But Cole was offering a solution. Another Master, more brutal than he was, who wanted a more debased and debase-able sub, someone who would disappear from the real world. It was a solution and it was a good, logical one. It could work.
As long as she didn't stay here. That's all I really wanted from Cole. To do something with Kie that got her out of the way well away from – not us, there was no us – away from Southern Nevada and out of the country and somewhere or with someone where she couldn't come back.
It looked like Cole had the same idea.
Good.
7
Cole
Of course, there were the men who had come with Kie who had to be considered. Sooner or later Annie would remember them.
For now, my own guards had the situation locked down. Annie considered the suite of rooms where she was held to be a cell and certainly she wasn't at liberty to come and go as she pleased. But there were much more real cells on the property and the men with Kie were going to be my guests until I figured out what to do with them.
The billionaire I had in mind for Kie was Vincent-like. He'd control her every move. He'd punish her slightest transgression. He'd been looking for someone who would come willingly to his style of extreme sadism and thrive by being beaten down.
Kie fit the bill.
She could agree.
Or she could go into the maze and stay there.
It was obvious from the (unguarded and unwise) things Annie had said that she feared I'd go too easy on Kie.
She thought wrong.
If she thought I was going to go easy on her, or allow her the freedoms she was taking, for much longer? She was wrong there, too.
Underneath all of it, a core of rage kept growing. Too many things happening reminded me of Emily. My sister had died a prostitute, making money to support her habit. Thinking about Ariel always brought that back to me. I'd be glad if she were able to leave the maze and lead some kind of life. And I didn't want Kie down there, among other reasons because if I could get Ariel out, I wanted to not have anybody down there. I was aware my lifestyle was unique and extreme. The money allowed it. Being secretive by nature and comfortable living away from society and community fostered it. But those things also made it possible to take in the people who needed it, who needed a haven and refuge. I may have brought them here but that didn't mean I wanted to be responsible for them forever.
It would be nice to go from having responsibility for people to having free will among those people who had signed a contract with me and become my submissives.
If for no other reason than Ariel was always tempting. Someone who didn't care how badly she was hurt or whether she lived through it. A suicidal pain slut who was willing to do anything. Dangerous.
Especially as my rage kept growing.
There was no way it was Annie's fault that she was taken but I was having a hard time not blaming her. The fact that she was clearly afraid of Kie now. That wasn't the Annie I expected. Too many things had happened that made Annie seem weak to me and weakness in her was something I couldn't stand.
The rage growing in me wouldn't be satisfied by Marilyn or by making Annie scream or even by using Kie so violently before sending her away that even her masochism couldn't deal.
The rage inside me was a frightening, growing thing.
Eventually, it would have to be satisfied.
8
Annie
By evening almost everything had settled down. Which meant by then it just felt weird to be back in my cell. I couldn't settle to study. I didn't want to work out. The whole time I'd been Vincent's prisoner and then, once freed, trapped by Mark and my father's plan, I'd wanted to be back here.
Now I was back here, I wasn't sure it was where I belonged. Despite myself I couldn't help wondering how displaced Kie must feel. She had no place to be anymore.
Despite myself, I also couldn't help feeling happy about that.
About an hour after Cole left, I was sitting and staring moodily at the wall. I hadn't studied, worked out, eaten. I hadn't changed from the jeans and t-shirt Zach had bought for me to escape the mental hospital in.
When the phone started ringing in Cole's office, at first I ignored it. His office wasn't usually left open unless I was allowed the phone or the computer to do TaeKwon-Do videos. Nothing had been said about any of that, with me just back.
When the phone started its cycle the third time, I gave an irritated sigh as if it had interrupted something more important than staring at nothing, rose and stomped across the room to answer.
My father's voice made me instantly recoil from the handset. He was loud, in a rage, and he sounded so damn close. Not that it's possible to tell how far away someone is by the sound on the phone but –
But he was one of the last people I wanted to talk to. There were a variety of people I didn't want to talk to. Anyone from the mental hospital. My captain or my lieutenant. Mark. Most especially Mark. My father.
My fucking father. He'd always trusted me to know right from wrong and good from bad and to know what the hell I was doing and what was best for me. So it was only the addition of what, sex? Kinky sex? That made him crazed enough to join forces with Mark to "bring me home where I belonged."
Up until they decided to do their Bad Boys routine, I hadn't even thought my father liked Mark. Mark is big and muscular. He played football in high school and for a while in college until he went pre-med and all his attention was focused on his studies. Though I didn't know him then, I thought all that was pretty obvious. He was studious, he wore glasses to read, but he was no pussy. He was strong, tall, broad, good-looking.
My father couldn't possibly have thought as we lived together that we were waiting for marriage. I know fathers like to be deluded but his little girl was an undercover narc. When I was trying to hide my addiction from him he figured it out right away. He wasn't even shocked.
Yeah, it's the sex thing.
But I thought if I was into that it was none of his business. It was between me and Mark, if there was a me and Mark.
Past that? He had me committed.
"What do you want?" I let my voice stay completely flat.
"You're back there? You honest to fuck went back there?"
I didn't bother to answer. I'd just answered the phone from Cole's house. Of course I was here. I said, "I can't believe you did that. It's only because I've always loved you that I'm not hanging up."
That, and if he was coming, I wanted to judge how close he was. I was starting to think Cole needed to move us to a location even more remote, like an oil derrick in the middle of the ocean.
"If you stay there, little girl, I'm washing my hands of you."
I closed my eyes. Everything that had happened – Jesse's death, the fet, my father finding out, the "cure," Cole, Vincent, my father showing up? All of it. Still, that hurt - The idea that he would ever give up on me.
"I didn't walk away when charges were brought against you by IAD."
There was an apocalyptic pause before he bellowed. "Those charges were dropped."
I snorted, only because we were on the phone and it was safe to do so. "And we both know they were dropped because of your health and because you're well respected and because you're an old boy in an old boy's network and you have friends on the force. Because we both know some of those charges were legit."