Page 16 of Soul

Chase’s eyebrows rise up to his hairline. “Well that was very big of you Ms. De La Torre,” Chase says formally with a hint of jest.

She smiles really widely. Uh-oh. Her tone is saccharine-sweet when she adds, “And then with the same tenderness and compassion she’s given our Gigi in the past, I reminded her that if she ever laid one of her skanky assed fingers on my best friend’s man again, I’d take that finger and break it. Then I’d happily break her face for good measure, so that her face would match her finger so she’d never have to understand what jealousy felt like.”

I look from Maria to Chase completely horrified. Leave it to my best friend to offer a wallop of drama at a graveside. Even if it is one hundred percent justified.

“Oh wow. Karma got evil on her ass,” Bree says under her breath, yet still loud enough for all of us to hear.

“Chase…” I start to try and smooth over the potential disaster this may have caused when he responds in the exact opposite way I would have ever expected. He laughs. Literally drops his head back, put his arms out to the sky and laughs. Loudly.

Eyes from every direction zero in on the hysterics that have overtaken my normally emotionally guarded business tycoon. I scowl at every person until they look away then wait for Chase to come back to himself.

“Fuck, I needed that.” Chase says after a long bout of laugher. So long that people are making a point to look everywhere but at the spectacle our little group has created.

“What?” Maria holds up her arms. “Theputadeserved it. Besides, it’s not like I hit her.” She grins again. “I wanted to, but I thought that would get me in trouble with one of them.” She points to a section of guys with earpieces, sunglasses, and black suits looking quite menacing. “Or those guys,” she points to another section. “Maybe even them,” again she scans the perimeter, “or perhaps those ones. They look downright jumpy for some action.”

“Chase, that’s a lot of guards.”

“Honey, they think McBride will come today. The announcement of Mother’s service was in the paper this week along with the location so mourners could attend and pay respects. It stands to reason that he’d want to see you again. I can’t take any chances. The FBI even has snipers in the trees watching for activity.”

“You’re kidding.” I search his gaze, and he shakes his head slowly.

“I wish I were.”

Daniel

When will they ever fucking learn? They think they can keep me from my girl? That the FBI and his rent-a-cops would prevent me from seeing her today. When I saw the announcement in the paper about the rich bitch’s funeral I could barely contain my excitement. Chase being in the hospital every second of the god damned day did not give me the chance to reconnect with my girl. Originally, my plan was to take her from the hospital. Just shoot her full of the tranquilizer again and mosey on out of there with her on a stretcher.

I even had the guy and ambulance picked out. But no, the stupid dick had to screw up my plans. I mean, really, who stays with a woman every second while they are in the hospital? He never left to sleep, or eat, or anything. The couple times they had her sedated that I could see, he had those bitches watching over her. As much as it would have made me bust a nut to take out all three of them at once, the two guards posted at her door and the dick’s presence ruined it.

Not for long. For the past two weeks they’ve been in hiding, but I suspect they are at the Davis Mansion. It’s the only place that’s heavily guarded, much more than it was before. Though I have a plan for that too. I’ve already met some of the guards at a local bar not far from the estate. They go there after their shift and toss back a few beers. I’ve been in there, they haven’t noticed any similarity between the person they are on the lookout for and the man I’ve become. Brunette hair, a full mustache and the start of a pretty good-sized beard has really helped. Add the contacts and voila, I’m a new man. I’ve even done some pretty stellar suits because a well-groomed man in a suit is not the guy they’re looking for. No, they’re looking for a blond, blue eyed man who works out a lot and is an accountant in a small firm. Was an accountant anyway.

I’ve always been good at numbers. Like the number one hundred and forty. The exact number of people between me and my girl.

Fourteen. That number signifies how many rows back I am from my Princess.

Six. The amount of people I’m going to have to kill to have her in my life forever.

Chase will never stop. Neither will that pig, Thomas Redding, especially if he keeps dating her best friend. Then of course there’s still the cousin who looks like a fucking Ken Doll who’s with one of her other friends. I can’t imagine going through life looking like a little girl’s toy. And of course yoga Barbie, though now I guess I’d say she’s prego Barbie. Still looks hot. I’d definitely stick my dick in her. Never fucked a pregnant woman before. Might be worth a round or two, make Gillian watch so she can see how nothing and no one will ever stand in my way getting to her. And last but not least, Phillip and Maria. Now those two are a pair. I need to think up something definitely evil to take them out. They have both thwarted my attempts to cage Gillian too many times over the years aside from recent events. They were always hanging around trying to take up my girl’s time when Gillian and I were dating. Fucking annoying.

I stare at the five people thinking about each one of them individually. Chase has all of them locked away, so I’m sticking with the theory that they are all at that mansion. Getting in there will be easy enough. Figure I’ll be working as one of Chase’s rent-a-cops in the next couple weeks. I’ll just mention that I’m looking for work the next time I’m at the bar when he’s there, give him one of my fake cards, and I’m in. Even if I have to take out one of the current guys to ensure an opening, that won’t be too hard. I’ve already got one in my sights. He’s a real piece of work. Fucks over his wife and kids, drinks his paycheck away at the bar. They’d be better off getting social security for his death than the mountain of debt I’m sure he’s got going on.

My musings stop cold as I watch Chase go over to where Gillian is sitting with her friends. She stands and he puts an arm around her then leads her to the front row. Dick.

“Let’s all take a seat,” says the priest at the front of the seating area where the casket is propped up like some kind of fucking altar. The woman was a hideous bitch, who yelled at my perfect girl, and made her feel inadequate. No one is allowed to make my girl feel like that. And the woman wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I warned her, but…she didn’t listen. You can’t blame a guy for taking her out. Anyone who has balls would do what I did. I put Gillian, and the rest of the world out of their misery when I slit that old hag’s throat. Man, and the waterfall of blood when I slid my blade clean through the pale skin of her turkey like neck was quite a sight.

Standing over the bitch really gave me a good view of it, too. The blood poured out like a wave cresting on a sandy beach. It was magical. When I killed that tree-hugging yoga cunt I was sitting behind her. Took away the cool visual. Though I’ll never forget having my legs and arms wrapped around her body as she shook then took her last breath. Her body was still warm when I left her on that wooden platform, her blood coating the shiny surface. As I recall these recent memories, my dick becomes painfully hard. What would it be like to fuck a woman while slitting her throat?

I scan the crowd and see that pathetic assistant I was fucking. She was good as far as fucking whores goes. She would be a good candidate to test my throat slashing theory while taking her like an animal. I can just imagine the warm sticky blood flowing over her chest, sticking to mine as I slide along her body. Or maybe I’d slit her from pelvis to breast and let her insides coat me while I fucked her to death. Literally.

Damn, and I thought my dick was hard before. Not even close to what it is now after that little fantasy. Now I just need to make fantasy reality. Maybe the boring, blonde bitch will be my fun until I can get to my girl.

Speaking of my girl. She’s ethereal today. So perfect in her black suit. Though it makes me sad that most of the marks I gave her have faded. Guess it just means she’ll be a nice blank canvas when I get her back. Then again, I did notice she wobbled on her small heels when she came up the hill with the prick. Maybe the marks at her ankles are still there. That thought makes me extremely happy. Knowing that every day when she looks down at her ankles she’ll be thinking of me. Of the time the two of us shared for four blissful days. And then she was taken. Stolen from me.

That will not happen again. Someone has to pay for that, and if it’s not Chase, it’s going to have to be her friends. I’m tired of these bitches. They’re always there, hanging around, filling my Gillian’s head full of stupid shit that doesn’t matter. And I was making such progress, too. I’d gotten her to eat a little, and she had put on the tank top I brought her. Those were steps in the right direction. A couple more weeks in her cell and she probably would have bent over backwards to get into the motor home. Now it’s all gone. Seized by the fucking, federal government as a crime scene.

I will not let that setback ruin me. As it is, I’m here, looking at my girl, though now, she’s twenty-two rows ahead of me, in the very front. Chase has his arm around her, his fingers rhythmically massaging her shoulder. I want to scream at him to get his hands off her but I can’t. I cannot let my emotions control me. I’m too good for that. No, I will have her back but it will be in my time and when it best suits me. In the meantime, I think she needs to be reminded of what’s at stake if she chooses to continue this farce of a relationship with rich fucker. In the end, it’s going to be me or the lives of the people she calls family. It’s a pretty easy choice, but I know how stubborn my girl is. She may need some time to think about it. I’ll give her that. And while she’s thinking, I’ll be taking action.

I look at the five heads of the people that Gillian adores. Some more so than others. And then it becomes so clear. She works in a dark location that’s not heavily guarded, easy enough to get to. Especially if I scope it out at night, set up some cameras, watch the place for a few days, get to know the routines of everyone there.

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