Raw Heroes
Chapter One
Liam
The woman on the screen in front of me sighs and pouts in the mirror. She’s a hooker, and I’ve been watching this dick bang her for ages. I think he might have a problem because he’s been at it for the longest time and seems almost bored. The hooker is more bored.
I hate jobs like this. Sitting around watching people for hours on end, but it pays good, and this is partly a favour. A friend of mine has asked me to do this to help him out. He’s an ex-serviceman. U.S special forces and we did a few missions together. Rick runs a small team of high-end problem solvers here in America. He’s asked me to lend a hand on this particular case, when he needed to pull some of his team off for another job, and I obliged.
Now, with my lower back aching from sitting in this chair, and the un-sexiest live porn show ever witnessed by man, happening in front of me. I’m wishing I’d said no.
Reece should have taken this shift, but he ate something bad and he’s out of action.
“This guy is fucked up.” The other man in the room with me, Don Raines, informs me.
Don works for Rick and he’s a pain. Always eating, farting, and belching.
We’re in a tiny room, for fucks sake, and as if I don’t have enough to contend with what with the eye strain from watching fuck-face on the monitors. I have to smell Don’s bodily functions, too.
“Can’t believe the dude’s such an idiot he’s ripping off an organization as big and powerful as SincoTech and he’s not even once checked his apartment for bugs.” Don laughs and follows it up with a belch.
“Probably a narcissistic fucker who thinks he’s one step ahead of everyone else.”
Don looks at me. “You’re not wrong there. You’ve not seen the best bit of this little show yet.”
Oh, God. Don’t tell me there’s more to come. “I can’t wait.”
“It’s so fucked up, but kind of hot. Mainly because his wife is fucking stupendous.”
“Wait.” I turn to Don finally giving him my attention. “You mean his wife is going to get in on this?”
Fuck me. I’ve only seen her photo, and she’s beautiful, in that upper class, untouchable way of someone born into money. Not someone who looks like she’d be into a threesome with a prostitute.
She’s not rich, though. I know as much because I looked into her at the same time I read all about her hubby, Nick, the idiot with the marathon sex session kink and stupid penchant for ripping off the organisations he works for. And the kicker is, the guy is loaded anyway. Inherited a shit ton of money, so why he’s doing what he allegedly is...beyond me.
His wife, Abigail-the-stunner, comes from a very poor background in the U.K. She married Mr. Moneybags and lived happily ever after. Or not, as it seems from the action on the screen.
“He treats her like shit,” Don says. And there’s a weird spark of excitement in his eyes at this news. “But this is the most fucked up part of what he does. This is the only day she gets to go out, and he does this every time she returns. I’m thinking she wants to get away from him so bad, she goes out even though she knows this is what she’ll come home to.”
She’s at the spa today, and other than going locally for a coffee once or twice a week, it’s the only time she gets to go out without her husband. I glance at Don, intrigued now despite myself. “You mean to tell me, this whole thing is about him wanting her to come home and catch him at it? What’s he do? Get off on the wife losing her shit or something?”
“Or something. Watch and learn. Here we go.” Don points to one of the other monitors and the apartment door opens.
Abigail Madison walks in and closes the door softly. She stops and leans back against the wall for a moment. Eyes closed. When she opens them, there’s a world of pain lurking in their deep blue depths.
I feel like a stalker suddenly for a moment because instead of watching her with the usual professional disinterest I have on these jobs, I’m interested. In her. Her reaction. The utter desolation in her gaze.
She’s way more beautiful than her photos would have led me to believe. The pictures I have on file are mostly of her at expensive gatherings, charity balls, that kind of thing. She’s always got perfectly styled hair, a bit full, a bit overly done for my tastes. Her make-up is classy, and her clothes always simple but expensive looking. She reminds me of a Hitchcock blonde, but with darker honeyed hair instead of the icy look.
Now though, her hair is pulled back, and she wears no make-up. Her bone structure is flawless, but it’s her eyes, and that sad, pouty mouth that make her stunning. She sighs, and pushes away from the wall.
She heads into the kitchen first and puts her gym bag on the counter. Then she takes a long drink of water. After she’s done re-hydrating, she opens a cabinet, takes out a bottle of vodka and fills half a glass, knocking it back in one smooth move.
Does she have a drink issue? I don’t remember reading anything about that. Then again, it might not be public knowledge. Her mother does, and maybe it runs in the family? I turn to Don, my brows raised.
“Only does it on Thursday’s,” he supplies. “When this little ritual happens.”
I nod and turn back to the screens.
Nick is still humping away in the lounge, but he’s heard his wife come in and his movements are more erratic now. More excited. So, he definitely gets off on being caught.
Abi doesn’t like it, if the vodka is any indication. Weird.
People are so weird and fucked up. I had enough evidence of that from witnessing my parents’ marriage. And this sort of shit right here, is the whole reason I don’t do relationships. Why hand your beating heart to another person to rip to shreds?
Abi walks out of the kitchen and into the living room, and each step she takes her face grows tighter, By the time she walks into the lounge and sees her husband her face is like marble.
Nick, on the other hand, appears unbearably excited by the appearance of his wife. His hips jerk wildly and he begins to groan. Fuck me, I don’t need to see this. I pick up my phone to scroll through Facebook or some shit. But Don knocks my shoulder with his.
“You don’t want to miss this, trust me.”
I look back up, and Nick suddenly pulls out of the prostitute, and tears off the condom. He stalks over to his wife, who he pushes to her knees, and proceeds to masturbate in front of her for a few moments before coming all over her face.
“Take that, you fucking bitch. Take it all.” He grunts and groans as he comes.
Not much in life shocks me, but this shit? I stare, mouth slack at the scene in front of me.
Abigail’s face is still set like stone, but when she opens her eyes, I make the mistake of looking. The desolation has ramped up, and there’s disgust there too. Maybe hate.
“Fucking hell.” Don laughs. “Told you. He’s a freak. Still, wouldn’t mind coming all over Abigail Madison’s face myself.”
I see red. I don’t know why, but his words make me ragey as hell. Shooting out of my chair, I haul him up and slam him against the wall. “Get the fuck out of here. You’re as bad as that sick fuck on the screen.”
I jab my finger to where Nick is paying the hooker. His wife hasn’t moved from where she’s knelt on the floor.
“Get your hands off me. You’re not my boss. You don’t get to tell me anything.”
Don’s face has gone bright red and I sense he wants to fight back, but his instincts are telling him not to. Good instincts there, because in my current mood I could happily throttle him.
“Don’t fucking move.” I point a finger at him and grab my phone, dialling.
“Yeah.” Rick answers on the fourth ring.
“You’re on speaker. Tell your boy, Don, he’s finished here or I walk.”
“What?” Rick sighs down the phone. “Liam, I need him on this. You can’t stay awake all night. You need to take it in turns.”
“I can,” I tell Rick. “And tomorrow Reece can come share the shifts with me. If I have to sit here for one more minute listening to this guy of yours fart and burp, I swear to God...”
Rick knows me, and he’ll know I mean it. I don’t know if Don’s a friend of Rick’s as well as an employee, but I know he didn’t work in the military, so he’s not going to be someone who has ties as deep as I do with Rick. We’ve faced death together. That creates a special bond.
He sighs again. “Don. Go home. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But—” Don starts to say.
“Tomorrow,” Rick cuts him off. “And you fall asleep and miss something and I’ll fucking kill you with my bare hands,” Rick adds to me.
“I won’t. Don’t worry.”
Don grabs his stuff and shuffles to the door, shooting me a disgusted look as he leaves.
“Thanks, Rick,” I say.
“Don’t thank me, just don’t miss anything. You can’t even take a shit now until your boy Reece joins you.”
“Yeah. Got it.”
I hang up. One eye has been on the screens all this time. The hooker has gathered her stuff and gone, and Abigail Madison is still knelt on that fucking floor. I want to march out of this room and go to that fancy apartment and kill Nick Madison, and then I want to hand Abigail a tissue to wipe her face clean with. I don’t understand my urge to do either of these things.
Normal human compassion maybe, but it feels deeper than that. Something about this woman has got under my skin and I’ve only seen her for two minutes on a screen.
It’s her eyes. I know it is. The emptiness there isn’t something new to me. I’ve seen it before. In the mirror.
I sigh and scrub a hand over my face. I need coffee if I’m going to stay awake, so I head to the small kettle and coffee maker in the corner and start to brew one. Finally, Nick heads over to his wife and gives her his hand.
“Good girl. You did good. You love it, don’t you?”
She nods, and he smiles. “Go get cleaned up.”
She nods again and heads off out of the living room. Down another long corridor, until she reaches what I know is their master bedroom. She goes straight through into the bathroom and starts to run the tap in the sink. She takes down a flannel from the rack with the towels laid out all fancy, and starts to scrub at her face. She scrubs and scrubs until her skin is red.
I realize she’s crying as she keeps at her face. When the water is so hot it is steaming, she plunges her hands into it and splashes it on her face. She repeats this five or six times, and then grabs a towel and goes back to the scrubbing routine.
Finally, she’s done. She leaves the bathroom, goes into the bedroom, and curls up on the bed in the fetal position.
She’s not crying now, and she closes her eyes, and doesn’t move at all for the longest time.
I keep checking on her husband, who I now want to add to my list of people to kill, but he’s messing around with some video game now as if he hasn’t just done one of the most fucked up things I’ve seen.
His phone rings and he answers it with a lazy. “Yeah,” putting it on speaker so he can keep playing.
“Yo, bitch.” A voice echoes from the phone. “You ready for this weekend.”
Nick’s mouth forms a tight line. “I don’t know, man. I don’t want to leave Abi for so long.”
“Dude, it’s three nights. Don’t be so fucking whipped.”
Nick laughs. “Oh, I’m not whipped, don’t you worry. I just don’t like leaving the bitch alone. I’ve made sure my housekeeper is going to work the weekend. Given her the last couple days off.”
“The trust in your relationship is inspirational.” The guy on the phone drawls. “So, the plan is, we’re meeting tomorrow, at the airport at seven. We’ve got hookers lined up for Saturday night. Friday we’ll take it easy, some drinks. Some cards. Wes won’t know what’s hit him come Saturday. Fucker will be all about being faithful, cause he reckons he’s promised Rhi and so he has to be a good boy. But we’ll get him so wasted he’ll be eating hooker pussy by the time the night’s done. Plenty of leftovers for us boys, too.”
“Great.” Nick doesn’t look very enthusiastic at the idea. Maybe he can only get off when he’s humiliating his wife.
“See you tomorrow at seven, fuckface.”
Ha, even his friends think he’s a fuckface. So, tomorrow he’s leaving for Vegas. From what I’ve learned he hardly ever lets his wife out of his sight. And now he’s going to be gone for a few days. Gives her some peace at least, I think.
After a few boring hours of watching Nick play Grand Theft Auto, and Abigail reading her Kindle, Nick gets up and heads for bed. As soon as he opens the bedroom door, she drops her Kindle as if it is on fire, and closes her eyes.
“I know you’re awake, darling.”
Nick has that upper crust accent I can’t stand. He makes me seethe. He’s British born and bred like Abigail, like me, but we come from wildly divergent backgrounds. While she got dragged up by an alcoholic mother in an ex-mining town and I grew up fighting with local gangs, Nick went to a top private school. He topped this off with an Oxbridge degree, before getting the first in a string of great jobs. He’s made a lot of money, but most of his cash comes from his trust fund. Now he’s living and working in the States, but he’s such an arrogant fool, he’s got his fingers in the till, so to speak, and might even be involved in money laundering.
The family are old, old money and I can’t wait to see them cut him off when he falls from grace.
He climbs on the bed behind Abi and grabs her hair, yanking her head back. “Now, I am sorry but I have to leave you for a few days. I don’t want to go, darling. Truly, I don’t. But if I don’t the boys will think there’s something wrong. And we don’t want them thinking that, do we?”
She shakes her head a miniscule amount, and he smiles and kisses her neck, before letting go of her hair. “Good girl.”
He heads into the bathroom and comes out twenty minutes later. I don’t bother to watch what he’s doing in any detail, because I’m basically too busy watching his wife. She’s listening carefully to the sounds from the bathroom, to the shower running, and she reaches deep under the mattress of their huge bed and pulls out a phone.
Fuck, she’s got a burner. Heart in my mouth for her, I watch as she starts to type a text. I want to see what it says, but no matter how I mess about with the monitoring equipment, I can’t see even when I zoom in. The camera isn’t quite in the right position.
This shit is high tech, but not good enough to let me read what she’s writing. Once she’s sent the message, she turns the phone off, and pushes it back under the mattress.
She gets out of bed to push it even farther under. Then she gets undressed. As she peels her sweatpants off, I wince at the bruises on her legs. She takes her top off, and in her underwear scoots back under the covers. Curled back up, she pulls the duvet up to her chin and closes her eyes again.
When her husband comes out of the bathroom, she doesn’t move, and he doesn’t say anything more to her.
What secrets are you hiding, Mrs. Madison?
I’m determined to find out.
Because for some reason, I’m determined to save her.
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