Execution Style (19 page)

“You’re so beautiful,” he rasped, bringing my eyes back to him.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

I’d never heard those words uttered from someone’s mouth besides my father, and it was nice to hear. Especially from his beautiful lips.

He was about to say something more when the sound of my belly growling in hunger stopped him in his tracks.

“I guess that’s our cue,” he teased.

I smiled and sat up, then kneeled even further to reach Miller’s face.

I captured his mouth with my own and said, “I love you.”

He jerked and looked into my eyes in surprise. “You…you…you’re sure?”

I nodded. “Don’t think you have to say it back…”

He captured my mouth, kissing me wetly before he ripped his mouth from mine. “I love you too, you
crazy girl.”

“Hey!” I said indignantly.

He grinned unrepentantly, and dropped me to the bed before exiting it.

Walking to the bathroom backwards he said, “I’d suggest you get cleaned up. Come has a very distinctive smell. And I guarantee you that every one of the men we came with would be able to smell it on you.”

I grinned. “Maybe we’ll save that for some time when we’re not with
your family.”

I followed him into the bathroom, and took a very long, very sexy shower with him.

One that had lots and lots of soaping involved.

Though, I was squeaky clean afterward.

Especially my breasts.

“Why are your parents staying at a hotel when they live here?” I asked curiously.

Miller smiled. “So they can be near us. The last time we were down here, we all stayed in a hotel, and mom and dad stayed at their place outside of the city. We didn’t see them anywhere near as much as we would’ve liked.”

I nodded as we walked hand in hand down the hall. We came up short, though, when none other than Officer Tony DeRoy walked off the elevator that we were trying to enter.

“What are you doing here?” Miller asked suspiciously.

“I need your woman to look through some pictures for me. That alright with you?” Tony asked Miller.

Miller shook his head in exasperation. “You don’t have shit.”

Tony nodded. “This isn’t about her anymore. We have a suspect.”

“A suspect?” Miller said shortly. “Who?”

Miller led the way back to our room, opening it widely to allow Tony and me in, before closing it firmly behind him.

Tony laid out his pictures, and both Miller and I walked up to the table warily.

There was only one person in each of the photos. The one where I could actually see the woman’s face since the other one only showed a person with their hood pulled up high over their head.

The blonde woman had a hideous amount of makeup and too-tight jeans that made her look awful.
The sky-high high heels weren’t any better. Not to mention she was startlingly familiar, although I couldn’t tell you who she was.

“I don’t remember seeing her in the bathroom, but there’s something about her that seems so familiar. Maybe if I could see her hair, and a better picture of her, I could tell you. But right now, she just looks like she needs to find a mirror.”

Tony and Miller both snorted.

“Alright, well this is officially our suspect. This is who we believe did it. She’s the one that went in just after you did. Faris followed right after her. Like literally thirty seconds after her. This woman spent almost as long in there as you did, and came back out wearing a pair of black yoga pants, black shoes, and a gray hoodie,” Tony sighed. “She had a large backpack with her, big enough to hold her clothes and belongings, too.”

“If you’ve had her all along, why’d you immediately think it was Mercy?” Miller asked warily.

Tony shrugged. “Timing and motive, mostly.”

“Well, whatever the reason, just know I don’t appreciate it, and the next time you talk to her, we’ll have a lawyer present,” Miller growled.

“Noted,” Tony said, offering his hand. “Safe flight home, man.”

Miller took it. “You watch your six at work. Keep us informed, please.”

Tony nodded, and we watched him leave.

I had a feeling, though, that it wasn’t anywhere near being over.

At least we could go home later this afternoon with the rest of them, though.

We arrived home eight hours later, tired, exhausted, and wary.

The police allowed me to go home since they couldn’t pin the murder on me, but they had told me to ‘
stay in contact
’ in case they had any questions.

I’d, of course, agreed. Miller had been pissed. In fact, he was so pissed, that he’d hired a lawyer, at James’ recommendation, while we were on the return flight home. Some man that was supposedly a very good lawyer, and could advise us on what we should do next.

The return flight hadn’t been anywhere near as fun as the way there had been.

They’d figured out that if they gave Trance a sleeping pill the moment he started for the airport, he’d be asleep the entire flight home. Which he was.

The rest had slept, trying to recuperate from their crazy week in Vegas.

Miller and I had
both pretended to be asleep. Both of us too lost in our own worlds to worry about trying to talk about things that had no consequence.

As we walked up the walk to my house, a sudden impending feeling of doom hit me the moment I saw the man waiting for us on the porch.

“Can I help you?” I asked the man.

He was in his forties with glasses and graying hair. He was fairly bland in appearance, but his eyes were a nearly translucent shade of brown.

He smiled at me sadly. “Yes, sorry. I was just waiting to see if anybody arrived this time.”

“This time?” Miller asked.

The man nodded. “Yes, this time. I’ve been trying to reach the owner of this residence for about four days now. Are you the owner?”
He asked, pinning his eyes on me.

I swallowed, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Mercy Shepherd?” He clarified.

I nodded again. “That’s me.”

He nodded, and walked down the steps towards us, a brown manila envelope in his hands about a half inch thick. “You’ve been served.
Twice
.”

I’m tired of getting fucked in ways that don’t end in an orgasm.
Let’s just say I’m not taking it up the ass anymore.

-Miller’s secret thoughts

Mercy

“What the ever-loving fuck is this? Some sort of
vile convention of sick, fucked up people that paired up and started taking out all their problems on us?” I yelled loudly, arms waving frantically.

Miller wrapped his arm around my waist, hand going to rest just underneath my shirt, against my belly
. “Linda
wants something, and she’s trying to prove it by doing this.”

“How’d she even know I was pregnant?” I hissed.
“And who did she fuck to get them to call in the bank loan on my house…and my business?”

“She’s trying to intimidate you. Make you look bad,” Miller said as we walked into the lawyer’s office we had an appointment with.

As if we didn’t have enough to deal with,
with some random murder of a man I saw for no more than three minutes, tops. I was then served. Twice.

Once telling me that the bank loan had been called up on my business and house. But another one stating that Linda was filing for partial custody of my child upon his or her arrival. A child that was not even eight weeks in gestation. A child that I hadn’t even seen at the doctor yet, because my first appointment wasn’t until next week.

I took a seat while he went to sign us in, and was instantly disgusted by what I saw on the table.

“Well, she fucking succeeded. Stupid, crazy bitch,” I growled, staring at the woman that had nearly ruined my life.

It was a picture of Linda in the city’s newspaper. A ‘heartfelt story’ that was ‘sure to capture your heart.’

Or so I’d read.

I was livid once I’d managed to force myself through the entire article.

When Miller sat down next to me, I handed the paper over.

He took it as if I’d handed him a brown paper bag of live snakes, tipping his sunglasses to rise on top of his head, and flipping it open out of the crumpled mass, and started reading.

His shoulders started to shake as he got to the part about her being ‘kicked out of her family home by her murdered son’s abusive wife.’

“Mrs. Moose pleads with the public to please help her. She further explains that it was all colossal misunderstanding that her son,
Mitch Moose, 32, was shot earlier this year in a SWAT rescue,” Miller read the caption under the main picture.

It was shot in front of the ‘family home,’ and Linda was holding a picture of Mitch.

I tasted bile inside of my mouth, but chose not to look at the picture again.

“Mercy Shepherd. Miller Spurlock. Mr. Masterson will see you now,” I heard said from somewhere in front of me.

I looked up and smiled at the woman.

She was very pretty, even what I would call youthful, though she was in her fifties.

She had long blonde hair that was pulled back in a chignon at her nape, and her eyes were a very expressive green.

I stood and started following the woman.

She was dressed casually in light tan slacks and a simple black cotton shirt.

She smiled back at me as we walked. “You look really familiar.”

I winced. “Yeah, that’s because I was the center of attention
a few weeks ago. I was raped and the media filmed the whole thing while it happened.”

I tried to make my voice appear uncaring, but the emotion I felt refused to be bottled up.

It wasn’t Miller’s arm around me that had me starting, though. It was the woman’s.

“Although I’m sorry to hear that that happened to you, I’ve never been one to watch the news. I did hear about it, though, and I’m greatly sorry for what happened to you. I was thinking you were a friend of my daughter’s. Do you know Cheyenne Mackenzie?” She asked.

My brows furrowed. Although the name sounded vaguely familiar, I wasn’t placing a face with the name.

“You’re James’ mom?” Miller asked.

The woman smiled. “That’s me!”

“Daina,” a male’s deep voice said from the doorway we were heading to. “Is there a reason you have to talk everyone’s ear off before they come back here? If I’d known you were such a talker, I would’ve never agreed to have you here as my secretary.”

The woman blushed, and I thought for sure there was something more in those words than what I’d heard.

Miller must’ve agreed, because he gave me wide eyes before we walked into the lawyer’s office.

Miller

“Can you tell me why you’re here?” The
hard-ass lawyer asked.

He was built like a motherfuckin’ bull, and he could easily rival any man I knew size wise. I knew he was in the military, I was just unsure what branch he’d been in.

He could easily have been a Navy SEAL.

Mercy leaned forward and handed over her stack of papers, starting first with the one that was most important to us.

The baby’s custody.

“You do know there’s an easy way to settle this if what you’re being adamant about is true, right?” The lawyer, Todd Masterson, asked slowly.

We both looked at him. “What?”

“A DNA test,” he said simply.

“No!” We both exploded at once.

He shook his head. “That really would be the easiest way. This could all be that easily
rectified. No court battle, no court costs, no lawyer costs. All over that easily.”

He snapped his finger, startling Mercy.

I shook my head. “It isn’t fucking happening. Find another way.”

He looked at me, making sure he had a good read on me before he nodded in agreement. “Okay, that’s fine. I won’t force you to do it. There are other ways, of course, but there’s still a chance that the judge will require you to do it anyway.”

I shook my head. “No one’s touching
my kid. The
y’re not getting anywhere near her.”

Mercy leaned her head against my bicep, her arm curled protectively around her barely there belly, as she silently thanked me for the support.

“Then the first thing I would suggest is marriage,” Todd said slowly.

We both gaped.

It wasn’t that I’d never thought about marriage with Mercy.

In fact, I’d thought about it a lot. Especially in Vegas over the past week.

However, I didn’t want her to think I was moving too fast.
I was giving her time to come to terms to what we were. It was more than obvious to me that she wasn’t ready.

She’d reacted on instinct to what my parents had said, what her thoughts were on me and our relationship.

Her first instinct had been to run away, and until I could get her to come to terms that there was an
us
, there wasn’t going to be any change in our relationship status.

But then she shocked the shit out of me by saying, “Okay, if we do this, what will that help?”

I inhaled rather loudly, bringing her attention away from Todd and straight to my face.

“What?” She asked. “We love each other. We have a kid on the way
. If what you said this weekend is true, then I have nothing to worry about.
Right
?”

I blinked, and then nodded stupidly, shifting in my seat in surprise.

When I turned back to Todd, he started to explain. “The easy way to do this is by getting Miller’s name on the birth certificate. You can do that without getting married, of course, but it’s easier to just have the same last name when the baby is born.”

I blinked. “Can she still try to get grandparent rights or something once the baby is born?”

He shook his head. “Not easily, no. Two parents that are married, happy, and have a stable home life, have no reason to share their child with the grandparents. The grandparents aren’t the mother or father. Y’all are. That easy. What’s the next thing?”

I just shook my head.