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"Violet was involved in a car accident early in the week. She went to visit her mother today."
Kiera stared at him a long moment and Mac pulled his lips back in a feral grin. "Really messes up your plans, doesn't it?"
"You're lying," she said flatly, though there was a seed of doubt in her eyes. "If that was true, you wouldn't have told me, to buy you more time."
"Unless I'm just sick of listening to your babbling rationalizations of why it's okay to murder people in cold blood." Mac weighed his options and made his choice. Kiera wasn't going to believe anything except what would take her by surprise. "Violet is a cop, like me, Kiera. She shot someone in the line of duty this week. You'd have heard about it on the news. Remember, the highway driver killed by a state trooper? That trooper was Violet. She got a flesh wound and she's on desk duty all week. Tyler probably didn't know she wasn't back at work yet."
"Liar!" She seized the cat and Mac ducked his face automatically, protecting himself as she brought it down. It caught his ear, shoulder, the back of his neck, one cheek bone. The smell of his own blood, the burning pain of his back, all of it was adding to the nausea. If I'm going to die, let's get on with it before I have to throw up on myself.
"Why won't you understand that I'm trying to help you, release you from your pain? The hiding?"
"Because I accept who I am, Kiera," Mac snapped. "Unlike you and your dead boyfriend, I realized a long time ago that being a sub is just part of who I am. An important part, but not all of it. I enjoy serving a Mistress's pleasure, as much as I enjoy being a cop, or watching a Buccaneers game, or spending a day out in the Gulf on my boat. Being a sub doesn't make me less of a man. And to Violet, it makes me more of one, more of what she wants.
"All you're doing is making excuses. You're killing because you can't stand your own pain. Your sister fucked up your head early and you're acting out. It's not about you playing God, it's about the kill. Just seeing my blood is starting to make you shake. I can see it."
"What the hell is going on?" Jonathan demanded.
"Well, welcome to the party at last," Mac said derisively. "She's going to shoot us both in the head and make it look like Tyler did it. I'm a homicide cop and I've been tracking her. She's killed three other guys this past six weeks the same way. She'll call your parents after she does it, to make sure your nearest and dearest know what you are." He raised a brow, blinked against the blood running down into his eye. "Do you want my mother's phone number? Oh, sorry, that will mess you up further, because my mother died some time ago."
Thank God, because this would kill her.
"Shut up!" Kiera struck out again. This time her aim was wild, hitting him a glancing blow on the shoulder. She dropped it, turned to a cabinet and pulled out her gun, a polished nine millimeter, a Walther P99. A neat little gun to make a neat hole in his head. Mac forced himself to keep his eyes open as she jammed the barrel against his temple, her trembling finger on the trigger.
"Jesus Christ," Powell yanked against his bonds. "Jesus. I don't want any part of this. Kiera, Mistress..."
"Oh, do shut up." Kiera turned the pistol toward him.
"No," Mac snapped, with enough thunderous force to snatch her attention back to him. "Why kill him first? He's not going to tell anyone about you, a self-centered bastard like him. You want him to suffer, remember? Then he should live."
She hesitated, uncertain, and the gun turned back toward Mac. "I should just kill you," she said slowly, "You're the one who needs release. You're too angry. I can feel how much pain you're in."
Most of it from that damn cat, he thought dryly. "Do it," he urged, his eyes glittering, focused on her, focused on the gun. "Do it and let him go."
"Mackenzie." A voice came down to them from the top of the stairs. "You know better than to give a Mistress orders. I've taught you better than that."
Chapter 21
Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch. Mac would have said it out loud if he thought it would help.
He turned his head over, fighting the sick waves of pain rolling over him from the lashing. Violet stood at the entrance to the dungeon in casual street clothes.
"You're not dressed for the occasion," Kiera said, her gaze and the gun swinging toward Violet as his pixie made her way, one casual step at a time, down the stairs.
"I had thought to change upstairs, but I wanted to come down here and see what I was missing. Apparently, quite a lot."
"You stop right at the bottom, and you keep your hands where I can see them. You ruined it, Mac," Kiera said, though she never took her eyes off of Violet. "If you hadn't made me pull the gun, we could have had some fun first.
"I want you to take off your clothes," she told Violet. "Strip down to your underwear, so I can be sure you're not carrying anything, and move slowly. I hate to order a Mistress, but I've got to see this through, you see?"
She backed up as Violet reached the bottom of the stairs, keeping the gun trained on the smaller woman at chest level. That fragile network of curves, flesh and muscle, the vital organs beneath. Panic gripped Mac, caught him up as it hadn't since he was an unarmed rookie in the middle of a domestic fight, a baby in a crib two feet away while the drunk father waved a loaded .38 at the teenaged mother. He had managed that. He would manage this. He would not let Kiera kill Violet. It wasn't going to happen. He made it so in his
mind, made it so in his resolve, let it coat him like armor.
"There are only the dungeons for us, Violet." Kiera's eyes were expressive, appealing. "We're like medieval torturers who can only live with the prisoners, dispensing pain and release, never letting the world above see who we all really are because they can't bear our truth."
"Wrong." Violet took the final step down. "I want Mac. In The Zone, out of The Zone. I want to eat dinner with him, watch him shave in the morning, listen to him yell at the political pundits on TV. I want to nag him to mow the yard, and wake up curled up next to him in the early morning." Her glance went to Mac, lingered on his back, the hot fury of her reaction piercing through him, though she kept her voice admirably even. "I want that as much as I want to have him chained for my pleasure in a bedroom. I want him to be there for me, with me. I want him to take care of me, and I want to take care of him. Don't you want that, Mac?"
He locked gazes with her. "Absolutely, sugar."
