My Control (4 page)

Can love and submission co-exist? I wish I had that answer. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s an answer that I won’t like. For now, I feel lost in a space somewhere between the two. If I were to believe him, there is no space to be lost inside. Love, he claims, is a façade, so love isn’t what I feel at all. But I believe it’s real and it’s what I feel for him. I still hope that one day he will, too.

Thinking about where we are together, and where we have been since I’ve moved in with him, I think we are changing. I’ve seen glimpses of what we might be like if he ever to truly let me inside the walls of the cell I believe is his own tormented confinement. But tormented by what? I do not know. Whatever it is, or was, that torments him, I have now seen beneath the shell of the Master that hides a man who can be tender, who laughs with me at movies, who makes me breakfast, and will go out of his way to ensure everything I love and need is at my fingertips. He says this is his role as Master: to please me. Pleasure is always his focus, his replacement for love. And yet every time I tear down a piece of his wall, light shines through, and he shuts me down.

That’s when he takes me to the club; that’s when he takes me places he knows I don’t want to go. As if he’s telling me there’s a price for cracking the surface of his shell. And as I’ve written often, I know there is a price for being with him, but I’ve come to know that no matter what it might be, I’m willing to pay it. I am his and I cling to the possibility that one day he might be mine. Right now, even when we are in the same bed and he’s asleep next to me, he is never really with me. It hurts, too. Sometimes it’s a deep, clawing ache that leads right to my soul. It makes me want to withdraw, to protect myself as he protects himself. But if I hold back, where will that leave us? And what chance do I have of him ever giving me more? I have to put it all on the line. All or nothing and therefore I am always with him, even when he is not really with me, and I am going to be brave enough to speak up from now on and let him know. I’m going to tell him that I love him, and make him see that he has all of me. And maybe one day, he’ll trust me enough to know that I will never hurt him, to love me back. I want him to experience that in life. One day . . .

I shut the journal, my throat thick, tears streaming down my cheeks, understanding now why he’s selling the club. I remember his tormented expression, the guilt in his eyes. He never told her he loved her; I’m sure of it. But he
did
love her—and now it’s too late.

“I’m so sorry, Rebecca,” I whisper into the empty room. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you. And I wish you could come back and be here, instead of me.” I lie on the couch, holding the journal to my chest. I feel as if I’m betraying her if I stay, yet betraying her if I let him self-destruct. And I fear that’s exactly where he’s headed.

Mark

Blake opens the door to the room manned by Walker Security and two of his men quickly leave, sending an obvious message. He feels we need privacy. Blake motions me forward, and I travel an identical hallway to the one in my room and enter the combination living/dining area. It’s a blow to find my attorney, Tiger, sitting at the round dining table.

He stands to greet me, still wearing the gray suit and pale blue shirt that I’d seen him in earlier today, except his tie is gone and his shirt is unbuttoned.

“What are you doing here at this time of night?” I demand, asking a stupid question that I’d despise from someone else.

“Great attorneys spend more time fucking with people who mean to fuck with their clients than they do sleeping.” He sounds as weary as his mussed black hair and two-day beard indicate.

“And yet you’re here to fuck with me.”

He levels a stare at me. “An unfortunate reality is that sometimes good news is also bad news.”

Blake steps to my side. “You want a drink?”

“I’m already half a bottle of scotch down. I’ll pass.” I stay focused on Tiger. “Tell me what you have to tell me.”

“Why don’t we sit down,” he suggests.

I cross my arms in front of my chest, legs set in a solid V. “I’ll stand.”

“Then we stand,” Tiger concludes, matching my stance. “The good news is,” he says without further preamble, “on Monday morning, they’re going to a judge to request an arrest warrant for Ava. They’ll use Sunday to organize all the evidence to make their case.”

“I thought DNA evidence required labs and testing that take more time than that.”

“It does,” Blake confirms, moving next to Tiger across the table from me. He presses his fists onto the wooden surface. “But they have enough without it. They placed Rebecca on the boat and in Ava’s coffee shop.”

My lashes lower and that vise on my chest is back.
One. Two. Three.
I open my eyes. “Meaning what?”

“They found a journal that she wrote on the night she arrived back in San Francisco,” Blake explains. “You, Chris, and Sara have been fully cleared. And Walker Security has been hired by the DA to help complete the investigation. That makes me privy to information that I wouldn’t otherwise have and while that information is confidential, I’ll say this. Off the record, it placed her at the coffee shop after she attempted to find you at the gallery, while you were in New York.”

The vise tightens. “Where did they find the journal?”

“On the kid’s family boat. He still claims Ava borrowed the boat to take some potential investor out for a ride and fucked him for payment.”

“Rebecca was on the boat,” I say, my voice gravelly.

“That’s the obvious assumption,” Blake confirms. “There are a few other pieces of the puzzle falling into place and we expect DNA confirmation. We’re certain enough that the DA doesn’t feel that he has to wait on it to go to a judge.”

“But there’s no body,” I say, looking for a reason to hope Rebecca’s alive.

Blake’s jaw sets grimly. “We don’t believe we’ll find a body.”

Because she’s in the ocean. Like in her constant, horrible nightmares. I run my hand through my hair and turn away, trying to get a grip on the rage inside me. I want to go to that bitch and kill her. I want to hurt her in a way I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone.

I whirl around on them. “I want the address of the friend who agreed to supervise Ava.”

Tiger curses. “That’s why I told you not to tell him,” he growls at Blake.

“He had a fucking right to know,” Blake snaps, then tells me, “I know what you’re feeling, man. I lost a fiancée to a bastard who I’ve sworn to kill. And since he’s a drug lord who evades the law, the million ways I can make him disappear without anyone knowing better are lined up like a fairy tale for me. I’ll do the world a favor wiping him out.”

“Exactly my thoughts with Ava,” I ground out. “I want the address.”

“You’ll end up in jail.”

I fist my hands on the table, staring Blake down. “Ask me if I fucking give a shit. Where the fuck is Ava?”

“Now seems like a good time for a change of subject,” Tiger interjects. “Your head of security at the club lost the financing he had to buy the club. But I want it. I’ll meet his offer and I’m self-funded.” He opens a folder. “I drew up new contracts, replacing my name with his.”

I don’t look at him. I stay focused on Blake. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

“No, man. I’m not.”

I push off the table. “I have money. I have resources. I’ll find her myself.” I glance at the two men. “What about Ryan? I know he’s involved.”

Blake replies, “If he is, he’s covered his tracks well. But we’ll pressure Ava into confessing his involvement.”

I shake my head. “Right. So she can negotiate some plea deal for giving him up. All I can say is, you had better get to him before I do.”

I turn and cross the room, exit into the hallway, and keep on walking. I’m on a hunt now, and my prize is vengeance. I didn’t fight enough for her when she was alive. I’m damn sure going to do it now.

Mark

One. Two. Three. Fuck counting, I think, bursting into the stairwell of the building, on the edge of something dark and violent threatening to overcome me. The only thing holding it at bay is my focus on finding Ava and Ryan. I take the downward steps toward the lobby, needing to move, to do anything to stop the burn in my chest and the fraying of my mind. Retrieving my phone from my pocket, I key in the auto-dial for the man I’d hired several weeks back.

“I want to know where she’s hiding,” I say after a short greeting and explanation, not giving a shit if my phone is tapped. I just want Ava. “And find her before they arrest her again Monday.”

“That’s extra,” he replies.

“Find her,” I order. “And do a better job than you have of finding out Ryan’s role in all of this.”

“And when I find her?”

“We’ll talk when you actually get the job done right.” I end the call and dial the driver that I have on payroll parked nearby. I’ve somehow ended the walk down ten floors. I stuff my phone back in my pocket, pausing at the heavy wooden exit door and lean on the wall, fighting the demons threatening to rise to the surface. The past that has become my present.

I told her love was a façade. I told her it’s a cruel destructive monster that will destroy you. And it did. She loved me and I destroyed her. Why the fuck did I let her fall in love? I should have pushed her away harder. I tried, and that’s how Ava and Ryan got involved. I should have done so many things that I didn’t do—and done so many I did, differently. I let her down. I hurt her. I can never make it right.

I shove off the wall. But I can get some justice. I
will
get justice.

Yanking open the door, I enter the deserted hotel lobby and cut to my right, traveling a long hallway toward a back exit, my stride focused. I want to see Ava pay for her crime, but Ryan, that bastard, will not walk away from this.
He won’t.
I know he’s involved; I saw it in the bastard’s eyes when I confronted him about what he told the police. I’ve stayed away to keep from beating the shit out of him. No more holding back for the sake of an investigation that’s given me the wrong answers. It’s all come back full circle, to me.

I exit the hotel by a side door and the car that I’ve called is already waiting. I slip into the back of the black sedan giving Ed, the sixty-something private driver I keep on standby, a nod.

“Evening, sir,” he greets me, immediately putting the car into gear, having been warned about the press. He glances in his rearview mirror at me. “Or perhaps I should say ‘morning’ at this hour.”

“As long as you leave out the ‘good’ part.” I pull my phone from my pocket. “Drive by my house so I can evaluate the press situation.”

“Yes, sir.” He glances in his mirror again. “Is there any news on Ms. Mason?”

The memory of him chauffeuring Rebecca around when she refused to let me buy her a car hits me like a blast of ice that bites clear to my soul. She’d been fond of him, and him of her. “Nothing I can share.”

“I am hoping for something positive,” he murmurs softly.

Yes—something positive would be good. And at this point, that’s going to be in the form of vengeance. I grab my phone and punch in Ryan’s number.