The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (21 page)

“I need you to settle down, Nikki. I have to tell you something.”

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I slowly quieted down.

“You were as sweet as I thought you’d be.” Leaning forward, he kissed my parted lips, and clenched the material of the lace in my mouth, slowly removing it. He released them, letting them fall to the side of my head. “Don’t scream, because no one but you and I are here. If you make this hard for me, the things I warned you of will be serious issues for you. What do you think would happen with all I know, if you stopped being nice to me?” He brushed his fingertips down my cheek.

I jerked my head to avoid his touch.

“Nikki, you heard me, didn’t you? Keep being friendly. Anything I ask, you will do it.” He stared at me, continuously smiling. “Has it been a long time? You came quickly and very, very hard.”
 

My mouth gaped to scream, but he quickly covered it, muffling my screams for help. Outmatching my strength, he pushed me down on the bed and pinned my body to the mattress. He toyed with me, pressing his erection against my opening, entering me slightly and taking it away. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I can make you feel good, Nikki.”

My lungs began to feel as though they were filled with razorblades, making breathing near impossible. My fight was diminished only because it took too much to continue.
 

He slowly removed his hand from my mouth and hovered over me, keeping my hands restrained above my head. He cocked his head while donning a crooked smile. “You had to know it wasn’t Eric, and still, you enjoyed it quite a bit, didn’t you?” He leaned forward a touch more. “So did I. And you know what? You’re still very wet. Do you want me to fuck you, Nikki?”

I pushed whatever I was feeling aside and enacted my defense. My tears dried and my features narrowed. I no longer showed him how torn up I felt inside. “I don’t want to be friends with you, and I definitely don’t want to make you some semblance of an ‘on call cock.’ I’m very satisfied in that area…too satisfied. No, Preston. I don’t want you to fuck me. I want you to leave right now. If you do, maybe I won’t tell Eric about what you’ve done.”
 

His smile brightened, disarming me and frightening me at once. He brushed a hand down my cheek. I tried to move my head only to have him grab my jaw. “You killed your father, didn’t you, Nikki? There have been whispers, but no evidence turned up to convict you. Your mother was there when it happened, did you ever find out what happened to the evidence? Did she burn it? Did you see her dispose of it? What did she do with the evidence? Don’t you ever wonder? It could’ve ended up in the wrong hands. It could be used as leverage against you.”

“You’re lying!” I stated brusquely.

“You think so, Nikki? It was a starter log, wasn’t it? Where in the world could it possibly be?”

I swallowed back a loud sob and closed my eyes.
 

“I’m going to ask you a question again and I want you to answer yes.” He slid his hand from my jaw down my body, taking an agonizingly slow time to feel my breasts, my stomach, and my sex. Sliding two fingers down, he opened me, preparing me. “Do you want me to fuck you, Nikki?”

Sobbing and shaking, I shook my head.

Grabbing my labia, he began to pinch, digging his fingernails into the sensitive flesh. “Pain or pleasure? It’s completely your choice. Say yes and I’ll give you the latter. Say no again and I will wreck your body, your life, and your future with Eric.” He released his pinching grip and massaged the plump flesh. “Do want to fuck, Nikki?”

“Y-yes.” The words were jagged little edges, slicing up my throat and bringing about an emotional pain deeply cutting.
 

He flexed his hips and shoved himself completely inside of me.

I yelped and fought, wanting him off me and out of me immediately; it was an intrusion I wanted to purge.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I showed you how good things can feel when you’re compliant. Behave.”

“Why do this? When I tell Eric what you’ve done, he will kill you. Why do this?”

“Tell, and he will know everything I know about you. He won’t be the only one I give information to, either.”

“I can’t help what Eric will find out. He. Will. Kill. You.”

“He can’t.” He withdrew and lifted partially up from my body to look between us. I could feel him throb at my opening, nearly pushing himself back inside with little to no movement. “I know too much about him, and we have a mutual associate. Something Eric will never do is piss off the man who made him.”

“Are you talking about Victor?” On the cusp of saying Victor’s name, my body had a visceral reaction.
 

As Preston studied me with heightened interest, he gave me a nod. His heavy-lidded eyes widened, failing to suppress his shock over the information I knew. “Never thought Eric would share his connection to Victor with you.”

I glanced between us, mentally hoping and willing he would gather his sense and leave. My mind screamed at me to fight, but my body couldn’t connect and do what needed to be done. It was taking everything in me not to fall prey to a panic attack and allow myself to be completely vulnerable. “It wasn’t exactly by his choice.”

“None of it matters. You gave me permission to do this, remember?”
 

“What do you really want from me?” I asked hoarsely.

“From the time I saw you watching me with Estelle, I’ve wanted very badly to fuck you. I’ve grown tired of waiting for Eric to share, as he once did. Tonight, I’m taking what I want, and I want you.”

I WAS IN the middle of talking to a car-crash survivor about aftercare following an accident that gave her a concussion and a broken arm. She was a drunk driver who killed a mother and her infant daughter. When she left here, she was leaving in handcuffs. It was a shame she survived. Normally, I couldn’t care less, but I draw the line at killing kids. It’s a sad fact: the wicked are too fucking mean to die.

One of the hardest moments of my job was dealing with people like this. It’s not because of the Hippocratic Oath, which I barely remember, nor have I ever recited it. Honestly, it was just a long series of paragraphs on the back of my graduation program; it’s more or less the hospital’s policies that bind doctors.

We have to treat everyone whether we like it or not. It’s a funny contradiction, how-fucking-ever, I’d never kill the helpless. The people I killed deserved it, or wanted it. And those that deserved it were never innocents.

My phone buzzed against my ass. Thinking it might’ve been Nikki, I checked it like my life depended on it. April hadn’t checked in with me all day. Not a good sign when time was my least greatest resource.
 

It was a text from Preston. I clicked on the picture, and my blood ignited. Her clothes were disheveled, and her eyes were closed. Her legs were spread, exposing her bare pussy, and there was something that looked like cum on her inner thigh. The text underneath the picture read:
 

I got to fuck your wife after all.

Having trouble swallowing, I put the phone back in my pocket. Muffled sounds called my attention. I looked up at my patient. She was slurring something I could barely understand and tried to get up; the handcuff on her wrist, attached to the bed, stopped her. I think she said something about me being an asshole and something else about my mother.

I couldn’t say anything to her. My mind was on something more important.
 

Leaving the hospital, I headed to my car without a word from anyone.

AFTER WAITING IN MY car for three hours, while parked across the street from his club, Preston showed up.
 

I didn’t give a fuck who was around. Guess it was a good thing for Preston it was five in the morning, and the club was mostly empty. The less witnesses the better.
 

Stepping inside the club, I walked with purpose and approached the hall leading to Preston’s office. An effeminate man came up to me, placing his body between me and the door. “Can I help you, handsome?”
 

I shot a passing glance at who I assumed to be Preston’s new pet. “You can open the door and then proceed to get the fuck out of the way.”

“Sir—”

I gave him the look to let him know noncompliance would end in a painful consequence.
 

Swallowing hard, he turned around and unlocked the door.

Preston was huddled behind his desk and had the balls to give me a faint smile and showed off his brand new teeth. A fake smile I was going to wipe the floor with.
 

He barely got out the words, “I was expecting you. I can explain—” before my fist met his cheek and crunched underneath the force. Grabbing him by the back of his neck, I used his head like a beach ball and bounced it off the walls.
 

He tried to give me resistance. It was pointless. He didn’t have the rough life or street training I did. He’d never really killed anyone. Watching Estelle die didn’t count. He was a pussy, and he knew it.
 

After a while, he gave up his attempts to keep me from damaging him. After a while, he didn’t have a choice. He was forced on the ground as I stomped on his face repeatedly. His bones crunched and ebbed. His bloodied face deemed him unrecognizable.
 

Someone grabbed me from behind and swung me around to face the open door. Vic was standing in the doorway, red-faced and puffing air out his nostrils like a bull ready to charge.

Judging by the arm strength and the shitty scent of the drugstore cologne, I knew it was Pete holding me back. He, to this day, was the only person who could best me when I reached the highest of level of being pissed off. Otherwise, I’m unstoppable.

Preston knew I was coming and called his bodyguards to make sure I couldn’t kill him.

“Get the fuck off me, Pete,” I barked over my shoulder.

Pete tightened his grip across my chest, trying to contain my resistance. “Not gonna happen until you calm down.”

Vic walked over to Preston, picked up his listless body, and placed him back in the chair. “You mind telling me why you’re costing my godson nearly six figures in plastic surgery?” Vic slapped Preston’s face until he came back from the world I knocked him into. He drooled blood as his body bobbed and weaved. “Explain what you’ve done to make him want to kill you,” Vic demanded of Preston as he wiped the blood from his hands with a few tissues.

“Sh-she set the whole thing up,” Preston groaned.

“Bull-fucking-shit,” I spat. “I got the goddamn picture, you son-of-a-bitch. You really want me to think she’d let you touch her? I know she’d never fuck you. If you did something with her, it wasn’t with her consent. And so help me fucking God, the second I have you alone, I will cut off your cock and stuff it down your goddamn throat. It will be the last cock you ever get to deep-throat.”

“I swear, I never touched her,” Preston retorted.

I held up my hands to Pete, pretending to be calm, but really, I was going to finish the job. He was essentially calling my wife a conniving whore. That couldn’t go unanswered.

Preston cleared the blood from his eyes and tried to look at me. “It’s my fault for trusting April.”

My act to appear unruffled was presently rendered award-winning. “Excuse us,” I said to Vic and Pete with a heart-warming smile.

Pete let me go and Vic looked at me with a warning.

“I won’t kill him”
—yet
, I asserted.

They were stupid enough to trust me and walked out of the office closing the door.

“Estelle—”

“Get the fuck over it,” I interrupted his attempt to whine and pull the victim card. “Your point needs to be said right now. Clarify what you just said in reference to my wife setting you up.”

“I contacted April and gave her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Money won out over her fear of you. I wanted a moment alone with her. To convince her—Nikki—of the kind of man you are. To fuck her and have you taste my cum inside her like you made me do with Estelle—”

Growing impatient with his unnecessary spiel that did nothing but bring about visions of his death in a million and one different ways instead of a million, I stepped forward.

“Wait—” He held up his hand. “I’m getting to my point. I’ll admit, I was going to have her whether she wanted me or not, but something changed. She told me she had it out for you and wanted to make you pay. I didn’t know what she was going to do, but she got cornstarch powder and water. After she mixed them together, she made it look as though I did something to her, but I didn’t. She said she wanted to hurt you, but could never consciously be with someone.