EMPTY TIME. IN moments of weakness it has led to violence. But empty time has also been the creation point for much of Marcus’s wealth and most of his plans. Empty time can be precious if used properly. Can give him valuable moments to strategize. To think. To figure out the things most people rush right over. To judge past decisions and learn from his mistakes. Now, he drives. The open road before him, hours both behind and ahead. Empty time. Planning time.
It feels strange to drive, his initial hundred miles hesitant before he regained his confidence. Before prison, he rarely drove. Had people for that, every moment useful, a million-dollar property often brokered in the backseat. Real estate development and management is a nonstop process, one where a missed opportunity can mean lost market share. Now, he sees all of the benefits of being behind the wheel. Freedom. Obscurity. At this moment in time, this moment in space, no one on earth knows where he is. What he is doing. Before, with Thorat, a driver, and security staff, there were too many pieces. Pieces that all became liabilities when it came time for his trial. People had to be paid, controlled, intimidated. Thorat handled it all, keeping the silence while enjoying a healthy bonus and protection from Marcus in return. All of Thorat’s efforts useless, the jail cell still clanging behind him with finality. Yes, Thorat’s procurement of the women, the delivery and cleanup crews, had all been convenient, his fuck house had been ideal, complete control of the environment liberating, but it had tied a hundred strings of evidence to him in the process. He had been stupid and egotistic to think he’d never be caught.
Here, on the open road, he has so many more options. And nothing but time to plan the perfect ending for Jess Reilly.
It has been weeks since their last chat, but she’s been present every day in his mind. Like a flea you can’t find on your skin. Taunting, teasing him. He’d had to satisfy himself with handfucks to her website’s videos, her recorded voice coming through the speakers. Soon, he’ll have her. In the flesh—not through the computer. His hands will be able to touch, his mouth to taste. She will be his coming-back act. And he won’t necessarily have to kill her. Not if she behaves. Fucking might be enough, his cock in her, his hand on her face, forcing her eyes to his. She might behave, speak and tell him what he needs to hear. How good his cock feels. How much she wants him. How she was a little bitch for blocking him. How sorry she is. How he can fuck her any way that he wants. He will tie her down, spread-eagle. Fuck her face, her ass, the slutty place between her thighs. Maybe leave her there for an hour while he explores the town, has a celebratory steak and a nice merlot. Return when she’s reached the point of panic. Fuck her through that stage. Let her scream into the gag until she’s hoarse, beg until she cries. Take her again. Break her until the only thing she knows is his touch, and the only voice she recognizes is his. Then, depending on her spirit, he will decide what to do. Holding her life in his hands, he’ll be in the ultimate position of power.
He’ll just need to be smart. After Katie… after being locked up, listening to the wisdom of those beside him in jail—it is better to be safe. It is probably, from this point on, too risky to leave a girl alive. But the look in her eyes will help him make that decision. The lost, blank look is best. Those you can leave without worry; they aren’t coming back. They’ll bump around in their life until they kill themselves or get adopted. The ones who spit fire till the end… those are the ones you have to kill. They don’t appreciate the attention and never learn respect, even when beaten and broken. They’re the ones who come back and bite you in the ass. Katie had been that girl. Katie he should have ended. He frowns, all experiences with Jess Reilly exhibiting her fire, showing nothing of the submissive innocent on her website’s videos. If only he had an additional tool. A child or a parent to threaten, break her with. He needs more information than the simple address the tech asshole provided.
He checks the GPS. Seven hours more. Then he’ll be at her address. An estimated 10:30 p.m. arrival. A late hour, but not unthinkable. She’ll be up whoring. He’ll try knocking first, the dignified approach. If that fails, he’ll resort to his tools.
If two decades in real estate and two years in jail had taught him anything, it was how to pick a lock.
CHAPTER 54
10:22 p.m.
SIMON HAS NOT locked the door. I sit on the floor and stare at the metal door before me. Count the scratches on its surface for the third time. Again I reach the number forty-seven. They are scratches of my own making, from nights when I went mad and tried to rip my way to freedom. Three years of insanity shown on that surface, should someone pay enough attention to look.
Simon has not locked the door. I noticed the oversight at 9:50, leaving a chat midsession, my feet bringing me to standing, my naked body heaving as I stared at the door, my eyes trailing down the thin crack between door and jamb and failing to see the thin view of dead-bolt lock. I ended the chat, leaving a fifty-year-old husband in Nevada hanging with his junk in his hand. I’d gingerly walked to the door, not touching its surface, not doing anything but looking. Verifying, my eyes close to the crack, that I was, in fact, unsecured.
10:23 p.m. It does not escape my attention that this is the precise time of night, roughly five years ago, that my mother was halfway through killing my family. That’s not why I am shaking; this is not necessarily my genetic hour of killing. For me, the killing is not restricted to night—my last kill occurred at the time of day when most individuals were diving into a bowl of Cheerios. But night is my weakest; night is my most vulnerable time. Hence my mandate that Simon lock me in.