Oliver Rush’s mouth fell open. His eyes rolled in their sockets once, twice, then he looked at me. His lips started to come together like he wanted to speak but couldn’t find words. We both looked down at the same time and that’s when I saw the small patch of blood on his white shirt. He touched his stomach, his fingers sliding into the wet mess of crimson spreading on his shirt.
I gasped for air and watched as Oliver Rush started to turn. Jonathan Black stood behind him, wearing a pair of black leather gloves, holding the end of a knife. He’d lined it up perfectly behind Oliver Rush and I could only imagine the damage the stab wound had done. Jonathan Black walked Oliver Rush away from the bed, towards the wall. He smashed him against it and Oliver Rush let out a small grunt, a dying grunt. Jonathan turned the knife, over and over, until Oliver Rush finally lost his balance and started to fall. That’s when Jonathan took the knife from Oliver’s body and let him fall. He then rolled Oliver to his back and using both hands, he drove the knife into Oliver’s chest, right through the heart.
Dead.
“Dead,” Jonathan Black said.
Dead.
Oliver Rush was dead.
Murdered.
By Jonathan Black.
Murdered.
With my help.
Jonathan turned towards me and came to my aid. He wasn’t able to touch me but just having him a foot away actually comforted me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I… don’t know.”
“You’ll be fine,” Jonathan said. “We need to get out of here. I’ll hold you, Isabella Grace, until your fear is gone. He can’t hurt anyone now. Nobody will ever hurt you.” Jonathan lifted his hands and opened them. Even though the gloves were black I could see the wetness on them, Oliver Rush’s blood. “Do you still have that phone I gave you?”
I nodded.
“Give it to me. Then take my cell phone and hold it while I make a call.”
I didn’t want to know what the call was about but I assumed it had to be to clean up the mess that was Oliver Rush’s fresh corpse.
I dropped the cell phone into Jonathan Black’s hand and then reached into his jacket to retrieve his phone.
“I’m going to make this call in the bathroom to make sure everything is in silence,” he said.
I nodded as my hand shook holding his cell phone.
“You’re beautiful, Isabella Grace. We’ve done right in a world of wrong.”
Jonathan Black turned and slowly walked to the bathroom. He still looked damn sexy but I couldn’t help but wish I was back on his private jet, waking to find myself handcuffed. It seemed so much easier yesterday.
Yesterday, it was sex.
Today, it was murder.
What did that mean for tomorrow?
I heard Jonathan’s voice start to speak when his phone in my hand began to vibrate and then chime.
Silence.
Jonathan said he needed silence to make his phone call.
Shit.
I hurried and pressed to accept the phone call. I would pay for this, but I would take a little sexual punishment over being caught for murder.
“Hello?”
“Jonathan? Is that you?” a voice yelled.
I stopped talking.
“Hello?” the voice said. “Hello? Is that you? Jonathan… answer me… I need to talk to you… please, Jonathan, don’t do anything…”
“This isn’t Jonathan,” I said. “It’s his…”
“It doesn’t matter,” the voice said. “Where is Jonathan? I need to speak to him.”
“Why? Are you the one who has been calling twenty times a day?”
“Yes! I am. I need to speak with him, before anything happens.”
“Before what happens?”
“Sweetheart,” the man on the phone said, “if you’re smart, you’ll run while you can. Jonathan Black is a dangerous man…”
I looked to my left, at the bloody body of Oliver Rush. His eyes were still open, vacant and long gone. His arms at his sides, the but end of the knife sticking from his chest.
Dangerous?
“How do you know he’s dangerous?” I asked.
The man laughed. “Because I’m…”
-10-
I sat on the edge of the bed
, much like Oliver Rush had done when I walked into the room. So many thoughts and questions moved through my mind, things I’d never ask and I’d never find. I felt cold and alone only until Jonathan Black came out of the bathroom.
The cell phone and black gloves were nowhere to be found.
I didn’t ask.
I didn’t want to know.
I wanted to be held by Jonathan Black.
He came to me and put his hands to my shoulders and lifted me.
He kissed me and gently placed his lips to my ear.
“Isabella Grace.”
I let out a soft sigh and my knees started to bend.
“Your phone rang,” I said.
Jonathan’s body stiffened. He pushed me away, holding me out at arm’s length.
“While you were in there, making your phone call. It rang.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I tried to silence it but I answered it. I didn’t want to make noise. You said…”
“What did you say?”
His voice sounded angry –
dangerous
.
“Nothing. I swear. Nothing. Not even my name. Nothing.”
“Do you know who it was?”
I kept my eyes on Jonathan Black’s eyes. If I hadn’t, I would have looked at the dead body in the room.
I nodded.
I knew who it was, the man had told me.
Jonathan took a deep breath and shook his head.
“Tell me then,” he said. “Tell me who was on the phone for me.”
“He wants to see you,” I said. “Help you… with this… he knew… he…”
“Tell me!” Jonathan yelled.
His hands were tight on my arms. I could tell he wanted to shake me, have me. Given other circumstances, I would have welcomed it. I needed Jonathan’s touch right now to soothe me.
I collected myself and looked at Oliver Rush’s body. It would be the last time I’d ever see his body. That was fine with me.
I stared back into Jonathan Black’s eyes.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“Jonathan… he said he wants to help…”
“Who wants to help?” Jonathan asked.
I finally said it. “Your father.”
Don’t miss what happens next in
BY HIS COMMAND #4:
His Passion
Jonathan Black is now a murderer but Isabella Grace wonders if it’s the first time he’s murdered someone. She should be scared. She should try to run. She should seek help.
But she doesn’t.
Seeing Jonathan Black kill has only turned her on more. She’s addicted to the sexy billionaire in ways she never thought possible.
And now Jonathan Black needs to step into his own past to move forward, and for the first time in their wild relationship, Isabella feels that Jonathan needs her.
As feelings grow and feelings change, there’s something lurking, watching, something everywhere. Something that possesses a secret that not even Jonathan Black himself could have predicted.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First electronic edition October 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Ana W. Fawkes
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part of any form.