I got your back.”

“Yeah, I know.” I shoved through the bar’s doors. Cold wind hit my face. “I told her not to come back. She keep messing with Stone and he’ll get nervous and have her disposed of.”

“Not your problem.”

I stopped and faced him. “If Stone has her disposed, then it is my problem. I hate killing mothers.”

Scar nodded. “Me too.”

We were both motherless too soon. Scar’s mom died. Mine should’ve done the world a favor and killed herself.

Several feet ahead of Scar and me heels clicked against the pavement. I spotted her figure up ahead, stomping away in pretty shoes and swaying those lovely hips.

“Eh!” I ran up to her. “I thought I told you to stay away from him?”

Ass jiggling under that skirt, she displayed her middle finger and kept on stalking forward. That was the thing that irked me about this Sophia. Most women’s names were easy to forget. This one’s was easy to remember. Sophia was just too stupid to live. She knew she should be scared of me, understood I was dangerous, but yet didn’t provide me with the respect that I should’ve been given.

“Eh!” I hurried my pace to stay on her side.

“My name is not Eh.” Sophia rolled those fucking eyes. “And I only came through because I needed some quick cash.”

“You’ll end up getting a quick death, if you mess with that bunch.”

“Then my problems might be solved.” She stopped in the center of the sidewalk and gazed at me. “Are we done?”

Scar got to my side and stared at her with an odd expression. He did that at times with women. It creeped most of them out.

Sophia pointed at Scar. “Stop studying me like that. You look like you want to carve me up and eat me.”

Scar’s voice darkened. “I scare you?”

She never lowered her finger. “Stop looking at me.”

“You should probably say that in a nicer tone.” I crossed my arms around my chest.

Annoyance laced her voice. “What?”

“If he looks like he wants to carve you up, and then eat you,” I said, “don’t you think you should ask him to stop looking at you in a nicer tone?”

Scar moved his gaze to her hair and then her bare shoulders, his expression getting odder by the minute, like he really would slice some of her flesh and chomp away.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

She lifted her head and targeted him with a sexy gaze. “No, baby, I’m not scared.”

Shit like that made my cock hard. Sophia should’ve backed away. Scar stood five times her size. The man frightened me. In that moment, I decided that I would fuck her.

I sucked my teeth. “You should be afraid of us both.”

“You’re not going to let this big, scary beast hurt me,” she said.

I had nothing else to say. Not many people shocked me. No one talked to me this way, not even the designer perverts who signed my big death checks.

“How do you know I won’t let him eat you?” I asked.

“Because you haven’t become a monster yet,” she replied.

“Yet?”

“You heard me.” She walked around both of us and continued down the sidewalk. “But you will become one. Guys like you always become monsters, when they hang with men like that.”

“You would know, huh? You’ve slept with enough them.” I turned around.

“Sure have. Should I be embarrassed?” She stalked off, that behind wiggling with each stomp. “I’m sure you’ve killed more men than I’ve fucked.”

“She’s too mouthy.” Scar reached into his jacket. His fingers were probably rubbing against his gun. He liked to play with the cold surface a little in the seconds before wrenching it out and pulling the trigger.

I touched his arm. “No. Don’t shoot her.”

“She would be fun.”

“No.” I tightened my grip on his arm. “I don’t want to have that type of fun with her.”

“No?”

“No, put your gun away.”

I often thought of that night later on. Did Sophia understand how close she’d been to being raped, tortured, and choked in an alley? Scar didn’t seek his victims out, but if they strolled around and matched him in verbal play, he might take them and have some fun. Their families usually discovered the bodies a week later, whether by the cops or some poor homeless man rummaging through dumpsters …

Bile rose in my throat. The plane’s engine hummed, but we still hadn’t taken off yet. Nevertheless, the machine’s steady rumbling brought me back to my reality and out of Benny’s gruesome world.

Shutting the journal, I focused on catching my breath.

Someone touched my shoulder.

I jumped.

“Are you okay?” Sophia stood right next to me.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I’d read more than I wanted to about Sophia. Being next to her set me on edge.

She glanced down at my lap. “What are you reading?”

I turned it around. “Benny’s journals.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

She flinched. “I doubt there’s anything in there. And truthfully, I’m just making conversation. This
is
going to be a long flight.”

“Sorry, I’m not me today.” I set the book on the seat next to me.

“When are we taking off?”

“Soon. I never rush the pilots. I work on their time. I like to get to places safely.”

She directed her attention to the stack of journals in the seat next to me. “You’re just going to read about Benny the whole trip?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” I changed the topic. “Have you ever been to France?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised Benny hasn’t taken you.”

“Why would he?”

“He liked you a lot.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “He didn’t like me as much as you think.”

“No?”

“No, not really. He has a weird way of loving people.”

“Could you explain?” I asked.

“Why do you care so much?”

“It’s good to know your enemies.”

Sophia widened her mouth into a mischievous grin. “To know your enemies, is to become your enemies.”

“Sun Tzu said that.”

“Yes, he did.”

“I didn’t know South End was big on Sun Tzu.”

“The hood has always been a battleground. In order to survive, you should study war.”

Benny’s friend was right, she is dangerous. Each time I see her, I meet a new Sophia. Each time, she shows me whatever she thinks I need to see.

“Tell me about Benny’s love,” I said.

“He loves in a hazardous way.”

“How?”

My phone rang. The screen said it was an unpublished number.

Now who is this? What new puzzle will go on the table?

“Excuse me, Sophia.” I picked it up. “Hello?”

The other person said nothing.

“Hello?” I asked again.

Benny is that you? I hope so. Are you mad that I walked right into your bizarre garden?

“Say something,” I said. “Stop being a coward.”

“Chase,” Jasmine whispered.

Dear God. Tesoro.

“Yes. Yes.” I jumped in my seat, knocking journals and coffee over. Sophia stepped back in the aisle.