Page 214 of Deep Cover

Over the years and the bad behaviors I got married naked on a rock beside a lake, fully clothed while standing on a raft in that same lake, while horseback riding, while skydiving, while on a cruise, while off a cruise, while – everything. I got married in white lace and promises rituals, in historic churches and in the office of the Justice of the Peace. I had dresses that spanned the gamut of wedding dresses real and imagined. I married every movie star that caught my attention, from Scarlett Johansson to Chris Pratt to Jason Momoa to many of the Jonas Brothers.

With Vincent, I needed the same distraction. He was here to gloat. Which amazed me and scared me, because it meant he was every bit as big a psychopath as I thought.

But I really didn't want to think about weddings.

So I thought about the different ways I could kill him. While he told me about Cole receiving the videos and not responding, I thought about cutting him over and over, tiny cuts with his own horrible straight razor. Until he bled out.

While he told me about what he'd do to Cole when Cole finally came here – at the same time pointing out that Cole hadn't come here to get me, certainly not yet! – I imagined walking into one of the consultations Vincent Geddes might have with a new plastic surgery patient and taking my clothes off before he could stop me, showing her the scars on my back and boobs, and then sending her fleeing while I shot Vincent Geddes in the head.

And so on. And so forth.

He died in every scenario.

"Are you listening to me?" he asked finally.

"No."

That should have earned me a beating but he only snorted and stood. "You can't really block it out. You heard me. Every word." He turned and strode from the room, anger radiating in every line of his not-good-enough body.

I took a deep breath and started to slowly stretch. If the clothing clung to the places the oil had burned me, I'd take it off. Maybe I was becoming acclimated to abuse. Maybe I was in the middle of deciding on changes for my life that had nothing to do with Vincent Geddes or Cole St. Martin.

Maybe when I got out of here – under my own steam – I'd kill everyone in the house and go off and test for the DEA with no explanation for where I'd been. Mistress or toy or pain slut to a very famous politician, I'd tell them, leaving them way too many candidates to wade through. It'd be easier to look at my record and just hire me, or send me off to whatever schooling I actually had to have.

It was a weird feeling. Sitting there on the mat on the floor, breathing through pain when it flared, stretching and taking the time at it that I never did in my real life because I begrudged it too much – right there in the lair of the psychopath and his bitch behind a locked door I felt more free than I had in years.

I didn't have Mark longing for a kind of normalcy that I would never have, or even seek.

I didn't have my own desire to live up to standards my father had never placed on me but I had.

There was no listening for Cole's step in the hallway because it wasn't going to be there. I wondered if he had a new sub. I wondered if she liked being beaten and fucked and run through the desert for hours.

There was no fear of Kie and no fear of Vincent and if there should have been, if either came near me, I'd kill them.

Life had just become so much more simple.

It was simple because it was mine. All I had to do was get free of this prison. I'd turned my life around before and not for the better. Now I'd turn it around for good.

For me.

---