Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series (32 page)

The man leans forward and does the strangest thing. He turns my laptop around, taps a few keys and turns the screen back towards me and Ken. I see the two of us, staring back at the screen. He’s turned on the camera. It’s recording us right now.

A tear slides down my face. It’s recording our execution.

“Stephanie,” the man says to me. “On a scale of one to ten, how scary has this entire experience been?”

“T… ten,” I answer, and the man nods.

“Stephanie,” he says my name again. “On a scale of one to ten, how humiliating was it to be found naked and hog tied by ten of Vegas’ finest?”

I lift my chin and say nothing. He lifts the gun and points it directly at my face.

“T… ten.”

He lowers the gun, but then uses the barrel to scratch his head. His hair moves; it’s a wig. I look at him closer, trying to drill the detail of his face in my mind. His skin looks a little too smooth. A mask? If it is, it’s a good one.

“Jerome?” I ask and watch for a flicker of eyes. The man ignores me. I look at him more closely. It can’t be Jerome. This man is many inches too short and much thicker.

“Ken,” the man turns his attention to the one beside me. His fingers tighten on my hand. “On a scale of one to ten, how scared are you right now?”

Ken tightens his fingers around mine even more. “I’m not scared.”

The man holds up the gun and points it at his face. “Now?” he asks.

Ken repeats, his voice louder. “I’m not scared.”

The man turns the gun to me. “Now?”

I hear Ken swallow. “Ten.”

The gun lowers. “Very good. I have one last question. Stephanie…” he looks at me… “Which of you should die first?”

Another tear slides down my face and drops off my chin. I turn my head to look at Ken, who’s shaking his head.

“Me,” I say.

“No!” Ken says, “Me. Leave her alone.”

The man just clicks his tongue… tsk, tsk, tsk. “Looks like we need a tie breaker.” He scratches his chin with the gun. “I know. It’s an oldie but a goody.”

Ken raises my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles as the man begins.

“Eenie, meany, miney, moe…”

I look away from the gun that alternates its direction between the two of us.

“Catch a tiger by the toe.”

I look at Ken, his face is blurred by the tears that build and spill from my eyes. “I love you, Stephanie,” he says. His face is so soft, his eyes tender. I didn’t need to hear the words to know it was true.

“If he hollers, let him go.”

My heart cracks open at the unfairness of it all. I lean to him and touch his lips with mine and whisper, “I love you too, Ken.”

“Eenie, meeny, miney, moe.”

End of Book 2

Book 3 — Chapter 1 - Jerome

Settling down with a bowl of popcorn, I kick my feet up on the desk to watch the show. I guess a part of me feels a little bad at what’s about to happen… a very little part. The rest of me is as excited as a child going to see his first horror movie.

Checking my watch, I pop a fat, buttery kernel in my mouth, washing it down with a long gulp of beer. I dig in my pocket for my pills. It’s a little early to take another one, but, what the fuck, I’m craving the clarity they give me. My body, my life… right? I’m fucking sick of people telling me what I can and cannot do.

The alarm on my watch begins to beep and a new shot of adrenaline runs through me. Show time!

“Ladies and gentleman,” I say to the room in my best announcer voice, “our feature film for the evening should begin in… three… two… one.

The computer screen in front of me crackles and then springs to life, exactly on time. Exactly as I planned it. The ruse worked perfectly. Of course it did, I expect nothing less than perfection.

At first, it’s only Abram filling the screen as he logs into Stephanie’s laptop and finishes live streaming the video. He looks very FBI, very professional in a navy suit and red tie. The dark brown wig we purchased gives him a perfect douche bag appearance. The make-up and silicone prosthetics are flawless, and the contacts change his eyes from light to dark. We thought of everything.
I
thought of everything. I wouldn’t have recognized him myself.

What should have been the hardest part of the process was actually the simplest. The FBI badge was disgustingly easy to replicate. The president of the good ole US of A wouldn’t have known it was fake. Homeland security is a joke.

Live streaming complete, Abram turns the laptop and sets it on the table, and she’s there. So is he, the bastard. Stephanie, looking frightened and beautiful, her face pale and her eyes wide, huddled next to the asshole. The rage that has simmered inside me for weeks now begins to boil and bubbles over as I watch the fireman touching my girl. MY girl. His hands are wrapped around hers, his thumb moving back and forth on her skin.

I throw the half empty beer against the wall and watch it explode in a torrent of foam. This should be over with by now! The fireman should be dead or at least dying, run down yesterday at the accident scene. I’d had him followed for that purpose; to take advantage of any opportunity to take him down. He was lucky; walked away with only a cut. A cut!

No. No. No. Dead. He should be dead. That should be me comforting Stephanie after her terrible loss, promising to take care of her, having her cling to me. Needing me. Only me. Just me. Forever me.

But no…

My attention is drawn back to the screen when I hear Abram say, “Stephanie, on a scale of one to ten, how scary has this entire experience been?”

I take a deep breath and glory in the tear that slides down her face. I touch the computer screen and follow its path as it hovers on her jaw line and then drops to her shirt. She’s such a crybaby, crying at everything. I tried to toughen her up. I tried to make her brave. Nothing I did seemed to work.

“T… ten,” she stutters, her entire face jittering as her teeth chatter together. She never seemed this afraid with me. I must not have been a good teacher. She would never had left me if I’d been able to maintain this level of control.

“Stephanie.” Abram is speaking again. “On a scale of one to ten, how humiliating was it to be found naked and hog tied by ten of Vegas’ finest?”

Stephanie’s mouth tightens, so does the asshole’s and she lifts her chin in defiance. I growl at her. I hate when she does that. I hate that look of petulance. She’s not following the rules. She knows how I feel about the rules. The look lasts only a few seconds before her eyes widen and she stutters, “T… ten.”

Better.

There is silence on the screen for a moment and I watch Stephanie’s eyes open wider again and she leans forward and whispers, “Jerome?”

Everything inside me lurches at the sound of my name on her lips. My heart beats harder and my cock grows thicker. She said my name! She’s thinking of me even in what has to be the worst moment of her life.

Does that mean she still loves me? She just got sidetracked by the fireman? Was the rescuer in her simply draw to the rescuer in him?

I trace her face on the screen, the lovely heart shape angle of her chin, the full lips, the magical green eyes. I miss this face. I need this face. She’s the only person in the world who’s ever looked at me with love.

Stephanie is the only person on the planet who has ever told me she loved me. Ever.

No. That isn’t right.

Mr. Paul used to tell me he loved me when he crawled into bed with me at night to tell me a story. Mr. Paul would make me feel good and would tell me how good I made him feel. After living in Mr. Richard’s house for so long, after the beatings I’d gotten at Mr. Richard’s house, living with Mr. Paul had been wonderful. Mr. Paul never beat me. He only loved me and made me feel good. He’d whisper my name and kiss me and touch me. It was our little secret and I never told anyone, not even after the bad police took Mr. Paul away. They tried to make me tell on Mr. Paul, but I wouldn’t. Even when I found out that Mr. Paul had loved other kids, that I wasn’t the only one he loved. I still never told anyone our secret.

No.

That isn’t right either. I told her. I told
her
. I told her how I missed Mr. Paul and she shouted at me when I sucked my thumb or had bad dreams. She told me I needed to be a man and stop being a child and that if I wanted my life to be better, I had to
make
it better. She told me if I wanted Stephanie to be obedient, I had to
make
her be obedient.

But I had tried, hadn’t I? I’d tied Stephanie up. I’d tried to force her to listen to me and do what I wanted, but she wouldn’t and didn’t and she left me.

Is this all
her
fault?

I dig my fingers through my hair and rock in the chair. Stephanie left me and I couldn’t make her come back. She left me just like Mr. Paul left me and losing her felt like daggers in all four chambers of my heart.

Anna has made it better. She told me to knock off the crying. She told me to be a man. She told me to take what I wanted and make anyone pay who didn’t listen. Stephanie still didn’t listen. She kept fucking the fireman. She kept fucking the fireman. She kept fucking the fireman.

Crash!

I crouch on the floor. What’s happening? What was that? I look up and see the chair I’d been sitting in lying on top of the computer, the screen shattered and the drive smoking. Did I do that? I look at my hands to see if they’ll answer me. They don’t. I look around the room. There’s no one here except me. I’m completely alone.

It must have been me. I did it. I did it?

I smashed the computer screen, I realize, and can’t watch the show. I turn to the other desk and touch the mouse, bringing that computer to life. I log in, a desperate tapping of the keys. Hurry. Hurry. I log onto the live screen again and…

I exhale. They’re both still there.

Shuddering and shaking, I lean over and puke into the trashcan, heaving until my stomach’s on fire. I need to calm down. I need to think. I hear the fireman’s voice say, “I’m not scared.”

Abram says, “Now?”

The fireman says, “Ten.”

The violence in my gut finishes working its way out and I use my shirt to wipe my mouth and forehead. Sweat is pouring off me, I smell the stink of it when I lift my arms. When did I last shower? I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.

But her.

I remember Stephanie and how she felt in my arms. I remember the way she used to look at me with love in her eyes. How she held my hand when we drove to the mountains. How her lips looked when she moaned my name.

“Stephanie, I’m sorry,” I yell at the screen. “I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to love you. Why couldn’t you love me? Why did you make this happen?”

Tears course down my face, mourning the loss of her already. I loved her so much. I
love
her so much. Even as she sits there with the fireman, I love her.

“I know. It’s an oldie but a goody,” Abram says, right on script. Just yesterday, we laughed at how funny it would be to fuck with the two of them, make it all a game. It’s not funny now.

I watch the fireman raise Stephanie’s hand to his lips. The cocksucker is kissing my girl. My girl. My girl. MY girl. The last few weeks have been torment. Watching him kissing her, fucking her, holding her while they slept. That had been the worst. The tenderness between them.

Sex. I can understand sex. Two horn-dogs getting off with each other, filling primal physical needs. It’s not like I hadn’t stepped out on Stephanie once or twice… okay, maybe six or seven times. But that was different. It was just sex with those women. Not making love. Gross.

The tenderness… my mind slurs the word with disgust. The way Stephanie would do the little happy dance anytime her phone beeped and it was him. She is happy with him. Happy with
him
. She is happy with the fireman, but not me.

“Eenie, meeny…”

“Kill them!” I scream at the computer, willing this to be over with. I want to watch it happen. I want this torment to end. As long as she’s alive, I will mourn the loss of her every day; it will haunt me. If she’s dead, I’ll mourn her once. Much better. Yes. Much better.

“…Miney, moe…”

“No, don’t kill her!” I scream at Abram, changing my mind. I can’t live without her. I can’t. “Don’t kill her,” I scream again. I know Abram can’t hear me, but he should be able to hear the force of my will.

I’m desperate now, my hands in my hair. What was the plan? I need to follow the plan. I don’t remember it. I reach in my pocket to pop another pill.

“Enough!”

I stop as I hear her voice and the click of the shoes walking up behind me. I sink to the floor, head bowed and almost cry out as her fingernails dig into my scalp and my head is wrenched up.

“Watch!” I’m commanded, and I look back at the screen.

The fireman is looking at Stephanie. I watch his mouth open and I listen to him say, “I love you, Stephanie.”

My body twitches and my hair is pulled harder. I cry out as the woman behind me says, “Remember the plan.”

The plan. What was the plan? Why is there a plan? I’m still wondering as Abram says, “If he hollers, let him go.”

I watch Stephanie open her mouth. No. No. No. No. No. “I love you too, Ken,” my girl says to the other man.