Her Dying Breath (3 page)

“I’m not covering up for that bastard,” he said through clenched teeth. “I intend to find his victims, get treatment for them if necessary, and protect the public.”

“Then let me help,” she said. “Some of the victims might talk to me before they would a federal agent.”

Tension stretched between them as his gaze locked with hers. A police van pulled up and unloaded a string of prisoners, then led them through a series of gates. One of them shouted a lewd remark at her, but she ignored it.

A muscle jumped in Nick’s jaw. “I’m warning you, Brenda, stay away from my father.”

“Why?” Brenda asked, a challenge in her voice. “Are you afraid he’ll tell me your deep, dark secrets?”

His fingers gripped her wrist so tightly that she bit her tongue to keep from wincing as pain ripped up her arm. A second later his gaze dropped to his hand, and he must have realized he was hurting her because he released her.

Still, rage darkened his eyes. But he didn’t respond to her challenge. Instead, he strode down the steps, his shoes clicking on the cement.

Brenda rubbed her wrist, curious at his reaction. She’d obviously pushed a button. That rage meant she was right—he had suffered at the hands of his father. She had no doubt.

But how much? And what had his father done to him that he didn’t want to be revealed?

The dim glow of the lamp on the table painted her lover’s chiseled face with a sickly yellow glow as his eyes bulged in shock. His name was Jim Logger.

A decent name.

But he still had to die.

“What are you doing?” he rasped.

His face blurred, and the Commander’s replaced it. He was hurting her. Punishing her. Laughing.

She twisted the piano wire around Logger’s neck, tightening it with her fingers.

The whites of his eyes bulged. “Enough, babe, please…”

She shook her finger in his face, brushing her bare breasts against his chest. His erection stood tall and stiff below her, the cock ring holding him hard and thick, just waiting for her to climb onto him.

She hadn’t yet decided if she would, or if she’d make him wallow in unsatisfied anticipation.

“I can’t breathe,” he whispered.

She ran one finger along his jaw and straddled him. “Just go with it. Soon you’ll feel the euphoria, then the hallucinations will come. Colors and images like you’ve never seen before.”

His chest rose and fell, panic creasing his face as he struggled for air.

The bastard had been speechless with lust when she’d performed her striptease, then undressed him.

He’d barely blinked when she’d wound the ropes around his wrists and ankles. And he’d nearly exploded all over her face when she’d planted wet licks along the insides of his thighs as she secured his restraints.

“Seriously,” he gasped. “Stop it and let me just fuck you.”

Her smile faded, the pain of what the Commander had done fueling her fury. All men were like the Commander. She saw him in every face on the street.

“No, I’m going to fuck you.” She increased the pressure against his throat. “Do you feel the high? Do you see the lights twinkling?”

He kicked and jerked his arms, rattling the bedrails. She glanced at the clock, timing him as she impaled herself on his rigid length.

Ten seconds, twenty…thirty…

He jerked again, desperate to escape, but she rode him hard and fast, her senses taking over. The pressure of her orgasm rippled through her as he began to gag and choke.

His penis was big, long, felt delicious inside her. Heat sizzled along her nerve endings, the rhythm building as she gripped the wire and moved up and down on his cock. Over and over until a tingling started in her womb and her climax seized her.

Blinding colors of pleasure washed over her as she thrust deeper, so deep he touched her core. She threw her head back and groaned, moving her hips in a circular motion and riding the waves as sensation after sensation pummeled her.

His body jerked and spasmed, his own orgasm teetering on the surface.

But she climbed off of him, denying him the release.

“Please,” he moaned.

She squeezed the wire harder, repeating it seven times, lifting it from his skin and pressing it to another spot, each time increasing the pressure so hard she cut off his oxygen. His breath rasped out, his pallor turned gray, then a gurgling sound erupted from his throat.

Finally his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went slack.

She paused to listen for the sound of his breathing, but barring the ticktock of the clock, the room was silent.

Puny son of a bitch. Not even two minutes, and he’d passed out.

She loosened the wire, leaned over and blew air into his mouth, then began chest compressions to bring him back from the brink of death.

When he finally opened his eyes again, shock glazed his irises, the realization that she’d choked him evident in the panic on his face.

“Get off of me, you freak!”

His shout sounded more like a croak. “No, babe,” she said, using the pet name he’d given her. “The fun is just beginning.”

She straddled him again, gripped the ends of the piano wire and wound it together until the fleshy skin around his neck bulged in fatty rolls. Again, seven squeezes, each one more intense, each one marking him.

She checked the clock. “The first time you die is always the worst. Let’s see if you can make it longer the second go-around.”

Pure terror shot across his face, and he struggled frantically, then shouted as loud as his sore vocal cords allowed, “Help! Someone help me!”

She chuckled softly, then stuffed her panties in his mouth to muffle his screams. “If you last more than two minutes, I’ll save you again,” she murmured.

The pupils of his eyes dilated as he fought, but he was weak from dying the first time. He flailed, tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks.

The fight drained from him as her fingers worked the wire. Seconds later, he lay limp again.

A sad excuse for a specimen.

The Commander would have been disappointed.

She studied his face, the slack jaw, the listless eyes. Really, he was a handsome man.

Maybe she would save him again.

She ran a finger down his chest, through the thick, dark hair, then down to his waist.

Yes, she’d watch him die one more time.

But first she’d mark him as she’d been marked.

She took the knife she’d brought with her and carved a number behind his ear:
1
. Her first kill.

Now for more fun.

Then she’d alert that reporter who broke the story on the Commander and tell her where to find him.

Brenda Banks would give the message to the Commander.

Then all the world would see what
she’d
done in his honor.

N
ick tried to force thoughts of Brenda Banks from his mind as he left the prison. The infuriating woman had dogged him and Jake ever since the story broke about their father.

Actually, Jake admitted that she’d pestered him and Sadie when Sadie first returned to town because of her grandfather’s murder, the chain of events that had set in motion Arthur Blackwood’s need to cover up the experiment he’d conducted years ago.

Then the bodies had started stacking up, and Jake called Nick in. Neither of them had been prepared for the revelations that eventually surfaced.

First, their father was alive. He’d gone missing ten years before, and they’d presumed he was dead. And second, their father was a sadistic monster who’d orchestrated mind experiments on innocent kids, then killed countless people and almost killed Sadie to hide his abominable acts.

Nick opened the door to the black sedan the FBI had issued him, wishing to hell he had a Jeep or Range Rover. The downside of the federal bureau—the conservative clothes and vehicle.

The upside—the resources he needed to track down notorious criminals. He’d just never expected the first case to center around his own family.

His military training kicking in, he scanned the streets and area for anything suspicious. For all he knew, the Commander had ordered hits on both him and Jake. After all, he’d killed others who tried to expose the truth about him.

But the streets looked clear. Except for Brenda. She still hadn’t left.

Good God. She was standing by that fancy Bimmer, watching him like a hawk. He paused to meet her gaze, irritated at the heat building inside him. She wore a skintight little blue suit, the skirt hugging her curves in all the right places, the jacket barely covering her breasts, which strained against the buttons. Jesus, she had turned from that skinny teenage cheerleader into a voluptuous woman. But she had never had eyes on him. She’d fallen for Jake in high school. Back when
he
had had a crush on her.

He’d always been second best to his brother.

As his father had pounded into him over and over during his incessant drills and beatings.

His insecurities had created a wedge between him and Jake. As an adult, he realized that wasn’t Jake’s fault, and he was trying to mend fences. But the lessons that had been imprinted in his brain haunted him.

Another reason he had to steer clear of Brenda. She’d grown sexier with age.

And he was too tainted and broken to tangle with her.

Those coffee-colored eyes of hers drew him in, the fiery heat sizzling in them when she pushed to get what she wanted only lighting the flames of desire inside him.

Desires that hadn’t been lit in forever.

Desires that made him vulnerable.

Nick did not do vulnerable.

He snapped his sunglasses back into place, started the engine, and sped away from the prison and from Brenda.

The seductive vulture would have to dig her claws into some other man.

After all, all she wanted was a story. Any flirtatious gleam in her eyes was simply predatory. And he knew from experience that you had to either attack the enemy head-on or steer clear entirely, before you got in so deep they could destroy you.

Brenda watched Nick drive away with a mixture of emotions. She needed to focus on the investigation; this was her one chance to prove to her new boss that she could handle the job.

And Nick might be the key to helping her.

She had to find a way to convince him to give her the scoop.

As she drove away from the prison, she decided to visit Amelia Nettleton. According to Sadie, her sister was making great strides in merging her three personalities. Maybe she was ready to talk.

God knows the poor girl had been through hell and back.

Brenda didn’t want to add to her pain, only offer her a way to vindicate herself by publicly naming the man who’d destroyed her life.

Brenda already had her angle, her way in, she hoped, so that Amelia would confide in her. She would divulge her own secret to Amelia, confess the truth that she’d never told anyone: that she had no idea who she was, either.

On her sixteenth birthday, she’d found documents from her father’s safe on his desk. An adoption file—Brenda Banks had not been born the daughter of William and Agnes Banks. She had been thrown away by some other woman.

Only there had been no birth mother’s or father’s name listed in the file, and when she confronted the man who’d raised her, he exploded and ordered her never to speak of it again.