ISAK & Red: An enemies-to-lovers Dark Romance

  CARI SILVERWOOD

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  About Cari Silverwood

  Also by Cari Silverwood

  Acknowledgements & Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  ISAK

  I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but it probably meant I was going to have to kill him.

  This man, this weaselly, goatee-bearded man, was supposed to bring me my suitcase, get paid, and leave me the fuck alone. Instead, he was sitting at my little white table in this second-rate, beachside resort, trying to extort some sort of information or promise.

  He could have left the suitcase somewhere and arranged a drop-off time so I could pay him. That would have been simpler and less dangerous – for him.

  “So you see, I’ve heard things. Got friends in Brazil, Spain, who saw you this year. Helped you.” He clicked with his mouth, winked. “And after looking inside that suitcase, I can see it’s likely true.”

  Likely? He was not sure, but someone had noticed something. Let him go or kill him?

  When had I been careless, though perhaps it was fated? Travelling had risks, and sitting still was boring.

  I grunted, while over his shoulder I kept watching the bikini girls frolicking and gossiping in the pool. The lighting around the pool was good, and I could see the bounce of their tits, the joy in their faces as they told crazy stories and clinked those plastic glasses together. Their giggles had grown loud. They’d look good in my bed, or on my floor, leashed, collared, begging for me.

  The resort manager had come out once to tell them to stop drinking alcoholic beverages in the pool.

  I’d flicked an eyebrow upward, and the woman had stopped dead then walked in a small aimless circle, before returning to her office. Making women forget shit was the least of my abilities.

  “What do you call it? You can make girls do stuff for you that nobody else can? Yeah?”

  I didn’t even bother to shrug.

  “You know, like this one.” Sam or Frodo, or whatever his name was, pointed at Red where she lay near us, propped on her elbows and her belly on the sun lounge. Her red hair spread across her mostly bare back. The petite blue shorts showed off her superb ass. When bitten, licked, smelled, she had this indefinable essence of sex that no other female possessed. I assumed that perception was a me thing. Just me. I’d never figured out why.

  I both loved it and hated it.

  By now, she would hate me with the heat of a thousand, thousand suns.

  Her tits were nicely displayed in that clingy crop top. The main difference between her and the other girls? I owned her, down to the last hair on her mostly gone pubes, the dimple on her face, and the molecules of her DNA.

  I sipped my rum, listening to the tinkle of ice cubes and appreciating the cold where the square-shaped tumbler angled into my palm.

  “They tell me she climbs into that fucking great suitcase for you.” He waggled his eyebrows, leered. “And those holes, those straps, I seen them.”

  “Did you now.” The man was annoying. Even I heard the vast difference between my gravel-toned words and his bunny-rabbit voice. “Take the cash and go. Last chance.”

  He snorted, leaned back as if he was staying a while. “Hell, no. You don’t want the authorities to know about your illegal entry to the top end of Australia? Ducking under the radar in a small plane wasn’t cheap. You need friends here. Like me. You talk to me. I have connections.” He came in closer, rubbed together the thumb and fingers of one hand. “Money. Sex industry and… and trafficking. Fuck, the things we could do. We could make millions. No paying the sluts, just click your fingers—”

  I shoved back my chair and stood. “Not here. No talking here.” Then I walked away, hearing Red rise, glimpsed the sway of her lithe figure as she followed. The man’s chair screeched as the legs of it ran across the paving.

  “Okay! Wait.” He hissed and I guessed he’d knocked a shin on something. “Wait.”

  I let him catch up and paused near the edge of the pool. The three girls came over, water sloshing, eyes gleaming with dedication. I judged them all to be in their late teens to early twenties. Red bikini, white bikini, black bikini, and all the same fashion make, as if they shopped as a trio, too.

  This would not need words, or not many. The resort was nearly empty, and no one else was sitting out watching the stars or the women. It was just us, the asshole, and the girls. No CCTV either.

  “Where is the suitcase?” I had to have it, same as I had to keep Red.

  “In my Range Rover. Outside in the guest parking. Locked in.” He emphasized the last part.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not a worry, man. Now about this—”

  “Keys to the Rover?”

  He grinned, patted his pocket. “Look, I’ll give you it gratis, just talk to me. Okay?”

  “Sure. I can do that.” Silently, I mouthed drown him and toss up the keys to the girls.

  My face was turned away from weasel-man and in shadow. He never knew until they wrapped their girly hands about his ankles and dragged at him. Three buxom girls can drown a man… if they don’t mind using every bit of muscle and every bit of breath to accomplish the task. Sacrifice works wonders.

  I backed away so as not to get wet.

  His cellphone spilled from his hand and swooped to the bottom of the pool. I hadn’t noticed it, but the thing was best drowned. He was stupid enough to have been recording us.

  For a sliver of time, I considered making Red join in, to help hold him underwater. She was ex-CIA and could out-fight this giggling trio. But if she did this she might drown, and so…

  I would be rid of her.

  My eyes seemed filled with swarming black, my stance cold and monolithic.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

  Could I?

  The keys landed on the paving beside my shoes, clinking, splattering water.

  I wasn’t touching the scene. This was an ongoing crime but watching was free. The man flapped at the water. His head lay beneath the surface, but an arm wrenched free. He connected a punch before the weight of the three women pulled him down. One of them screwed a fist into his mouth. The hair over his face swished as he struggled to shake her loose. Blood twirled outward.

  Down, down he went, and I hadn’t even needed to use Red.

  The water made this killing as silent as a distant ballet. Arms were knotted in, tucked in, their legs wrapping over the bucking man. Bubbles trailed upward, dwindling to nothing. The girls smothered him, and by now his lungs must be full of water. His jacket edge flapped lazily, spreading out.

  The reflection of the underwater lights created wriggly patterns of light across the pool walls and the water surface. This knot of humans became a multi-colored spider lazing about near the bottom. Beneath, where their flesh blocked the light, a clot of
snaking shadows lurked.

  Snakes and spiders? I smiled. How apt.

  I waited until nothing moved except for the water, their hair, and the clothes. When a slow unraveling of limbs began, I studied them again to make sure they were dead.

  They were.

  Then I stooped and picked up the keys. I gestured to Red. Wordless, and with her own eyes gleaming a strange darkness as if I’d infected her with my vileness, she trailed after me. It was just the nighttime shadows, although the idea of her joining me in my murderous, lecherous world was intriguing.

  As far as I knew, I had never infected anyone with my mesmer abilities. Though Wolfe said it was an infection, he’d also said it was terribly selective and we were always male.

  I threw the keys into the air, caught them. Wet. They would function as a key to unlock the doors manually, if not electronically. The vehicle might not start, but of course I only wanted my case.

  Just the case and my Red.

  I passed the office and made sure the manager would not check the pool for ages, and that she would forget we had even been at the resort. Our room, she would clean that personally.

  No records.

  Only the man and his vehicle would still remain. He’d walked in through the alley that led between the resort units. After retrieving our minimal luggage and getting Red to change into a flowing blue dress, I found the man’s Range Rover.

  I took out the large case that was big enough to squeeze a bound girl into, then I flagged down a woman on the street and had her drive us away. Red and I sat in the back.

  “Pull up your dress and play with yourself. Amuse me. Don’t come.”

  I yawned as she did so. I grew a hard-on seeing her hand shove beneath her panties and her thighs part as she worked at herself, as she moaned loudly, but somehow it was boring. What could I do to her I had not already done? Why the fuck did I not get rid of her?

  I should have drowned her.

  I lay back in the seat, keeping an eye on the panting Red and that hand delving between her legs, smelling her copious arousal, hearing the occasional wet noise as she bent forward and shoved her fingers deep.

  The streetlights grew sparser and the outside grew darker.

  This woman driving us would be left wondering why she obeyed me.

  None of them would be able to tell anyone else about me or about Red. Not the resort manager, not this driver, and certainly not the dead ones.

  Ninety-nine percent of females could be made to do anything for me. Anything.

  It had almost become too easy.

  * * * * *

  That itchy buzz that grabbed me more and more had done this. It made me want to feel more, to do something somehow different. I couldn’t decide what it was I wanted, so I usually did something else until it faded.

  Three AM and I was playing with risk like I rarely did.

  The latest SUV was parked at the end of this alley. Garbage bins and exit doors were the main decorations here. The club playing the music currently booming out and filling every bit of space in my ears had a fire exit door next to my shoulder. Bricks dug into my shoulder blades through the light shirt I wore, and someone had thrown up nearby. The smell was as pervasive as the music.

  Perfectly degrading.

  To my right, Red stood facing the end wall of the alley, with her dress straps pulled halfway down her shoulders. Another exit door lay under her palms and she had her legs spread with her dress hitched above the swell of her ass. Her white panties were in place but anyone looking would know in an instant that her tits were out.

  On the paving beneath her spread legs was a pool of liquid and I’d made sure to spill some come onto her legs when I withdrew.

  Recently ass-fucked, arms shaking, and she was moaning because I was keeping her on the edge of arousal.

  She looked like a slut waiting for her next customer, and I’d unclouded her mind, so she knew exactly what was happening. She knew exactly how this would look. Men had already ventured partway into the alley to check. When I shook my head, they’d left, after spewing various filthy comments and laughter.

  A few men had threatened to do worse to her than I had.

  Those had made me smile.

  Like I said, risky, because males were beyond my control. The adrenalin was making my heart thud like a racehorse on the gallop. It made me feel alive.

  I could almost… almost hear her whimpers, her begging. She was mute, but sometimes I could swear I heard her thoughts.

  “What was that Red? Want to come? Want me to call them back?”

  I’d screw her one more time then tow her back to the car, messed up, horny, and scared.

  Most days I kept her a little spacey. Not today.

  Her next whimper was audible. I wished I had a drink, or something stronger, except I didn’t use drugs. I couldn’t know for certain what weird effects drugs would have on me. Wolfe had drummed that in.

  At the sound of hard shoes walking into the alley, Red’s fingers shifted on the door.

  Three men advanced, hands loose at their sides, all of them bulky guys. I assessed them – they were determined and quiet in their approach.

  My risks may have come home to roost.

  My heartbeat stepped up the power, thudding at my chest. This was surely what living should be? I’d discovered a new kink. I slipped a hand into a pocket and found the flick knife. Then I stepped out, shielding Red from their view, ready for them, or so I hoped. Uncertainty was both a bitch and what was making my exhilaration climb. For once, I didn’t know the outcome.

  “Not for sale, guys. Just a little fun for me.”

  “Hey.” The one on my right held up a hand. “No worries. You sure though? She looks tasty as fuck.”

  “No.” I smiled. “Just no.”

  “A little group sexy-times?” The far-left one did a hip sway and grind while grinning.

  “N—”

  Simultaneously, they dived on me. The heavy gut punch then a head punch, then a throat punch, landed one-two-three, before I could pull the knife. I was spinning to the floor, gasping, throat rasping… and something bashed at the back of my head….

  More blows landed.

  My last thought: Red.

  Darkness cascaded.

  CHAPTER 2

  ISAK

  I woke, sitting, tied to chair. Classic gangster move. Despite the painful thumping inside my skull, I tried to make sense of the dim room.

  Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

  The pain closed me down again before I wriggled up through the black. Blinking, I cleared my throat.

  “Hey. He’s awake.”

  Someone brought another chair over and sat facing me. He was tallish, tattooed, and shaved almost bald. His dark T-shirt sleeves struggled to contain his biceps. His broad hands splayed on the thighs of his jeans and he cocked his head slightly, studying me. To either side of me other men stood – guards, clearly. The room though, it was opulent.

  This was a living room with gray sofas, downlights, red-shaded standing lamps, cream walls lined with paintings, and sculptures on columns.

  If this was his house, he was at least mildly well-off.

  “You were a hard man to track down, sir.” His voice surprised me. Rugged, cracked, but deep and slow to get the words out. As if he had all the time in the world to do whatever shit he had in mind.

  I twitched my mouth. Already I could tell my headache wasn’t going away fast. Nausea lurked at the edges, bulging and worming into my stomach. The room felt unsteady under my bare feet. They’d removed my shoes but nothing else. From the sharper pain in my right temple, I had a cut there.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, then open again.

  “We’ll get that fixed.” He nodded at my forehead. “I’ll even have you untied, if you convince me you’re sensible?”

  I shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “Andy was my man. Well, he sometimes did jobs for me. You killed him.”

  Oh. Him.

  “H
e was sending that chat to me when you drowned him.”

  That cellphone… Definitely him. “I did not touch him.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You can call me… Ted.” He shifted, raised a finger. “Bring me a beer.” Someone walked away.

  We both waited, studying each other, though I pretended to be having problems focusing and keeping my eyes open – which was not difficult to do since it was close to the truth. The man returned and handed my friendly interrogator, Fake Ted, a beer.

  After one swig, he leaned in and let the bottle hang between his knees by finger and thumb.

  “I know what you can do. Clearly, you can even get the ladies to kill for you. Die for you. And to fucking forget what happened or why. I have some info from the cop interview. The manager can’t even remember you were there. She has no prior record. An honest, unsullied citizen, and you left her confused as fuck.” He shook his head. “Stunning.”

  I grunted, feeling as if I should contribute something. Ted had quite the vocab for a tattooed criminal.

  From somewhere outside – a playground maybe – came the muffled laughter of a child. It seemed the essence of irony, considering this cunt would probably hurt me if I thwarted him.

  “So, promise me we will have that talk you deprived Andy of, and I’ll get you untied. I will get your head looked at.”

  The zip ties weren’t coming off without a cutter, and I was severely outnumbered. “Sure. We can talk.”

  “Do it.” He whistled to his henchlings. “And get that doctor in here. She said she needed to check his thick head.”

  One of his men went behind me and reached down to snip the plastic.

  “Note.” Ted raised the beer and wagged it at me. “No monkey business. None of this hypnotizing. No fucking around. The doc may be a woman, but she’s leaving as soon as she checks you. Mac will escort her out, drive her home.”

  “Okay.”

  That made it difficult though delayed command was not impossible, if they left me alone with her.

  A woman in long tan pants and a black, tailored, business shirt entered with another of Ted’s henchmen. Her hair showed streaks of gray and her eyes swam with fear when the man by her side – Mac, I assumed – growled some words to her ear.