Chapter 8

Zazie

I was in a very uncomfortable moment. My brother was staring at me like he was going to use the rest of the strength on his shrunken frame to leap across the table and pull out my heart Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style.

And I was too frightened of Ryan to even look in his direction. I could feel his glare. It was as if his expression was actually burning a pit in the bottom of my stomach.

I pursed my lips together. “Before you guys start roasting me,” I began, “I would like to say I know what I did was wrong. And stupid. And I am sorry.” I was angry at myself, too, but that was stupid because I was remembering how that moment had felt. There was no choice! As soon as I saw those rings out of the corner of my eye, I knew that I had to have at least one of them. The world wanted me to have it, and during that moment I was absolutely certain of it.

I still was. I knew neither my brother nor his husband would understand just how mine my new ring was. They’d never understood, never heard something like this call to them like a siren.

This was my cross to bear.

A cross I liked very much. It looked good on my hand, too.

“I want you to—” Ryan began in his firm tone.

“I can’t return it! It would be so bad for you! You’re representing the man who’s suing him! Yikes, right?” I reminded, trying to head off the demand that I return my ring at the pass.

“You can’t keep it, Zazie,” Zach reminded me, his tone tired.

We had had this pow-wow before. Twice we had this pow-wow after Ryan had paid my bail. Because occasionally I had been caught doing this shit. The only reason I wasn’t still in jail was because Ryan was an amazingly talented lawyer that I couldn’t have otherwise ever afforded.

“I think it would be best if I did keep it,” I told them frankly, gesturing to the ring that Zach had found so quickly because I guess I had a weird expression on my face when I came to his house right after John had driven me back home. Zach had cooked lasagna, and I hadn’t had time to stash it without showing up late.

At their aghast expressions, I put up my hands and assured, “I won’t wear it outside the house.”

“Zazie, go to your room,” Ryan finally groaned with pained weariness, pressing his palms over his eyes.

“I don’t live here anymore,” I reminded.

“GO TO YOUR ROOM!” he suddenly barked, pointing down the hallway. I stood up and immediately walked into my old room, which was now their guest room, and sat on the bed like a punished seven-year-old.

Why was I like this? I had to ask myself.

Although I’d been to a psychiatrist (it was court-ordered after the last incident), whose sole purpose seemed to be figuring out why I had so much terrible impulse control around gems and gold but nothing else, it had irked him on a professional level. My shrink had delved, and tried, and worked hard, but eventually gave up and referred me away. My obligations to the court were met, and I just kept the mystery of my compulsions.

My brother was a better shrink, and he thought it had something to do with my childhood. Or what had happened to me when my parents died. Or how they’d died. It wasn’t useful to anyone else because I could remember none of it. I didn’t feel like my childhood was strange or challenging; as far as I knew, it’d been normal. Zach had assured me it was far from normal, that everything was being repressed, and I eventually needed to come to terms with all that reality if I wanted to actually be normal.

Admittedly, I was pretty far from normal! I wasn’t even a sexual creature unless gems were involved. My earliest sex fantasies were that a big penis made out of gems and gold fucked me, and my first lover owned a gems store.

And then there was today. I was definitely thinking that Caspian, despite the fact that he was an obvious villain, looked positively handsome in all the right ways. However, he was also a purveyor of fine goods and was showing me his gem collection.

I still wanted to put my hand down my pants and think about fucking Caspian wearing the ring I’d stolen from him.

I wondered if he realized it was missing already. Hopefully not. I wanted some time between me and the event before he caught on. Last time an attractive gems dealer caught me stealing from him, I ended up with an ass I couldn’t sit comfortably on for days. Before he took my virginity, he’d definitely given me a spanking that was unforgettable.

It had been particularly unforgettable because it was my first and only spanking, I had been an adult when I got it, and it did make me embarrassingly wet. Or maybe was it just Murtagh looking at my naked ass? Could have been either way, but I wasn’t sure if being turned on because I’d been embarrassed was any better.

I listened to a conversation between Ryan and Zach where they discussed how extremely depressing I was to be the family of and how I kept disappointing them over and over again, making the same mistakes, and would definitely die in prison, alone.

I finally walked out of the room and leaned against the wall between the hallway and the kitchen. “You guys want me to go?” I asked, hiking my thumb in the direction of the door.

“I want you to stop stealing, Zazie,” Zach replied through tight lips. He looked so fucking tired, it was pulling at my heartstrings. “You can’t go on like this.”

“Literally,” Ryan added firmly. “You will be stopped. I guarantee it. And after all the rumors you’ve heard about Caspian Dagon, I have no idea what you were thinking by stealing this.” He gestured at the ring that was sitting pretty in the middle of the table. “I don’t know how much it’s worth, but it’s gonna be a big ticket. He’s not going to just chalk it up as ‘lost’.”

“It’s Byzantian,” I admitted apologetically, wincing.

“Like the Empire? The one that doesn’t exist anymore?” Zach clarified, his expression showing how horrified and impressed he was.

“Yeah, like Constantinople?” I winced again because they didn’t look like they were exactly getting goosebumps like I had.

“How much is it valued at?” Ryan asked, and I could tell that he hated asking.

“You don’t want to know,” I assured. But after I got very intense yet exhausted expressions in reply, I found I had to be more exact. “It’s hard to say what market demand is for this particular item, but we’re looking at twenty million, thereabouts…”

Zach made a scream.

I winced yet again. “Yeah, it’s bad. But I barely realized I had done it by the time I was stuffing it into my jacket.”

“Fact as that may be, it will not help your case if you’re caught and this is brought to trial. It is very important that you’re not found with it on your person or your property,” Ryan assured me frankly. “I need you to dispose of that ring in a way that does not tie you to it. No fingerprints, no cameras at a pawnshop, nothing.”

“I wasn’t going to pawn it!” I assured, incredulous.

I could tell that Ryan was trying very hard to be patient with me, and I appreciated that. “What were you going to do with it?”

I put my hands in my pockets. “I’m still deciding. Probably I’m just gonna sleep with it.”

“Sleep. With. It.” Zach’s tone was so thickly judgmental right now, I felt like I could poke it with a fork.

“Yeah, Zach. I sleep with stuff like this.” From his expression, I felt I had to add, “It’s not sexual.” Much.

I walked over and grabbed the ring off the table. Oh, it felt so good to have it on my person. Dear lord, it was instant goosebumps! I felt my nips even go a little hard.

“I will dispose of it,” I promised them both very succinctly and with the best performance of sincerity I could muster.

I was lying, but I felt like I’d sold it.

“I’m not getting dinner now, am I?” I felt like I had to add when I got to the door and felt my stomach grumble.

“Zazie, out,” Zach snapped firmly, pointing to the door. It was the same tone Ryan had used when he sent me to my old room.

I put up my hands defensively and opened the door. “Okay, okay. I promise, I’ll get a hold on this.”

“See that you do,” Zach replied gravely.

I spent the night and the whole next day in a shame spiral. Zach was right—I should dispose of the ring. I knew I shouldn’t have taken it.

For years, he had tried to help me train my impulse control to something that I could handle. He’d given me exercises, told me to journal, tried everything known in the world of psychology to help me handle this. He’d read book after book, trying to help me find ways to figure this out.

I had done none of the exercises over the years. I had read none of the books. I hadn’t even tried to make progress. I just kept making the same mistake. Hell, I still slept with all the things I’d gotten away with stealing! I’d shoved them all into a teddy bear, and I fucking loved knowing that there were so many rare gems inside… Hell, I’d grinded myself on that bear. The two of us had a very sullied, toxic relationship.

After the sun set the following day, I pulled myself out of my apartment and went down to my favorite bar, which I happened to live over. Despite us all being part of the twenty-first century where bars weren’t known to be like this anymore, I felt like I had found a very Cheers-like environment. Sure, the owner of the bar looked like Santa Clause (if Santa Clause had been in a biker gang until he got arthritis in his shoulder so badly that he could no longer ride), and the bar always smelled like rotting malt and was kinda always dirty and sticky, even if it’d all just been cleaned. But I felt it was a good home environment for me. I knew everyone here, and there was a lot of comfort in that.

I walked through the bar. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Frank, the bartender, said in greeting. “Why do you look like shit?”

“My brother is prompting me to analyze my self-worth,” I admitted, climbing up on a bar stool.

“Isn’t that a mother’s job?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but I don’t have one. So he feels like he has to step in,” I explained.

“But he doesn’t. He doesn’t need to be your mom, and you don’t have to be his kid. It’s okay to set boundaries,” he told me in his gruff, should-be-Santa-like-but-wasn’t-at-all tone.

I sighed and looked up at him. “Are you a bartender or a shrink?”

“I am both to a lot of people,” he assured me and put a glass of house-made cider in front of me. He looked up and his eyes caught something in the window. “Dear lord, there’s a man out there who doesn’t realize what street he’s on,” he mentioned with a grumble.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what that meant. He nodded towards the window, answering my puzzled expression, and when I turned, I saw exactly who he was talking about and why.

It was the butler I’d seen over at Dagon’s house. He was way too well-dressed to be on this street. His suit screamed money. It also screamed ‘Pretentious Nerd!’

I launched myself up from my seat and over the counter, then crouched on the floor, all with very few movements.

Frank didn’t seem surprised by this. As far as I knew, this was a normal occurrence for him. “You know him or something?”

“Yeah. It’s better if he doesn’t see me. The fact that he’s on this street is…” I tilted my head from side to side. “Not good.”

“You steal something from him?” Frank guessed, because Frank knew everything. It was his super-power.

“Not him,” I assured, pressing my back against the cabinets near his knees. “…his employer.”

Frank tsked. “You got to get a handle on your kleptomania.”

“I don’t have kleptomania!” I cried. “You’ve left me alone with your cash register, and have I stolen even a quarter out of it?”

“No,” he admitted with a shrug. “Well, if you don’t have kleptomania, you’ve got something.”

I rolled my eyes and hid my face in my hands.

“Besides, you can hide under my counter all you want. But if he’s here, then he knows where you live. What are you gonna do now? Go home?”

He raised a good point.

I would have to just squat where I was and have a good think.

Then he grunted with surprise. “Well, hell… You didn’t steal shit from a very rich, tall, blond fella, did ya?”

My first thought? That sounded a lot like Caspian Dagon. My second? That I was so fucked.

“Why?” I asked.

“He’s about to come in here, so if you want to get away, you better escape out the back,” he informed, not looking down at me, but looking straight ahead at the windows to the street.

I immediately scrambled, on hands and knees, towards the back. When I was in the back storeroom, I stood up and ran out the doors and into the alleyway.

It was dark as hell here. There were no streetlights in the alley. I could have had a rat sitting on my shoe and not known it.

I carefully skulked down towards the street, trying not to trip.

I looked around the corner. Left, then right.

Looking right was the problem.

I was now looking directly at Murtagh Rails.

Murtagh was way, way taller than I remembered him being. Oh, I remembered that he was big, but I didn’t remember just how big. I was only eighteen when I knew Murtagh—I was right out of high school. I figured my memories of him were warped by the knowledge that I thought he was smart, and successful, and worldly, and I was none of those things. Of course I had been intimidated by him.

“Murtagh…” I said aloud, transfixed. I had to be imagining him, right? Because he didn’t even look surprised to see me. He had the same expression on his face that he’d had when he caught me stuffing his necklace into my purse.

“Hello, little thief,” he said, his mouth widening into a smirk. The smirk wasn’t kind; it said, ‘I found you, you little shit,’ like we were playing a very long game of Hide and Seek and he had long ago called ‘Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!” which I had refused to honor.

The look made me take a step back into the darkness, although I had thought of Murtagh a million times. I had regretted leaving him. Regretted having him only once. But I also knew that he had a bite, and I didn’t want to be bit.

“Caspian! I got her,” he said to someone approaching me from behind.

I spun around, stunned, my heart jumping into my throat, and I saw Caspian, blond and very well dressed in a white blazer, walking towards us, looking pissed.

Of course he was pissed! And I understood, but I still felt like I could get away. I backed up and realized that Murtagh was just behind me now. I could feel his body heat against my back as he looped a strong arm around me.

Startled, I stomped on his foot and threw an elbow right into his groin, which did make him release me immediately. I spun around his body and sprinted down the street behind him. If they were going to take back that ring, they were going to have to chase me down for it. I wasn’t giving it up without a fight.

I heard them say something to each other but didn’t look back. Their footfalls stomping on the pavement behind me were frightening enough. They weren’t giving up either, apparently.

Fuck. This wasn’t good.

I needed to run and fast. I put one foot in front of the other, concentrating so that I didn’t trip like all those blonde girls did in all the big horror movies. I, for one, was smarter than that.

Immediately, I stumbled and nearly shrieked with frustration at myself. Thankfully, I caught myself before I fell.

Don’t look over your shoulder either, dummy.

To my credit, I didn’t, which I was pretty proud of myself for because every instinct in my body was telling me to do exactly that to see if I had lost them, and if I hadn’t, how far exactly they were behind me so my head could calculate my odds of escape. Instead, I kept my head forward and kept sprinting down the alley. When I got to the end of it, I turned left and then took a quick right, hoping to lose them.

My heart raced like a drumbeat in my chest as I sprinted through the dimly lit streets of the city. The rhythmic thud of their pursuing footsteps echoed behind me, which only made my heart beat that much faster.

The cityscape blurred as I ran through the labyrinth of alleyways, my breaths coming in rapid gasps. The night was heavy with the scent of humidity and magnolia blossoms, and the distant sound of blues music from some nearby bar wafted through the air.

A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead, and I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder once again. Every fiber of my being screamed to look back and assess the situation, but I fought against the instinct. Instead, I focused on the path ahead, my eyes scanning for potential escape routes, hoping for anything really.

As I turned another corner, the narrow streets of downtown Baton Rouge stretched out before me like a maze. I pressed harder, sprinting through the twists and turns, the sound of their pursuit still close on my heels. The neon signs casting erratic shadows on the street and the distant sound of their laughter made my blood run cold.

Were they enjoying this?

A surge of adrenaline fueled my steps as I approached a bustling intersection. Without hesitation, I darted through the traffic, narrowly avoiding a collision with a bus. It brushed close enough for a gust of air to rush past my body and for my heart to nearly leap out of my throat.

Ahead, I spotted a narrow alley, and without second-guessing, I veered into its shadowy confines. The walls seemed to close in around me as I sprinted through, my breath echoing in the confined space. I took another turn, hoping the labyrinthine streets would confuse Murtagh and Caspian, but as I pressed onwards, I could still hear their steps pounding into the pavement behind me.

I didn’t know how much longer I could press on for. I wasn’t an Olympic sprinter. I hadn’t even run track in high school. My legs protested with every step, my lungs burned, and soon enough, my side cramped so hard that my steps faltered, but I kept going because I didn’t know what was going to happen if the two of them caught me.

Would they kill me? Clap me in irons and throw me in jail? Take me hostage and punish me themselves? Caspian had the kind of power that put people away permanently, or so the rumors said, and Murtagh, well, he handled things in his own way, and I very much remembered the effect those ways had on me.

My pussy pulsed and I almost tripped.

Fuck, Zazie. Keep your head in the game. Think on your feet, for Christ’s sake.

I wasn’t going to last that much longer. Gasping for breath, I veered around a corner into a concealed courtyard, the walls offering a temporary shield from their prying eyes. The distant sounds of footsteps told me they were closing in, and panic clawed at the edges of my exhaustion.

With a quick assessment of my surroundings, I spotted a wrought iron gate at the end of the courtyard. Without a second thought, I sprinted towards it, my body protesting with each stride. The gate creaked as I pushed it open, revealing a shadowed alley on the other side.

I pressed myself against the cool surface of a nearby building, desperately trying to quiet my ragged breath. The city’s ambient sounds surrounded me—the distant hum of traffic, the muffled sound of singing from a nearby pub—but my ears strained for any sign of Murtagh and Caspian.

I closed my eyes, attempting to steady my breathing, the erratic rhythm gradually slowing. The footsteps of the pursuers echoed in my memory, and every rustle of leaves or distant shuffle of feet sent a jolt of adrenaline through my veins.

Were they there? Had they found me?

I listened intently, my senses heightened. My heartbeat quieted to a more normal pace, and the blood rushing through my skull no longer sounded like white water rapids.

Time seemed to stretch on, each passing moment filled with anticipation and tension. My ears pricked, ready to detect the slightest hint of approaching danger.

With every passing second, the echoes of footsteps grew fainter, and a glimmer of hope flickered within my chest. Maybe I’d escaped. Maybe they’d given up and decided I wasn’t worth the chase.

Could I be that lucky?

Still pressed against the building, I cautiously opened my eyes and held my breath, scanning the darkness for any signs of movement, but I saw nothing. The courtyard remained shrouded in darkness, and I allowed myself a moment to collect myself. For several long seconds, I didn’t hear any signs of their footsteps and I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, the faint, unmistakable sound of a boot scuffing against the pavement echoed in the air.

Immediately, all my senses went on high alert, and my heart skipped a beat. I pressed back against the building, my body tensing as I strained to figure out what direction it had come from. The darkness played tricks on my eyes, and for a moment, I held my breath, hoping that it was just my imagination. People hallucinated sometimes after exercise, right? Was I crazy?

Yet, as the seconds ticked by, the subtle scuffing grew louder. Dread knotted in my stomach, and I closed my eyes, trying to hold myself together when another scuff sounded only feet away from my right.

Mother fucking shit, this wasn’t good at fucking all.

“There you are, little thief,” a male voice breathed.

Murtagh had found me.

“I enjoyed the chase, little mouse, but I’m going to enjoy what comes next even more,” another voice echoed, seemingly everywhere at once.

Fuck.

Caspian was here too.

A fresh surge of panic raced through me, and I swallowed back a scream. Now was not the time to lose my head. My eyes searched the shadows, trying to figure out where they were, but I saw nothing. I couldn’t wait any longer. Now was the time to act.

I burst forward, meaning to escape the courtyard and return to the confusing trail of alleyways so I could disappear, but all of a sudden, their forms materialized out of the shadows. I’m not sure who, but one of them reached out and managed to grab my arm. Instinct took over and with a swift kick to his shin, I broke free and stumbled backwards.

I sprinted for everything I was worth. I’d just made it to the gate when a set of arms wrapped around my waist, immediately halting my escape. At once, I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, and as much as I struggled, kicking and punching my way to freedom, nothing worked. I used every bit of energy I had left and then some, adrenaline racing through my veins with unrestrained fervor.

Nothing I did earned me even an inch.

Eventually, my limbs ran out of strength, and I stopped fighting. My breathing ragged, I did the next best thing.

I attempted to negotiate.

“I’ll give you whatever you want. I have your ring. Money. Sexual favors. A handie. A blowie. Whatever you need, I’ll be your girl,” I tried, my heart pounding in my chest.

Instead of answering right away, neither man said anything at all, which simply made my panic surge that much more. My heartbeat went wild as the silence stretched on and I began to speak once more.

“I’ll give you it back. I promise. Just please don’t kill me,” I whispered.

“We’re not going to kill you, little mouse,” Caspian murmured, his buttery voice slipping down my spine and making my body melt just a bit. His confirmation made me feel at least a tiny sliver at ease, but only so much, which wasn’t really much at all.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it, little thief?” Murtagh asked, the dark edge to his voice causing a shiver to race through me at the very same time that my pussy clenched. I’d heard that tone of voice before, and I knew what that meant.

I was so fucked.Literally. Figuratively. I was fucked every which way to Sunday and then right back again, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then they slipped a hood over my head, and my whole world plunged into darkness.