AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead I was wondering how my father had ever been my hero and not the man my sisters barely tolerated. They loved him. They didn't like him. And me – had I spent all that time idolizing him and wanting to do what he did as a way to placate myself? To make sense of what he'd done?
By the time we reached the end of the hallway I had an answer.
I wanted to be a cop because that was how I was made. My mother might be weak, but she kept us from actual serious harm. Only twice had my father taken his belt to me and both times it was serious, once life threatening, once just so fucking stupid I'd have done it to my own daughter (seriously, smoking and in my father's backyard?)
But my mother did take care of those she loved. I might not love everyone in Seattle – drive across town with me and it was possible to hear me wishing for a phaser from Star Trek so I could disintegrate the terrible drivers in front of me and that was when I wasn't in a hurry – but I cared about people in general. I hated to see drug dealers profit from the misery they wrought.
I was me because of a combination of things in my past, and because of the way I was built. Born this way, I guess. And whatever parts of me wanted the masochistic things in life, nothing in me wanted whatever was coming. I wanted a power exchange. I wanted negotiation. I wanted to sometimes go out to dinner wearing panties and not being considered a flight risk by my "date." I didn't want to sit on the floor at my Master's feet every meal. Sometimes I wanted to say I know fish is good for me. Fuck fish. I'm not eating this.
And this time I was jolted from my thoughts the second I realized my father's abuse hadn't made me this way.
I was who I was.
I was going to get through this because I wanted a chance to talk to St. Martin. And because I needed to know I could, especially in the wake of Vincent and Kie.
I'd tell myself I wasn't going to look for revenge, too.
But that might have been a lie.
36
Cole
Leaving Annie was hard. Leaving Annie to Claude when I knew what was going to happen, at least in generalities, was hard.
And right. If we had a future together, it depended on her ability to understand who I was and submit. I didn't change. Since I'd learned who I was and what I needed, since the last actual girlfriend, one of those not after money but who actually liked me for me, left because of the real me coming out from under cover, the only relationships that lasted were contractual.
Those only lasted when the contract was slanted completely in my favor. Why shouldn't it? I was Master.
It had been a long evening but it wasn't late. I paced the compound hallways above ground, checking in with the techs in the monitoring room. There was a skeleton crew when things were normal, as they were now, but I still had people around who could react at a moment's notice to do what I needed. When they weren't doing more than monitoring, they were free to hack to their heart's content, create new tech and sell it for a bundle and quit if they wanted, read books, work out, eat cheese puffs.
"Boss? Something up?"
Sheila was the newest shift leader. There were only three of them on tonight, monitoring my stocks, monitoring my properties.
Not monitoring Claude's home in the gated neighborhood. There was no way to do that. Among other things, the gated community itself had plenty of tech to keep its super rich residents' information safe. I'd never had anybody try to crack the security protocols, not even on a whim. Until I needed to send Annie somewhere, Claude wasn't often in my thoughts.
Now didn't seem the time to try and break into his camera feeds. Besides, whether from pride at his own doings or simply because he'd said he would, he probably would send me videos of what had transpired.
If he sent me streaming video, live as it happened, would I run over and stop it?
No.
It was early. Not even eleven yet. I poured myself a bourbon and sat down by the windows in the front room, the comfortable front room, not the rich welcome to my insane fortress of solitude in the Nevada wastes living room.
There was no view. It was too dark to see the mountains, too overcast to see the stars. Maybe I should move into a neighborhood like Claude's.
Damn. Maybe I should do something to distract myself.
Maybe I should work.
Maybe. As soon as I opened my eyes.
My eyes flew open. The bourbon I'd been cradling on my chest when I fell asleep in the easy chair sprayed across the room in an arc. At my shout, house lights came up. No security came running. That was good.
I was on my feet in an instant, one hand to my throat, because I wasn't breathing. The other went to my heart.
Because it was racing.
