Heart Broken (Game of Hearts Series Book 1) Read online

  ***

  Fuck! What is he doing back here? I thought the bitch was done with this guy? She worked fast though. What the hell had happened to the last guy?

  Finding the spot on the opposite building that allowed full view of her bedroom, he watched as she took Roger into her body, over and over again. His erection was threatening to break free at any moment, but he quickly rubbed his hand over his hard-on, trying to tame his responses.

  I need to find someone now to take away some of this frustration, otherwise I’ll never be able to enjoy what I plan on doing to her.

  His eyes searched for his next target, trying to find the patience he prided himself for having.

  This isn’t working. I might have to speed up my timeline for her.

  Patience running thin, he watched as the couple collapsed on top of the bed, panting hard from the sensual experience they’d just had.

  Fucking bitch. She’ll pay dearly for all she’s putting me through, and so much more. She has no idea. Soon she’ll know who I am, and what I have planned for her. Soon this will all be worth it. You’ll see. Clara. Oh, you’ll see.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was just getting out of the shower when I heard Roger calling out from the living room.

  “Clara! Clara, come take a look at this.”

  The television was on, with the news from the weekend taking precedence over the late-morning normal programing.

  “Police tell us that the person who did this was male, in his mid-to-late twenties. With nothing else to go on, it seems like anyone could be the killer…”

  My heart stopped when I saw the images splashed across the screen. The woman—or at least from the looks of the hand sticking out from the sheet, it appeared to be a woman—was lying across a bed in what appeared to be a murder scene.

  “Do we really need to see this sort of thing? I mean, I’m so sorry for the girl, but…”

  “Clara, just watch.”

  “Police are unsure who the next target may be, but…”

  The camera turned to focus in on the words still dripping with the blood. I gasped, realizing the words were specifically meant for someone.

  You’re next, C.

  “We have absolutely no indication of who C could possibly be. Police ask all residents in the general area to be on the lookout for anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”

  The rest of the coverage flashed before my eyes as I passed out where I stood.

  I knew he was coming for me next. I could feel it in my bones. He would get me, too.

  ***

  “Clara.”

  The words faded in and out as I felt hands pull me into a warm, hard body.

  “Clara.”

  He said my name over and over again, until I was finally able to hear him clearly.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Roger holding me tight, as though I might flee at any moment.

  “What happened?”

  My voice was hoarse and my eyes were milky. In a state of panic, I could feel my heart practically beating out my chest. Every part of my body was shaking, and I realized that I was paralyzed with fear. I could barely move, but Roger just held me as though he was afraid to let me go.

  “Oh, God, Clara. You think it, too, don’t you?”

  He just continued to hold me, not wanting to put any distance between us.

  “I’m C,” I said, barely able to utter the words.

  My world was suddenly falling apart around me. How could the police not see it now, with all the evidence literally written on the wall? In blood, for God’s sake. The killer that had been murdering women for the past year was now after me, and no one but Roger, Bethany, Brian, Paul, and I knew it to be true.

  I had told the police that I had felt someone watching me. I had told them it wasn’t just a coincidence, the break-in and my old apartment blowing up. I had told them my friends were at risk.

  Now what? Did they finally believe me? Should I have been calling them? What were we supposed to do now?

  “That’s it. I’m not letting you go. I’m not letting you out of my sight at all. Not for a second.”

  Roger continued to rock me and hold me tight, as much to soothe himself as me.

  I kept thinking he might crush me, but he released me every once in a while to readjust my position in his arms. I was safe as long as we stayed like this in our own little bubble inside my apartment.

  Fuck! My apartment that had been broken into, where weird things had been happening ever since the break-in.

  “Um, Roger.”

  My body turned ice-cold as I realized we were not safe here after all.

  “What is it, baby?”

  I made to get up, but he stopped me, whispering words of encouragement into my ear.

  “We have to get out of here—now!”

  I was almost screaming as I began to hyperventilate.

  “What? Why?”

  I whispered the details I had just figured out into his ear.

  “What do you mean, your shirt was hanging back up in the closet?” His voice broke as he rapidly came to the same conclusion. “Fuck!”

  I immediately shrunk against his chest, trying to fight against the urge to run as far away as possible.

  “We have to go, now!”

  Roger carried me to the bedroom, and we removed our clothes from the drawers and closet. I was lost in a sea of outfits, unsure which ones to take, when he just threw them all into a bag.

  “Who cares, let’s just go! Now, please!”

  We made our way out the door, barely able to breathe, let alone know our next move. As I rounded the corner for the stairs, I ran into Brian.

  “Oh, Brian! You need to grab Bethany and leave, right now!”

  I couldn’t stop long enough to give a proper explanation, but seeing our distress, Brian ran to Bethany’s door, where she was waiting for him to come up the stairs.

  ***

  The door opened abruptly, with Bethany staring down the hall peeking outside, waiting for Brian to make his way up the stairs. After spending the last few days apart, they were due for some hot times together.

  “We have to go!” Brian said, pushing his way past her quickly, closing the door behind them.

  “What? Why? Where?”

  Sensing his desperation, she clung to his side, trying to figure out what had him in such a frenzy.

  “Clara and Roger just frantically left the building, bags in hand. I think something bad has happened, and we need to go, too.”

  “But you just got here!” she exclaimed, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the situation.

  But he wouldn’t let her slow him down.

  “Grab you bags!” he said, pulling her along the hallway.

  “For how long?”

  “I have no idea, so we need to grab everything we can carry.”

  Stuffing clothing into bags, they frantically worked the room, tossing out drawers and cleaning out closets.

  “Are we meeting them, or something?”

  “I have no idea. They just said to leave, so we’re leaving.”

  “Don’t you want to know what’s going on?”

  “No! I just want to keep you safe, and away from whatever it is that’s causing them to run.”

  His lips pressed against her head as he drew her into his arms.

  “I love you, Bethany. I can’t lose you.”

  “I love you, too, Brian. I can’t lose you, either.”

  “We’ll figure this out. I promise. We’ll figure this out.”

  Unsure how to keep that promise exactly, Brian just shuttered his emotions as the adrenaline pumped through his veins.

  “I’m scared, Brian.”

  “Me, too, love. Me, too.”

  Once they finished packing her up, they left the apartment, locking it behind them. They didn’t know what was about to happen, but it sure wouldn’t be good, no matter what it was.

  ***

  The closet door opened as he stepped out int
o the hallway. Fucking reporters and their stories. Ruining the surprise. He had hoped the police would be the ones to tell her, and that she wouldn’t have figured it out this soon, but so be it. What was done was done. At least the game had finally begun the way he’d hoped, with her on the run and her friends scattered for the hills. How could it get any better than the chase?

  The thrill had always had him. From the moment his prey realized they were being followed, his heart beat harder at the thought of the fear coursing through their veins. As though on a high, his eyes diluted and his breath increased.

  “I can’t wait to have you,” he said as he picked up her shirt from the ground where she had left it before running out the door.

  He had heard him call out her name, and heard her reaction to the news footage. He could even feel her heart pound from behind the door. He was so close he could almost hear them whisper to each other, as though they somehow sensed his presence close by.

  Fucking idiots. Of course he had never stopped coming into the apartment. It’s what he did. Dumbasses.

  You would think the police would have told her to change the locks on the windows and not just to add the alarm. Like he couldn’t get past an alarm. Stupid idiots.

  His prison was full of doors and windows with alarms. Hell, his childhood reeked of the constraints that held him. He knew firsthand what it was like to be watched, and the thought of the amount of fear she could be feeling right now gave him such a hard erection he thought he’d burst just thinking about it.

  “I can’t wait to have you, Clara. I can’t wait to make you mine.”

  The rest of his words were drowned out by the sirens outside the building. Knowing his time was up, he made his way through the room to the hidden panel opposite the door. After the rehabilitation of the building, the second entrances were eliminated to keep the building from having too many entry points for the security system. With his father’s help, he knew all the buildings in a five-hundred-mile radius that were renovated that way. It made his nighttime activities all the more exciting, and so much easier.

  Ah, Dad, that fucker had never seen any of this coming. What he had done to make him this way. The memories assaulted him before he could hold them back, but with the police on the way, he had no time to think about any of it. Shaking his head, he closed off the panel and waited for his chance to escape.

  Dumb fuckers. Try to find me. He knew for a fact they wouldn’t. They never would.

  ***

  Out of nowhere, the sound of falling cans echoed throughout the confines of the cabin. The not-too-distant background noise startled him awake. Following the noise, he made his way into the kitchen to a nightmare—Clara was tossing all the cans out of the cabinets onto the floor and across the room.

  “Clara, what the hell are you doing?”

  “What am I doing? What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t take this anymore! I don’t want to do this! How can we keep doing this?!”

  “What are you talking about? We have to do this to keep you safe!”

  He tried to grab for her hands.

  “You know what, Roger, just get out!”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and you really need to stop pushing me away. I’m your boyfriend! You will do what I say, when I say it!”

  “The fuck I will! Get the hell out!”

  Seeing her reaction, Roger decided he had had enough of her pushing him, and pushed her right back. But because she wasn’t nearly as strong, she flew against the fridge with such force it caused a dent in the door.

  Sliding to the floor, she took a breath as she yelled one last time for Roger to leave and never come back.

  Roger rushed to her, picking her up off the floor, shaking her violently as she cried uncontrollably. He knew she needed to get it out, and so he took her into his arms as she thrashed against him.

  “It’s okay, baby.”

  “Nothing’s okay! Don’t you get that? Nothing!”

  She continued to cry into his chest, and he checked her over to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself from slamming into the fridge.

  “Clara, stop this. Stop this now! We need to keep our cool, and figure out our next move.”

  “I’m done being held captive! I’m sick of being stuck in the cabin with some killer outside somewhere, just waiting for me to… to what? To be alone long enough for him to hurt me, or worse, kill me?”

  Hiccupping out the word, it felt as if my world was collapsing in front of me. Then Bethany and Brian came into the room. Hearing the noise coming from the cabin, they’d made their way inside without bothering to check the doors behind them.

  “What’s going on?” they both asked in unison.

  With those words, Roger released me and ran out the door. After a few moments, Bethany charged into the room. Seeing the tossed cans and me huddled in a ball, she fell to her knees in front of me at once, pulling me up into a seated position.

  “Clara, what happened?”

  “Roger…”

  “Christ, are you okay? Did he hit you?”

  “No, he pushed me against the fridge, though, and shook me so hard I just fell to the floor.”

  “Hey, did he hurt you? Do you need me to call someone?” Paul asked from the doorway.

  “No! Why?”

  “Clara, that’s enough of this. You need to get it together. We can’t lose it now, we have to figure out who is doing this, and why? No more of this bullshit!”

  Just then Roger walked back in, taking in the scene on the floor.

  Bethany looked up from her position next to me.

  “Where did you go?”

  “I had to check the door. You left it unlocked, by the way.”

  “We did? You sure? I know I locked it when we came in.”

  Perplexed, they both looked around the room.

  “Clara, come here. Please.” Roger started to walk toward me, but stopped short when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye. “Wait,” he mouthed, barely a whisper.

  I sat back against the counter island.

  “What is it?” Brian asked as he came around in front of Bethany.

  “I think someone’s in the other room.”

  Heart racing, I grabbed the knife on the counter and stood up, going to Roger’s side.

  “You sure?”

  “I think I saw…”

  Then a shadow moved across the far wall, and everyone froze in place.

  Without saying a word, Roger took the knife from me and started making his way toward the source.

  I clung to his back, holding his shirt so tight my knuckles were white.

  “Clara, stay here.”

  “No. We go together, or not at all.”

  “Now’s not the time to be brave.”

  “No shit. I’m not being brave, I’m being real. I’m with you, no matter what. I’m with you.”

  His eyes searched mine before he finally saw something in them that made him turn back with me behind him. We both walked slowly down the hall to the other room.

  We made our way in without thinking about what might be on the other side of the entryway. Finally we were able to see the entire room with the curtains pulled back. As the light shone through, we could see where several objects were piled on the corner table, making it look like a person when the light hit it.

  We both sighed in relief and laughed as I unclenched my fingers, shaking them to get the circulation back.

  “Christ, we’re jumpy,” Roger said as we sat on the bed.

  “We can’t keep doing this, Roger. We need to get our lives back.”

  “I know. I think so, too. If we keep this up, nothing will ever get resolved.”

  I knew he didn’t want to think about anything beyond keeping me safe, but it had been several weeks, and the police still had no leads. Police protection was futile at best, considering the threat they were up against.

  “I’m done with this, R
oger. Please. This isn’t living, this is waiting to die. I don’t want to keep doing this.”

  “I know. We need to get back to our lives, and focus on living more than the threat against us.”

  “It may not be a good idea.”

  “I know.”

  “You may be in more danger if we go back.”

  “I know.”

  Fidgeting, he kept watching me, but I just sat back against the headboard.

  “It’s time to go back, isn’t it?”

  “I think so.”

  Scared to death but knowing nothing else was working, I decided to take my chances. After all, with all the protection I currently had, how could anyone reach me?

  “I have tons of protection, all the time. I’ll take all the police I can to protect me. I want my life back. I need to have my life back.”

  “Let’s go tell the others and clean up the cans.”

  Eyes cast toward my lap, I twisted the sheet, also fidgeting a little.

  “Okay.”

  “Clara, look at me, baby.”

  I did as he asked, lifting my eyes to his.

  “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

  “I know.”

  My smile didn’t reach my eyes. His attempt to put me at ease was comforting, but not really working. Sighing, I got up to survey the damage I’d done in the kitchen.

  ***

  “Thanks for helping, Paul.”

  Paul picked up another can, handing it to me to put back into the cupboard.

  Suddenly he stopped, getting off the floor to stand next to me.

  “I’m sorry, Clara.”

  Taken aback by his apology, I just stood there transfixed.

  “Sorry, for what?”

  “The way we ended. It wasn’t great.”

  He looked over at Roger as he watched from a distance.

  “Stress. It’ll do that to you.” Shrugging, I grabbed another can and placed it on a shelf. “It’s okay. It all worked out.”

  “You mean with Roger?”

  Turning, I saw Roger watching, and smiled my megawatt smile at him.

  Noticing my reaction to him, Roger smiled right back, his eyes dancing with mirth.