Usually, my cock reacts to burning heat the same way it would if I plunged it into an ice bath. It isn’t having the same effect today. I like the passion that comes from a fiery response. Whether the death of an insolent man or the slap of a scorned woman, there’s an emotion attached to every response, a thrill you can’t get from wrapping your hand around your cock and batting one out. It requires a woman’s touch. Her heated breaths on my neck. Her silky-smooth skin under my hand. Her cunt wrapped around my cock.
Jesus. I should have taken Alice up on her offer. Wanting Roxanne to experience the inane stupidity that pumped through me from Rocco’s protectiveness, I overexerted my words when requesting Smith to organize a late-night appointment with Alice. He must have conveyed my request to Alice in the same manner. She came over ready to suck my dick. Her logic that penetration isn’t cheating always sees her ready to get on her knees.
I told her no. I walked away.
I’m regretting it more than ever right now.
Perhaps I can be quiet? Maybe Roxanne is already asleep?
No! I release my cock from my hand before grabbing a bar of soap from the soap dish. I scrub my skin until it’s raw, then attack it with the same amount of intensity with a towel.
By the time I walk back into my room, my anger is as high as my dick rests against my stomach. My fury hasn’t weakened its pulse in the slightest. Its hardness is fed by the same gall firing in Roxanne’s eyes when she spots my naked stalk across the room. She doesn’t speak, she just raises her brow that exposes her red hair color is natural while silently stalking me.
“You should be sleeping. Alice is never tardy.” She learned what happens to slackers the hard way seven years ago. “She will be here at precisely six.”
Roxanne waits for me to pull on a pair of sleeping pants before she raises her eyes to my face. Although her hooded-gaze is brimming with lust, they reveal she’s still scared. “I can’t sleep.” She chews on the corner of her plump lips before halfheartedly shrugging. “I’m kinda hungry.”
Air whizzes out of my nose as I fight not to roll my eyes. “Of course you are.”
I gather up a plain white tee before marching to her side of the room. I pretend not to notice the blistering of goosebumps racing across her skin when I adjust the angle of her head so I can see if my earlier anger left a mark. Her neck is a little red where I gripped her, but for the most part, she’s relatively uninjured.
Mistaking the annoyance in my eyes as sorrow, Roxanne frees her lip from her menacing teeth before saying, “It’s more frustrating than sore.” She jangles the cuffs circulating her wrists. “Kind of like these.” As she bounces her pretty eyes between mine, she asks, “Can you please take them off?”
Her cutesy act gets side-swiped when I shake my head.
She’s back to her feisty self in no time.
“Why not?”
Although I don’t appreciate being interrogated, this line of questioning doesn’t bother me. “Because that’s only something that will occur once you’ve gained my trust.”
“How can I gain your trust while cuffed to a bed…” Her words trail off as her throat works hard to swallow. She noticed how thick I was when I re-entered the room, so her thoughts immediately deviate toward wicked territory.
So do mine, but I pretend otherwise. “You can start by answering some questions for me.”
When she hesitantly nods, unsure how she could possibly have any information I need, I gather a manila folder from my desk and the chair from underneath it. While I set up a makeshift command center on Roxanne’s half of the room, she maneuvers herself into a half-seated position. It’s no easy feat considering she’s cuffed to the headboard, but she makes it appear easy.
“Ready?”
Ignoring the dangerous drape of her dressing gown, she dips her chin.
Feigning the same level of calmness, I drop my eyes to the stack of paperwork Smith delivered during our commute from Erkinsvale to here. For the most part, it’s my father’s movement sheets for the next several months, but there are also snippets of the information he shared about Roxanne’s movements the day Audrey was kidnapped.
“Do you recognize any of these men?” I show her a photograph Smith pulled from the FBI’s database several years ago. It’s the last known group shot of the Castro crew.
“Look longer,” I demand when Roxanne shakes her head within a few seconds of drinking in the group shot. There are over thirty men pictured. It isn’t possible for her to have scanned all of their faces in that short amount of time.
When I say that, Roxanne scoffs. “I don’t need a longer look. They all have dark, ethnic appearances. I grew up in Erkinsvale, so you can trust me when I say we’ve never crossed paths.”
“What about when you met with your father in New York, did you see them, then?”
Her cheeks whiten when reality dawns. “Are these the men who took your wife?” When I nod, she scoots as close to me as her cuffs will allow. “Can you hold it a little closer? I don’t have the best vision.”
Unappreciative of the humor in her voice, I hold it to within an inch of her face.
After a period long enough to ensure me she scanned each face with precise detail, she inches back before once again shaking her head. “I’m sorry, none of them ring a bell.” The anger making my skin sticky eases when she adds, “But I’ve seen him before.”
When her eyes drop to a surveillance image of my father, my breath comes out in a rush. “He killed Old Man V earlier tonight. You don’t get any credit for that.”
My brows fetter in confusion when she replies, “Not tonight. At the bar next to the restaurant your wife was taken from. I swear he was seated at the end of the bar, although he looked a lot younger back then than he does now.” She lifts her eyes to mine, even though confusion is clouding them, I can tell she’s being honest. She has truthful, wholesome eyes. “His hair was darker, and his stomach was a little rounder, but I remember him because he was wearing a St. Jude pendant, but instead of it being on his necklace—”
“He wore it on a leather bracelet on his left wrist?”
When her pupils dilate in confirmation, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
“Was it him?” I ask after gathering a photo frame from my desk and clearing away the dust coating it. It’s a photograph of me with three of my siblings—Roberto, Ophelia, and CJ. It was taken by Rocco at my twenty-first birthday, a mere month before everything went downhill for my family.
“Yeah,” Roxanna answers with an unsure nod. “But he had put on some weight and aged by almost a decade. Who is he?”
“He’s my brother,” I answer, too shocked to think up a lie. “My brother, who’s been missing for almost five years.”
Roxanne raises her eyes to mine. Worry, I think she’s leading me astray, is seen all over her face. “Maybe it was your father, then? My head was all types of muddled that day. I was eighteen and in the big city alone for the first time. I could be mistaken.”
I know she’s lying, and so does she. She either saw Roberto or his biological twin. Either way, I need to know exactly who he is because there’s no way my missing brother being at the same restaurant my wife was kidnapped from could be classed as a coincidence.