Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

“Please,” she whispered. “I love you.”

“Bullshit. You don’t know what love is.”

“Maybe you’re the one with the problem. Can’t you get off without stupid games?”

How dare she talk to him like that! He had no problems getting off. She had liked the games, until they became too much for her, and then she had the nerve to say he had a problem?

She stood up, naked but for the collar and leash. She looked around for her clothing.

He slapped her. A red welt rose on her cheek. It didn’t surprise him that he’d hit her. What surprised him was that he felt no regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically. His penis was rock solid again.

She glared. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He kissed her. Touched her where she liked. At first she protested feebly, but he knew what she wanted, knew the words that made her bend to his will, and soon she was all over him. He pushed her down to the floor and fucked her the way she asked for it. She moaned.

“Just. Like. That,” she begged.

His eyes fell to her smooth, white neck. He stared at the silky skin, a sheen of sweat glistening in the sunlight streaming through the windows. The dip in her throat, her muscles straining as her hips met his, working herself up to an orgasm, the sleek outline of her clavicle as she arched her back.

“Don’t stop,” she panted.

Her neck looked so good.

His hands went behind her head and he kissed her. Then he moved them down, brought his thumbs around. Caressed that hollow of her neck.

Slowly he squeezed. She didn’t know what he was doing at first, didn’t know until it was too late.

She grabbed at his hands but couldn’t speak.

The fear that had touched her face earlier now exploded, her terror real. He watched her eyes as his hands maintained the pressure. He continued fucking her, his orgasm building, her eyes panicked, her fists pounding on him.

He held on too long. Later he had tried to tell himself that he didn’t do it on purpose, that it had been an accident. That he had just wanted to maximize his pleasure. And he had. He’d never experienced such a high. Every inch of his skin radiated with power, as if every cell orgasmed as one, his entire body immersed in a forbidden pleasure.

She was convulsing beneath him when he finally let go, his body one with the universe. He saw everything with a clarity he knew he’d attempt to re-create. By then it was too late for Monique. He’d crushed the bone in her neck.

He watched her die.

Trask found it ironic that Monique’s death all those years ago had come around full circle. He’d enlisted the help of his friends to dispose of the body. He should have known Trevor Conrad was weak. He’d had to kill Trevor, too, but Trask couldn’t make Trevor disappear as easily as Monique.

And now “Trevor” had brought Lucy to him. Lucy, who looked so much like Monique that Trask felt sixteen again.

He couldn’t wait to relive the experience.

DILLON PACED the small room the task force had set up to find Lucy. Special Agent Joseph Garcia was working with Patrick to pore through code on Lucy’s computer, as well as the feed that was coming in from an unknown server. The feed that showed Lucy in her bra and jeans, tied to the floor, terrified. Though he wanted to, Dillon couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Connor had left the room immediately after Lucy’s shirt was ripped off. Carina went after him. That was nearly an hour ago. Time was not on their side.

It was a countdown to murder.

They had less than forty-five hours to find Lucy. Though saving her life was their number one priority, Dillon wanted to find her now , to save her from what was about to happen-what his sixth sense, his experience, told him would inevitably happen.

Dillon turned when the door opened, expecting Connor and Carina to return. Instead a tall, lanky cop entered the room. Special Agent Quinn Peterson’s professional attire was rumpled and he carried a jacket over his shoulder and a thick file folder under one arm.

Nick Thomas made the introductions. Nick had worked with Peterson on the Butcher investigation in Montana. It helped that Nick trusted the FBI agent, but Lucy was not their sister. They didn’t have to face Rosa and Pat Kincaid and tell them that their daughter was about to be raped in public for the sick pleasure of everyone who ponied up the money to watch.

Peterson dumped his jacket and paperwork on the table and turned to Garcia. “Any developments?”

Garcia shook his head. “Just what I told you on the phone. He raised the ante.”

“Any headway on the feed?”

“He has better security than the Pentagon. But Kincaid here is a pro.”

Dillon spoke. “Agent Peterson, what do you know about the man who has my sister? You’ve obviously dealt with him in the past.”

At that moment, Carina walked in with Connor, who saw Peterson and made a beeline for him. “What the hell is going on? Where’s my sister? Why was she taken?”

Dillon tried to give his brother a look to steady his temper, but it failed. Connor was acting out what Dillon felt inside: a deep rage and sense of failure in protecting their youngest sister.

“Sit down, Mr. Kincaid,” Peterson said, unfazed.

“I’ll stand.” Connor crossed his arms.

Dillon sat, wanting answers. Peterson seated himself across from him. “You’re the forensic psychiatrist, right?” Peterson asked Dillon.

“Correct.”

“This is for you.” Quinn pushed over the file folder. “A copy of everything we have on Trask.”

“Trask?”

Peterson nodded. “That’s the name we know him by. He’s calling himself Trevor Conrad now. His name has changed a half dozen times that we know of, but his real identity remains a mystery. We have his prints from a case five years ago, but they haven’t matched anything on record. He’s not in the system.”

“He’s been doing exactly what for how long?”

Peterson took a deep breath, glanced at everyone in the room, then focused on Dillon. “I’m not going to lie to you. Trask has killed at least nine young women over the past ten years. Before he went underground five years ago, he was a semilegitimate businessman running an online porn website.”

“How’d you get his prints?”

“Off a murder weapon. We have no name, but we have matched them to a long-standing snuff-film distributor who ran a company called Achilles Film Distribution.”

“Arrogant,” Dillon said. “He knows he’s not in the system so he doesn’t even try to hide his identity.”

“Trask is the walking definition of arrogance,” Peterson said. “We know he still runs-through shell corporations, fake identities, and some real people-legal pornography websites. Live webcam sex acts, stripping, pornographic downloads, things like that.”

“And you haven’t been able to track him from that?”

“A task force worked for a solid year trying to unravel his network after one of his actresses disappeared and it appeared she’d been killed online. There was no proof, however, and the employees of his company claimed she’d just quit.

“The task force was dismantled, but two agents continued to investigate on their own time. Trask’s organization came apart when he abducted one of those agents during an unsanctioned sting. He made a federal agent part of his show. He and his crew raped and murdered her live on the Internet, knowing the FBI would see it. Then he disappeared. Our team was”-he gestured helplessly with his hands-“torn apart. And because Trask went into hiding for two years, every trail we had turned cold.