Terms of Surrender (28 page)

Jeff had to hold back a grudging smile of approval and kept his face as neutral as possible. As much as he respected Wilcox's strength of character, he couldn't give him the idea he was at all happy about his reticence. "I have my guesses."

"I know you do. That's why I don't want to do more damage than necessary confirming them. You're welcome to try and get the information on your own, but I warn you you'll be starting from scratch and totally negating the purpose of having me on your case." Matt paused, placed his steepled fingers beneath his chin, and leaned his elbows on the desk. "Unless you don't want me on the case anymore?"

Jeff didn't want to arouse the young man's suspicions any more than he already had, but he intended to get the information he needed—even if he had to go around Matt to get it. Besides this, Matt was right. He'd be starting from scratch and couldn't see himself going through ten more years like the last ten, going to yet another private investigator.

After so long, he just wanted a warm body to blame, though any of the men he had in mind, the men who had been at Lorrie's agency, would do.

Before he'd hired Matt, he'd had hope of finding the right man, of contributing to his capture and conviction, but so much fruitless time had past. After seeing how the legal system worked and that he had little hope of seeing this case end to his satisfaction, vigilante justice seemed a valid alternative, and he already knew who his first target would be: Nick Vega.

Jeff had met the slick and good-looking advertising executive just once, but that had been enough to tell him what he needed to know. The man had dated his daughter, had been one of the last people to see her before her disappearance. Obviously, the police had been so won over by 151

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Vega's urbanity and college grad charm, they had not bothered to dig too deep into his personal life or find out what really happened between him and Lorraine when they'd dated.

That Vega had an airtight alibi for the night in question meant nothing to Jeff. That the police and several P.I.'s before Matt had eliminated him as a suspect meant nothing to Jeff.

He knew how the system worked and was sure someone like Vega also knew, and he was more than willing and capable to use that knowledge to his advantage.

It was the way he intended to use Matt Wilcox, if he had to. It was the same way he would do what he had to do to get access to the P.I.'s files and find out what he needed to know on his own. "Of course I still want you on the case, Matt," Jeff said.

* * * *

He'd been brewing bigger and better things than just Vega doing time for a crime he hadn't committed, although this was an attractive punishment for a nemesis to whom everything always came easy. A nemesis who'd never suffered an emotional hardship or break-up in his life.

He was waiting for the right moment when he could kill more than one bird with one stone, waiting for just the right moment.

Jail would have been too easy for someone like Vega. Hell, he might enjoy it.

No, he wanted Vega to really suffer, suffer the way he had all his life—first, at his father's hands, then at the hands of all macho self-important males he'd come across ever after.

Now was the right time to make his move. That tenacious bastard Lennox was still at it, plucking away at what he thought were perfect suspects.

He would give the grieving father his man, the man Lennox had his eye on for so long. It didn't take much. Changing the names in a record here. Feeding certain information there.

Wilcox was just as easy Lennox, and he loved playing the young P.I. like a game.

It was so much fun to watch Wilcox and Lennox jump through hoops, he almost didn't want it to come to an end.

He was good at playing games, good at waiting and watching. He had been waiting and watching Vega for years.

He watched him in the office, outside of the office, dating often, fucking even more so, never giving a thought to the kind of emotional and mental damage he was doing to his partners by not committing to them and giving them less than a sturdy hand.

He'd been watching Vega since their days in Syracuse together, when he had been a nondescript and unassuming graphic art student in most of Vega’s classes.

So many times, they had crossed paths, close enough to touch, close enough to associate with and date the same women, but he had held back, changed and morphed, just waiting for the right moment when he could do the most damage.

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After his parents, Mari had been his first kill. She was a non-entity, barely registering a blip on anyone's radar screen, especially not his. She had been a crime of opportunity more than any of the others, an ill-planned impulse that nonetheless had turned out in his favor. She had given him an in to Vega, priceless insight to his weaknesses, likes and dislikes, insight into how to get close to and hurt him.

Before Mari, Vega had been just another hunk on campus, one of the popular but serious students who had more than just women on his mind.

In that, he and Vega had much in common. But this was where the similarities ended, for once Mari had broken Vega out of his shell and shown him the ropes, there was no stopping the Lothario. With his dark Italian looks and mysterious manner, Vega had been more than enough competition for any male, much less him, more competition than he appreciated.

This was until they'd both landed in the same ad agency together in New Jersey.

By then, he had learned the ropes, taken his negatives and turned them into positives, no longer the lank-haired, pockmarked weakling taken advantage of by the big men on campus.

He was still unassuming, but only because he chose to be, only because it was easier to stay in the background and let the women come to him, which they inevitably did. Women were attracted to the mysterious, the vulnerable wounded souls, wanted to fix them.

But he was not vulnerable or weak. Not like Vega. He knew exactly what he wanted, especially from a woman. Knew what he would accept from a woman and was willing to extract it at any cost. He was not a wimp like Vega, a tired dominant unwilling to go the whole nine and do what needed to be done.

He was…he was…

He stopped in the middle of the cellar floor, momentarily confused. Lightheaded, as if he had taken a hit of his nitrous oxide, mind racing with his internal rant, focused on the past and all the men and women who'd come and gone in his life, all the people he'd killed.

Oh, now he remembered. He was…he was in the middle of a project. Something to do with Slany Breeze.

An inkling of regret pressed against his chest, making his heartbeat skip.

After so many months of loving and protecting her, it was going to be hard to let go. But he had to face the unavoidable facts.

Slany had already forfeited the rights to his training. He no longer wanted her for that, but he would use her against Vega and had no qualms about that.

First, he needed to finish what he had started for her, let her know the lengths he had gone to to get her attention, her affection.

"She's not
worth
it, that bitch!" He flung the bottle of water in his hand across the cellar.

It smashed against the wall and splashed water on the bed, where Ron Wells was shackled.

Ron stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, fiercely struggling against his bonds.

He stared back, retrieved a towel from the staircase banister, and made his way over to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed beside Ron and pushed a lock of dark hair away from Ron's eyes before framing his face with both hands. Perspiration soaked his palms. "You 153

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shouldn't struggle so, Ron. Haven't you learned that it is to no avail?" He proceeded to pat dry the water and perspiration from Ron's face. His touch was gentle, almost fatherly. It was more than his own father had ever done for
him
.

Ron screamed behind the tape, shaking his head against the hands holding him.

He released Ron and stood to pace back and forth in front of the bed as he raked a hand through his hair, suddenly pausing to stare down at Ron again. This time, he took a good look at him from head to toe and saw the changes he had wrought.

Ron's cheekbones and jawline, already sculpted and refined before he had been acquired, were even more pronounced. His cheeks were gaunt, almost sunken.

Wells had lost weight, perhaps fifteen or twenty pounds, from his constant exertions against his training and his refusal to eat the first couple of days he'd been here. The rest of the time, he hadn't eaten because he was being punished as part of his training. Ron, to his own detriment, was a hard case.

But he had come up against tougher and worst, and he'd always come away the winner, teaching his trainee the ways of submission before he committed them to their just rewards.

He wanted to be satisfied that Ron was suffering, should have been satisfied. It was why he'd brought him here, to make him suffer for hurting Slany.

But now, all that had changed. Hadn’t it?

He couldn't cut her off as her betrayal warranted. He should have been able to forget her, move on to another woman, or get rid of her and put them both, himself and her, out of their misery. But the idea of killing her outright before teaching her, getting to know her and letting her get to know him, was totally unpalatable. He had invested too much time and emotion to end it so suddenly.

He buried his face in his hands now, shaking his head, as if he could rid himself of the sudden pain piercing through his skull and burrowing in his brain.

He used to get these headaches a lot as a kid, especially when his parents were alive—not so much once they were dead. Then, he'd moved to live with his aunt, and the headaches had started again.

He'd been to plenty of doctors who'd all told his parents, once they had finally gotten around to believing that his pain wasn't psychosomatic and took him, that their son was the victim of migraines.

He hadn't liked the medications the doctors had prescribed for him, didn't like the fuzzy feeling they gave him, the control they took away, so he rarely took them, depending more on natural remedies and strength of will and periodic hits of his nitrous oxide to get rid of the pain.

He needed control, to be in control of himself and to control someone else, his situation.

It was the best, preferable way to stop the pain, always had been.

When he was in the midst of training a new submissive, when he had one at his mercy, when he was plotting and planning his next acquisition, he was always at his healthiest, his calmest, sharp and clear-headed with purpose. He was content.

But Slany had taken that purpose away.

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Slany needed to be punished.

Ron Wells could still serve a purpose towards that end.

He headed back to the bed, to the decided frantic headshakes of his pupil as Ron screamed behind the tape over his mouth. He sat on the bed beside Ron and gently ripped the tape off, only to instantly replace the gag with his hand. "If you have learned nothing in your short time with me, Ron, it should be to speak when spoken to, and
no screaming
. I'm warning you, I'm not in the mood for any of your nonsense. Do we have an understanding?"

Ron nodded, blue eyes pleading.

He took his hand away, and Ron disobeyed, as he knew the man would.

"You don't have to do this."

"Trust me. I have to do this, as surely as I live and breathe."

"Do you want me to apologize to Slany? Just say it. And I'll do it. Just, please…don't kill me. Please…"

Why did they all beg towards the end? It was such a useless endeavor.

Was their existence with him so horrible? Was their life with him so intolerable and painful, they'd beg to go back to the mundane purposelessness of their former lives? Didn't they understand that with him, through him, through their suffering, their lives served a much higher purpose than a nine-to-five ever would?

He should have been insulted his trainees did not appreciate the gifts he had bestowed upon them by taking them under his wing.

"I don't understand what I ever did to deserve this—"

"Torture, Ron? Is that what you were going to say?"

"What else would you call it? You kidnapped me, you've beaten me, denied me food, kept me shackled in this cellar…"

He watched as Ron choked back a sob, big tears filling the man's eyes.

He leaped up from the bed in disgust, walked away to stare down at Ron from a distance.

"Oh suck it up, Ron. You've brought most of this on yourself, especially the lack-of-food part."

"You crazy fucker! You're blaming the victim!"

"That's it. Show some spirit. I would expect nothing less of you than I expect from any of my female trainees."

"Trainees? Is that what you call your hostages?" Ron pulled against his bonds, then collapsed back on the bed in frustration. "They're going to catch you. They'll find y—"

"Only when I want them to," he murmured, then went back to sit beside Ron on the bed.

He reached into the bedside table for the nipple clamps, smiled as Ron fought against his bonds again and began swearing.

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Ignoring the other man's verbal attack, he fastened the serrated edges of one clamp to one of Ron's flat nipples and the other clamp to his other nipple, got hard inside his khakis when the man screamed and bucked off the bed.

"I hope they catch you and burn you in the chair for this!"

Time to put a stop to the
noise.
If he didn't, this headache would get out of hand, and that would never do. He had too much to get done.

He ripped a fresh piece of duct tape off of his trusty roll and put it across Ron's mouth, caressing a cheek as he glanced into the other man's eyes and noticed the paradoxical expressions of fear and fury shining out of their blue depths. "Trust me, Ron—by the time anyone catches up to me, it will be too late for you."