Burn 2 (15 page)

Devon leaves the attorney’s office, his mind in a cloud of wonder and misgivings and
aching realities.

He is rich!

But not in the way he has always wanted to be rich – by being a famous artist. And there are plenty of complications. He might never get the money if Richard has his way.

Still, the fact he had come to it at all
makes him feel uneasy, as though he is still a pawn in the larger scheme of someone else’s machinations. The whole thing isn’t right. He never earned that money.

He takes out his cellphone to dial Abby.

She picks up at first ring. “Hello?”

“You wouldn’t believe what she left me.”

“Everything,” she deadpans.

“No, not quite.
I’ll tell you when I get home.”

“You’re killing me with suspense,” she complains, but rings off anyway. That is what he loves about Abby – her infinite patience with him, among other things.

When he gets home, Abby is waiting for him with an unexpected visitor.

“Tell me,” she says eagerly.

Devon steps back, wary. He does not like unexpected visitors, though he has come to regard this as Abby’s apartment as much as his. The visitor gets up. He is a sandy-haired man with a cleft chin. He has very blond, very shaggy eyebrows.

“Uh, who’s this?” Devon asks Abby in a low voice.

The sandy-haired man extends his hand. “Mr. Fisher? I’m Martin Crufts, private investigator.”

Abby turns to Devon. “I figured I’d hire Martin here, seeing as
we are both murder suspects. I don’t trust Detective Closeau in the NYPD homicide department to do us any favors, do you?”

“Uh, can I talk to you alone for a moment?”

Devon shepherds Abby into the bedroom and shuts the door.

“A private investigator?” he says incredulously.

“Do you trust Tobias Ford to find us not guilty?”

“I thought that was for the jury to decide.”

“Do you want the case to go in front of a jury? I was hoping we’d avoid that by finding the killer ourselves first. When in doubt, we have to take matters in our own hands.”

He can’t fault with that reasoning.

“So tell me what she left you,” she says, her eyes shining.

“More than seven million in chump change.”

“Get out of here!”

“No, it’s true.”

“Oh, wow, Devon. Oh wow.” Her face is filled with awe. “You have money of your own now. You’re rich.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t take it. I didn’t earn it, and so I don’t deserve it.”

“What do you mean?” Now she is outraged. “If she left it to you, it’s yours!”

“No, it isn’t. I have always made my own way in life, Abby. I thought about it a good deal when I was walking home. I can’t take the money. It’s blood money.”

“Not taking it would mean you’re guilty!”

“No. She only left it to me because of the baby. I haven’t fulfilled my part of her proposal, or at least, I didn’
t give my agreement to it.”

“Devon, you’re not thinking through this clearly!”

“I am,” he declares. “There’s a whole lot of stuff I have to deal with before I can even think about things like these, including a lot of moral baggage. Anyway, Richard is likely to contest the will anyway, and I might end up with nothing.”

Nothing but bitter memories, he thinks.

She opens her mouth to argue, but appears to think the better of it when she sees that he is in this sort of mood.

“All right then for the moment,” she says. “But at least let me hire this PI to extricate both of us out of this mess. I’m in as deep as you are, believe me.”

He pauses for a long while before saying, “OK.”

They embrace one another, knowing they are both in this together.
He is certain they would beat this.

H
and in hand, they return to the living room to meet the private investigator who will help them clear his murder charge.

NEW ADULT ROMANCES BY DAWN STEELE

Burn

Burn 2

Forbidden

EROTICA and EROTIC ROMANCES BY APHRODITE HUNT

The ‘Eight Tasks for the Blushing Virgin’ series

Deflowered

Debauched

Deceived

Desired

The ‘Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire’ series

Damaged Beauties

Seduced by his Two Personalities

The ‘Bound and Shackled to the Billionaire’ series

His Indecent Proposition

His Indecent Demands

His Indecent Desires

His Indecent Secrets

His Indecent Revelations

‘The Billionaire Marriage’ series

His Indecent Proposal

The ‘Initiation’ series

Open Your Legs for Me

Blindfolded and Spread-eagled

Thighs Wide Apart

Teacher, Please Spread my Pussy

The Final Initiation

The Initiation: A Bundle of 5 Stories

The ‘Initiation 2’ series

Open Your Legs for my Family

Bend Over for my Family

Publicly Display Yourself for Me

Sex Slave at Sea

Paraded before the Billionaires

Sex Slave at the Auction

The ‘Initiation 3’ series

Sex Slave to the Dictator

Shackled by the Dictator

Punished by the Dictator’s Daughter

The Sex Slave’s Final Punishment

The ‘Alice BDSM’ series

Alice: Opening my Legs at Your Wedding

‘
The Royal Captive’ series

Prince Miro’s Capture

Prince Miro’s Submission

Prince Miro’s Enslavement

Prince Miro’s Punishment

Prince Miro’s Escape

Prince Miro’s Final Confrontation

The Royal Captive: Vol 1 to 3

The Royal Captive: Vol 4 to 6

The ‘Naughty Nymphomaniac’ series

I was a Naughty Nymphomaniac

Officer, Please Spread and Cuff Me

Gang Banged by the Chain Gang

Tempting the Hot Navy SEAL

The ‘Delicate Piercings’ series

Her First Clit Ring

Her First Clit Ring 2: Menage

Her First Clit Ring 3: Desensitization

Her First Clit Ring 4: The Final Party

The ‘Undercover’ series

Undercover: Exposing the Bad Doctor

Undercover: Stealing from the Sexy CEO

The ‘Alien’ series

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens 2

Hot, Wet and Steamy
(individual stories)

When He’s Inside You

My Stepson is a Naughty Stripper

The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)

A Xmas Gift: The Sperm Donor

WORKS BY ARTEMIS HUNT

EROTIC ROMANCES

The ‘Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male’ series

A Virgin Enslaved

A Virgin Enslaved 2

The Pretend Boyfriend

The Pretend Boyfriend 2

The Pretend Boyfriend 3

The Pretend Boyfriend 4

The ‘Maid for the Billionaire Prince’ series

Mysterious Desire

Forbidden Desire

Infamous Desire

Royal Desire

Maid for the Billionaire Prince

Dear reader, as this list is not always comprehensive due to more stories being churned out after this point in publishing, please visit

http://artemishunt.blogspot.com/

http://aphroditehunt.blogspot.com/

and

http://dawnsteele.blogspot.com/

for more stories and updates. I write as Artemis Hunt for erotic romances with a more romance feel and Aphrodite Hunt for pure erotica and erotic romances which are slightly kinkier. So please be aware of what you’re getting into, dear reader, when you read one of my stories. Thank you so much for your support.

SOFIA

I wonder if I have dressed right.

Here I am, eighteen years old. Fully of legal consent. Clad in something I consider sexy with my limited budget and staple of Target and JC Penney clothes. I have put on a fresh white lacy bra and knickers today. Over it, I have layered a pretty pink dress embroidered with tiny pink flowers.

It’s very pretty. Very girly. My coat is a red shoal over my shoulders and my red hair curls prettily down my back.

I’m not sure of the effect I’m trying to achieve. But I know it’s the only way to see Papa out of this hole he is in.

The meeting place is in an old, seemingly abandoned warehouse by the docks. I am told this is Greco territory, and no other crime family members would step into its bounds unless they wish to be gunned down by an AK-47. The sea washes against the rotting wooden planks that hold this place up. The air is rife with the smell of salt and fish, and I know it will take a long time to get it out of my hair, which is already stiffening in the unwelcome ‘spa’ atmosphere.

Thank God it is summer, and the breezes are at least warm. I would have otherwise shivered in my thin garb.

The message given tersely on my cellphone says: ‘LOT 457’.

I walk with trepidation down the corridors of this dock, counting the lots as I go. The place is lighted with streetlamps, but the light circles are dim and wan. They bleach the warehouses into skeletal caricatures that remind me of disturbing graphic novels.

Lot 451.

452.

453.

Why do I get the feeling I’m being watched from all angles? As if there are shadows lurking behind the shadows that are thrown by the streetlamps, on the dark flat roofs of the warehouses and the murky darkness beyond?

454.

455.

456.

I stop.

LOT 457 stands before me like a forbidden temple, dark and foreboding. It is made of concrete and aluminum slats, and painted a hideous red. That’s how I think of it. A Red Temple. A temple whose altar upon which I am to be sacrificed.

The double doors are shut, but light spills from underneath the cracks. I can hear soft sounds in there. Men’s voices, speaking in the language of my childhood. The tap of boots and soles against a floor’s hard surface.

Do I knock? I do, after all, have an appointment. There is no doorbell (as if!), and so I raise my fist to rap my knuckles on the right metal door. But it whines open before any contact can be made with my flesh, as if someone in there has been looking out for my arrival.

A middle-aged man stands on the other side of the doorway. He is short, squat, and he has a mesh of healed scars running all over both his cheeks. I know this cannot be the man I am seeking, so perhaps he is an aide. Do they even call them ‘aides’ in this profession?

Hesitantly, I say, “I am looking for Nicholas Greco.”

Even as I say the name, I shudder. This name has been the cause of so many sleepless nights in my home . . . and in many other homes, I can imagine. I can well remember my mother crying in bed every night when she thinks of my father. My poor father. She was crying very softly so as not to wake up the twins, who turn nine this summer.

In the space behind the short man, I glimpse several other men in dark suits. They smoke and speak in low voices. Every one of them gives me the once over. I’m aware of how ridiculous I look – all decked up like a plastic pink Barbie doll. So incongruous in this backwater of a place, like a splash of paint mixed with seawater.