Now I was here, kicking a fentanyl problem and trying to make sense of Cole St. Martin, billionaire, philanthropist, sadist. The last time I'd tried to run from him it was because he sold me in an auction at a dinner party he’d hosted for five other super rich men and their wives or slaves.
One minute I was thinking I was getting the hang of being under his control. The next he was selling me to a man with dead, scary eyes, for 5.5 million dollars and the irony was the money was going to charities to combat human trafficking.
I'm not big on irony.
"Ready to turn back?"
Cole's voice cut through the cold desert air behind me. My shoulders tensed up because this was a test. Everything was a test. Most of the tests were rigged. I could feel myself getting wet just at the random thought of what he might do to me if it was a test and I failed that test.
I'd never let him know it.
If I said keep running, he might take that to mean I didn't want to go "home" to the compound.
If I said I wanted to keep running it might mean that I was experiencing body issues and he'd feed me fish for breakfast because no way was I developing an eating disorder on his watch.
If I said turn back it might mean I was a quitter and needed to be brought back into line, to be whipped into shape, sometimes literally, so I'd work toward my own cure.
Make a decision!
Too late. Cole's arms went around my waist from behind. It only felt like I could race ahead and lead him. He's six-four to my five-six. He will always run faster than I do.
He pulled me kicking and screaming under his arm, my head and shoulders facing behind him. His left arm was wrapped around my waist, keeping me from moving, and his right hand yanked down my tights so hard they tore.
He didn't believe in warmups which was really bad when the day was cold and my ass was cold despite the tights.
"Please, sir!" I yelped. "Let's keep running!" Way, way too late.
He gave a chuckle that chilled my heart. "Oh, you will," he said. "But first let's talk about making decisions." His hand slammed down on my ass with the first statement. "You're a police officer, Miss Knox." Slam. "If you hesitate too long on a simple decision." Slam. "What might you do on something truly important and life or death?" Slam! Slam! Slam!
I was already making promises I'd never be able to remember, let alone keep. I thought as I got started with Cole that I'd build up some kind of immunity to the pain side of things but his hard hand hurt almost as much now as it had when I was first sold to him.
Damn Samuels. If I ever found him, I'd sell him to something.
We ran an extra two miles before Cole thought it was a good idea to head back to the compound for the rest of the morning routine. Thirty minutes of weights, twenty excruciatingly boring minutes of yoga, meditation during which I usually reviewed my choices – find a lawyer who could tell me if Cole's contract giving myself to him in addition to Samuels selling me to him was valid – made more difficult by my never leaving the compound alone. Or at all.
Once free of Cole's control, then what? I had probably six months before Seattle PD would come looking for me, and my family and semi-ex-fiancé were convinced I was back on the job. Before everything blew up, I was so deep undercover they wouldn't hear from me for months.
That was good. Because I still loved Mark Tomlin and every time I was with him I wanted to marry him. Probably. And have some version of a normal life.
I thought.
And then again, every time I was with him for more than a couple weeks we started fighting again. Then something would happen – deaths of children using China white that gangs were dealing in schoolyards. Meth in the schools or in some industry where people were vulnerable.
In the past I'd just disappeared on Mark, there one day, gone the next. He was an intern at a local hospital, doing his rotations as he learned to be a doctor. Probably some of the times I'd disappeared it had taken him a day or two to even understand I was gone.
We kept hanging on to the shreds of our relationship. Stupid or not, that convinced me it was real.
So if I ran away again, maybe the smart thing to do would be to keep running. I still looked about seventeen in the mirror. The amount of fet I'd done over the last months hadn't yet played havoc with my twenty-four-year-old self.
If Samuels were still around I could probably have blackmailed him into giving me a kickass recommendation with another PD. Portland, maybe. I'd be closer to my father.
And right in the line of fire of my three married-with-children sisters.
Shudder. There were worse things in the world than Cole St. Martin and his whips and crops and paddles and hairbrushes.
3
Cole
She was in for a surprise this morning. As we ran back to the compound, I thought of the two new things I'd be introducing into her morning routines. She'd be fighting soon enough.
That was good. She'd only been back less than a month and already I could see the signs of restlessness in her. She might be thinking of running again.
Being a billionaire and a philanthropist protects a reputation from a lot of things. There's always someone popping up in the media to insist they've been abused by or threatened by or fucked by someone who has money and position, especially if that person also does good works.
Fact was, some of those people weren't lying. They were earlier experiments that didn't work. People I'd taken in before I learned what I was looking for, the perfect mix of defiance and submission, of fear and confidence.
Like Annie. She thought she could make it on the outside. She had for some time after all. But if she was released now, with her inner appetites only just aroused and the opiate just under control, she'd be addicted and using again within a month.
The reason she fought so hard was that she liked what I did to her. Not all of it, of course. A good amount of what I did to her was meant to hurt. To punish. Or just to hurt because I wanted to hurt her. Nothing was permanent but it probably felt infinite at the time.
I wouldn't know. I didn't have a single masochistic bone in my body. Anyone doing to me what I doled out to others would die.
So Annie – even being back in my "care" and the two of us resuming our work - there were changes coming soon. I had to be gone for a while and she'd be under the thumb of another minder, a babysitter of sorts who'd brook no nonsense from her and would send me reports. That would be one test. How would Annie respond to a woman she could undoubtedly overpower even if she knew good and damned well she couldn't overpower my guards?
And then too, I'd told her I wanted some baseline medical information because the trials I was doing with the rainforest compounds, while illegal, were still highly important in producing a drug that could help turn the tide with the opiate epidemic in the U.S.
She colored so prettily when I stripped her and exposed her. The examinations would be delightful.
But there was still the altered morning routine to introduce her to and for now she was showing off, running faster than I was, so I doubled my speed and caught up, grabbing her ponytail to slow her.
Unpredictable as ever, she laughed, her head going back, and we passed together into the compound and out of the rainy, cold December morning.