AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was here because he saved my life. It was that simple. And if this made us square, I'd walk away. I'd already walked away, but I'd come back to southern Nevada for school. I liked it here. That was fine.
But I needed it to be for me.
No more submission.
Last minute check in with myself. All of my thoughts running faster than it took to tell. The small plume of dust the vehicles couldn't help raising was closer but there was still a tiny bit of time.
I pounded a fist on the guard shack.
They already knew I was there. Not like they hadn't watched me circling the building like I thought I was invisible. That's okay – I wasn't hiding from them.
"There are police coming here," I said the instant the door opened. And stopped.
I didn't recognize a single one of them. Shit. There wasn't time to explain who I was. I needed them to react by letting me in because my appearance would get St. Martin moving.
Or they could call up to the house, but they wouldn't if they didn't know who I was.
There were four men there. Not one was familiar. St. Martin had cleaned house. Made sense Jason had been a risk, a dangerous thug who worked in his own service before anyone else's. I knew a couple of the others, none well, which was how I'd manage it too if I were keeping a captive – I'd keep her from getting friendly enough with the guard to persuade them into her favor.
They reacted fast. There was a shift leader, evident because he stood behind the others, one hand on the phone to the house, the other on a service weapon he hadn't unholstered.
"I'm not armed." I was wearing tights and a t-shirt, running shoes and socks, I had a water bottle and my phone in a pocket on the tights. I held both hands up and the shift leader nodded at the man closest to me who ran a fast, professional pat down.
"She's clean."
Four men, all tall, buff, armed. They wore white polo shirts and khaki pants. St. Martin had created a better force than when Jason led the crew.
I looked back over my shoulder. Time was running out. "Listen to me. My name is Annie Knox." I waited a beat.
Good. My name registered.
"Cole St. Martin knows who I am. I came here because I'm part of a criminal justice program – "
Confusion, but slight. They knew I was a cop.
"I'm getting my BA." No time to explain. "I learned from a student working with the DA's office there's going to be a raid. There's a party tonight, right?" I knew that.
They didn't pretend otherwise.
And so I told them the rest in three breathless sentences. That they needed to be unarmed because they were private security and they did not want to look like a threat.
That they could accompany me in, but not telling St. Martin it was me would have a faster effect than phoning him. I hoped. Because I could be confident if I wanted to, about judges in pockets and money paving the way. But truth was there were women in the world who he'd helped and I was one of them. If he was locked up, he'd be ruined. His corporation could move on without him, but his research into rainforest cures for opiate addiction would never find FDA approval.
I didn't know what would happen to Ariel, the girl in his maze who I didn't think anyone else could have kept alive and who didn't have anywhere else to go.
He'd helped Chloe. He'd helped other women around the world.
He'd saved my life.
I let the shift commander lead me to the front door.
14
Cole
Everyone plays with a different dynamic.
The two groups I've been part of in southern Nevada have been a mixed bag. There are couples that are hardcore 24/7 Master/slave and never anything else. Clyde and Chloe were that way, though it turned out to be more of a domestic violence situation toward the end. Whether it started that way was something I had yet to learn from her. We weren't a couple and probably wouldn't be. Tonight was our first time together and it was an experiment.
