A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (19 page)

Vivian interrupted my thoughts and whispered, “Do you agree with Troy? Do you think we should—”

“Not talk about it here? Exactly.”

“We’re not.” She nodded.

“I’m just saying.”

“But Dad’s not going to play by the rules of society?”

“No.” I gestured all around us. “He’s got us here against our will like it’s what normal fathers do. He’s not even the same person I remember anymore. He’s dark and scary, and it’s hard to be around him longer for a few minutes.”

She rubbed her eyes, probably to catch a tear or two before it fell. “What are we going to do?”

“I have no idea.”

“What did Troy and you plan last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Jasmine?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Then what were Troy and you talking about in his room?”

“He told me about the results.”

“And?”

“You know how Troy is.”

Vivian leaned toward me and whispered, “If Troy tries to kill him, then he might die in the process. I can’t lose him.”

I said nothing.

Vivian continued in that low whisper, “And if something doesn’t happen to Troy and he’s successful … Well, then I don’t know if I can lose him.”

“Benny?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a monster, yes, but—”

I sat up and hugged her. “I get it. I truly get it. It’s hard to even think about.”

“But we may have to do something.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. “If we tell the police, what will happen?”

No wonder Troy didn’t want her in the room when we were talking last night. She’s a wreck and she’s not getting the whole ‘people are monitoring us’ thing.

Several months ago, she’d tried to commit suicide over the heartbreaking news that Troy and her were siblings. Then we rushed off to solve the mystery of which one of Chase’s girlfriends wanted to kill me. All this time had passed, she’d seen some wicked things, and at no point did she get a chance to sit back and heal.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“What about the police. We could tell them—”

I got closer to her and lowered my voice. “Tell them what? We would be involved in a lot of those murders, at least the ones we know about. Anything else and it could touch Chase somehow. Not to mention Benny’s managed to not get caught for all of these years. Why would Troy or one of us win against him? You and I are just college kids. Troy isn’t a real killer.”

A boom hit the door.

We both jumped.

“Jasmine?” Benny’s voice sounded behind the door.

Did he hear us? He probably has someone listening to us. Did they tell him about what we were talking about?

Another boom hit the door.

“Jasmine?”

Silent, Viv and I stared at each other for several seconds before I finally cleared my throat and yelled out, “Yes.”

“Breakfast is ready. You see Vivian?” Benny asked through the door. “She’s not in her room.”

Okay. He didn’t hear anything most likely. If he had, he would’ve known she was in here. Or is he just playing games with us? I’m fucking paranoid right now.

“This is insane,” she said as I got up and rubbed my eyes.

“No, Vivian.” I grabbed my robe and put it on. “This is surviving.”

“Surviving? He’s crazy. He might end up flipping out one morning and trying to kill us all.”

I stopped and gestured for her to come over to me. She did. I glanced at the door one more time and hoped Benny had left.

I lowered my tone again. “If Benny thinks you and Troy are still messing around, then he’s going to do something to one of you, and I don’t think it will be good.”

“He said that?”

“Basically.”

“What were his exact words?”

“I can’t remember. I was just scared and I told him that he needed to have limits, that he couldn’t kill everyone.”

Vivian’s lips quivered. “He said he would kill one of us?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mess around with Benny. It didn’t seem like his solution would be nice.”

She hugged herself. “Killing us?”

I probably should have waited to say that. It probably isn’t that easy hearing that your dad confessed to possibly killing you as a solution.

I walked off. “Come on.”

“I can’t.”

“Vivian, you have to.”

She pointed to the door. “I’m supposed to pretend like this man is safe to be around?”

“You’ve already been doing that. You’ve been painting and—”

“That was because I thought he wouldn’t hurt us. That we were safe no matter what.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Troy would probably be the one he killed not you.”

“Don’t even say it.”

“Hey, I don’t like it either. It’s my freaking twin brother. But I’m just saying stay away from Troy and his room until we’ve figured out a solution.”

“We have to do something today.” She shook her head over and over. “I can’t pretend like everything is fine, when he’s fucking threatening to hurt us.”

“Right now, we just take this day-by-day.”

“No, we should start thinking up some clear solutions.”

“Shh.” I got closer. “If we go off on our own today, then maybe we can talk it over, but we have to be super careful.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m sure someone’s trying to listen to us now.”

“Then, let’s just wait to have this conversation later. For now, let’s eat a whole lot of food.”

“How can you even eat?”

“How can you not?” I left her in the room and followed the succulent fragrance of simmering meat.

C
HAPTER
11

Chase

I
took the elevator since I was going to four and that was an even number.

Why wouldn’t the owner fix the other elevator that went to the odd floors? Who the hell is in charge of maintenance around here? Well, I guess I am now, since I own the place. Maybe Jasmine will think of what we can do to this area?

The whole elevator ride down her name echoed in my head. The tiny box lowered. Metal scraped against metal and shrieked all around me. For some reason, going down sounded way worse than going up. I planted my hands on one of the walls as if that could save me, if the elevator lost its hold and crashed down to the ground.

You see what I would do for you, tesoro? I’d ride a death trap, if it meant getting information that could help me back to you.

I played back the images of when I tasted her, and sucked on my own tongue like a dying, thirsty man would after crawling out of a dessert to search for water. Her face caused an ached in my chest. Groaned in the pit of my liquored stomach. I despised Benny, but I always took comfort in the fact that he would never hurt her. That he’d protect my treasure with his life. If Troy was right about Jasmine possibly not being his daughter, would he still keep her alive? That information could never get out, not until I had her safe in my arms.

The doors slid open with a screech. I went to the stairwell, opened the door, and paused at the scene. My guard held a gun in the air and targeted a huge man in front of him.

Who is he? And why does he look familiar?

The handcuffed guy had to have been 6’7” or maybe even more. He towered over me, and I’d never been used to that. Usually I was the one that looked down on others. He had dark brown skin and a bald head. Muscles hung on every part of his body. I doubt he missed a day in the gym. In fact, I doubt he went more than three hours at a time of not working out in some way. Light, fleshy scars decorated his neck and around his forehead as if he’d been in several knife fights, and didn’t always win.

“You want to talk to me?” I let the door slam behind me and wished I had my own gun. I could picture a giant beast getting a good look at this guy and running off back into the wilderness, screeching. “Who are you?”

The man’s words came out in thick and dark, like someone had stabbed him in the throat and fractured his voice box. “What did you tell Ms. Montgomery? You tell her that you come down here to see me?”

“No. I left on my own. She doesn’t know that I’m here.”

My guard stirred on my left, probably not happy that I gave this stranger so much information. Love made a man do stupid things. For Jasmine, I’d be the dumbest of them all. An imbecile, if necessary.

The huge man pointed to my security. “I need you to make sure this guy doesn’t call the cops on me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you got me out of prison, and I would like to stay out.”

“
I
got you out?”

“Yeah.” He extended a large, muscular arm and stretched out his fingers as if inviting me to shake his hand.

My guard came closer, his gun remained steady. “Put your hand down.”

The man raised both in the air. “I’m Sherman Montgomery. I don’t have any beef with you.”

I studied his face and didn’t see much of a similarity to Jasmine.

Maybe Troy. I can sort of see it in the eyes.

“If you’re her brother, prove it.”

“Who else would say they were me? No one even knows I’m out besides my kids, and they understand that it’s a secret.”

“You have some ID?”

“No, I have some information. I told Benny where we were, and I gave him the keys to the apartment, when he showed up a couple of days ago. He told me that he only wanted to ask Lucy something. I told him fuck you at first, but then other elements stepped in, and I had to do what I had to do.” He spat the next words at me. “That’s better than an ID, isn’t that right, Mr. Chase Stone?”

My temper burned to a scary level. I walked up to him and my guard closed in right between us, pointing the tip at Sherman’s face the whole time.

“You might want to back up, Mr. Stone.” Rage blazed in Sherman’s eyes. “You got my sister in some bullshit.”

“You let Lucy die? We may be even.”

“I didn’t think Benny would do her like that. She’s dead. Let’s move on.” He gestured to my guard. “Tell this motherfucker to let me go. I’m not going back to prison.”

“You sure about that? You’ve caused enough trouble. Don’t you think?” I folded my arms around my chest. “In fact, maybe I’ll tell the cops that you’re the one that killed Lucy. It won’t be hard to blame you. I have people in high places as you know. Those people freed you. Those same people will lock you up, and this time it’ll be a rich white girl’s death. What do you think the headlines will say?”

“I don’t think you want to threaten me.”

“Now’s the time to be a good boy.”

“Watch the
boy
talk. I’m not your boy.”

“But you are a boy in my world, where big men keep judges in their pockets.” I sneered at him like a fucking animal.

Men were wild creatures after all. We loved to fuck, but most of all, we loved to fight and shove out our aggression on others. We relished in measuring each other’s cocks to figure out who was the baddest and the meanest. With the liquor, Jasmine’s missing status, and these new upsetting details that had been storming down on me with each minute that passed in this depression-stricken hood, it was time to pull out my big cock and slap them all with it. Show them who the boss was. Point to who really held the cards at the table.

Someone had lied. Someone killed. Someone plotted. And all of this resulted in Jasmine being yanked from my safe hands. Regardless of it being her family or not, someone would pay for it all.

“Why did you tell Benny?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Troy said he could trust you.”

“Yeah, he could, but he never said anything about Mom being in the mix.”

I slanted my head to the side. “Your mom?”

“Yeah, she told me to give the information to Benny.”

“Why?”

“I never ask Mom why. I never want to know. I just do what she say sometimes.” He tapped the side of his head. “I don’t ever try to understand her. That shit makes my brain hurt.”