Page 44 of Roark
Roark lay there holding her, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal and telling himself repeatedly that just for now would be enough.
Chapter 14
London
He pulled on his boots and yanked the turnouts down over them. Standing, he adjusted the suspenders to keep the turnouts from falling down as he walked. The long-sleeved black shirt he wore covered him from his neck down to his wrists. He put on the jacket and buttoned it up before finding his gloves and slipping one on each hand.
There was no more preparation after that. It was time. But he still didn’t move. Thoughts ran through his mind, memories that would never disappear. Pain and betrayal. Lies and deceit. Disappointment and heartbreak. All those things circled the memories, forming the endless black smoke he now yearned to see and to smell. That smoke meant something to him—it meant redemption.
Ronnella McCoy’s house was in Hyde Park. Close to Maxine Donovan, and yet they hadn’t kept in touch. Or at least not that he knew of, and he knew about all of them. He knew about their career success, their marriages, their children, everything. But most of all he knew their faults, the things they didn’t show anyone in their new lives, the secrets they hid.
He drove to her house, parking directly across the street so he’d have a front row seat. It was well after midnight and he knew she’d be alone. Ronnella was always alone, a stark contrast to the vivacious former beauty queen she’d been in her teens and twenties. At one point she’d believed she had her pick of men and that when she was ready, whomever she’d selected would fall at her feet and worship her for the rest of her life. Forty-five years later, she’d never married, had no children and lived in this huge house alone.
He knew about being alone.
Stepping out of his car, he went to the trunk, opened it and removed the can of gasoline. The gun and syringe were in his jacket pocket. He grabbed the helmet and walked toward the house.
There was an alarm, but he already knew the code. Money really could buy anything, and what it couldn’t, blackmail could. Ronnella’s housekeeper was a flirty little brunette who talked a lot when she drank and fucked whoever was paying when she was drunk. He’d paid someone else to do the task for him, because the loud young woman wasn’t his type.
With the code memorized, he walked around to the back door and jimmied the flimsy lock. Ronnella had paid for a sophisticated alarm system but had a cheap lock on the doors, and he couldn’t muster up enough sympathy to feel sorry for her stupidity. As soon as he was inside, he closed the door quietly behind him and hurried to the control panel to punch in the numbers that would kill the alarm.
She should’ve heard the chirping sound of someone entering the house. He’d heard it and hadn’t been at all disturbed. He wanted her to know he was here.
With purposely slow steps, he moved through the house, going by the description the flirty housekeeper had given. He made a wrong turn and ended up in an exercise room instead of her bedroom, but he corrected that and three minutes after he’d entered her house, he was standing at her bedroom door.
He had twenty-seven minutes with her before it’d be time to leave. And time for her to die.
With a gloved hand, he touched the knob and let the fresh memory of that night so long ago seep into the forefront of his mind. For a few seconds he stood there with those thoughts, closing his eyes so he could clearly see every movement, hear every word, watch every flame again.
Pushing the door open, he stepped inside and stopped abruptly.
A naked man was on top of her, his ass cheeks clenching as he pumped into her. Ronnella lay beneath him, giving herself to him the way she gave herself to every man who suited her, every man who showed her the attention she craved. Another memory slammed into his mind, the one where he used to be the man Ronnella had wanted.
Fresh rage layered his purpose in the same instant she looked up and saw him. The two had been so engrossed in their sex, her moaning, the other man’s grunting, that they hadn’t heard him enter the house or the bedroom. Proving again how self-centered and foolish they were.
Ronnella screamed, and the other man turned.
“What the hell?” the man yelled.
A jolt of recognition hit him at once. The other man was Tony, his old friend and roommate. Tony was fucking his girl, again.
Tony grabbed the sheets to pull around him and pushed Ronnella behind him. “What do you want? How’d you get in here?”
Ridiculous questions. Why wasn’t Tony jumping out of the bed and looking for something to defend himself with, to defend Ronnella with? Because he was a selfish coward and even though he wasn’t in the plan for tonight, he was meant to die as well.
“You know what I want,” he said, walking closer to the bed. He set the can of gasoline down and felt a spurt of satisfaction as they both huddled together on that bed, fear evident on their faces.
That was what he wanted, their fear. He wanted to watch it contort their faces and fill their souls as they acknowledged the inevitable.
He pulled the gun out of his pocket, aimed it at Tony’s chest. “I want you to die,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Wait! Wait! If it’s money, I’ve got it. I can get you whatever you want. You want a jet to get out of here, cash, a car? I can get all those things at the drop of a dime, and nobody has to know. Nobody has to get hurt,” Tony insisted.
The idiot didn’t even know who he was. Tony came from money. Just like Gabe had. That made them both assholes at times, because they used that privilege whenever it suited them. He and Lem, they didn’t have money, but the four of them had bonded anyway. They’d forged a friendship in college, four Black men who were going to run the world. But that had never happened.
“You still trying to buy your way outta shit,” he spat the words, hatred filling every crevice of his damned soul. “I never gave a damn about your money.”
Ronnella gasped, and he knew that was the moment she recognized him. “No,” she whispered. “It’s impossible.”
