G-Men: The Series (22 page)

I was hurt that he didn’t trust me to be alone in his apartment, though he was right, I most definitely would have snooped, given the opportunity to do so without the risk of getting caught.

I feigned insult at his comment as I brushed past him and put my jacket on.

“Fine,” I said stiffly. “I’ll just stand down there on that corner and freeze my ass off waiting for the goddamn bus.”

“You’ll live,” he chuckled, giving me a swat on the ass as we headed out the door.

He pulled me against him as we reached the sidewalk beneath the stairs. He gave me a fantastic ‘don’t be mad at me’ kiss, tilting my chin up so that I was gazing into his incredibly blue eyes.

“Don’t be mad at me, Sunny. I mean it.”

“I’ll think about it,” I replied, rolling my eyes at him. He then got his bike from the garage and sped off, giving me a nod.

I walked the half-block to the bus stop and waited. The sun was out. It wasn’t all that cold today, or maybe it was. I was still feeling the warmth of having Slate wrapped around me in his bed, feeling the warm flush of my skin against his, savoring his scent that was still part of me.

I was still in my totally satiated, dreamlike glow when I walked into the entry hall of my house and was greeted by a cold and extremely angry Jack. It took him all of five seconds to see by my long-haired wig and excess make-up that I’d been up to no good.

“Well, I see that my
whore
of a wife has decided to come home. No doubt with another man’s stench on her. Come here, Sammie.”

My defense mechanisms were kicking in heavy duty now. Jack had trapped me, which meant that he’d been suspicious of something; but what and how? I quickly thought back replaying the last few months in my mind. I could think of nothing I’d done that would’ve made him suspicious.

Or just maybe it was something that I hadn’t done.

The only thing I could think of was that I no longer bothered him for sex. In fact, most of the time, I tried not to sleep in the same bed with him. Surely, he’d have attributed that to the whole ‘raping of the whore’ debacle, though.

He was moving toward me with a menacing look on his face.

“You’re wondering how I knew, right?”

“It’s not what you think,” I stammered, slowly backing away from him. “I’ve been pole-dancing, that’s all.”

“You’ve been doing a hell of a lot more than that,” he spat, his lip curling up in distaste. “Why do you think I introduced you to Susan?”

Huh?

He was prepared to answer that question with his next statement.

“Susan’s much more than my administrative assistant. Susan looks after my interests when I can’t. I know about everything you’ve been up to, including the fuckfest you’ve been having with that biker named Slash.”

Slash?

I didn’t have time to consider the possibilities before Jack’s fist came forcefully in contact with my face, the swift blow knocking me into darkness.

^{chapter 25}

When I came to, I was laid out across our bed in the master suite. The contents of my purse had been emptied out onto the bed.

No doubt, Jack had rifled through everything, trying to find out what else I may have been up to over the past few months. Thank God, I’d left my cell phone in the drawer of my night stand.

My head was pounding; my mouth was dry as I sat up and placed my fingers on the knot I had right under my left eye socket. I dreaded looking into the mirror, fearing the worst. I was going to do exactly what Slate had instructed me to do. It was time to text him a ‘Code Red.’

I struggled to sit up. I felt groggy. I opened the drawer of the nightstand, my hand feeling around for the phone.

“Is this what you’re looking for, Sammie?”

I was startled by Jack’s menacing voice as he came into the room. He was holding my track phone in his hand. He had a snide look on his face, as if he was always one step ahead of me. Maybe he had been.

“I take it this is how you and Slash communicate?”

I nodded, swallowing nervously.

“Is it usually by text or by voicemail?”

“Text,” I whispered hoarsely.

“Okay, then. Guess what? You’re going to send him a text right now. I’ll compose it, if you don’t mind. Looks like you’re in love with the piece of trash. I like your pet name for him by the way, ‘asshole,’ huh?”

“I think you’ve officially won that title now, Jack.”

“Ooh, gotten kind of lippy now since you’ve been fucking a biker, I guess,” he replied with a sneer.

“You don’t know shit about Slash and me,” I said, laughing at how truthful that statement was.

His face went rigid as he stepped towards me, ready to deliver more punishment. I didn’t cringe.

“Do it. Go ahead and do it and then watch. Because I promise you that I’ll bring down the wrath of Slash and the rest of the club on you. You can’t keep me a prisoner in here forever.”

“What have you become?” he asked, his voice steely cold and harsh.

“My own person.”

“We’ll see about that, Samantha,” he snarled.

“What name does he know you by? I’m presuming that you had enough sense not to tell him your true identity or where you live. I don’t think you’ve totally flipped out. If nothing else, you wouldn’t want to sully the good name of your father’s company.”

“Diamond Girl,” I replied, turning from him.

“Catchy,” he said with a smirk. “Here we go then.”

Jack pressed the letters on the keypad to type up the text message that he would send on my behalf to Slate. He held it up when he finished, just outside of my reach.

“Do you want to proofread this, Sammie?”

I looked at what he’d typed:

‘We r done, asshole. I decided to take a walk back on the side of sanity. Go fuck yourself! I’m too good for you. Diamond Girl’

I looked up at Jack and saw his evil smile as he pushed the ‘send’ button.

“What makes you think he’ll believe that I sent that?”

“Because Sammie, he has no other way to contact you now.”

Jack tossed the phone to the floor and smashed it with his foot.

“I have all of your cell phone records, along with our landline records. You haven’t called him from either phone. He hasn’t contacted you on either phone. The computer’s e-mail account shows you haven’t sent any e-mail messages to anyone for months.”

I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d erased my outgoing message with the attachment to Becky.

“Again, who are you to think I can’t get in touch with him whenever I want? There are other ways, you know.” I was trying to take a cocky stand with him.

“Oh, I know. But you won’t. Because if you do, I’ll make damn sure your daughter and your parents know exactly what it was that you’ve been up to these last few months. I’m sure they’ll be impressed with your private dancing skills at Sharkey’s. Did you know that one of those dances you gave in that private booth was for Susan? Yep, she videotaped it on her smart phone. I can make sure your daughter sees it and maybe your parents too.”

He was truly a monumental piece-of-shit. He had the upper hand, for the moment. I needed to bide my time. I needed to appear to acquiesce to his directives. I had some ammo of my own to sort out, and now was the time to do that.

I certainly didn’t want him showing that video to Lindsey or my parents. However, I was sure that, while he might have all of the bargaining power at the moment, which could change, I needed to keep my wits about me.

“You wouldn’t dare do to that,” I snapped back.

“Of course I would, Sammie. So I need to hear it from you, right now. Are you through with Slash?”

I took a few moments. I had to make it look as if it was a tough decision. I blinked back tears that I’d forced to materialize. I threw in a sniffle for good measure.

“Yes, Jack. I’m through with Slash. I promise.”

“Time will tell,” he laughed. “Don’t worry, that recording of your dance is in a safe place, for now.”

Fucking double-rat bastard.

“Go clean yourself up. Then call your employer and quit. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I hurried off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me and locking it. I assessed myself in the mirror. I had quite another shiner, courtesy of my not-so-loving husband.

I tore my wig and clothes off, and stepped under the hot shower. I washed all of Slate’s scent off of me, tears now rolling down my cheeks. I scrubbed all of the make-up off, trying to be as gentle as possible around the bruised, puffy area under my left eye.

I dressed in clean sweats and a tee shirt. I shampooed my wig, then conditioned it for storage.

I blew dry my own hair. It was actually to my shoulders now. I pulled it up into a ponytail and dabbed some concealer underneath my eye. I put my Nike’s on and pulled a hoodie on over my tee shirt. I descended the stairs where Jack was sitting in the living room, pecking away on his laptop.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Jack hollered.

“For a run. You’re welcome to come with me.”

“Maybe later,” he sneered, shaking his head. “For now, you stay put inside where I can keep an eye on you. Did you call Sharkey’s and quit?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it!” he bellowed, causing me to jump.

“Okay, okay,” I said, going to get my cell phone on the counter. It’d been smashed to smithereens.

What the…?

“Oh, sorry. My temper sometimes gets the best of me. You’ll have to use the cordless landline. I have it here beside me. Tell them you and your hubby are working things out, something to that effect.”

“So, is this how it’s going to be, Jack? Are you keeping me a prisoner here, not allowing me to communicate with family or friends?”

“Just for a few days until I’m sure all of this has really sunken in, Samantha, and to make sure your bruise heals up nicely,” he replied with a smirk.

I phoned Sharkey’s and left a message with Damon that I had to quit without notice. When he asked why, I simply repeated what Jack had instructed me to say. He didn’t press me further.

^{chapter 26}

Four weeks later

~ SLATE ~

It had been a month since Sunny sent her ‘Dear John’ text to me. At first, I’d laughed it off. She was just pissed that I’d sent her on her way from my place without giving her a proper good-bye fuck or waiting with her at the bus stop like some drooling, pussy-whipped medieval knight.

Fuck that! She had no clue what was at stake here. She knew nothing about my life. I hadn’t wanted her to know. It was safer that way.

After a few days without her answering my text messages, I’d tried to call her. The calls went straight to voicemail indicating her phone was off. I’d figured the rat bastard was home.

Another full week had passed without my being able to get in touch with her. I’d worried that maybe he’d busted her. I might’ve misjudged the stupid fuck. It seemed unusual that he would have been in town for such a long period of time. Hadn’t she said he drove a truck for a living?

I’d stopped in at Sharkey’s a couple of times. She hadn’t been working. All I’d gotten when I asked about her was a fucking ‘deer in the headlight’ look. I guess they had to protect the chicks who worked there by playing ignorant. They wouldn’t tell me shit.

On my fourth visit to the shithole, just a week before, I’d literally bumped into that cute little black girl who’d danced at Jewels on my way out.

“Emerald?”

She had looked up at me and, I swear, she looked afraid.

“Hey, take it easy,” I had told her. “This ain’t my type of place or the rest of the club’s. I’m on a personal mission. I’m looking for Sunny.”

“I haven’t seen Sunny since she left Jewels,” she lied.

“Is that right? Then how in the hell did you know who the fuck I was even talking about?”

She was busted, big time. I fucking knew Sunny hadn’t shared her real name with those other bitches at Jewels.

“Okay, okay,” she replied, still looking scared and intimidated. “All I know is that Sunny called in and quit without notice. She told one of the staff that she and her husband were trying to work things out.”