part0008

“Is everything ready?” Vanessa removed her glasses when her head of housekeeping stepped into her office. This was only after the appropriate buzzer was rung and the security posted outside Vanessa’s office confirmed the identity of Maria Hernandez. Seems a bit ridiculous, but you can never be sure, even all the way out here. Everyone, including Ms. Hernandez, underwent extensive background checks before stepping foot on Vanessa’s compound. It was necessary for her precarious safety. Something she kept closely guarded from the day her father died.

Maria, dressed in her white uniform, bowed before Vanessa’s desk. That brown bun on top of her head was slightly mussed, a good sign that Maria had been hard at work cleaning the premier guest quarters all day. She had more than earned her quarterly bonus, hadn’t she? “I’ve personally overseen the preparations, ma’am.” Maria clasped her hands before her. Eyes did not bequeath praise. Nor did her demeanor suggest that Vanessa should kiss her employee’s ass, lest someone decide to spit on her pillow. Maria had been working for over six years. The last thing Vanessa wanted was to hire a new head of housekeeping. Both she and Maria liked things to be just… so. Particulars were important when one’s world was limited to their intimate queendom. “Scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom and replaced the linens. There isn’t a dust bunny beneath the bed or a smudge of dust on the TV. Your new guest will be quite happy with their accommodations.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Vanessa let out a small breath of relief. “I know our Ms. Cruise is a former Marine. If you know anything about them, it’s that they like their uniformity.” Granted, the only Marines Vanessa had ever met were employed on her security, and that did not extend to the husband and wife team who oversaw the whole operation.

Speaking of the devils… there was one of them right now.

“Good morning, Maria.” Chantelle shared a grin with the head housekeeper before Maria was dismissed. “Do you have a moment, Vanessa?”

“Of course.” Vanessa clicked out of her daily tracking spreadsheets for her investments. Did she have someone who oversaw those as well? Of course she did. But when a woman made a bulk of her staggering income from investments, she was inclined to track them for herself as well. Not like she had much else to do out there in the wilderness – in her luxurious, gilded cage she rarely got to leave. “I take it everything is ready for Ms. Cruise’s arrival?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Chantelle sat on the couch by the wall. She always commanded her spaces with such effortless confidence. Didn’t matter if she wore one of her current pantsuits or a cocktail dress while accompanying Vanessa to a rare function. The woman wore a pound of makeup and always had her hair styled like she was about to head to a wedding – one could hardly guess that she had the ability to knock her own burly husband out with a mere flick of her wrist. Chantelle wasn’t former military like Luke, however. She was merely a former soccer star who turned her physical attentions to security after she aged out of playing the sport professionally. Vanessa had been excited to have a woman leading her security team, even if she came with a husband who liked to put his arm around her – and the tales of how loud they could get in their room at night was a rumor often passed around the staff, perfect for Vanessa to overhear when she least wanted. Her crush on Chantelle ended there, though. Vanessa merely pined after any woman who wasn’t afraid of her own shadow.

“Maria has informed me that her rooms are ready, and I’ve heard that they’re only a half hour away. That was… five minutes ago? Make that twenty-five minutes.”

Chantelle chuckled. “Excited, are we?”

Vanessa hated to blush before one of her closest confidants, not that Chantelle was exactly a confidant. She was the closest thing to a female friend Vanessa had between her “guests.” Three to four times a year she entertained a young lady for a month, sometimes more if it was mutually agreeable. Chantelle and Luke were the ones who procured the women now, let alone extensively checked their backgrounds to ensure they were not a threat. Still, Vanessa did not hesitate to take precautions to protect her life. That was why so many of the young women she paid to entertain left after a month or two. The secrets that must remain between them became too much to bear.

“It’s always a bit nerve-wracking to welcome a new guest into the house,” Vanessa said.

“No worries,” Chantelle said with her usual candor. Yet beneath that indifferent surface was a woman powerful enough to shoot a man between the eyes. I’ve seen her practice shots. There was a small firing range at the back of the property. Vanessa insisted on it, to keep her security team sharp although they lived a hundred miles away from anywhere. “I know how much you appreciate your lady friends.” She said that with the kind of wink that almost made Vanessa lose her courtly façade. “We’ll make sure you two get to have all your fun in the safety of this beautiful house. Hell, her being a former Marine might mean Luke has a new training buddy. Keep her out of your bedroom long enough, and she might stay in shape.”

A small tinge of jealousy tickled Vanessa’s heart. Luke was a perfectly good man. Damn fantastic at his job, since he was better than anyone when it came to hauling Vanessa over his shoulder and getting away from danger. Yet he not only called Chantelle his wife, but was a terrible flirt with the rest of the female staff. Chantelle, somehow, tolerated it. Yet that didn’t mean Vanessa appreciated coming upon her “guests” on the receiving end of Luke’s come-ons. More than once Vanessa’s wild and jealous speculative nature told her that her security heads were having their own way with the women paid to be there. That’s ridiculous, of course. I know what they’re up to at all times. If any of Vanessa’s guests were paying midnight calls to Chantelle and Luke… she would know about it. Someone would tell her. Vanessa had access to the security tapes, after all.

Still didn’t mean Luke got away with it. They had more than a few talks about flirting with guests – and other female employees.

“I actually came here to talk about something else,” Chantelle said, leaning forward. Her dark red hair fell from its high ponytail and caressed her chiseled jaw. “Before you’re too distracted to listen to my security reports.”

The blood drained from Vanessa’s cheeks. Her clammy hands touched the mat on top of her desk, as if her father’s ghost had walked through her office doors and said a fond hello. “What is it? Has something happened?”

Chantelle was momentarily mute, which did not help Vanessa’s constant paranoia. “It’s probably nothing, but I thought you should know that we’ve received a tip about Saul’s whereabouts.”

Saul. The man responsible for Vanessa’s life behind gilded bars. He was why she couldn’t live freely, such as in the city or in a quaint, beachside community. Since Vanessa was a small child, she had been in hiding, locked away in whatever rural compound she kept off the grid. She had moved between California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico so much that she didn’t know if she was a native Californian anymore. Did it matter if she hadn’t gone to a “real” school since kindergarten? Ever since her father’s murder, Vanessa had been sequestered for her own safety. First it was by her uncle, the man who continued to raise her after her mother ran for the hills and his brother met an untimely end. Now, Vanessa continued to live the only life she had ever known.

Isolation. Physical, emotional, and certainly social. Hell, the only friends she had were online, and her team closely monitored her activities to ensure she wasn’t giving away their identities or locations to anyone. My first ever online “friend” turned out to be one of Saul’s informants out to find me. That was when they moved from New Mexico to Arizona almost overnight.

The only people Vanessa could trust were those on her staff. People who endured extensive background checks and had their communications in and out of the compound closely monitored. That’s what Chantelle did best. She was the eyes and ears of the whole property. She ran the background checks, patted down anyone who came onto the land, and wasn’t afraid to boss her own husband around when necessary. Luke was good muscle. Between the two of them, Vanessa had never feared for her life since moving to the wilds of northern California.

So for Chantelle to bring up Saul one late afternoon was concerning, to say the least.

“What about him?” Vanessa asked, her quaking voice betraying the fear fluttering in her stomach.

Chantelle leveled her gaze on Vanessa, still sitting behind her large yet clean desk. “My sources tell me he’s currently in San Francisco. Sounds like he’s house hunting. I’ll keep a close eye on his comings and goings. My source is in with a lot of financers in the bay area, so I’ll know if he makes a large purchase or if he’s just temporarily renting for business.”

“San Francisco, huh?” That was too close. Maybe not in her literal backyard, but too close. Vanessa was afraid that she might look out her window and see a middle-aged man looking down the barrel of a gun. He may not have dirtied his own hands when he arranged the deaths of Vanessa’s family, but she would never put it past him.

“Like I said…” Chantelle relaxed her rigid posture. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything to immediately worry about. As far as I know, he doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Perhaps not, but he’s always looking.”

“That’s what I’m here for. To make sure he never finds you.”

Chantelle lazily tapped her fingers against her cheek. “I know a guy who can pop his head off.”

Vanessa exhaled her heavy breath. Luke is good at hand-to-hand and weaponry. That’s why he had come heavily recommended by his predecessor, a man who had been with the family since before Vanessa’s father ruined everything. He blamed himself for the deaths in the family, but stayed on the staff out of a sense of duty. The only reason he retired? Cancer. Last Vanessa heard, he had beat doctors’ expectations by at least two years.

Still, it was good to have some young blood around the compound. Vanessa appreciated having staff that were within ten years of her own age. Chantelle and her husband didn’t look a day over thirty, although they were much closer to forty.

A buzzer went off in Chantelle’s phone. She checked it with alacrity. “Looks like your new friend is about to get here,” Chantelle said with a sly smile. She always gave Vanessa a good-natured ribbing for something she saw absolutely vital to her mental (and physical) health. “Luke and I will welcome her to the fold. I’m assuming you two will be having dinner tonight?”

Vanessa attempted to keep her jitters to herself, but she was so smooth moving a hand off the keyboard to her lap that she knocked both a pen and a mouse off her desk. “We will be dining together, unless she does not find it agreeable. Her contract doesn’t technically start until tomorrow.”

“You and your contracts.” Chantelle stood up, chuckling. “I get it, though. Anyway, I’m off to round up Luke. I’m assuming you want to get ready for your first date with your lovely new lady.”

Nodding, Vanessa pulled a compact out of her top desk drawer and studied the freckles dotting her nose and the tops of her cheeks. She waved farewell to Chantelle while wondering what color palette she should go with that night. Would her new guest fancy a woman with bold, dark eyeshadow and her hair tightly pulled back from her head? The Femme Fatale. A smoky eye, thin lip, and wardrobe that suggests I’ll whip her if she doesn’t behave. Or maybe she responded better to a woman in a soft dress in creamier colors. Hair left loose and heels that clacked against the wood floors. The Cozy Girlfriend. I’ll tell her how beautiful she is while I’m spanking her ass raw. Both appealed to Vanessa, but both probably didn’t appeal to her guest.

Beneath her compact’s little home was a stack of print-outs detailing the women Vanessa had brought into her home over the past few years. Women she “hired” off the dark web, a place she relied on to keep her identity a secret while providing a social and retail outlet for her tired head. It was one of the acquaintances she met in a dark web chatroom that informed her she could find companionship in those far corners. Vanessa may have been under eternal house arrest, but she still had needs. Desperately dark needs that were probably a result of her fucked up life.

She preferred women who fell into their necessary roles without a fight. Submissive. I need submissive, obedient women. Not only because it turned her on, but because there was more reassurance that a well-behaved woman would stay out of Vanessa’s business. That wasn’t simply good for her. It was good for the women she hired, too. Kept them safe. The less they knew about Vanessa, the better.

They weren’t allowed to see her face.

The file on top was the most recent woman, currently a few miles away from the compound. Michelle Cruise. Former Marine. Currently worked security at a concert venue in Southern California. It wasn’t unusual for Vanessa to fly in her woman of the month from anywhere around the world. She had the means, and for the right women? It was worth it. Those three or four women she entertained a year were the difference between Vanessa losing her damned mind and staying sane a little while longer.

Michelle was unlike any of the other women Vanessa had hired before. Oh, she had partnered with butch women before, but she found it difficult to overcome some of the ingrained power plays that arose with those situations. Yet Michelle wasn’t just masculine in appearance and attitude. There was a fierce look behind her eyes. Something burned in her soul. Power. Strength. A confident attitude. Three things Vanessa desperately wanted and convinced herself she had. That was certainly the image she projected to those she brought into her fold.

I don’t think I’ve ever been with a veteran before. The background check Chantelle provided proved that Michelle had been to Iraq. She had a few commendations and a lengthy list of assignments. What Chantelle couldn’t find in public record was easily located with a few phone calls to some of her associates both in and out of the military. Luke was a former serviceman himself. Between the two of them, anything was traceable.

She’s so… powerful. One of the interview questions Michelle was required to answer covered her preferred roles in the bedroom and whether she was familiar with, let alone practiced, BDSM. “I’m up for anything,” was the kind of answer that made Vanessa usually overlook a candidate, but something about Michelle saying that gave her pause. Are you really up for anything? Or do you only want the money? The money was nothing to Vanessa. She had her father’s wit and eye for the stock market, and made a bulk of her income off sly investments and the interest compounding on the earnings she already acquired. It allowed her to live in the middle of nowhere with a large staff trained to keep her alive.