Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
But tonight, I was playing the role Alex needed me to play.
Tonight, I was a guest at the gala being held in the magnificent mansion of a Supreme Court judge.
And tonight, I was going to blow the mind of the man whose honor we were celebrating.
Senator Gilbert Borntrager.
Multi-millionaire.
Entrepreneur.
Philanthropist.
Notorious womanizer.
And killer.
According to Alex, he was the man of the hour. People adored him for his tireless work with various charities across the country, including the complete funding of a children’s orphanage.
He also donated heavily to hospitals and universities, and even had a wing named after him at the local women’s hospital.
He was known for his generosity. For his charm and rich, Connecticut style.
What people didn’t know—but what Alex did know—was that Gilbert Borntrager had particular tastes when it came to sex. Tastes that ran a lot younger than his sixty-two-year-old wife, Eleanor.
Old Gillie boy liked them younger.
Much younger.
I was barely twenty years old, and according to Alex I was borderline.
But lucky me, he also had a thing for redheads.
I was in the impressive foyer, standing at the foot of a sweeping staircase and beneath a massive crystal chandelier, talking with an ex-district attorney and his insipid, bland daughter, when Borntrager found me.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said, his gaze sweeping up and down my ball gown and lingering on my naked throat.
The lack of jewelry around my neck and strapless gown were no accident.
Because youth aside, Borntrager also liked to asphyxiate while he fucked, and he paid handsomely to do so.
It wasn’t an unusual request. I’d certainly heard of worse. And usually, it was a fetish easily accommodated if you had the money.
But sometimes it went wrong because Old Gillie Boy didn’t always know when to stop.
Like the time with his young intern, Polly Malthouse, whose body was pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay following a business trip with Borntrager last November.
According to Borntrager, they shared a meal in the hotel restaurant after a day of meetings. But while he turned in early, she wanted to hit the clubs and bars. She was nineteen and ready to party, and ignored his uncompromising suggestion to stay in. She was an adult, he said. Old enough to make her own decisions while she was off the clock.
When she failed to show up for their flight back to Connecticut the following morning, he called the police.
Three days later, her body was dragged out of the bay. Ruled a homicide, it was still unsolved.
Apparently, there were others. All collateral damage of one rich man’s sick urges.
To the outside world, Borntrager was a saint.
But to those who knew his dark side, like Alex did, he was a monster.
“Well, that is something we should remedy,” I said seductively, taking a sip of champagne and fixing him with heavy lashes and eyes that spoke of untold pleasure.
“You look young,” he stated matter-of-factly, although his eyes flared with excitement. “Barely old enough to drink.”
“I’m old enough,” I said.
He gave me a stern look. “Why do I feel like you’re lying?”
“Okay, you caught me. I’m seventeen.” I leaned closer. “But don’t tell anybody. I just want to have a good time. It’s my first time attending one of these things, and I’m having the best time.”
“Your first time?”
“It’s also my first trip to DC.” I bit down on my lower lip and looked up at him through heavy lashes. “I’m hoping it will include a lot of firsts.”
I was eluding to being a virgin and I could tell that it excited him.
But I wasn’t a virgin. A man in a dirty flannel shirt and sweatpants made sure of that when I was fourteen years old and sleeping under a bridge during a storm. He’d forced himself into me and ripped my innocence from my body as I screamed into the pouring rain.
And any sex since then had been a cold and empty act.
I started to giggle, as if the champagne had gone to my head. A sweet, innocent virgin, in over her head with a suave, worldly senator.
His tongue slid across his lip. A sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Perhaps we could take this somewhere a little more private,” he suggested.
I drained my glass. “I thought you would never ask.”
Tonight was worth a fortune, and despite hating what I did, the money was too good to refuse.
Besides, Alex would never stand for me telling him no.
BULL
I hated having to leave her. To untangle my body from the warmth of hers and ride off into a cool, damp day. But I had to meet an informant on the other side of town. Another amoeba who occasionally supplied the Kings with information scraped from the filth of our county. His name was Bug, a small-time criminal who had done the occasional stint over at East Mississippi Correctional. He had his dirty fingers in a lot of pots. A lot of filth. A lot of shit I didn’t want to even contemplate.