Page 24 of Shattered
An iciness crossed his face, chilling him to the core. “Don’t touch me, man,” he said. He backed away from me, running into one of the columns. “That’s messed up.”
“It’s what you did to Mel.”
“I didn’t fuck her in the ass!”
“But you did fuck her when she couldn’t retaliate,” I said, smiling. “Maybe you thought that her lack of response was consent. But it was rape, Jake. Don’t think any less of your actions.”
“What’s your problem?” His shoulders were rigid. Everything about Jake in that moment was locked in place, ready to fight. “Are you the serial killer or something?”
I let out a hardy, deep laugh. Jake forced a nervous laugh too, then took out another cigarette.
“If men like us don’t deserve punishment, then we don’t have to worry,” I said. I grinned, a show of friendship on my end.
“I guess you’re right.”
I raised a brow. “People only get what they deserve.”
We made small talk for a while after that, discussing a few different servers, my options, if you will. But I knew what I needed to know. Jake may not have physically hurt Melissa, but he knew what he had done.
“You coming in, man?” Jake asked. He pointed towards the door. “I can see if we can put Mel on the stage. I don’t think she’s been on in a while.”
There would be a time and a place to see Melissa face to face, but now was not the time. I lifted my phone. “Trying to take care of some business before I return.”
“Got it. See you inside.”
The door closed behind him. Jake was polite and charming if nothing else, but a friendly personality didn’t make you weren’t capable of horrendous acts. Underneath the surface of his sweet appearance, he viewed women as things to be manipulated, as if he was more powerful than them.
But I was smarter, more capable thanhim.
I glanced at my watch. A shift started at the hospital soon. I would have to leave in the next few minutes to get there with enough time to change. But my mind wandered to the club, what might have been going on in there. I imagined Melissa painted like a flower, posing in sultry positions, showing off her thick curves. Naked beneath the paint.
It was less of a risk seeing her at the house. I could wear my mask and she’d never be the wiser. But there was a certain thrill around the idea of being in her proximity, knowing that this wasn’t the first time I had seen her, but that she didn’t recognize me at all. I could sit at her stage, make eye contact, watch and observe the parts of her she chose to expose to me when I was unmasked.
But I couldn’t do that tonight. The last time I had been driven by impulse, I had created a witness out of Melissa when she was supposed to be at work. If I planned to go to the Dahlia District with the plan of playing with those gray areas, then that was another story. But letting my dick drag me into a situation that I hadn’t thought through wasn’t ideal.
I would have to see her soon, but for tonight, I would wait.
I drove to the Sage City Medical Center, putting on my scrubs and joining the rest of the buzzing emergency department. Staying out of the way. An employee of no notice. I didn’t overhear anything of suspect, nor did I see any patients who might be sex workers. That was good.
But I had another target in mind anyway. Jake wasn’t my typical choice. All of the men I had killed had purchased the services of sex workers, and yet hurt them, treating these women as if they were one-time-use, to be littered along the street afterward. It didn’t matter if they had black eyes, bruised necks, or basal fractures and bruises that would last for weeks. In those mens’ eyes, the sex workers were less than human.
Jake, on the other hand,seemedto think of Melissa fondly, and yet there was something missing there. He may have liked the idea of respecting someone like Melissa, but to fuck her unconscious body because she had refused his advances, showed no respect. In the end, he didn’t care about her, only that she served his purposes.
Was I so much better than Jake? Melissa was going to be part ofmypurposes too. But that was different. Putting her in a correctional institution wasn’t raping or beating her with my own hands.
Still, I would murder the fucker before I let Jake hurt her again.
I wasn’t Jake. I wasn’t Nick Vantage or Colin or any of the cockroaches I had murdered. I wasn’t even Aldrich. But I was still nefarious to my fucking bones.
