Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Scar grunted.
“The boy got a bedroom in there decorated for a dead girl. That’s how gone the woman is. She painted it all. Got paintings of animal carcasses in it. The whole time while Stone is away, she has that boy dress up like a girl and pretend to be one. She told me his name was Constance. I almost killed her right there.”
“You going to tell Stone?”
“No way. I’ll handle it myself. Give her a few more years to get it together. If not, then a knife her chest. She doesn’t deserve anything else.”
“Sir?” The voice sounded from in front of me. “Mr. Stone?”
My hands shook. My heart boomed in my chest. Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them. Last thing I would do is cry in front of my own men, while I stood in Benny’s twisted penthouse.
If not, then a knife to her chest?
I forced myself to calm down, pushed all those crazy memories out of my head of Mom. All this time I figured Benny had something to do with her death. I couldn’t figure out why, just that it had to be him. He’d come by several times to check in. Each time he had that look of disgust on his face. I was just a boy at the time, not understanding why the dress and bows were wrong, just that I couldn’t tell anybody or Mom would be angry.
No one had ever known about those moments, not even Dawn. After a while, for some summers, Dad didn’t come visit us in Italy. It gave Mom more time to pretend. Always an artist, she’d done several family portraits of us, but in those, I wasn’t a boy. I wore a dress and those same black bows that she always loved to pin in my head.
If not, then a knife to her chest?
Chills ran through me.
“Sir?”
That was exactly how I found her.
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“We have everything.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” I gripped the book hard in my hand.
Who knew what type of man I would’ve become if Mom had continued to live? I might’ve been more messed up. Maybe some sort of badly fashioned crossdresser. It didn’t matter. I loved the woman—craziness and all. The morning I discovered her, lying in the bed with the knife stuck in her chest, that morning ruined me for all the women to come.
I’d kept my heart far away from people for years, after that. Made sure tons of women circled me, but I never got too close. Perhaps, that was what Dawn, Wendy, and Lucy represented. They symbolized my inability to truly connect to one. The only reason I stayed so loyal to Dawn was because we both lost our mothers around the same time. We shared that bond and other horrific tragedies, including Lucy. For that, I did my best to remain faithful to them both, as much as I could.
But no one had every trapped my heart like Mom, not until Jasmine came along.
Would I have been better if Mom had never been killed? Who knows. Benny never gave me a chance to see what I would’ve become. You did kill her, and now I’ve confirmed it.
Holding the notebook in my hand, I stormed out of the office.
I hope you put your will in order, Benny. I don’t care if Jasmine begs, you’ll die and I’ll do it myself.
My phone rang in my pocket. “Great. What else?”
I put the phone to my ear. “Yes?”
“Sir, I went downstairs to check on the scream.” It was the guard who I’d ordered to find out about the little girl in the stairwell. “When I arrived at the fourth level, a man was holding a little girl and he had his hand wrapped around her mouth so she wouldn’t make any more noises.”
“Okay?”
“He let her go, held up his hands, and asked to talk to you.”
“He said my name?”
“Yes. He asked to speak to Chase Stone.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s refusing to say anything else besides that he wants to speak to you and he doesn’t want Ms. Sophia Montgomery around when he talks to you.”
“He said her name like that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Interesting.
“Where are you?”
“Still on the fourth level. I chained him to the staircase. I’ve got my gun on him.”
“Okay. I’m coming.” I hung up the phone and turned to one of my guards. “Stay here with Ms. Montgomery. Help get her to the limo and tell her that I’ll be there shortly. And don’t let her out of your sight. Keep her in the limo by gun-point if you have to.” I pointed to the other one. “Come with me.”
Chapter 10
Jasmine
Before I arrived with Benny to the rotting mansion, Vivian had drowned herself in paint. She’d put murals in all three of our rooms. For Troy, she’d formed the universe on the ceiling. Constellations lit up in glow-in-the-dark paint above him. For her room, she drew a forest, wild and rich with fruit. Lush nymphs chased after satyrs, their full breasts bouncing as they dove for those muscled men with goat tails and legs. Their horns were sharp and erect. Their tongues thick and wet as they stuck them out, taunting the nude maidens.