Cold Cole Heart Read online

  I wake to a gentle bite on my shoulder. A rough squeeze on my breast. The naked man behind me on the bed is not Cole. It’s all wrong.

  How many days have passed?

  Too many.

  Each day is more of the same.

  Alan drags me up to his office each morning to be shown around like I’m some pony at the fair. Reporters ask me questions relentlessly. FBI agents loiter around. I can’t trust them because they’re buddy-buddy with Alan. All I can do is pay attention to what he does, who he talks to, and how it affects me or Cole. The most useful thing I found while on my days with him was his safe. A safe I peeked at while he entered the code. Whatever’s in there, I want it. Sometimes, for a few hours, he leaves me at home. Locked in my room, but at least I’m free from his filth.

  My mind drifts to yesterday when I was a prisoner to said filth.

  “Thank you, Cynthia,” Alan says, wearing his movie star smile.

  Cynthia, his secretary about ten years his senior and married, giggles at him. “You’re welcome, sir.”

  As soon as she exits his office, he stands from his desk and slowly walks over to his door. The click of the lock snapping into place sends a ripple of panic trembling through me.

  We’re alone. All alone.

  I close my eyes and take a ragged breath. I’ve been under his thumb for years. Just because I was granted a reprieve for a couple of months doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything I learned. My patience isn’t without reward. I’ve studied his habits. Watched where he keeps his things. Paid attention to the numbers he keys in on his safe. His hold on me won’t last forever. I won’t allow it.

  When his belt makes a jangling sound, fear claws its way up inside of me. My fingernails dig grooves into the wooden arms of my chair that’s situated across from his desk. I’d be a fool to think he wouldn’t or couldn’t hurt me with people on the other side of his door. He showed me that yesterday when he forced me to my knees and made me choke on his dick. I shudder violently at the memory.

  “Bend over the desk,” he instructs in a cold tone.

  I steal a look his way. His lips are curled up into a mean smile. A smile that says he has always enjoyed inflicting pain on me. When I don’t respond to his instruction, he stalks my way. His strong hand grabs my bicep and he yanks me up.

  “You know,” he snarls quietly, spittle showering on my face, “it was always my intention to get rid of you. The moment you turned twenty-one and I got a hold of all my money.”

  It’s not your money, motherfucker.

  His head cocks to the side as though he can read my thoughts. “However,” he says, releasing my bicep to stroke my cheek with his knuckle, “I’m not going to let you go. In a couple of days when the paperwork is ready, we’ll go down together. You’ll sign the documents, we’ll make some transfers, and then we’ll come home. Home is where you’ll spend the rest of your life spreading your legs for me, Natalie. Home is where you’ll cook all my meals and clean my house. Home is where you’ll never leave. If it were socially acceptable, I’d marry you and stake claim on you that way too. But the media would have a fit if I married my cousin—blood related or not.”

  I want to scream at him that I hate him, but I bite my tongue. I can wait a couple of days. And when he takes me to the bank to make the transfers, I’ll flat out refuse. I’ll take the money and flee. He won’t do a damn thing to me in front of other people. Alan is a coward. Patience is my friend.

  “Bend over, sweetheart,” he instructs. “Take your ass whippin’ or I’ll take your ass.”

  I take my whipping like a champ. Soundlessly. Bravely. My revenge keeps my mouth sealed shut.

  Tomorrow is the day. I’ll take my inheritance and get the fuck away from Alan. And somehow, someway, maybe I can use it to get Cole back too. The heart is a wishful thinker.

  Another bite, harder this time, to my shoulder makes my body stiffen. Awareness settles over me like a prickly fog. My tormentor lies beside me, disguising his awfulness beneath caresses and playful bites.

  I hate him.

  I keep waiting for him to fuck me this morning—every morning since I came back—but he doesn’t. I’m not sure what keeps him at bay each day from having sex with me, but I keep my guard up anyway. His cock is hard as he rubs between my thighs. I close my eyes, trying to pretend this is all a very bad dream.

  “You’ve been acting so strangely,” he murmurs against my throat, making me shiver. “You’re hiding something.”

  I shake my head and his palm slides to my stomach. My entire body freezes at his touch. He lets out a snarl and slaps my breast so hard I scream.

  “Get up,” he barks. He’s already out of the bed and storming from the room.

  Frantically, I slide out of the bed and hunt for clothes. But there are none. He hasn’t given me an outfit to wear to his office today. He returns wearing sweatpants, thankfully, with a plastic sack and throws it at me. I catch it and peer inside.

  A pregnancy test.

  I shake my head. “I’m not pregnant,” I lie to him.

  “Piss on the stick and prove it.”

  “Please,” I beg.

  He stalks off and for a moment I think he’s given up. When he returns with his cell phone to his ear, I panic. “What’s the status on Heart?”

  Someone yaps in his ear loud enough for me to nearly hear that end of the conversation.

  “Do what you have to do,” he says and then glowers at me.

  “N-No,” I choke out. “I’ll go right now.”

  He gives me a pleased grin. “Baker, hold off. I’ve changed my mind.”

  Once he hangs up, I tearfully go into the bathroom. He follows, watching my every move like a hawk. There will be no fooling him. It only takes a couple of minutes for me to prove to him what I already know. I’m pregnant.

  “It’s not mine?” he asks, his cold glare boring into me.

  I grit my teeth together, fear keeping them closed. He prowls toward me and I try not to flinch. His hot breath suffocates me, our faces just inches apart.

  “He fucked you, didn’t he? Did you like it when he came in your little cunt?” His words come out so low I almost don’t hear them.

  My tears leak out in response. There is no right answer here. They’re all wrong.

  “Answer me,” he growls. “Is the baby mine?”

  “No,” I whisper. “I’m a little over seven weeks. It’s his.”

  His features harden as his eyes narrow. “They told you this at the hospital?”

  I nod, hot tears leaking down my cheeks. With quick movements, he grabs a handful of my hair and drags me through the bedroom. I scream and swing at him, but he’s too fast. Too strong. We wrestle, but his strength outmatches mine. It always has. His body lands on mine on the bed, pinning me. A terrified moan ravages through me when his lips brush over my neck.

  Pain. So sharp and brutal.

  His teeth sink into my neck hard and I squirm to escape his brutality. He only bites me harder, locking his teeth in like some rabid dog. I know the moment he breaks the skin because I feel the blood run hot from the holes his incisors inflicted.

  “P-Please s-stop,” I beg through my tears.

  He gropes my sore breast as his mouth leaves my wound. His lips hover at my ear over my hair as he rubs his hard cock through his clothes against me.

  “Let’s get something through your pretty little skull right now, Natalie. I’ll never stop. Not ever.” His hand dives between my thighs where he rubs at my pussy. “This was always mine.”

  I know what happens next based on the way his cock keeps jabbing at me. My mind wants to slip to Cole. To remember how he’d made love tenderly to me so many times. I can’t help but think about how we tried so hard to protect me from this moment.

  I’ll never be safe from Alan.

  The dark, despondent thought nearly consumes me.

  As he yanks down his sweats, I grasp for a mental image of Cole.

  As he impales me painfully,
I remember all the times Cole filled my heart and my soul.

  As he bruises my hips with his fingertips, I think of the permanent marker Cole carved into my flesh, reminding me of whom I truly belong to.

  The physical fight bleeds from me and I beat him in my mind. Because in my mind, he can’t touch one hair on my head. My memories all belong to Cole. Everything belongs to Cole.

  I’m still drifting in a black nothingness of my mind when I feel the offending part of him leave my body. A trail of heat is left smeared against my inner thigh.

  It will wash. It will wash. It will wash.

  I zip up the brutality in my mind and open up a bag of revenge. I dig and dig and dig into it until I find the fire I need to defeat this animal.

  I will defeat him.

  Smack!

  A sharp pain across my thigh steals me from my thoughts and thrusts me into the present. My pussy burns and shame stains my soul. But it’s hate that buzzes like electricity through my nerve endings. It’s hate that sends a thrill of defiance and determination through me.

  I finally become fully aware, blinking away the rest of my daze, tied to the bed by my wrists. Alan sits on the edge of the bed looking through a file, his pants pulled back up into place. He smirks when he realizes I’m awake.

  “These reports are very interesting,” he says, thumping the paper with his knuckle. “It’s amazing what money will buy you. Copies of files. Leaked information. What I managed to get from a field agent regarding Cole Heart’s file is enlightening. Did you know he was delusional?” He laughs. “That motherfucker was crazy. The rants he went on to his psychiatrist are straight up eerie. All those girls he murdered.” Then, his eyebrow lifts as he reads silently from a report. “Or not…”

  He reads aloud. “Patient is experiencing delusions from psychosis. I believe his PTSD has evolved into a persecutory delusion. One where he thinks he is responsible for bringing justice to people who are deceased. Intermittent explosive disorder also explains his outbursts of violence and anger. Where he behaves in erratic, extreme ways, he doesn’t seem to be acting on them. He explains in vivid details their supposed murders, but when I ask for more information, he seems confused. Often, he shuts down and changes the subject. When I bring them up again, he laughs at me, comes on to me, or ridicules me.”

  Alan runs his palm up my thigh and squeezes me. “Sound like our boy?”

  “Fuck you,” I growl.

  “I believe I just did.” His nostrils flare. “You’ve grown quite a mouth on you, sweetheart. I’m going to have fun retraining you.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You know,” he says coolly. “They never found any bodies.”

  I gape at him. “W-What?”

  “They found panties and other personal belongings. Hair brushes. Mirrors. Lipsticks. Lots of DNA they’ve sent off to process.” He scratches at his jaw. “But no bodies. Do you think our boy is a liar?”

  I saw the pure mania in his eyes. Terrifying. There’s no way he was lying. But then I recall how he’d stare at me as if I were Anta. Called me her name like he believed it. What else could he have convinced himself of?

  My heart aches for him.

  “I’ve done all I can do from my end, but they won’t be able to hold him for much longer without something,” Alan sneers. “Not without bodies. Do you think he’ll come after you? For his baby?”

  Yes.

  And he will kill you for what you did to me—for touching what belongs to him.

  Slowly. So slowly.

  I hope Alan chokes on his own dick when Cole forces it down his throat.

  “Let me go,” I order firmly. I twist my wrist within the binding and my heart does a leap when it gives some. “Let me go and I won’t tell them you’re a rapist bastard. I won’t tell them you’re abusive. That you murdered my mother. You can keep the money.”

  He rises from the bed and walks over to the closet. “I didn’t personally kill her.”

  Hearing him voice what I always knew deep down starts a fire burning inside me. I watch him with as much hate as I can shoot his way. He disappears into the closet and returns with a hanger.

  “I want to make something crystal clear to you, sweetheart,” he says as he fiddles with the hanger. “You’re never leaving me. Ever. But that”—he motions at me—“has to go.”

  Cold horror washes over me.

  He wouldn’t.

  That asshole wouldn’t dare.

  But as he begins untwisting the wire on the hanger, panic rises up in me. I frantically yank at my bindings. His eyes gleam with wickedness as he fashions a hook-like tool out of the wire hanger. When he approaches, I see blood red. Hate and fury and violence bursts inside me.

  But I’m helpless.

  An animal caught in a trap.

  He whaps my shin with the hanger and I cry out in pain. I twist my legs together to bide me some time.

  Whap! Whap! Whap!

  It hurts, but I’ll be damned if I don’t put up a fight. There’s no way in hell I’ll allow him to end my pregnancy with a freaking coat hanger.

  Whap! Whap! Whap!

  Where he whips me with the coat hanger, pain licks at me. My entire body shakes with the need to kick at him to protect myself from the whipping. Yet if I do, he’ll seize the opportunity.

  Whap! Whap! Whap!

  The hook digs into my thigh and tears through the flesh, causing me to scream in agony. It’s not deep enough to need stitches, most likely, but it hurts something terrible. Blood streams down my inner thigh, and since my legs are locked together, it pools in the crease. If he gets that thing inside of me…it’ll kill me. Not only will it take my baby, but it’ll take me. I can’t let that happen.

  His fingers bite into me as he pries my thighs forcefully apart. I choke out a guttural sound of despair.

  No, please no.

  But he’s so strong. So strong. In this moment, though, I am stronger because I slip from his grip and tangle my legs together once more.

  Whap! Whap! Whap!

  This time, he takes to whipping my sore breasts. Still, I keep my legs twisted in an attempt to keep him away from me. His fingers dig into the slice on my leg. Bile rises in my throat from the pain. I weaken for a moment and he takes his chance. My legs are ripped brutally apart and he settles his body between them. The sadistic fuck grins at me before teasing the hooked end of the coat hanger on my clit.

  My mind threatens to shut down.

  Black.

  Black.

  Black.

  So many times Cole prepared me for this moment and yet I don’t feel ready at all. I feel defeated.

  Black.

  “The abomination must go,” he grits through clenched teeth, no longer smiling.

  Black.

  Black.

  Black.

  Noooooo.

  I watch the interviews on television in the hotel. Over and over on repeat. It’s fucking humiliating. They expose me like a vein on an operating table. All of them with their scalpels ready to take a stab. Normally, this would make me crazy. Well, crazier than I already am. I would want to slice all their throats and leave them to bleed out.

  Want to.

  Awareness settles over me like a cloak.

  I rip at my hair in frustration. My mind wars—reality sits on one side where my darkness sits on the other. Both believe they are the winners. Deep down, I know the truth.

  I’m weak.

  All those years ago, she broke me.

  Anta took and took and fucking took from me.

  I’d been bled dry of sanity.

  When I came back, I was lost. My mind had been fragmented so many times, there was never a hope of piecing it back together again. Not until Natalie. She was different than the others. I hurt her worse than them. The demons finally escaped. They ravaged her and she was so fucking strong. Natalie fought my demons and won.

  I can’t help but think about Emily sobbing on the phone earlier today, because where I thought we had
her fooled, she saw right through it. She was worried over Natalie as she should have been.

  “It was just weird, Cole,” she says tearfully. “I wanted to reach out to her cousin and make sure what you two were saying was the truth. I thought by calling anonymously, it wouldn’t come back to you. I didn’t know they would find me.”

  And they did. They had Alan’s lines tapped so that if we called again, they could locate us. Emily, trying to be the hero, led them straight to her. It wasn’t hard for them to connect her to me and then force her to give up my location. She had too much too lose—her family and the restaurant and her reputation as a law abiding citizen.

  “It’s fine,” I assure her. “It’s what nosy big sisters do. They meddle.”

  She laughs and sniffles loudly. “So you’re not going to disown me?”

  The line goes silent for a moment. “We have way too much history for that. You’re family and you don’t get off that easily.”

  “I’m sorry about…” she trails off. “I’m sorry about everything that happened. Everything you endured. Every demon you brought back with you that made you the way you are.”

  The way I am is being smeared across every tabloid.

  Sick. Crazy. Bizarre.

  I blink away our earlier conversation when one of the women starts talking during a televised interview. Miranda. A shudder ripples through me as she blabs her mouth.

  “Super bizarre.” Then a sigh. “I hope my kids don’t see this.” Miranda purses her lips for the camera. Liar. Liar with big, fake fat lips. She’s eating up this attention. Just like she ate it up with me. When I seduced her into having an affair on her husband. She let me rough her up a bit because she was looking for something kinky and different. Her boring doctor husband couldn’t fuck like me, that’s for damn sure. “He liked to call me some other woman’s name. Anita or something. Anyway, he would say some really creepy stuff about cutting off my fingers and making me eat them. But he was harmless. I’m still here.”

  I’m stuck staring at her on the screen. She looks older than I remember. Not a timeless beauty like Natalie. Just someone I used in order to exorcise my demons. And after I got done fucking her skanky ass, I buried some mementos and moved on.