Chapter Three

 

Tamara

I wait until one in the morning to use my keycard to enter Smith Acquisitions. There’s a security kiosk with a guard at the front, but I know the layout of the building, and I know how to avoid him. Just in case Jorge is working, I brought a canister of pepper spray with me, tucked safely in my pocket.

I go in the back, march up the stairs as if I own the place, and head straight through the ballroom.

And I walk into a scene from a horror movie.

The room is dark, and at first I try to tell myself that I can’t actually be seeing what I think I’m seeing.

A shadowy figure holding a knife in his right hand, looming over the splayed-out body of a man.

It’s a practical joke. It’s an hallucination.

No. I smell the new-penny scent of blood. It’s real.

My heart speeds up, jack-hammering so hard I’m sure it’s going to burst out of my chest, Alien-style. I’m sick with terror.

The man looks up and sees me, and he moves in a blur. I turn to run, then a blow to the side of my head sends me sprawling. I scrabble for the pepper spray and drop it, then I see it go flying, kicked out of my reach.

I’m going to die for a dollar store purse. Here in this darkened room. Tonight.

I should have just left the purse behind. I should have followed orders. I should have gone straight home like they told me to, and never come back to this beautiful slaughterhouse. Then I would never have seen what I’ve seen. I wouldn’t be gagging on the coppery reek of blood, cringing at the feet of the man with the knife.

Joshua Smith.

The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. But no, that can’t be right, because he’s going to end me. There’s nothing beautiful about that.

The only light in the room comes from a single table lamp with flared, frosted glass shaped like a tulip. And I’ve stumbled on a nightmare, one that has grabbed me with sharp talons and is dragging me straight to Hell.

The man lying on the floor at Joshua’s feet is Jorge, the security guard. He’s not dead yet. His eyes are bulging, and he’s trying to talk, but all that comes out of his mouth is bubbles of blood and horrible gurgling noises. He’s lying in a red lake that’s spreading across the parquet floor.

With shaking hands, I reach out to him. I’m going to press my hands against his wounds. I took a first aid class once. I chant the instructions in my head. Apply pressure to the wound. Slow down the blood flow.

Why? There’s no ambulance coming for him.

But that’s what you do. You see someone hurting, you try to help them. Even a pig like Jorge.

I’m going to die very soon, but I’m going to die as myself. As a person who helps.

“Don’t.” The steely command slices through the air above me.

Fuck you. Why would I obey the man who’s going to kill me?

I don’t even look up. I ignore him and press my hands against Jorge’s chest.

Suddenly a hand grabs me by the hair and yanks me back, hauling me across the floor.

“I said don’t.”

Instantly my scalp is on fire. I howl in pain and my hands fly up, grabbing at his wrist to take some of the weight off, because I feel like my whole scalp is about to be ripped from my head.

This is it. This is the end.

I slash myself with blame. I’m an idiot. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have come back for the purse.

The purse is nothing. It’s cracked black plastic, with a fraying red heart set into the front panel. But to me, it’s priceless. It was one of the last things my mother ever gave me. She shoplifted it, just like the few other things she gave me over the years. It was the only time she remembered my birthday.

And now it’s going to be the end of me.

Joshua drops me, and I lie at his feet, a puddle of weak, mewling terror. I’m staring at the floor, my muscles locked and rigid with fright, too afraid to look at him.

The truly horrifying thing about seeing him stab Jorge was the calm, practiced way that he moved.

I stood by the empty bar, frozen in shock, when I first spotted Joshua crouched over the dying security guard. As he jabbed Jorge in the abdomen, I heard his taunting voice. “Oh, does that hurt? Cheer up, right now you’re in the least pain you’ll ever be in for the rest of your life. I’m very good at this. I can make you last for hours, but they’ll feel like years.”

He was admitting that he’s done this before. And it was clear from his gloating tone that he loved it.

He kills people for fun.

Joshua Smith, billionaire owner and CEO of Smith Acquisitions, the hottest, sexiest, most sought-after bachelor in Manhattan. And add to that list…serial killer.

“Look at me,” he intones.

This part is familiar. Ghosts of my past shiver down my spine. My stepfather’s voice echoes in my ears. “Look at me when I talk to you, you little bitch.”

I hunch my shoulders, bracing for a blow, desperately locking my gaze on the floor. I’m the little girl hiding under the blanket so the boogeyman can’t find me. Looking at him will make this real.

My mind is torturing me. Every serial killer movie I’ve ever seen flashes before my eyes. Blood, spilling intestines, gouged-out eyes. Hours of agony worse than anything I could ever imagine, images of knives and saws and icepicks, sounds of screaming, women gone limp with their dead eyes staring at nothing… I know how this ends.

“Please don’t kill me,” I choke out, my voice wavery and weak. I can’t look up. I can’t watch my own death descending.

Sheer terror sizzles down my nerves. I try to move, but I’ve lost control of my body. I am liquid with fright.

His voice rings out above me, like God speaking from on high, but he’s not God. He’s the Devil in a gray silk suit. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Liar.

“Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone!” It’s a pitiful lie, but my brain is numb and stupid with panic. I am scrabbling for the magic words that will save my life.

He’s silent, so finally I look up at him, tears streaming from my eyes. Joshua looms over me, my terror painting him as a giant. The face looking down at me has graced society magazines and the gossip column of every major paper in the city. The camera loves him—the glossy black hair, the cheekbones you could cut yourself on, those sapphire-blue eyes, the cruel, sensual curve of his upper lip.

He smiles down at me, gently. “Tamara. Of course you would. If I let you go, you’d run right to the police.”

“I won’t, I swear, I swear!” My cry is whiny and shrill. I loathe myself for it.

His voice frosts over. “Don’t keep lying to me, Tamara. It’s boring. I hate boring.”

I stare over at the security guard, whose chest is heaving with every tortured breath. “Why did you stab him?”

“Because he tried to rape you.”

I look up at him in horror. “You…you did it for me?” I didn’t want that. Jorge was a pig and a vile human being, and I would have been happy to see him jailed, but butchered? On my account? Nausea curdles in my belly.

Joshua’s dark brows draw together, and he shakes his head. “No.” There’s mild remonstrance in his voice. I’ve disappointed him by not understanding. But what is the right question? The right thing to say? Everything rides on this.

I fail to come up with anything that will save me. He stares down at me expectantly, waiting. It’s like this is some kind of cruel game to him. He could end me right now. Why doesn’t he? What other option does he have? Because he’s right—of course I’d go to the police.

Finally, I choke out the question I don’t want to ask but must. “If you’re not going to kill me, what are you going to do with me?”

A smile curls his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His smiles never reach his eyes. “I’m going to play with you.”

His words hang in the air then explode like bombs, shredding me with terrible possibility. And then I see it in his right hand. A hypodermic needle. That means he’s going to take me somewhere else. Somewhere he can take his time with me. My throat closes with panic. He told the man on the floor that he could make it last for hours.

Not that, not that—please just kill me quickly.

Mad with fright, I strangle on a scream. My muscles start working again, and I scrabble away from him on all fours, scuttling for the doorway. He jabs me in the ass with the hypodermic, and I cry out in pain. It’s like being stabbed with a red-hot knitting needle.

My right butt cheek throbs, and a sensation of great weariness washes over me.

I struggle to form words. My lips feel thick and rubbery. “Pleash, let me go… I have friendsh… I told them where I wash going tonight…” Saliva drools from my mouth.

“Did you really, now?” His voice is dry and amused. “You’re a very poor liar, Tamara. But we’ll have plenty of time to discuss that later.”

Oh God. Oh no.

“Arrrr you going torshure me?” I don’t know if my words make sense anymore. My cheek is pressing against the floor, and I can’t feel my body.

Joshua kneels next to me and strokes my cheek with his finger. “You don’t get to ask me that. You want to know why?”

No.

“Yeshhhh…” I can’t see anything. I am numb. I pray to stay numb forever, but God has never been that kind to me.

I think he says, “Because I am fate, and you are nothing.” But his voice is coming from so far away.