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Sterling
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LIFTING MY FACE TO the hot spray, I closed my eyes. There was no peace behind my eyelids, only memories of the carnage our men had discovered. Acid bubbled from my stomach. The photos I’d seen weren’t horrid enough. I insisted on going to the site and seeing the discovery for myself. After all, this was my city. I was fucking responsible, and I wasn’t going to sit back in some fucking glass tower as my people dealt with the fallout.
The stench.
I could still smell the lingering putrid scent of decaying flesh.
Summer in Chicago was brutal enough. But then locked in an airless shipping container without food and water. Only the flies and their maggots grew strong.
The news crews would have a field day with what we found.
It wasn’t enough for them to broadcast the homicide rates or homeless statistics. It was as if even the local media were hellbent on making Chicago into some dystopian wasteland. These discoveries of multiple bodies were getting personal...as if they were left for me, a message, or a warning.
The media would never find the bodies.
My hands balled into fists.
It was a fucking cover-up; I’d ordered it, and I hated that it was the right answer.
Those young girls and boys would never be identified. Their families would never know the horrific end they faced. The cover-up wasn’t to save the guilty parties. Hell no. They’d pay. From the kidnappers to the distributors and sex traffickers, I wanted their blood on my hands.
Not the blood of innocent children.
Rubio McFadden, my father’s sworn enemy and partner in too many crimes, had been arrested and sentenced. Now eight years later, he was up for parole. After the evidence that had been found against him, I was certain he’d never again be a free man. It seemed the justice system had other plans.
A man with McFadden’s wealth, connections, and resources could work a system designed to turn the proverbial cheek with enough cash or promises to grease the squeaky locks.
His ambitions of political grandeur were suspended, but in this fucking environment, that didn’t mean he didn’t have his allies. I doubted his campaign slogan would be to elect a convicted sex trafficker. That was what PR companies were for, to come up with something more palatable.
Today’s discovery was the fourth container the Sparrows had encountered in the last three months. They were all the same—no means of identification. The serial numbers, shipping manifests, and identifying data had been removed. The containers were hidden in plain sight, ready for disposal. It was as if the contents within were nothing more than fucking trash that had already been forgotten.
The fight against human trafficking was an uphill battle when I took over the Sparrow Organization. Over the years it had become even more personal. More personal than the lust I saw in my father’s men’s eyes when I was too young to understand. More personal than the woman who shared my bed, name, and child.
Our daughter—Goldie—came to my mind’s eye.
She wasn’t the only child living within our tower. Patrick and Madeline had Eddie, and Reid and Lorna had Jack. The three children played together more like siblings than cousins and friends. Looking at their sweet and innocent faces and imagining the horrors that others chose to inflict on children kept me awake at night.
Today’s abandoned shipping container was currently going up in flames like the ones before it. The bodies and all DNA were removed by our cleaning crew. Unlike the other times, today my crew found a lead—a receipt stuffed into the pocket of one victim’s shorts. It was from a truck stop in Indiana. It wasn’t much. A location and a date.
Reid, my man who could put together any puzzle, wanted to include Araneae in our search. He believed the connection may be familiar to at least one of the current inhabitants of the Sparrow Institute. The institute was Araneae’s dream. Ever since she learned the dark and sordid details of sex trafficking, the woman I love’s vision was to help, to give survivors a place to recover, restore, and establish roots.
Araneae wasn’t alone. Mason’s wife, Laurel, was a PhD with knowledge regarding memory. The institute also housed her labs and clinical trials of a landmark compound that if made available could revolutionize the treatment of PTSD. Patrick’s wife had a sadly not unique calling to the cause. Like many of the volunteers at the institute, she too was a survivor.
If you asked Madeline, she’d say she was one of the lucky ones.
If I hadn’t assisted Patrick in ridding the world of the monsters in her past, I would sleep even less. I had helped. One by one we confirmed their reign of abuse and terror was ended.
Unfortunately, those individuals were but the tip of an iceberg. Our quest seemed never ending.
I turned at the sound of the opening bathroom door.
Blinking through the steam, I saw a vision.
If I weren’t so sleep deprived, I might assume that she was real.
An apparition brought to life by my needs and desires.
Like a ghost in a fog, the beauty came closer. Through the glass doors I stared as every curve of her exposed body became clearer. Golden hair flowed over her slender shoulders, her perfect tits bounced with each step, and her waist narrowed above her round hips and the sexy blond bush at the apex of her thighs.
“Fuck.”
Opening the glass barrier, Araneae became real. No longer an illusion, she was with me, her hands on my body, her lips on my skin.
“I decided I couldn’t wait.”
My palms cupped her cheeks as the water rained down over both of us. “You’re so fucking perfect.” Our lips united. Such as a man on the brink of dehydration, I drank her in, tasting her sweet toothpaste-flavored kiss.
Pressing her body against mine, Araneae’s touch skirted over my shoulders and down my chest. Her soft brown eyes met mine as her fingers splayed on my chest.
“I feel it,” she said. “I feel your heart, Sterling. I don’t know what you’re dealing with, but I know you. I know you care. I would never try to make you less.” Her lips left a wake of kisses over my skin and down my abdomen. Looking up through veiled lashes, she smiled. “I just want to take your mind off it for a while.”
I braced myself with a hand on the tile and another ready to bend the fucking towel rack as Araneae’s kisses moved lower, her knees bent, and her lips opened.
“Fuck,” I growled.
Forcing my eyes to open, I took in the current vision.
The woman I loved.
On her knees.
Her head bobbing as she took my hardened dick as deep as she could while her fingers moved up and down the root of my erection. With a single goal, Araneae was beyond perfect. Her lips tightened with suction as her tongue swirled the tip. Her breath came in gusts as she fidgeted with her own growing arousal.
This, under the hot spray of the shower, was fucking bliss.
However, after the days, weeks, and months of continual defeat at discovering more victims, I had an unstoppable desire to give as well as receive. It was my need to be in control, in complete control.
Reaching for Araneae’s chin, I lifted until her lips parted and soft chocolate stare was upon me. I offered her my hand. “I love your mouth, but I want to come in your pussy.”
Nodding, she stood.
It was more than simply coming. As the fever of her touch built within me, I wanted to thrust and pound in a way I wouldn’t do to her lips. Araneae wanted to help me, and I knew she could take whatever I gave.
She had and come back for more.
There was no other woman for me. It was the one thing my father got right.
Kissing her, I tasted the saltiness of my own come before spinning her toward the wet tile. This was a dance we’d shared over and over during the last eight years. And still it never got old. The way my wife responded, the goose bumps upon her flesh and the hardening of her nipples were glorious to watch. Even from over her shoulder, I saw the way her breasts grew heavy and her areolas deepened to a dark red.
My grip of her hips tightened as I continued to take her, positioning her in a way I could dive deep, thrust after thrust.
With her wet hair hanging down, Araneae pushed back, her fingers blanching on the tile. Her words lost meaning as curses faded to gasps and whimpers. Listening to her was better than hearing the entire Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The way her pussy clamped down on me, strangling me as she came apart was the magical finale. I let out a guttural roar as I also came, stream after stream, until I collapsed over her back, my chin upon her shoulder. “I love you.”
My heart pounded against her skin as she craned her neck, peering back at me. “Yes, Mr. Sparrow. I love you too.”
A smile curled my lips. “I see you’ve rethought that obeying thing.”
Disconnecting our bodies, Araneae spun, lifting her arms over my shoulders. “I know what saying ‘Yes, Mr. Sparrow’ does to you, and I have hopes of this continuing out in our bed.”
“Have I told you that you’re insatiable?”
“Are you complaining?”
“Never.”
Turning off the shower, we managed to dry ourselves before slipping under the covers of our bed. As Araneae curled her soft body against me, I lifted her chin. Brushing her lips with mine, I let her light, her sunshine, seep into me. Such as lifting my face to the celestial body, Araneae warmed me from within.
“You make me want to rid the world of every evil.”
She blinked before kissing me. “The world is a big place.”
“I won’t stop until it’s a better place, for you and Goldie, for Eddie and Jack.”
Araneae’s fingers splayed on my chest. “I admire your lofty goals, Sterling, but what Goldie and I want is you. If your goals take you away from us for hours or days, it’s too long. Never leave us.”
“Never.”
“I’ll take an imperfect world as long as you’re beside me.”