up over her ass, and parted her buttocks, fingering her pussy. She writhed and gasped with theatrical enthusiasm around his delving fingers. His ego was so big, he always bought her act, no matter how extravagantly she overplayed it. Men.
He thrust his hand deeper, growling. “You’re sopping wet.”
Actually, it was hitting Mandy that had excited her, but Ava saw no reason to deny him the credit. Besides, she could lube on command. She knew what nasty things to think about to get that hot rush.
“It’s you who does it to me.” She let her voice quaver, to hint at hidden vulnerability, calculated to puff him up, make him feel like the king of her world. Thinking he ruled her, with his throbbing scepter.
He grasped her ass cheeks, and drove inside. Ava whimpered as he started pumping. This was the tedious part. All that bucking and moaning. Des was relatively skilled, too, so the thrusting went on for a tiresomely long time before he allowed himself to squirt. Ironic, how personal politics dictated that she praise him for that quality when she would infinitely prefer it to be quick.
But she managed, defaulting to the familiar state of floating detachment where she always went to endure sex. Leaving just enough of herself there to keep the show convincing. The rest of her highly functioning mind was at work. Preparing the next X-Cog test.
Too bad the test subject couldn’t be Edie Parrish herself.
The thought triggered a rush of genuine sexual heat that took her by surprise. Wow. She’d gotten Des on her side, using his weakest point, and it turned her on, too. Bonus points. “Is she cute?” she asked.
“Who?” Des grunted, his hips thudding against her backside. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Edie Parrish. I haven’t seen her in years. Is she cute?”
His thrusting slowed. “I don’t know. All right, I guess. Tall, long hair, bad glasses. She hides. Nice tits, though. Why do you care?”
Ava twisted, to fix him with a hot, wild stare. “When we take her, I want to crown her. And fuck you. Through her.”
He was so taken aback, he stopped moving. “Huh?”
“She’ll be the best interface ever.” She rocked back, enveloping his cock once again. “Much better than all the others. I’ll make her into a red-hot nymphet. I’ll make her do things that you’ve never imagined.”
“I can imagine a whole hell of a lot,” he warned.
She turned her head, smiled. “Things I’d never do myself, with my own body,” she explained sweetly. “Wild, nasty, dirty things.”
Desmond rammed into her, so hard, she stifled a gasp of discomfort. “You are one depraved bitch,” he said, his voice admiring.
“Why, thank you.” She turned, bracing herself against each jolt, making keening, catlike wails. She’d gotten him. He’d do anything to make it happen now. But she realized, shocked, as the ride thundered to its roaring finish, that this fantasy of the X-Cog threesome compelling Edie Parrish was…oh, God…it was making her come.
Explosively.
He dripped blood as he ran. Shocked faces, their mouths horrified ‘O’s, stumbling back. No one stopped him on his desperate race toward the guy’s office. He had to tell them the truth. Make the killing stop.
But the man didn’t listen. He was disgusted, terrified. Kev had thought that the blood, the burns, would be a proof too strong to dispute.
Wrong. He’d scared them to death. His gore had blinded them. He was living proof that hell on earth existed. Something to deny, forget.
He fought, but he was weak from drugs, torture. He threw one of the guys through the window, but there were too many of them. They brought him down. Dragged him out. Then he saw the little angel.
So strange, to see an angel in hell. Small, perfect, clad in blazing white like a sunlit cloud. A halo of white crowned her hair. She saw him with her fearless, fathomless eyes. Not a monster from collective human nightmares. Just him. She retreated into the distance as they dragged him away. Her compassionate eyes followed as he craned desperately to keep her in his field of vision. He cried out, but she was too far—
He gasped for air, felt the jolt, from dream to waking, but the images lingered on. His small angel. Her deep, soft eyes. The man he had begged for help, yelling at him to shut up, to go away, leave him alone. The security staff that had dragged him away. And a name. Someone was screaming a name. The monster that had to be stopped.
Osta…Ostamen…?
Gone. Fuck. It slid out of his mind, like sand through his fingers.
He gasped for air, groped for the name. This felt like…fuck, it felt like a memory. Not a dream. A memory.
Excitement pumped through him. He tried to open his eyes. Light stabbed. The stench of disinfectant assaulted his nose. His head throbbed, his insides churned. Unintelligible sounds battered his skull.
He tried to open his eyes, turn his head. Nothing moved. His eyelids were weighted down. His body was lead. The effort to move unleashed…pain. Raw, burning pain that he hadn’t known since—
His mind flinched away, like he’d brushed up against a lethal live wire. A memory. He’d brushed up against a fucking memory. Oh, God. And it hurt. The memory hurt. He tried to calm himself. Breathe.
What the fuck? What was going on? He was shit scared. So intense, the sounds, the smells. He wanted to scream, writhe, cry. Hide.
He grasped, instinctively, for the image of his little angel. His magical talisman. Her gentle gray eyes regarded him calmly. Wise and kind. He clung to her, until the panic calmed. The little angel never let him down. She had led him through his confusion, through the speechless darkness all those years ago. Back to relative normality and function. He was starting to hear now. He could breathe again. Ah.
Voices. Audio cut in and out. He struggled to make it out.
“…no signs of previous physical trauma in his brain that would account for the amnesia,” said a male voice. “What was his diagnosis at the time? Where was he treated? I’d like to talk to his physician.”
There was a long pause. “He wasn’t,” said a low voice.
A voice he knew. He tried to open his eyes. No luck. Paralyzed.
Bruno. That was the guy’s name. Bruno. Bruno’s face, Bruno’s history, slid into place in his mind. It was an exquisite relief. Bruno Ranieri. His adopted brother. Tony’s great-nephew. Tony Ranieri. The diner. Rosa. OK. He had it. He knew who he was now. More or less.
Kev. Kev Larsen, that was what he was called, when someone cared to call him. He clung to his name, such as it was, like a lifeline.
“He…but he was obviously in some terrible…” The man’s voice trailed off, almost frightened. “What in God’s name happened to him?”
Another reluctant pause. “We don’t know.”
“Excuse me?” The man’s voice was incredulous.
“We
