Echo of Redemption (3 page)

Keeping her palm wrapped around my length, she slides her hand up and down. I like the way the fine grit of ground apricot pits mixed in the oil adds to the sensation.

“Pull the lorum ring, babe.”

She obeys, pulling on the piercing between shaft and balls with the opposite hand from the one she is pumping me with. She doesn’t miss a beat.

“Rougher. Be rougher.”

She tries, but I think she is afraid that if she hurts me I will blow her brains out.

“Please.” I open my eyes, meeting her gaze. “If you do not cause me some serious agony in the next five seconds I will do to you something a hundred times worse than your imagination can come up with.”

She pulls the metal loop at the base of my cock and twists. At the same time it feels like she is ripping the entire ladder of bars through the flesh holding them in place. I scream loud enough to cause four of my bodyguards to burst in.

“Get out!”

Her hand stills and I again meet her gaze, hoping she understands that I don’t want to kill her tonight. I don’t want to kill anyone else today. “Please, please, please. Don’t stop again, Wen-Qi. Until I come or pass out, don’t stop.”

* * * *

Pop. Pop, pop, pop. Pop, pop.
I dream of fireworks, but then the pain hits me.

Without even checking my vitals, my assailant flees and I am left moaning in the dark. Alone. Where in the fuck are my men? As I stumble from my room, I find bodies. Some dead. Some alive but dying. “God damn, amateur.”

To have gotten so close but done the job so poorly…

“Fuck!” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold in all my spilling blood.

Wen-Qi stumbles from the bedroom and I see that she too is bleeding, a shoulder wound, nothing life threatening. As the room starts to fall into shades of gray I know
I
am in trouble. I reach under the bar for a first aid kit and start packing my wounds with quick-clot. Seeing a bright yellow dress lying across the back of a chair, I grab it and start ripping it into strips to wrap around my body. Two of my men, obviously late to the party, arrive and seeing the scene hurry forward to assist me. Only one do I trust. Sean Paul. We have been on–again, off-again lovers for more years than I can count. “Thank God you’re here. Get me to the US.”

Our gazes clash. He knows what I’m asking. I want Ari. If I am going to die, I want someone who actually gives a damn about my soul to be with me when I go.

As we flee the building, I don’t have to tell him to trigger the self-destruct.
He knows.
Behind us the entire penthouse level explodes in a fireball that can be seen for miles. I know it seems cruel, knowing many will die in my endeavor to escape, but it is my attempt at compassion. I will not have the ones once loyal to me tortured in my enemies’ efforts to find me. The explosion is also a nice distraction. With the tallest building in Shanghai burning, no one will pay attention to our leaving.

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

Dr. Seuss

Kitten

San Francisco
,
CA

January 21

A naked man lies restrained in the middle of our dining room table, not such an unusual circumstance for any particular night but an odd fact given Master is operating on him. Removing bullets to be exact. The man on the table I only just discovered is my lover Thomas’s twin. Almost two years I’ve known him and never once did he believe the information was relevant.

I’m peeved.

As much because there are now blood stains on the wood floors as because I feel I know nothing about the two men I call Master. Take Garrett, for instance. I knew he had attended a medical university in Ohio and worked for a while in a trauma center, but that was his life before we met and I rarely consider it. I only know him as Garrett Lawrence, owner of Lewd Larry’s Underground, a BDSM nightclub. I’ve certainly never thought of him as a surgeon. He looks calmly confident for a man who hasn’t held a scalpel in God knows how long. And really? A scalpel? I didn’t even know we had one in the house.
Several
.
Garrett has a full on triage kit and after starting a saline drip and adding an antibiotic bag, both hung from a metal coat rack to give them height, he started operating.

There didn’t seem to be a choice.

“Shouldn’t we call nine-one-one?”

Did I ask that? Did Enrique? I don’t even know if the words were said out loud.

There is a black man standing guard, and I fear for all our safety even though he isn’t waving a gun or making any outward threat.
Fuck. Oh
,
fuck. Is he armed?

Thomas stands near enough to the table to watch but not be in the way. I watch him more so than I do Garrett. Even after more than a year together, he is still a mystery. He shares nothing of his life outside of our ménage. He too is my Master, and it is just as complicated as it sounds having two Masters to please. We wear each other’s brands on our forearms—the three of us a united ménage—but as I watch Thomas’s face etch with worry and Garrett’s hand remain steady despite the lack of cooperation of his very awake patient, I become even more angry realizing just how much I don’t know about either man.

I watch from the edge of the sofa, my knees tucked tightly under my chin. Not being one to miss anything exciting in the house, Enrique, our houseboy, sits beside me, holding my hand. He makes a great show of comforting me but he is the one who is as pale as a ghost.

God. Oh God
.
Thomas’s brother is bleeding from more holes in his body than I can count.
This isn’t good. This really isn’t good.
Though if the strength of the man’s curses is any indication, he’s going to be just fine. But what about the rest of us? Has he led danger straight to our door?

I shouldn’t even being having such thoughts, but I am, because I’m not naïve. I know that when Thomas leaves on business trips, he isn’t doing a normal job. He’s always armed but especially when he travels. I like to think he operates on the right side of the law, but wonder if our views would even be the same on that. One thing is for certain. I knew the moment I met him, Thomas was a dangerous man. I don’t doubt for a minute his brother is any less so. A dozen weapons were removed from Thomas’s brother, along with his clothes. The evidence of Thomas’s secret life being so blatantly exposed makes me more afraid than I’ve ever been. I hate his brother for showing up here. I suppose it wouldn’t be a very Christian thing to do to toss him to the curb with last night’s garbage, but that is exactly what I want to do. I don’t care that he is Thomas’s brother. He shouldn’t be here.

And this stranger…who is he? He’s wearing a jacket but beneath it he is armed. I saw the handle of a gun when he lifted his arm, and I doubt it is his only weapon.

I’ve never been overly superstitious but in this moment, I wish I were. I want to sprinkle salt over the eaves, spill brandy on the thresholds, hang dried wormwood on every wall. I need a bright blue Nazar Boncugu.
I want him gone!

A scream fills the air and Thomas pushes his brother’s shoulders back down onto the table, even though a dozen straps restrain him. “Hang on, Nikos. He’s almost finished.”

Nikos
.
His brother has a name.

It is obvious the man is out of his mind. The question is whether it is from pain, drugs, or if he is really insane. He is like a rabid dog. Crazy. His eyes make me believe no one is home.

He was right-minded enough to track and find his brother. How did he find Thomas
here
? I’m not so certain I want to know. Surely Thomas didn’t give him our address.

The doorbell rings and only after a nod from Thomas does Enrique hurry to answer it. He emits George Fitzpatrick, Garrett’s Number One at Lewd Larry’s. There he is known as Dr. Psycho, though he isn’t crazy, far from it. In fact, he is a retired psychiatrist turned full-time professional Dominant. I wasn’t surprised when Thomas called him and asked him to join us, stating only that it was an emergency and his services were required immediately.

“What in the hell?” Seeing the scene, George is obviously alarmed.

I’ve been here an hour and I’m still alarmed.
Seriously. What the hell?

“George, my brother, Nikos,” Thomas introduces.

“Fuck you!” Nikos raises off the table as far as the straps will allow, trying to sit up.

Thomas smacks the back of his head.

Garrett pulls a bullet from the man’s thigh and it makes a disgusting, wet popping sound as the suction around the bullet breaks. He drops the bullet into a metal bowl, and it clangs louder than it seems it should. I hold my breath, hoping that was the last bullet. I’ve lost count of how many have been pulled from him.

“Should we be doing this here? It isn’t exactly sterile,” George comments.

“There isn’t anywhere else to do this, George,” Garrett tells him. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

“Thomas said it was a matter of life and death, but I see no one in danger of expiring imminently.”

“That’s the point, I think. I can patch up his body, but his mind is all yours.”

“I’d be more concerned about infection setting in. If he’s dead, his mind won’t matter.”

A string of what I believe is obscenities in at least a dozen languages issues forth from Nikos’s mouth. If I had to guess I’d say he is trying to convince Master he is sane and rational, but as his glassy eyes dart all over the place, not focusing, he loses that battle.

“I see.” George looks over his wire rims at his patient and it is obvious something has switched. The psychiatrist is in the house. “What drug’s influence is he under?”

Thomas kneels beside his brother and whispers into his ear. It isn’t quite clear whether he is trying to calm him or question him until Nikos starts listing his drugs of choice. “Opium. Heroine. Meth.”

“Jesus Christ,” George curses, but it soon becomes obvious that Nikos is not done.

He keeps speaking. “Hashish. Cocaine.”

George ignores the man. “I’m going to need a complete toxicology report. It’s obvious he didn’t understand the question.”

Thomas assures him, “I asked him what drugs he has used in the last thirty days. Would you prefer to know the last twenty-four hours?”

George shakes his head. “I’ll trust the lab results when I have them. If what he states is true, Garrett’s wasted his time getting all that metal out of his body because the detox will likely kill him unless he’s in an appropriate medical facility.”

Garret drops another bullet into the metal bowl and it
tings
loudly. He looks up to catch George’s gaze. “That’s exactly why Thomas called you. I’d like you to take him home with you, see to his needs. Of course, discretion…and Thomas will cover any expense.”

George waves his hand dismissively at the offer of cash. The look on his face tells the tale. He’s already accepted the assignment.

Thomas interjects, “We’ll need George’s absence explained, an extended vacation, several weeks.”

George snorts. “A month at least.”

“Yes, yes,” Garrett responds distractedly as he stitches closed a wound. He speaks softly to Thomas’s brother. “You’re a very lucky man. No vital organs were hit. Unbelievably lucky.”

An hour later Thomas and George are gone, thankfully, carrying Nikos out between them with the tall, silent, black man leading. With Enrique scrubbing away all evidence they were ever here, it seems my intention for no evil being able to linger in my home has been met, no brandy or salt scattering required. From across the room, I watch as Master pours a full tumbler of Scotch.

I haven’t moved from my spot on the couch. I guess I’m still waiting to wake up. This was all just a bad dream, wasn’t it? I wish it were. Making myself stand, I walk to his side and reach for the chilled glass, my fingers bumping his. “I could use a sip or two.”

He catches my gaze and looks at me hard before his eyes drop to my belly, his message obvious even before he says, “I don’t think so.”

I cross my arms over my expanding womb.

“Hiding it doesn’t make it not so.”

I look away, unable to face him. It was easy to forget during the night’s interruption that in the moment before Nikos’s untimely arrival, we had been discussing my pregnancy and why I’d thought it was a good idea to keep it a secret as long as I did. We hadn’t really gotten around to the part where I explained I’d only confirmed the fact myself.

It’s ridiculous to say so now. I wouldn’t believe me either.

You meant to completely shut me out of any decision making from the moment you realized you were pregnant and didn’t share the news with me.

The words still hang between us though they were said hours ago.

He takes a long sip of the Scotch, half the tumbler’s contents disappearing. He looks exhausted. No. He looked exhausted when I arrived with Thomas. Since then he has spent several hours bent over Nikos, trying to make certain he would survive. What comes after exhausted? I wish I knew.

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
The
Boscombe
Valley
Mystery

Thomas

In the privacy of the deserted parking garage, I face Sean Paul, a man who has been loyal to my brother and I since we all met at Oxford almost two decades ago. The last time I saw him was in France. He has been my informant, my brother’s lover for almost as long. Our gazes collide. “Thank you for getting him to me.”

He nods, grimly. “We part ways here. I’ll be in touch.”

After brushing his lips against my brother’s feverish face, he disappears into the dark shadows. It is best for me to not know if he will remain here or go back across the ocean. He will lurk, eyes and ears collecting information, and will only appear again when he knows it is safe for all of us.