Eva
I knew it was bad when a hundred-dollar bottle of wine and take-out from my favorite restaurant wasn’t doing the trick. I stared at my dinner, a platter consisting of chicken marsala, roasted vegetables, and garlic mashed potatoes, and felt my stomach roil. I couldn’t eat, not even food from Lucrezia. Frustrated, I set my fork down and grabbed my wine. I took a healthy sip and waited for its warming effects to take over. But they never did. No amount of expensive wine would be able to combat this cold, empty feeling.
I missed him. I missed the woman I was when I was with him. I felt like I was in mourning, grieving for someone and a relationship that could never be. I didn’t want to think about Jamie anymore tonight. Despite the wine tasting like lukewarm water, I decided that it was going to become my friend and help me to forget all those times he had touched me, told me I was beautiful and kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world to him.
Shaking my head to dispel all those images, I filled my glass to capacity, grabbed a fleece blanket from the living room and dragged myself out onto the deck. The deck was small and needed some work, especially after the hurricane that had torn through the area last fall, but it was still safe and allowed me to take in the stunning view of the bay. With the blanket draped over my shoulders I watched the rough surf pound against the docks. I took a sip of wine and then set the glass down on the wooden railing. Huddled in my blanket, I looked at my neighbor’s home and then over to the homes next to it. They were pitch black, devoid of life and closed up for the season. I really was all alone. Typically, I didn’t mind knowing that I was the only living breathing soul for at least a few square blocks, but for some reason the thought made me feel uneasy. I wasn’t a paranoid person by nature and it took a lot to spook me, but I couldn’t dismiss what I was feeling. Pissed that what I considered to be my sanctuary, my refuge, was being infringed upon by God knows what, I thought it was wise to head back in and grab the gun that I kept in my console table drawer. I might not be paranoid, but I was a single woman who took precautions.
I slid the glass door open and had one foot inside when a voice made my muscles lock in place. “It really is a lovely night.” I turned and stared into Justin’s cold, dark eyes. Until this moment, I could never put a label on the emotion that resonated in his eyes whenever he looked at me for more than a few seconds. But as the biting wind whipped off the water and penetrated my blanket and the cotton pajama bottoms and tank top beneath, I was confident that I had properly identified that emotion.
Hatred. The man before me hated me. There was no doubt about that.
But what I didn’t know was why. I knew that he wanted the partnership, that he thought he deserved it over me and was willing to blackmail me to achieve it. But that alone couldn’t cause someone to loathe another so completely. Something else had to be at play. Something I had missed. But what?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
“You know why I came, sweetheart. I want an answer to my proposal.” He stepped closer, putting him just several feet away from me. I wasn’t confident that I would be able to step inside, close the glass door and secure the lock before he reached me, so I just remained in the open doorway. What was he doing here? Not that I was going to submit to his demands, but he had told me that I had two days to decide.
“Get the hell off my property.”
“Or what, Eva? Are you going to call the police?” he asked, his voice smug and way too complacent.
“I think I will, and while I’m telling them that there is an intruder on my property I may mention that said intruder is also blackmailing me, which as you know is a felony.”
His eyes narrowed, and that smug smile wavered.
“What? Didn’t you pay attention in law school?”
“Do you no longer care about your fallen priest? Are you willing to let him lose his career? His church?”
No, I wasn’t. But there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was going to sleep with this sociopath. “Fuck you.” I quickly stepped inside and attempted to shut the door when he rushed over and thrust his foot in its path. I was no match, and he easily pried the door open and pushed his way inside. He grabbed me by my shoulders and threw me to the ground.
“Oh, sweetheart. That is the plan. To fuck and to find out why you emailed Greg and Jeffrey and asked them to meet with you tomorrow morning.” How did he find out? It didn’t matter. What was important was that Justin knew that I was plotting something and the theories that were swirling in his mind had caused him to lose it. Which meant that he was dangerous and capable of anything. I needed my gun. But it was too far away, and he had already proven that he was quicker than I thought. “Why did you call the meeting, Eva? What were you planning?”
Anger dominated right now, not the need to preserve my life. It was foolish and just one example of how stubborn I could be. But I couldn’t help it. I hated this man and I wanted him to know just how far I was willing to go. “My plan was to bury you, to expose you for the dickless piece of shit that you are.”
His jaw clenched as he cocked his head to the side and then one of his fists disappeared behind him. “Dickless? Let’s explore that, shall we? Let’s see if I really lack in that department. Unzip my pants,” Justin said.
“You’re out of your fucking mind.” There was no way in hell I was going to touch his cock or any part of his body. “I’ll never submit to you.” My instincts told me to run, and I listened. I stood and started for the front door.
“Oh, I think you will.” The cock of a gun glued my slippers to the ground. “Turn around, sweetheart.” My heart was pounding, and I silently cursed myself for being so stupid, for not seeing Justin as the crazy son of a bitch that he was. I turned and faced him. “See, was that so hard? To follow my directions?” He shook his head and made an annoying tsk noise. “Why do women like you exist? Why can’t more women be like my sweet, compliant sister Katherine? Why must power hungry, self-serving cunts like you continue to infest my world?”
I was not immune to sexist comments, especially in my male-dominated field, but this lunatic sounded like he was completely unaware that we were living in the twenty-first century. I silently repeated his words and found myself hyperfocused on one in particular.
Continue.
“So I’m not the first? To infect your world, I mean?” There was only one reason I was engaging in conversation. I needed to distract him from raping and killing me.
His eyes grew even darker, which I didn’t think was possible. “You’re so much like her. From the way you talk down to people, to the way you care about nothing but yourself. You two were cut from the same ugly cloth.”
I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t the self-righteous, self-serving bitch he had just described. “Like who? Who do I remind you of?” I had to keep him talking. Because then maybe he wouldn’t notice that I was slowly drifting over to the console table.
“I think you and my mother would have been great friends,” he said.
“I remind you of your mother, yet you want to fuck me.” I regretted my quipped remark instantly, especially when I saw his nostrils flare and the vein at his temple throb.
“So incredibly smug. So convinced that the world owes you. So fucking entitled.”
I may have made mistakes in my life, like falling in love with my stepbrother and priest, but I was none of those things he had just accused me of. I had worked hard all my life to get to where I was. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was nothing like his mother or his perception of her. “What happened to your mother?”
“She got what she deserved. Death.”
His lips turned at the corners, displaying a sick, twisted smile. I wasn’t just dealing with a misogynist but a cold-blooded killer who showed no remorse. “You killed her.”
“My only regret was that I had waited so long to end her miserable life.”
He had killed his own mother. His admission meant only one thing. He wasn’t planning on me surviving this encounter.
“Now come here.” It killed me to comply, but when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun, a gun that was being held by a monster who just admitted to killing his own mother, you had little choice. I slowly walked over to him. “Kneel.” I fell to my knees, and I heard him chuckle. The bastard started to stroke my hair with one hand while the other pressed the tip of the gun to my temple. “You will submit to me. You will do everything I ask because if you don’t, I will put a bullet in your head and then fuck your still warm corpse.” I shuddered at the thought. But what filled me with bone-chilling dread was the look in his eyes, and that look told me that he would fuck me raw, dead or alive.
Jamie
My meeting with Edward had gone better than I hoped. He understood my plight and all but told me that he had expected this outcome. However, he did warn me that the laicization process could be a lengthy one. Edward did not have the power to give me dispensation from both the clerical state and from my vow of celibacy, as only the Holy See could grant such a request, which would allow me to remain in good standing with the church and marry Eva. Assuming she still wanted anything to do with me.
I sat back in my seat and replayed the events of this morning. Would she even be willing to talk to me, to hear me out? I had hurt her and made her doubt my feelings for her. She had every reason to slam the door in my face and tell me to get the hell away from her. But I had to try. My unborn son had made me see the truth. The thought of him gave me the boost of confidence I needed, causing me to sit up and press the gas pedal to the floor. According to Google Maps, Eva’s home was just a few minutes away.
I was lucky to have a brother who didn’t hold a grudge. He could have easily told me to go fuck myself when I had asked him to track down the address to Eva’s shore home in Stone Harbor. I had been a dick to him this morning when he had come to the rectory, even though I knew he had been trying to help and that he just wanted to see me happy. It had taken Nate all of five minutes to lift the address off the internet and text it to me. I had told him that I owed him big and he didn’t disagree. He had wished me luck and had warned me not to come home without Eva.
I turned down Eva’s street. It wasn’t difficult to locate her house, as it was the only home on the block with lights on. I parked out front and was heading up her walkway when I heard a man’s voice coming from the back of the house. Instead of knocking on the front door, I followed the voice and then I heard Eva’s clipped tone. Whoever she was speaking to was pissing her off. Whoever she was speaking to didn’t belong there. A wave of panic overtook me and I picked up the pace. I rounded the corner of her home, but neither the man nor Eva were there. I climbed the steps of her deck and peered into the room through the open sliding glass door.
Nothing could have prepared me for what was happening or what was about to happen to the woman I loved. With the tip of a gun nestled in her hair, Eva was kneeling before her colleague, Justin Hall. Her entire body trembled as she knelt there, submitting to that fuck because she had no other choice and then the bastard turned and faced me. “Father Curran, I hardly recognized you so . . . clothed. Do come in from the cold and join us.”
“Get out of here, Jamie!” Eva screamed. Tears streamed down her face while her eyes pleaded with me to obey her.
Not a chance in fucking hell.
“Let her go!” I said, stepping into the room.
“That’s far enough, Father. Another step and I’ll blow her brains out.” I froze. He returned his attention to Eva. “Do you know how long I have waited to have you like this? Staring up at me, with my cock just inches from those lips I’ve fantasized fucking? How patient I have been while I waited for you to break up with that ex-boyfriend of yours? I knew it was just a matter of time until you kicked poor Kevin to the curb. He was too nice, too respectful, too good for someone like you. You could never be satisfied with a man like that. Because you will always want more. I just hadn’t expected you to want more so quickly, especially with your stepbrother the priest. Imagine my surprise when I learned that you two were fucking. Imagine my delight at the gift that you had unintentionally given me.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Tsk, tsk. You didn’t tell him, Eva? About my little proposal?” She glared at him. “I’m shocked. You two seemed so . . . close.” He kept his eyes on her as he fisted her hair and bent her neck back. “Father, if you must know, Eva was presented with a wonderful opportunity. In exchange for fucking me and leaving the firm, I would keep quiet about the fact that you, Father Curran, are fucking your stepsister and agree not to disperse the photos that clearly captured your sin. But as you can see, Eva has not chosen wisely and she has forced my hand. Which means you will be forced to watch.”
No. No. No. “You fucking bastard! Don’t you fucking touch her!” I screamed.
“Okay. I’ll just have her touch me . . . with that hot little mouth of hers,” Justin said, releasing his grip on her hair. “Now take a few steps back, Father, and enjoy the show.” Justin grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look at me. The sadness, the fear in her gaze crippled me, and I prayed to the same God who had shown me such beautiful images just hours ago for help. I saw Eva’s eyes drift past me and land on something behind me. Her eyes widened slightly and then she again made a subtle gesture with her eyes. “Now unzip my pants and pull out my cock.” With trembling fingers she reached up and unzipped him. The sound made me want to vomit, but it was the torment in her eyes that crushed me. I took a few steps back until the back of my legs grazed a small console table, the very piece of furniture that Eva had been gesturing to. Something was in there. I prayed for that something to be a weapon, something I could use to kill the son of a bitch that was just seconds away from jamming his cock down the throat of the woman I loved. Justin squeezed her cheeks and said, “If you bite me, I will kill you and then kill your fallen priest. Understand, sweetheart?” He then released her harshly and waited for her to comply.
I slowly reached behind me and opened the console table’s only drawer. I dipped my hand inside and felt around. My fingers brushed against what felt like a notepad and a couple of pencils or pens. A few inches over, the pad of my thumb detected something smooth and cool to the touch. I flexed my hand and gripped what I knew was a gun, one that I hoped was loaded. I looked over at her and gave her a nod. I needed her to distract him, but not too much. There was no way her lips were going to touch that fucker’s cock. Eva pulled Justin’s pants down slowly, very slowly, giving me time to grab the gun and hold it behind me. Justin wasn’t wearing any underwear so his disgusting cock sprung forward, making Eva cringe.
Hold on, baby.
Justin started to stroke his cock and then told her to lick the head. Eva wrapped one hand around his shaft while the other cupped his balls and like I had hoped, Justin’s eyes fluttered from the sensation and his gun-wielding hand slackened a little. I seized the opportunity, drew my gun and fired. The bullet ripped through the fucker’s flesh, causing blood to spurt like a fountain from his neck. I was just about to pump another round into him when the piece of shit faced me and fired.