Page 29 of Cruel Dominion

“I mean, I guess it’s nice that you’d be here too.”

A giant stupid grin spread on my face, and I was glad she couldn’t see that either. Grateful for the forgiving darkness of the beach at night.

I wasn’t stupid though, and my smile quickly faltered, a leaden weight pressing on my chest.

She was the rich girl who had everything, including a dad who called the shots on every single breath she took.

“What’s your old man gonna say about that?” I asked.

She sighed and I looked over at her. She was staring up at the sky like it might give her some secret wisdom or maybe grant her a wish.

“I don’t care,” she said, rolling over and leaning on her elbows so she was looking down at me. “I have to stand up to him one day. Otherwise, it will never end.”

“He won’t like that,” I said. I knew the Hudson Vaughn from the news, but she lived with the real life version. I was all for toppling the evil dictator, especially if it meant we could be together but I couldn’t give her the things she had. Not right now. Not today. But with some time, some luck, and a hell of a lot of hard work…

“I don’t care what he wants. He doesn’t care what I want.”

I clenched my jaw because no. Fuck that. It was bad enough that he got to call the shots all the time. I didn’t want to lie here thinking about him. This was the only place he didn’t matter and I wanted to keep it that way, even if one day, he might be the end of us.

“I do,” I whispered. “I always will.”

9

CARTER

Ipressed the balls of my hands into my tired eyes. The pressure felt good. I leaned back in my seat, stretching my back out. A glance at the corner of my computer screen told me the time.

It was eight. What remained of daylight slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I had about two more good hours in me.

That was how it was in the past; nose to the fucking grindstone day after day, but I wasn’t fighting anyone anymore. I had more money than I knew how to spend. I didn’t have to work like somebody was chasing me anymore, but the old work ethic had stuck. That was the thing about money though. I had had nothing, so I knew that it wasn’t permanent. If I could make it, I could lose it too.

I looked over at the photograph on the wall directly across from my desk. Of the beach at night. Grayish white clouds crouched in the navy stillness, but the moon shone brightly through them, illuminating them from within. The silvery light reflected off the water.

The image was captured at exactly the right moment to catch both the waves washing up on the shore and rolling down. Every other wall was bare, no paintings, art, nothing. I wasn’t a sentimental guy, but that was just because I never had anything worth keeping until Anna gave me the negative of that photograph. It was a miracle that by the time I had the money to have it properly developed and framed, it wasn’t worn off from my constant need to pull it out and stare at it through lamplight.

Why don’t you just use a digital camera like a normal person, I had asked her once. The reason was that some people with the most cutting-edge digital cameras couldn’t take pictures as good as she took with 20th-century technology. I wondered if she still felt the same way. She was talented.

I was biased, but I was also right.

That picture was the first thing I saw whenever I looked up from my computer. It was impossible to look at it without thinking of her.

A punishment, but also a snapshot of some of the most peaceful nights of my life.

Seeing it day in and day out motivated me like nothing else could.

God, I needed to see the beach tonight. Not just the photo on my wall, or in my mind. I needed to feel the sand. Smell the sea. Anything to bring me the calm I would need to stop myself from getting on the highway, driving to St. Louis and killing this Josh asshole without even a lick of real evidence that he was the one who hurt her or put that bulletin out on the dark web.

The massive villa was an investment property but it was also a 3.9 million dollar fuck you to everyone who lived on this end of the beach.

When I was younger, guys like me would get the cops called on them if we hung out within five miles of here. Now, I could take a shit out there if I wanted and nobody could say a word. I just wanted to be near the water. And this was the perfect spot.

Just a little ways past the halfway point, tipping toward the wealthy end. This was where I met her so many times I lost count.

I parked the Ducati and entered the villa, discarding my jacket on the stool in the kitchen knowing it would be hung on a mahogany hanger in the closet before I woke up tomorrow morning. The staff here came and went like ghosts.

That was our beach out there; me and Anna. The best nights of my life were spent twenty yards from the back door. And now a piece of that was mine forever.

The place was way too big for me. I could easily fit a family of seven or eight in the house if I wanted to. Kids had never crossed my mind because typically, they came with a wife, something I’d resigned myself to never having. There was no woman I wanted enough to share my last name with.

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