Beautiful Prey: The Storm Series (3 page)

“Tonight a whore, tomorrow a glorified crossing guard,” she
mumbled out loud.

Oh well
, she
thought and headed to roll call.

Two hours later, Victoria was strolling from corner to
corner. It was hot as hell. Deon was sweet enough to swing by her corner with a
cold bottle of water, but she was exhausted. She had busted six Johns already,
and her feet were killing her. She couldn’t imagine working the Taste of
Chicago for ten hours the next day when her feet were already in so much pain.

Just then she spotted a black Bentley as it stopped right in
front of her. The windows were tinted, and she couldn’t see inside. Victoria
waited for the window to lower so she could approach the fancy car. She was
really curious to see what the driver of this beautiful car looked like. The
window never lowered, and the car slowly pulled away from the curb.

Victoria caught a glimpse of the license plate. It read:
“STORM”.

She waved it off and got back to work. Victoria walked over
to one of the many abandoned buildings on Madison Avenue. She sat on the stoop
to relieve her aching feet. She shook her head at the condition of the
dilapidated building.
 
Abandoned
buildings were a haven for criminals, so she wondered why the city hadn’t torn
it down. 

Victoria crinkled her nose at the foul odor coming from the
building. She turned toward the doorway and was hit by a wave of nausea.
Victoria noticed that the boarding in the doorway wasn’t attached by nails. It
was propped against the building. She stood and pulled back the wood in order
to investigate the putrid odor.

Victoria held her breath and peeked inside.

She gasped at the sight of a foot.
“What
the fuck?!”

Victoria took several steps backward and waved her distress
signal to Steve. Within seconds, Steve was running toward her. 

He approached her, out of breath and full of concern. “What
happened, Vic?!”

“A body,” she responded, pointing toward the doorway. 

The other members of her team arrived ready to do battle.
They looked around for the cause of Victoria’s distress. When they found
nothing, they glared at Victoria with confused expressions. Victoria informed
the team of her discovery as she and Steve walked towards the building. Steve
lifted the board from the doorway and Victoria stepped in with Deon close
behind. She gasped at the sight before her. She covered her nose and mouth as
she stared down at the naked body of a young Black woman. The victim stared
back at Victoria with eyes that were absent of life. The word “whore” was
written across her chest. Victoria kneeled to get a closer look and discovered
that it wasn’t written, but carved into her chest. The victim’s wrists were
bound and raised above her head. The bruising around her neck indicated that
she had been strangled. 

Victoria was careful not to touch anything. She didn’t want
to contaminate the crime scene. Deon grabbed his radio and called for the
Homicide Division and evidence technicians. 

Victoria could no longer stand the smell of rotting flesh so
she stood and walked out of the building.

Once outside, she took a deep breath and looked around for her
sergeant. He was nowhere to be found. She shook her head in disgust.

Victoria couldn’t get the image of the young woman lying
dead in a filthy abandoned building out of her head. She couldn’t have been
more than twenty. She was displayed without an ounce of dignity and she was
completely naked, except for the black high-heeled platforms. 

Victoria’s entire team stood outside of the building in
silence. Sadness washed over Victoria and warm tears fell from her eyes. She
didn’t even want to imagine the last moments of the young woman’s life. No
woman deserved to die like that. Victoria wiped her face and realized that she
was the bait for the type of monster that could brutally murder a young woman.

Deon, who was apparently reading Victoria’s mind, walked
over and placed his arm around her. “You okay?”

Victoria nodded in response, though she was lying. 

Ten minutes later, a team of Homicide detectives accompanied
by evidence technicians took over the scene. Victoria quickly gave them the
rundown on how she stumbled upon the dead girl.

Somehow the media was alerted and of course that meant the
end of Victoria’s undercover mission. She couldn’t risk being on the news while
she worked undercover missions. A John wasn’t going to stop for a prostitute in
an area that was surrounded by the Chicago Police Department anyway. 

CHAPTER 4

 
STORM

Jack
Storm stood with his arms crossed at the floor-to-ceiling window in his massive
office. He stared down at the busy streets of downtown Chicago. He had a
breathtaking view of the city. Storm Tower, headquarters for Storm Enterprises,
stood at ninety-two stories. Jackson Storm was the most profitable real estate
developer in the country, but at the moment he couldn’t concentrate on work. He
was deep in thought. He couldn’t get that caramel-colored beauty that he had
seen on the street the day before off of his mind. 

Why did
she have to be a prostitute?
He thought to himself as he
relished in the memories of her beauty. She had long dark silky hair, beautiful
skin, massive tits, and never-ending legs. He had been so very tempted to pick
her up, but he wasn’t into prostitutes. Jack was well aware that he was
attractive to women. He could have any woman he wanted, so he never once
considered paying a hooker.

Storm had rugged Caucasian features that were enhanced by a
ruddy skin tone. He stood at six foot three. Since he worked out on a daily
basis, he knew that women were impressed with his muscular physique. Because he
was a billionaire, women practically threw themselves at his feet, but he
couldn’t remember his body ever reacting the way that it had yesterday. He
remembered sitting in his car watching as a bead of sweat rolled down the
caramel beauty’s impressive cleavage. When it disappeared, he instantly
hardened. He imagined chasing that little bead of sweat with his tongue. He
pulled off before he could do anything stupid, but he wanted her.

His thoughts were interrupted by his assistant’s voice. Mary
was a highly competent woman in her early fifties. She was like a second mother
to Jack.

“Mr. Storm, your mom is on line one.”

Grateful for the distraction, he walked over to his desk and
instructed Mary to put his mom’s call through. He reached for his remote
control so that he could check the Dow as he grabbed the receiver.

“Hi, Mom.
How are
you?”

“I’m great, love. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget
about the dinner party on Sunday.”

Jack could see right through his mother’s so-called innocent
reminder. She was trying to set him up again. Matchmaking wasn’t her strong
suit. One more bubble-headed debutant and he would completely lose his mind.

“I didn’t forget, Mom,” he said as he looked up at the
television.

Transfixed on the vision on the screen, he abruptly ended
his call, “Mom, I
gotta
call you back.”

He hung up immediately, right in the middle of his mother’s
rebuttal.

“It’s her,” he said in a shocking whisper as he gazed in
disbelief at the television.

There she was; his caramel-colored beauty. She was wearing a
CPD uniform. The news anchor was saying something about increasing the police
presence at the Taste of Chicago.

“She’s a
cop
,” he
whispered in relief.

Immediately, he buzzed Mary. “Get John on the phone.” 

“Yes, Mr. Storm,” Mary answered.

As he ended the call, he couldn’t suppress his smile. “She’s
not
a whore.”

He was determined. He had to have her at least once.

 
CHAPTER 5

 VICTORIA

 “This
shit is for the birds,” Victoria said looking over at Deon.

There
were news cameras everywhere.

Deon shook his and said, “I know, Vic. Just lower your hat
and keep your head down.” 

Victoria would be avoiding cameras all day. She looked
around and noticed some folks that she knew from the Narcotics Division wearing
plain clothes and blending in with the crowd.

Ain’t that
a bitch
, she thought to herself.

The “higher ups” in Narcotics watched out for their officers
safety while the bosses in Vice gave less than a fuck about the officers that
worked under them. Victoria decided to just get the day over with, hopefully
without incident. She conceded to the fact that, for the next ten hours, she
would be directing traffic, helping lost children, watching out for
pickpockets, giving directions to tourists, and chasing away gang bangers.

Over the years, “The Taste” had become increasingly violent.
On the other hand, she was at the Taste of Chicago, so she decided to pig out.
By ten thirty, Victoria was full and exhausted. She’d been on her feet for more
than ten hours. Her gun belt was painfully digging into her hips. Some boss,
that Victoria knew was sitting in an air-conditioned squad car, finally came
over the radio and released the team from Vice.

Victoria was frantically trying to get to her assigned
vehicle when she ran directly into a big body. She looked up, prepared to
apologize, and saw a tall man with the most intense grey eyes and a very sexy
smile.

“Sorry,” he seemed to sing with a deep alluring voice.

“No, no. It was my fault,” she said in a quivering voice that
didn’t disguise her attraction to him. 

“Let’s go. I’m tired,” Steve’s voice boomed behind her. She
turned around to give him the evil eye for interrupting her conversation with
the gorgeous pedestrian. “Okay. Give me a sec,” she said turning back to the
handsome stranger.

He was gone.

Victoria cursed aloud, “Damn!”

Oh well
.

She turned to Steve. “Let’s go, Cock Blocker,” she said to a
snickering Steve.

They got in the car and waited for Deon to make it over to
them. The ride back was quiet. They were all tired. They finally arrived, and
Victoria headed straight to the locker room to get out of her uniform. She
hurried to her car and headed home. She arrived at her apartment, parked, and
headed towards her building.

All of a sudden, Victoria got an eerie feeling that she was
being watched. She slowed her steps and looked around.

Nothing.

She was being paranoid. She shook off the eerie feeling and
entered her building. Victoria couldn’t wait to get into her apartment so that
she could shed her clothes and scrub the long day from her tired body. As she
unlocked her door and entered her apartment, she noticed that Mrs. O’Malley
didn’t make her usual appearance in her doorway.

Maybe Mr.
O’Malley was giving the mean old bitch some
lovin
’.

“
Eww
!”
Victoria cringed
at the thought. She laughed out loud and headed into her apartment. She tossed
her bag on the floor by the door and headed to her bathroom, shedding her
clothes along the way. After a hot soothing shower, Victoria threw on a t-shirt
and panties and flung herself on her bed. Within minutes she was in a deep
sleep.

Only a few hours later did the insistent ringing of her
phone snatch Victoria out of her peaceful sleep. She moaned and looked at her
clock. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and she didn’t have to be at work
until noon. She grabbed her phone and looked at the caller ID.

It was Tracy.

She pushed the talk button and moaned, “Tracy, some of us
don’t work a normal nine to five.”

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that your hours rotate,” Tracy
chirped in a tone way too chipper, in Victoria’s opinion.

“I was just calling to see if I can bring a date to the
Sickle Cell Benefit on Saturday.”

Victoria was a volunteer fundraiser for the Sickle Cell
Association of Illinois, and every year she sponsored a huge black tie event.

“Tracy, you can bring as many people as you want, as long as
they buy a ticket and bring their checkbook.”

 Victoria knew that she was being grumpy. She didn’t
care. It was seven-thirty in the damn morning! 

“I’d like to bring Steve. We’re
kinda
dating.”

“Oh, my,” Victoria giggled. “Well, that woke me up!”

Victoria sat up in pleasant shock. “Well, Miss Tracy, Steve
already bought a ticket but good luck getting him into a tux,” she chuckled.

Victoria knew that Tracy was
gonna
have to sit down and have lunch with her best friend very soon. She wanted
details.

“I’ll get him in a tux,” Tracy said with confidence. 

“Can’t wait to see that, but right now I’m going back to
sleep,” Victoria yawned into the phone.

Still way too damn chipper, Tracy was barely able to reply.
“Okay. Later, babe,” before Victoria was hanging up the phone and getting back
under the covers.