Bianca
I began to go about my life, gathering my pride.
Liam O’Grady had vanished and Finn St Just was also not to be seen. When at night, the storm blew and the wind howled as it rushed around the corridors of the huge house, I sat, curled in the middle of the bed, trying hard not to let my imagination run wild.
What if O’Grady and St Just had moved on, and found another new Pet to keep them happy?
Because I knew they had enough money to house as many women as they fancied, in palaces like this, all over the country.
For I was under no illusion. I was no dazzling beauty; heck, I did not know the first thing about keeping a man happy!
I had been a novice when it came to lovemaking.
Had they decided I was too naive and drifted away?
And I had gotten a fair idea of them by now. Liam O’Grady was eh man who called the shots; St Just merely obeyed him.
*
Liam O’Grady was like a man on fire. His casino on the outskirts of the town had been functioning as a haven for those who did not want everyone and his uncle to know about their gambling habits. But someone had managed to breach the security of the place and set off a fire that appeared to have originated in the kitchens.
The casualties had been minimal, but the damage down to his flourishing business in that particular set-up had been colossal. Driven by the thirst to get to the villain behind the hit, Liam O’Grady and St Just had been following every lead. Since the wife of the Sheriff was also a regular visitor to this particular outlet, their work was a lot easier on one level. But O’Grady knew that when he laid his hands on the b*stard responsible for the damage, the man would be begging for his mercy.
*
Bianca
Alfred and his wife Maria were as taciturn as ever and I gave up trying to charm them. Maria rebuffed my overtures with a blank stare and Alfred walked away pointedly when I asked him where O’Grady was.
So I was like a prisoner, in that huge house, wandering from room to room, but always zeroing in on the library, where I began to read avidly. Anything I could lay my hands on.
Poetry, biographies, romances, thrillers…any book I could find there.
*
O’Grady
When they stumbled upon the illegal immigrants from Turkey who had managed to sneak into the kitchens, disguised as delivery boys, and start the fire, before slipping away, O’Grady rubbed his large hands together.
It had not been an easy task. All the camera feed for the past week seemed to have been mysteriously wiped out by a hacker of some repute, but the eye-witness reports of a handful of observant guests had helped piece together the picture.
*
Bianca
I was not able to leave the house either. As neither O’Grady nor St Just had come for almost a fortnight now, I was at a loss. Walking in the garden, lounging on the recliners on the porch, with a book; that was how I spent my time. I called Heather every alternate day and she seemed to be loving it there. Her Italian friend was more than just a friend I suspected with a smile and she tittered every time she talked about him. Which was all the time!
*
O’Grady
Together with Finn St Just, he stood in the basement of his main building, which not many people knew about. The employees who worked in the loan offices above had no idea that such a large room existed.
It was the place where they brought any prisoners.
Most of the people who entered left in body bags to be disposed of at undisclosed places by people who did just this. The few men who lived to tell the tale were too broken to narrate their experiences.
Or too terrified of the brutality they had witnessed first-hand when O’Grady lost his temper.
*
Akbas, a Turkish immigrant, was the one who broke down when O’Grady began to pound him steadily.
O’Grady punched him, throwing the man around for a while, and then withdrew the slim blade he always kept in his ankle holster. The gaunt Turk, tall and lean, lumbered to his feet, his eyes bloodshot as he tried to stand and flayed his arms wildly. With one fluid movement, the Mafia Boss had knocked him to the floor and before Akbas knew what was happening, he had encircled the man’s lean throat with a thick, tattooed arm and was holding the blade to the man’s scrawny neck.
“Names,” growled O’Grady, “Give me names.”
Because it was not something this fool of a man could have dreamt up, the plot to bring down the casino and burn it to rubble. True, he had not succeeded but he had made some headway and Liam O’Grady was feeling very annoyed indeed.
He dug the blade into the man’s neck and beads of blood seeped out. St Just stood, arms folded, watching.
He had had his turn, beating up the Turk’s friends who had been dragged out unceremoniously, from the hole they had been sheltering in.
Liam O’Grady could become a killing machine at times and no power on earth could stop him then.
*
Weeping, and soiling himself with fear, Ali Akbas begged for his life but the blade only dug deeper. The room was silent although at least twenty-five men of O’Grady’s stood around, watching silently. And that was without taking into account the three other rogues who had been picked up in the company of the lanky Ali Akbas. All of them were Turkish immigrants who worked hard but had been tempted by the lure of lucre.
But who had tempted them?
*
Suddenly, one of the men, a breather perhaps, thought St Just, from the looks of his features, called out, from where he lay, broken and bleeding,
” In the name of God the merciful, stop! I…I will tell you…don’t kill him! His wife has just given birth to their son.”
St Just sighed. If he had been doing the interrogation, he would have paused. Not O’Grady,
Without a flicker of emotion on his handsome face, now damp with sweat and streaked with blood, the big Mafia man shouted,
“Name?”
The other man, who had begged for his brother’s life, sobbed,
“He never gave us a name. But he was fat, and he smelled bad.”
He gasped and added,
“He drove a fancy gold car.”
Liam O’Grady’s lips drew back in what might have been a feral grin but on him, it was a terrifying look.
“Nelson,” he breathed and casually slit the throat of the man he had been holding, kicking the body away with contempt.
*
Bianca
The conversations with my family were the only times when I used my vocal chords, I thought grimly.
Heather was entertaining and barely asked questions.
As for the twins, I spoke to them twice, on the weekends. It was wonderful to hear them and I suspected that they had begun to sound more confident.
“There are some stuck-up Mean Girl types here, Bee,” Anne confided, “But Rose and I put them in their place when they tried to lord it over us.”
I smiled. My little sisters had never been wallflowers or submissive. They gave as good as they got and now, they seemed to be upping their act!
*
Liam O’Grady scoured the countryside for Nelson but the man seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth!
He smiled grimly as he sat in his office a few days later, facing his brother across the table.
“Been days since we met our Pet,” said St Just and O’Grady grunted. He had had a whole lot of things on his mind, but he had not taken any woman to bed.
The memory of the lovely young woman who had been at the receiving end of his rough f*cking just a few weeks ago had kept him wanting more of Her, and only her. Her sweet moans, the gasp as he entered her tight little hole, dripping wet as it was, was enough to make him come. He had been fisting himself relentlessly, trying to overcome his urges but now, he knew he had to see her.
Needed to slake his lust on her delectable body.
As for the casino, it had been rebuilt and was now functioning, limping back”
to normal.
All alerts had been issued and Dean Nelson would be found and brought to justice.
Soon.
O’Grady’s Justice.
*
He rose and towered over his brother as he said,
“Better check on the little c*nt, see if it’s as delightful as I remember it to be, eh Saint?”
His brother rose and the two men strode to the vehicle that had rolled up to the entrance.
*
Bianca
I would probably have gone on, living like a zombie, but for the change that happened. And then, the unbelievable happened.
I had a call on my little phone one afternoon.
I was in the library as always, deep in a thriller and I frowned as I saw that it was from an unknown caller. Curious, for I did not think anyone had my number, I answered.
It was a call from the prestigious Winterdale College, one of the best colleges in the state. I had applied for the course with half a heart, for I did not believe I would make it. It was a reputed college but the courses it offered were exactly the ones I wanted to do, so I had gone ahead and applied.
To my astonishment, a nasal-voiced man assured me that I had been accepted into the distance program of the university!
*
I had been accepted into the university, for a course on Accounting and Data Analytics!
True, it was for just one semester but…
I whooped and ran out into the garden, where it was raining lightly.
Laughing, I leapt about, waving my arms and screaming. My dream, to join a university, to become an accountant someday, did not seem like a dream anymore!