Page 5 of Savage Possession
Sweet angel.
That cute little nickname makes me want to tell my father I’m done being the dutiful daughter he demands I be. I’m done being the faithful daughter who falls in line with anything he needs from me.
I want to feel loved, and that is exactly how Ash made me feel. I never felt my body tingle the way he made me.
But four days might as well be a lifetime ago in my world. I would do well to forget the tempting man that smelled of forbidden lust and dreams. And our kiss.
Since my time with him, I’ve been to New York, California and now I’m freshly off a plane and sitting in the back of my father’s black limousine heading toward the grungy side of New Orleans. The side locals use for shady deals and dirty deeds they want no one witnessing.
How do I know? My father has spent the last three years pulling back the curtain on the family business and showing me how he operates.
Trust me when I say the aging man is not a huge fan of me telling him his crimes will land him in prison one day.
He turns a nasty shade of red, and I end up with another bruise.
He was never a fan of my mother telling him the truth either, come to think of it.
Anyway, my gangster wanna-be father has constructed a delicate and lethal web of deceit and deception over the course of his three-year criminal career.
But no one really sees the fingers he has in all the poisonous pots around here. He’s good at keeping his mask in place. But if you see past the shadows and cloaks, you’d see behind the handsome veneer is a man rotten to the core.
The world outside the darkly tinted glass blurs by in streaks of dull green and gray, Louisiana swamp replaces the city lights outside while inside, the air is cool enough it prickles against my bare arms.
The leather seat is buttery soft, but the chill bites deeper, sinking all the way to my bones. My father says nothing as he sits across from me, with his hands folded over a thick file in his lap. His sharp eyes are fixed on some invisible point out the window. Every so often he glances at me. It’s a quick, clinical brushing of his gaze like he’s trying to read my body language or decide if I am worth the effort to try to convince me the dark side is better.
“Why are we in this part of town?”
Guessing the answer isn’t hard, but I want to see how much he’s willing to admit to. It’s amusing to see him flustered as long as he keeps his hands to himself.
“Business,” I get back gruffly and I simply nod at his single word answer.
It wasn’t always like this. When mother was alive, he would laugh and share stories about the men he had dealings with in various cities. Now he drags me along as if he’s afraid I’ll leave the second I am out of his sight for too long.
I’m not going to tell him, but the man is not wrong.
Every detail about tonight is heightened, and I feel strung tight. Like something is about to happen, but I have no idea what. Whatever it is hanging over me, it won’t let my heart rate settle ever since we landed back in New Orleans.
My father tosses a thick manila folder onto the seat between us. It lands with a heavy thud, the weight of it reverberating up through my thigh. I stare at it for a long moment, reading the gold-stamped initials on the tab. My father’s company name marks the cover:Fontaine Shipping and Holdings.
I swallow, knowing better than to reach for it with him in the car. I don’t have to, when I can read a name scrawled up the side of a piece of paper sticking out of the folder. Just seeing it turns my stomach. Grayson “Grudge” Caine.The memory of the biker president of the Vultures makes my skin prickle. He’s been circling my father for months, always angling to find me alone in the office or always eyeing me like I’m part of the deal. My father brings him in weekly for “consultations”, but I call bullshit on that. They are up to something, I just don’t know what yet.
When that slimeball shows, I always make myself scarce. It’s the only time I can leave the property without a tail on my ass. Sometimes I wander the old property and get lost between the swaying willows and the graveyard at the back of our property.
Other times I grab a set of keys and head out to a coffee shop that is on my father’s pre-approved route. So he thinks. I like to wander and that is how I found Ash.
Damn it.
There I go again. I can’t stay away from his memory for long, apparently.
As the limo turns off the main highway and rattles over broken concrete, I peer out the window. The city recedes, swallowed by weeds and crumbling industry. The landscape is a patchwork of muddy lots, sagging warehouses, and distant silhouettes of cranes standing sentry against the darkening sky. The sun is a bruised gold, sagging low and tired, bleeding pink and violet over rusted metal and asphalt.
When we finally roll to a stop, the floodlights snap on, harsh and blinding, carving the world into ugly slices of white and black.
We turn down a barely visible road that is barely more than a path. This far outside the city, there are sporadic buildings that served as warehouses from times gone by. Another few miles and the cleared brush gives way to the bayou. Last night’s rain and deep potholes make the ride rough. Vegetation grows thicker before we finally come to a stop. Discarded metal barrels lie scattered among the tall grass and dead trees with more stacked outside a large wall.
Which brings me to the main attraction.
Dead ahead stands a stilted shack of death. There’s no way anything goes in there and comes out alive. Or at least with their soul intact.
