Coming.
And failing that? Failing taking me back in time so I could stop those things? Or the chance to go even farther back to those days when I had subs for limited amounts of time, mine to fuck and hurt and cane, mine to break and send away and it meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. And in that state, let me say no to the dirty cop when he called and instead, let me turn him in and see him taken off the force and whatever internal justice would almost have certainly been done to him.
Because cops don't sell other cops to sexual sadists. They shouldn't, anyway. And never without reprisals.
Though there may have been reprisals. No one had heard from the son of a bitch for a long, long time.
Failing any of those choices of things Marilyn could do for me?
Find Annie.
Bring her back.
I couldn't say that to the woman I'd hurt who now was offering to help me. I murmured into her hair and waited for her to dry off and warm up before she took her leave of me. She'd stay in a guest room, fed and clothed and cared for, but I'd stay away from her for the rest of her stay. Let her recover. Let her find me if she wanted to.
I didn't think she'd want to.
In two days time, if my limited education before I left med school surgical track and moved to pharmaceuticals was enough to convince me she wasn't bleeding or swollen, that I'd gotten lucky (and she hadn't – god, she didn't deserve that!) I'd let her go home.
I wondered if she'd be back.
I left a message for Annie. There was no way of knowing if she'd ever listen to it. And I texted.
"Please don't hang up. I just want to tell you something. I sent Kie with Norcross but his chopper went down. Kie lived through it. Norcross did not. She's loose, Annie. I just wanted you to know that."
And then because I couldn't think of any way to help her, or anything to offer her that didn't involve protection she'd refuse or coming here and going to school locally, which I knew she'd refuse, I hung up.
And faced my silent house.
Not completely silent. Other than the techs and the guards, there was one other person.
The guards were employed by me and far more visible than the techs who came and went by way of a distant door. I rarely saw them.
No one suspects it of someone who owns a multinational pharma company but not everyone who’s in the world's eye is comfortable there. When I make appearances, I'm always aware I'm posing as someone else out of self defense. I don't want the world to think it knows me. I'm uncomfortable with anyone getting close and that includes the artificial closeness of celebrity.
Also, I've always been awkward in conversation, a skill that hasn't actually been actively honed since turning to my Dom side. If the entire other side of the conversation is "Yes, Sir," and if that person has no other conversational options, it's hard to practice.
The techs, on the other hand, make me look glib. So I rarely crashed their blue-lit world to pass the time of day. Besides, I made them nervous.
The guards were paid to protect and they were far more obvious in their presence, but they were one more group whose livelihood depended on me. I had enjoyed the company of some of the guards I'd had before but in the wake of Kie and Vincent and Annie's father and idiot fiancé appearing on the property without having been stopped, they were all summarily fired and a new group hired.
The new group still looked like they wanted to salute when I came by.
And there was Ariel. She found me in the living room, pretending to read a book. It was one of the first times I'd seen her topside, out of the underground, since she'd come to stay with me. Several years now, healing, not just the physical from having been stabbed and nearly bleeding out, but from the circumstances: the men who had used her, the drugs that had claimed her. It was someone she knew, that's what she'd finally admitted, who stabbed her and left her in that alley to die.
She'd tried. More valiantly than she'd pursued anything else she'd tried to die. Ariel was the one person I knew in the world who had nothing to hang on to. Her family was all dead. She was young and beautiful but no one stayed with her. She'd been knifed while waiting on a buy for heroin and the dealer saw a sad and vulnerable girl and decided he wanted both the money and the drugs to sell to someone else and while he was at it, he'd just make sure she never talked about him to anyone else.
Only I'd found her. Maybe losing Emily made me more aware of what was around me. Maybe I should never have been in that part of town. But that night I was and I heard her and then I saw her.
Whatever the impulse was to take her to one of the docs I knew who dealt with lifestyle choices, with BDSM partners and pain sluts who couldn't explain the cuts and bruises to "normal" doctors, I'd saved her life more than once. Because taking her to straight doctors, they'd have put her on some other drugs. Or tied her down and locked her up until she was happier.
I brought her home with me and let her hide. In the underground maze of rooms, in a cell she couldn't leave and where she couldn't hurt herself. When the self loathing didn't stop, I started fucking her on a regular basis. She felt like she was worth nothing. I was never sure if I was taking advantage of her or helping.
Not that it mattered. I just wondered.
Ariel was my go to when things went wrong. Marilyn was a pain slut but she wanted it straightforward and painful. She didn't want anything behind it. Over the years, slowly, Ariel became more than an enthusiastic punching bag for my worst moments. She started to ask questions. She didn't answer them, not herself, not when I asked, and for someone who literally doesn't want to exist, it's hard to threaten them into telling you anything. Because they just don't care.
And then she started painting. It was out of the blue. One day she asked for paints. Another day for the skylight over her cell to be made bigger, or cleaned or something. I asked her if she wanted out and she shrank back. Not ready yet.
But she wanted sun. I made sure she got it.
And then came the day I went to her cell broken, everything crashing in on my life and she let me do what I wanted to her, but she crawled away from me first, frightened. Which stopped me in my tracks. And when I stopped, she came forward. Now she was wrapping herself around me, the comfort of another person who had no agendas. Who cared about me.
That warm glow of knowing someone cared.
I couldn't give that to anyone. I hadn't cared about anyone in years. Not since.
But the thought broke off. I looked at Ariel. She wore a button-down chambray work shirt, tucked into skinny jeans. She was still slim and sexy, though she'd cut her hair super short and wasn't dressing –
I broke off and smiled to myself. She wasn't dressing for me. Not anymore.
"You've made a decision."
She shook her head and smiled. "Have a drink with me?"
As if it were her house! But this was one sub I'd be happy to allow to talk back. "Is that an order, Mistress?"
Laugher sparked behind her eyes. "Yes, um – vassal?"
I started laughing. "I think 'slave' or 'sub' will do. Or – "
"Worm!" She was giggling. It was at once the strangest sound and the most delightful that I'd heard in years.
"Worm?!" I put hurt amazement and outrage into my voice. "You dare!"