Fatal Beauty (19 page)

Chapter 30

Caesar’s Palace is Jacobs’ favorite casino on the Strip. It’s why
she chose it. She pulls the Nova up to the door and nods at the valet. “I can
bring my own bags.”

He looks vaguely startled, but EJ likes the weight of it, and the
security. She ignores his stare and walks inside.

It’s easy and effortless to check into the room Charlie secured.
It’s already been paid for, and if they think it’s odd that she’s checking in
with a different name, Charlie is paying enough that they don’t ask questions.
With the bag on her shoulder, she bypasses the elevators to her suite, and
instead picks a table in a nearly empty café.

The thing about Jacobs is that, even now, he refuses to see that
she’s serious. That this is more than a childish tantrum thrown for attention
and the hot make-up sex.

A tiny smile curves her lips. They always had fantastic make-up
sex.

She opens her computer and logs in. And there they are.

Jacobs’ fortune. All of it. The money tucked away for her if
things went sideways. The accounts for business expenses and the ones he keeps
clean for his personal use. The millions in blackmail money that lingers in an
offshore account. All of it waiting for her to hit the button.

He never once considered moving the money when she had his entire
network in her grasp.

He never considered changing his passwords or access codes.

“Ella Jane,” a smooth cultured voice says and she shivers.

Because he always assumed the best and worst of her. That she
would stay loyal. That she didn’t have it in her to be more.

She ignores him as he situates his coffee and puts one in front of
her.

He still remembers exactly how she takes her coffee.

One click. It will trigger everything.

“Where is Charlie?”

“Safe,” she murmurs. Annoyance flashes across his face, and she
can see what she already knew. He would kill her.

Fear stutters down her spine, and she hits the button.

A world away, his money is draining away, a fortune filtering into
dummy corporations and accounts he can’t trace and will never be able to
access. Accounts in her name and in Charlie’s. She smiles, a tiny thing that
Jacobs sees. His expression tightens and she closes the computer, and tucks it
into her bag. Then she focuses on him, her hands wrapped around the cup, a
white mocha latte, steaming and strong.

The heat of it wards off the subtle chill that wants to slither
down her spine, and she smiles at him despite that fear. “Hello, Anthony,” she
murmurs.

*

Charlie spends all of an hour pacing her room. She has too much
time before the flight. Too much time to spend in her own head. She could shop.
It might be the last time she has a chance to indulge in mindless shopping, and
she considers it, tempted for a moment.

Except that shopping reminds her of EJ and the long afternoons
they spent together in Charleston and in Memphis, of the afternoons that were
aimless and happy.

She should have made her flight sooner—a flight to London,
followed by a quick hop to Dublin. Easy.

And too direct. She huffs out a breath and stands.

She’s in the elevator, halfway down stairs when her phone dings
with a text. For a heartbeat, she has a spasm of fear, blind and choking, that
EJ is deserting her, or that Jacobs has decided she’s more trouble than she’s
worth.

Her hands actually shake when she pulls her phone out, and then
she laughs, a startled, hiccupping noise.

Jasper: What are you doing today?

Jasper: Have dinner with me.

She smiles, because this is familiar and comfortably distracting,
and without thinking or even considering an alternative, she types a quick
response.

Charlie: Give me one hour. I’ll meet you in the coffee bar.

She’s late. Because of course she’s late. But he’s there, glancing
at his phone and trying to look unconcerned, his hands moving restlessly
between the coffee cups in front of him and the phone he just checked. A tiny,
satisfied little smirk turns her lips, and she puts a little sway to her hips
as she strolls into the café.

Jasper’s eyes light up when he sees her, and she pauses for a
moment in that gaze, reveling in it before she sits across from him, her legs
crossed.

“You came,” he says.

She smiles, and shrugs. “I was bored.”

He blinks and she laughs, a private amused noise. He can’t
possibly know why that amuses her. Why it’s a challenge.

She doesn’t bother to explain. “What are we going to do?” she
asks, instead, and directs all of her attention on him.

“What do you want to do?” he asks, and she grins.

“Everything.”

His smile is wide and he nods. “Then we should get started.”

It doesn’t matter.
It’s
thirty six hours
before she leaves, and she’ll never see him again. But for now, as he walks her
down the Strip, and shows her the city. She’s been here before, but Tre and
Hayes were never much interested in showing her around, and less interested in
letting her wander without one or both of them. In the past, she would spend
the day lounging by the pool and in the spa.

But now—they wander up and down the strip, into casinos she’s
never seen, and past a roller coaster with shrieking children. He’s content to
let her lead them wherever she wants, and doesn’t seem to mind when she wants
to shop.

He’s a mechanic from Tuscaloosa, a boy with no prospects except
the ones he creates for himself. He seems dazzled by her shopping spree, by the
city and expensive lunch—by her.

It’s meaningless and in a way, it’s cruel—to play with this boy
who will never be able to follow her and who she doesn’t want. But for a few
hours, she can forget everything but the boy at her side and the high of being
adored.

And that is enough.

Chapter 31

“This is your game, Ella Jane,” Jacobs says. He’s sitting back in
the chair, his sushi untouched. EJ stares at her food. It’s a delicious salad,
and she should be hungry. After the sex last night and the morning without
anything to eat—she should be starving. Instead, her stomach pitches unsteadily
and she can’t imagine eating anything. “What’s the end game?”

“What do you think it is?” she asks, curious despite herself.

His eyebrows hitch upward, as if surprised she’s allowed herself
to ask that. Then they narrow. “I don’t think you know. You’ve been running on
instinct and a half-cocked idea since you found the mouse with a dead body. The
smartest thing you could have done was called me. But you’ve never been good at
listening and you didn’t do as you were told.”

“Did it occur to you that I didn’t want to be told anything?” she
snaps.

“If that were true,
lil
sis, than why
the
fuck
did you call me?” His voice
never changes. It stays completely even, despite the fury she can hear building
behind it.

It’s an impressive little trick, or it would be if she hadn’t learned
the same one from him.

As it is, she did. And the nicknames—she knows exactly what he’s
doing. The way he uses them to put distance between himself and the things that
are troublesome or too close. It’s why he first started calling her that, especially
in front of his people.

If she was his little sister, they would never think about hurting
her and would go out their way to protect her, if only because she was
his
.

“God, we’re fucked up,” she mutters, the same thing that Charlie
has told her so many times.

“That’s what you love about us,” Jacobs says, unconcerned.

“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s what
you
love about us. That we’re so fucking twisted and
self-destructive and that we need each other.”

He laughs at her, a tiny noise of amused disbelief. “You think I
need you? Don’t be an idiot, Ellie.”

It should sting. It does, a little. That part of her that will
always be a ten-year-old girl forgotten by a mother chasing the next husband
and desperate for the approval of
anyone
—that
girl withers under the words.

But she isn’t only that girl, and hasn’t been for years. She
smiles coldly and reaches for the wine that has sat untouched. “I used to think
I needed you more than you needed me. I hated that about us. Even after I ran
to Brazil, and you brought me home and got me involved in the business—even
then, I thought it was simply you placating me to keep Mom happy. I know she
hated it when I was running.” She quiets, allowing herself to consider for the
first time, the mother she’s leaving behind. The one who has never understood
her or tried to. The one who will be furious over upset plans, who had EJ’s
first husband picked out when she was in high school.

“EJ?” he murmurs, and it brings her back to herself. Reminds her
that she’s been quiet too long.

“If you didn’t need me, Jacobs, you wouldn’t be here. We all have
a
blindspot
—that one thing where we can’t see clearly
because we need it to be what we’ve made it in our mind.”

He stares at her, his expression somewhere between fascinated and
amused.

“I’m your
blindspot
. Always have been.
Anyone else, Marco would have killed without even making his presence known.
Instead, he let me know he was following me and he tried to bring me home
alive. Same with your mad dog.”

He flinches. And a twisted sick part of her is happy to see that
flinch. He should flinch. He should carry that guilt forever.

“But you didn’t. You’re here. We’re here. And you want me to come
home.” She smiles. “Because I’m your
blindspot
.”

“What does that make me?” he asks, not denying it. She shrugs and
smiles. It’s weak, and sad.

“The one person I’ve always been able to count on.” She takes a
breath. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything,” he snarls. He stands abruptly and tosses
a few
hundreds
on the table.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

He pulls her from her chair and
she
grabs
her bag as he stands next to her, vibrating with fury and—something else she
can’t name.

“We’re not doing this here,” he snaps, and almost drags her from
the restaurant.

Jacobs doesn’t lose his cool. It’s never been his MO. He is
control, and cold detachment and amused reserve from a distance. It’s something
that has always, always driven her a little crazy because she does–she let’s emotion
run rampant.

Jacobs can shatter her cool calm faster than anyone ever has, and
he knows it.

But now, she is the quiet calm and he’s shaking with anger. He
pulls her in front of him as they stand at the elevators, and she smiles as he
presses her against the long length of his body, the hardness of his dick
against her ass. A tiny part of her wants to grind against him, push that
fraying control, but she refrains.

The elevator has two other couples and they are very clearly
vacationing together, the men laughing and talking about winning in the casino
while the girls chatter about shopping and the spa. It is simple and mundane,
and something she’ll never have. Even if she had stayed in Charleston, this
simple act of vacationing with a friend wouldn’t have been part of her life.

“Do you ever wish you had left me alone, that day?” she whispers.
“Have you ever wondered where I would be now if you had?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t think about shit that doesn’t matter.”

The other two couples are watching them, in that polite, skirting
way that annoys her so much. His hand is splayed over her belly, thumb tracing
the underside of her bra, and she wants to arch into that soft caress.

She knew, when she called him while Charlie watched, that this was
inevitable. Jacobs would arrive, they would argue. They would fuck.

“I do,” she confesses. “Sometimes.”

His grip on her tightens just a little, and she shudders as his
dick pushes against her, her body arching and rubbing against him almost
without her permission.

“Liar.” He murmurs. The elevator slows and the door glides open
and she watches the two couples spilling out of it. Even before the doors are
closed, Jacobs has turned her and pushed her against the glass wall, his mouth
slanting over hers.

It’s brutal and demanding, his hands hard on her hip and in her
hair and she moans when he catches her lower lip and bites down, hard enough
that her knees buckle and pain licks through her.

“You cut your fucking hair,” he murmurs.

She laughs, a breathy noise. “Like it?”

“No,” he grumps, nipping at her earlobe. “There’s nothing for me
to pull when you suck my dick.”

She would be offended by the calm assertion that she would hit her
knees for him, but she can’t be. Not when her panties are wet and just those
coarse words make her cunt tremble.

The elevator stops and he releases her suddenly, so suddenly that
she sways.

Without a word, she leads the way off the elevator, to her hotel
room.

The door clicks shut behind them, and Jacobs shoves her, catching
a handful of hair and using it to propel her across the suite and onto the bed.
She makes a low noise, a needy noise that is as fucking annoying as it is
embarrassing, and his hand smacks down, hard across her ass.

“Be quiet,” he snaps.

It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet.

With them, it never has been.

This is cruel and calculated, and his hands are hard to the point
of pain as he shoves her down on the bed, and yanks her skirt up. She almost
orgasms when he rips her panties away and when his fingers shove into her, she
does scream, her body clenching as she comes all over his hand.

“God, I missed this pussy,” he murmurs, his fingers pumping deep
and slow inside her as she comes, and he brushes her clit and it pulls a sob
from her. “You missed this too, didn’t you, Ellie?” he demands.

She bites her lip and then almost screams again when his hand
disappears. She has one second—one—to feel the aching emptiness and then his
mouth is on her, wet fingers smoothing over her ass as he lifts her and licks,
driving her mad with the soft, barely there licks and the rough brush of teeth,
the sudden thrust of his tongue, until she’s sobbing into the bed and he stands
abruptly.

“Turn over,” he orders.

She sits up and pulls her shirt off, and his hands are on her
before she can fall back against the pillow. She whimpers when his lips cover
her nipple, a rasp of teeth and pull of lips that makes her hips writhe on the
bed. He settles over her, and hisses as his dick rubs against her wet pussy.
“Jesus, Ellie,” he groans.

“You missed me, too,” she purrs, rubbing against him and his eyes,
closed above her, flare wide.

“Keep teasing, baby. I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget how
to walk away, much less why you want to run.”

Fear flashes through her at the promise, because she knows he
means it.

But before she can say anything, he’s pushing inside her and
everything—fear, Charlie, the anger, every fucking thing—vanishes in a wash of
pleasure.

“Fuck, Ellie,” he growls, thrusting deep into her.

She’ll hurt tomorrow. A delicious sore feeling deep inside that
comes every time Jacobs fucks her. She loves that feeling, loves knowing that
she will still feel him tomorrow.

No one has ever fucked her the way Jacobs does, with an intensity
that trips over into violence, and finally gives way to desperation.

She arches her back and his hand finds her throat, holding her
still, a little too tight and he groans when her cunt clenches around him.
“Mine,” he whispers, and she comes, bucking against him, her breathing choppy
and her vision fading until there is only him, only his body pounding into her,
filthy promises raining down as he fucks her harder and she screams and he
groans, burying himself in her as his orgasm slams into him.

For a long time, they lay like that, twisted together, sweat slick
and sticky, his dick still hard in her.

Until she’s calm and a lazy kind of sleepy is settling over the
room, and his hands move, pushing through her hair.

“You cut your hair,” he says again.

She smiles against his shoulder.

“You haven’t cut your hair without asking what I think since you
were in middle school.”

“Things change,” she says softly and he props himself up. The
motions moves his dick in her, and she whimpers, her pussy too sensitive.

“Not with us.” He says stubbornly, a cold finality.

Reality is settling around her and she shivers. “Let me up,” she
says.

For a moment, as he leans over her, still inside her, and frowns, she
doesn’t think he will. But despite everything that is twisted and wrong about
their relationship, he still respects her enough to listen when she demands
something. He slides free and sits up, reaching for her torn panties to clean
himself.

When he looks at her again, she’s holding a gun.

It’s the same gun Charlie bought in a pawnshop in Memphis, and the
one she used to kill
Lews
in Santa Fe. It’s cold and
heavy and strangely comforting in her grip as she points it at him.

Shock stutters across his face, something she has seen so rarely
in him, and she allows herself a tiny thrill of victory as she stares at him.

“What are you doing, Ellie?” Jacobs asks, and he shifts away from
her.

“Open the bag,” she orders. His eyes flick to it and then back to
the gun. Making a face he does as she’s ordered, dumping it out on the bed.

Drugs. Money. Weapons, and fake IDs spill across the bed, and she
smiles at him, a sick sad thing.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“All in, Jacobs.” She cocks her head, “If I left today, would you
let me go? Or would you chase me?”

He smiles at her, a sad, steady thing with a hint of wicked
self-deprecation. Once upon a time, in a park, he turned that smile on a little
girl.
 
He changed her world.

And even now, she can’t bring herself to regret that.

“I’ll always chase you, Ellie. That’s what you do for the people
you love.”

She nods, and tears—fucking
tears—
spill
over. His expression turns sad, aching almost. It’s too much. All of it. She’s
sobbing, and he jerks forward, shouting when she lifts the gun again.

And pulls the trigger.