A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (18 page)

My art was death, and I wielded my knife like Da Vinci danced around the canvas with his brush.

“Perverts.” I burped. “Probably shouldn’t have drank this much. What else do I have to do?”

Scar’s words were one a dark lord would have in a cartoon—scary and thick. “See your wife.”

“Don’t even mention her. I don’t have many things that I feel guilty about, but marrying her was one of them.”

“It made the bosses happy.”

“It sure did.” I grabbed a new scotch as the waitress placed it on my table. “Now they have their goon in a suit and walking through their corporations like a good old American man—security director, husband of a good woman, and squeaky clean record. Get married they said. It will soften you up. If you’re less scary, there’s millions of dollars you could make.”

“Whose idea?” Again, those two words sliced through the air with a hardness that made even me shiver. This was why Scar hadn’t been picked for the job. Stone Industries was up and coming, but they’d gotten their success through handshakes with terrorists and drug cartels. The bad guys wanted in on some of these legal investments. It served Stone and his buddies to keep me around. I had several men around the world who would follow me through hell and back, guys that served in the military with me and learned how to kill from the best killing machine of the decade—the American government. The perverts needed me on their team, making sure that the bad guys didn’t get them, meeting with these evil monsters when they were too scared, and also cleaning up the dirty things that they did within the walls of their home.

I kept my mouth closed the whole time I did it, too. In the muck of their world, loyalty was more priceless than money.

“It was Stone’s idea of course. Mr. Chase fucking Stone. We should probably call him Senior now. I met his little son last month. Stone married a real crazy. She had her son doing some sick shit. Had that boy in a dress with ruffles. I walked up on it one day. Boy looked so embarrassed. Told me that it was a special secret. Showed me his room.” I stopped and finished the glass. “You know Stone’s place in Italy?”

Scar grunted.

“The boy got a bedroom in there decorated for a dead girl. That’s how gone the woman is. She painted it all. Got paintings of animal carcasses in it. The whole time while Stone is away, she has that boy dress up like a girl and pretend to be one. She told me his name was Constance. I almost killed her right there.”

“You going to tell Stone?”

“No way. I’ll handle it myself. Give her a few more years to get it together. If not, then a knife her chest. She doesn’t deserve anything else.”

“Sir?” The voice sounded from in front of me. “Mr. Stone?”

My hands shook. My heart boomed in my chest. Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them. Last thing I would do is cry in front of my own men, while I stood in Benny’s twisted penthouse.

If not, then a knife to her chest?

I forced myself to calm down, pushed all those crazy memories out of my head of Mom. All this time I figured Benny had something to do with her death. I couldn’t figure out why, just that it had to be him. He’d come by several times to check in. Each time he had that look of disgust on his face. I was just a boy at the time, not understanding why the dress and bows were wrong, just that I couldn’t tell anybody or Mom would be angry.

No one had ever known about those moments, not even Dawn. After a while, for some summers, Dad didn’t come visit us in Italy. It gave Mom more time to pretend. Always an artist, she’d done several family portraits of us, but in those, I wasn’t a boy. I wore a dress and those same black bows that she always loved to pin in my head.

If not, then a knife to her chest?

Chills ran through me.

“Sir?”

That was exactly how I found her.

I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

“We have everything.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” I gripped the book hard in my hand.

Who knew what type of man I would’ve become if Mom had continued to live? I might’ve been more messed up. Maybe some sort of badly fashioned crossdresser. It didn’t matter. I loved the woman—craziness and all. The morning I discovered her, lying in the bed with the knife stuck in her chest, that morning ruined me for all the women to come.

I’d kept my heart far away from people for years, after that. Made sure tons of women circled me, but I never got too close. Perhaps, that was what Dawn, Wendy, and Lucy represented. They symbolized my inability to truly connect to one. The only reason I stayed so loyal to Dawn was because we both lost our mothers around the same time. We shared that bond and other horrific tragedies, including Lucy. For that, I did my best to remain faithful to them both, as much as I could.

But no one had every trapped my heart like Mom, not until Jasmine came along.

Would I have been better if Mom had never been killed? Who knows. Benny never gave me a chance to see what would’ve become. You did kill her, and now I’ve confirmed it.

Holding the notebook in my hand, I stormed out of the office.

I hope you put your will in order, Benny. I don’t care if Jasmine begs, you’ll die and I’ll do it myself.

My phone rang in my pocket. “Great. What else?”

I put the phone to my ear. “Yes?”

“Sir, I went downstairs to check on the scream.” It was the guard who I’d ordered to find out about the little girl in the stairwell. “When I arrived at the fourth level, a man was holding a little girl and he had his hand wrapped around her mouth so she wouldn’t make any more noises.”

“Okay?”

“He let her go, held up his hands, and asked to talk to you.”

“He said my name?”

“Yes. He asked to speak to Chase Stone.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s refusing to say anything else besides that he wants to speak to you and he doesn’t want Ms. Sophia Montgomery around when he talks to you.”

“He said her name like that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Interesting.

“Where are you?”

“Still on the fourth level. I chained him to the staircase. I’ve got my gun on him.”

“Okay. I’m coming.” I hung up the phone and turned to one of my guards. “Stay here with Ms. Montgomery. Help get her to the limo and tell her that I’ll be there shortly. And don’t let her out of your sight. Keep her in the limo by gun-point if you have to.” I pointed to the other one. “Come with me.”

C
HAPTER
10

Jasmine

B
efore
I arrived with Benny to the rotting mansion, Vivian had drowned herself in paint. She’d put murals in all three of our rooms. For Troy, she’d formed the universe on the ceiling. Constellations lit up in glow-in-the-dark paint above him. For her room, she drew a forest, wild and rich with fruit. Lush nymphs chased after satyrs, their full breasts bouncing as they dove for those muscled men with goat tails and legs. Their horns were sharp and erect. Their tongue thick and wet as they stuck them out, taunting the nude maidens.

But my room ...

The images made me cry all night. She’d painted me as Persephone and Chase as Hades. It took up the entire wall and faced my bed.

In the mural, Chase held me, this God of the Underworld. His long black strands ran down to his back and formed into huge crows with red eyes. Darkness swirled all around him. A three-headed dog sat at his feet. Drool dripped from their fangs. A crown of bones lay on his head.

Instead of my black waves, Viv painted me with long auburn hair that flew in a breeze. Numerous beautiful flowers covered the top of my head. A few birds peeked out between them. I bit into a pomegranate fruit so red it looked like blood. Seeds and juice spilled from my lips and onto my white gown that waved within the wind.

The sun glowed bright on my side, while a gray cold withered behind Chase.

Is this really how she sees us? I don’t even know if that’s good or bad. He’s the God of Death, and I’m the chick he tricked and kidnapped.

I shoved the thoughts out of my head and forced myself to fall asleep.

Although warmth flowed in the decaying mansion, our designer wing froze my bones and made them ice cold. I wrapped myself in several blankets and tried to get all of the images on the walls out of my head.

What’s going to happen to Chase?

I fell asleep with that question churning around in my head.

My dream held Viv’s mural image. I strolled in a beautiful forest and picked the loveliest flowers—blushing pink roses, royal blue daises, and a sea of tulips that swayed back and forth just like that body of liquid.

It was in that ocean of flowers that Chase appeared before me, his hair flowing behind him and forming the shape of bird wings at the tips.

I stopped with the flowers and stared. “Who are you?”

He evaporated into a black mist. The scent of fire floated around me. Then, he reappeared in front of me, a cloud of smoke that solidified into a gorgeous man. “Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know.” I blinked. “Who are you?”

“Your husband.” He caressed the tops of my breasts. Fire raged in my flesh. No one had touched me like that before.

I licked my lips. “I’m not married.”

Darkness stormed within his eyes as he leaned toward me, his breath a soft whisper against my lips. “Who am I?”

A chill swarmed around my body, but my flesh still blazed and my thoughts grew hot and sweaty.

He nipped at my bottom lip. A spark of lust hit me. “Who am I?”

“Death.”

His voice darkened into a needy murmur. “Tesoro.”

“Jasmine!” Vivian’s annoying scream ripped through my dream. “Come on, Jasmine! Wake up!”

I opened my eyes and immediately realized both of my hands were buried between my thighs. My wet fingers lingered within my panties; nails and tips slickened from arousal.

“Jasmine!” She banged on the door. “Wake up! If we don’t hit the tube by 8:30 then we’ll be snookered.”

I rubbed my eyes and yelled, “Snookered?”

“Totally fucked. It’s London lingo.”

“Says who, Charles Dickenson?” I rolled over and covered my head with my blanket. “And what the hell is a tube?”

“It’s the train.”

“Then say train.”

“They call it the tube.”

The door slammed open. My bed moved as she jumped on and tapped my head.

“Bollocks, Jasmine! You can’t sleep all day. Don’t be a stonker!”

“Listen,” I removed the blanket and faced her, “I don’t like you. Get out of my room.”

“You love me.”

“Not in the morning.”

“Do you like the mural?” She wagged her eyebrows.

“No.”

“What?”

“It gave me horny dreams about Chase.”

“Hmmm. Should I make him uglier?”

“No you should paint the whole wall black.”

She frowned.

I rubbed my eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.”

I sat up. “What?”

“I love him.” She gripped my blanket hard and squeezed the soft material. “I actually love him.”

I gave her a weak smile. “Chase?”

“No, of course not.”

“So Troy?”

“No.”

“O-kay. I’m drawing a blank.”

“I’m talking about Dad. Well, my or your dad.” She rolled her eyes. “I love him, but …”

My or your? Fuck. We’re not related. This is getting harder and harder to keep up with.

“I don’t want to talk about Benny right now.” Sighing, I laid back down.

Her eyes watered. “I love him.”

“Sure. We all love him. Or at least I did. I don’t know. He’s a monster now, and can I even love a killing creature like him?”

“I love Dad”

“You said that.”

“I just …”

“What, Vivian?”

“Troy is talking serious.”

I let out another long breath. Vivian couldn’t even say it, what was on all of our minds. We all understood the problem. It was Benny. The difficult part was the solution. Did death have to be the answer? Troy believed it represented the only way. I couldn’t even think of an answer, while dealing with my heartbreak.