Trust Me E-Book

Lucinda Lamont

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Sara has no idea that her life is in danger, but a hitman has her in his crosshairs.

Driven by rage and rejection, businessman Christian hires an assassin to murder his ex, Sara, after she abruptly ends their affair. With no knowledge of the target on her back, a chance encounter in a parking garage leads her to a fresh start: a picture-perfect romance with policeman George.

As Christian's plan forms, George pursues a long-wanted criminal for promotion on the force, and Sara inches unwittingly closer to a lurking danger. With a hired gun, a new flame, and a treacherous plan converging, will Sara be saved?

Leseprobe

TRUST ME

LUCINDA LAMONT

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgments

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 Lucinda Lamont

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Terry Hughes

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For my son, Jenson. Thank you for making me feel a love I've never known before xxxx

CHAPTERONE

Christian was almost rattling with nervous excitement. He had never done anything like this before. He’d thought about it – who hadn’t? Surely everyone has thought about it? He pondered while sipping a black Americano. He didn’t need the caffeine – he was already buzzing. Not many would have the balls to go through with his plan. He thought he would feel worse about it than he did. But he didn’t feel bad at all. He felt alive. He felt the most alive he had done in quite some time and the irony was that plotting Sara’s death was what made him feel that way.

He couldn’t sit still. If he wasn’t tapping his fingertips on the small marble table, big enough for two coffee cups maybe with a side plate each but no more than that, he was looking over his shoulder for his hit man to arrive and to check for anyone watching him. No one was close enough to see but, if they were, they would see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

He was afraid of getting caught, nothing else. The bitch had it coming, as far as he was concerned. He felt nothing more and nothing less. The only nerves he had were for his own reputation. She told him repeatedly he was a narcissist. An allegation he had rebuffed every time but now that he had ordered a kill, it had crossed his mind that perhaps he might be. It didn’t bother him. If it meant he could kill and not have a guilty conscience about it, then he was satisfied. He told himself it was a good thing. The plan he was putting into place was inevitable, he reassured himself, and he was lucky he could do it without any feeling. She was the one who had messed his head up. He could have given her everything she wanted but she ended it. He had never been dumped in his life. He felt he had to end her and move on.

As he nursed his black coffee, it occurred to him he didn’t actually know who he was looking for. All he knew was that the guy was called “X”. The meeting and death plot had been much easier to arrange than he would have thought, had it been something he had been planning for a long time.

After another full-blown argument with Sara, he had left the office and gone for drinks with some of his business contacts. They drank neat whisky and smoked some cigars that one of them had brought back from his latest “business trip” with his mistress. They all had mistresses. They all seemed to think they deserved one. Their wives were well kept but, after children and years of marriage, they had gone off sex. As far as the men were concerned, the wives never wanted for anything, so why should they? The only difference was, not one of them knew Christian had one. Sara. They all thought he was the good boy of the group. They assumed he was on the spectrum somewhere due to his obsession with work and nothing else. They had tried to buy him a dance in many strip clubs and told him the girls would “do anything he wanted” but he always laughed it off and told them he was happily married.

If only they knew what I was doing now. I would be the baddest motherfucker out of all of them but this is when keeping your mouth shut pays off. No one knows. No one will know. He smiled at this thought as he took another sip of his coffee. He had been so smart. He never knew it would come to this but he always knew that his friends could never know about Sara.

He watched the clock tick and as he looked up into the glass ceiling of the bustling café in London’s Royal Exchange, he started to feel faint. He undid his top shirt button and loosened his tie. He was nervous but he was excited. I bet all killers feel like this. Every single one of them, no matter what the circumstances, the thrill to do something so bad… the buzz of having that power.

He told himself she deserved it and that he need not feel an ounce of guilt about it. He had showered her with gifts and taken her to luxurious hotels. He had shown her a life no one else had or could. She wasn’t going to get away with ending it and being so ungrateful. She needed to learn that for every action, there is a reaction. She was going to learn the hard way. It was going to cost her her life. She would not be allowed to love again while Christian suffered.

After that last outing with his colleagues, he had stumbled his way back to the tube station. He hadn’t eaten and the whisky had hit him hard. He was desperate to get home before his feet gave up on him. He was so pissed he walked right into someone;

“Whoa, buddy. Watch where you’re going. You OK?’

“I’m fucked. In more ways than one. Everything’s fucked.”

“It can’t be that bad. You look like you could do with some water. Come into my club.”

“The last thing I need is a club.”

“It’s a boxing club and I am not giving you a choice.”

The burly stranger scooped Christian up and led into the dingy, damp boxing club. The air was moist with pheromones and the lights were fuzzy. His new friend sat him in a chair and passed him a bottle of water.

“Drink. You’ll be lucky to get anywhere if you don’t. You’re ready for the land of Nod.” The man muscle mountain laughed as he put both hands against the side of his head and mimed going to sleep.

Christian gulped the bottle down in one and immediately felt slightly better. He looked around and had already forgotten where he was. His speech was slurred and his legs had no strength. He looked over one shoulder then the other and then in front of him. He didn’t know what he was doing here or what the man wanted with him but he didn’t have the energy to care either. He wanted to pass out.

“So what’s up, my man? Business suit, slim build, not a hair out of place yet can hardly hold your own weight. You have drunk more than you normally would, I’m guessing, so who’s pissed you off?”

“You don’t know. You don’t know them but I want them gone. They have ruined my life. I gave them everything and they took and they took. I’m broken. I’m screwed. I’m going to lose everything because I gave it all to them.” He slurred and ranted like a madman.

“Shit man. There are a lot of snakes out there. Look man, how bad do you want them gone? I can help you with that, for a price.”

He had Christian’s attention.

“You can?”

“Sure can, my man. You pay the fee. I’ll get you a call and you take it from there. I don’t like to see a good man down.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred for me and then the hit man will let you know his price.”

“Done. I’ll wire it over now.”

“No fucking way, man. Nothing can ever be traced. Cash by noon tomorrow and we go from there.”

It had been as easy as that. Christian had left the club in a taxi. He thought about the murder plan all the way home and after contemplating various scenarios of how it could happen and then telling himself it couldn’t, he decided it was boring to think it was impossible. He was committed to the buzz. The buzz of his first kill. He assumed it would be his only kill but maybe not. Maybe he would get addicted to the feeling. The power that taking someone’s life would give might be something he couldn’t stop.

By the time he had arrived home that night, he had sobered up. Not that his wife would agree, had she been awake to greet her husband, but that didn’t happen. That never happened any more. That’s why Sara and his other girlfriends had happened.

Christian felt underappreciated. He was getting older but still had the sex drive of a twentysomething-year-old. He was developing a complex over his thinning hair and small but growing wine gut. He needed to feel desired. Susan’s constant rejections had pushed him into the arms of other women. Susan never rejected his credit cards but she had given up on her side of the bargain so he told himself he deserved to get his pleasure where he could.

He’d had a number of casual flings, rarely lasting more than a few weeks and he was always the one who ended it. Until Sara.

After so many brief affairs, Christian wanted a mistress, like his friends. Not that he would ever tell them. Sara came along at the perfect time – or did he find her? It was easy. As easy as it had been to find a hitman. He had watched his friends do it for years so he knew where to go. He took himself to a bar straight from the office one night. He had seen many attractive women go in there night after night in their tight, body-sculpting suits and dresses. They ranged in age and body shapes and sizes. He wasn’t as picky now as he would have been many years ago. He just wanted a release. He wanted somebody to want him. He had seen his ideal woman about 20 times but had always resisted. Then, one night, he cracked. He was sick of wanking and would settle for a hand job from someone else, let alone sex.

He perched at the bar and, after his third beer, Sara appeared. She was gorgeous and out of his league but she was exactly what he wanted to get into bed with. She was the type of woman any man like him would want to get in to bed with. Young, sexy and naïve.

She was supposed to be meeting someone but they hadn’t turned up. Christian told her the same. They had several drinks together, all of which he bought. Anything she wanted. Enough to get her to relax but not so much that she could have him arrested. He let her do all the talking just so that he could agree with her on everything, make her think they were a match and roll into bed together. That’s exactly what happened. It didn’t even take much effort and he got everything he wanted. He took her number, got in a taxi and went home to his wife. He didn’t feel any guilt. He deserved it. He worked hard and he needed to get laid. It was that simple.

He got into bed and kissed Susan on the cheek. She grunted at him. He ran his hand over her body and tried to get in between her thighs. She pushed him away. He didn’t care. He was just showing her nothing was out of the normal. She didn’t need to know that two hours ago he had a stranger bent over her bed while he had unprotected sex with her and finished inside her. He felt great about it. He was the man.

That’s how the affair started and now, 11 months later, he was meeting a Serbian man he knew only as “X” to have her killed.

CHAPTERTWO

Sara was in the kitchen of her 1970s house. The kitchen wasn’t 1970s – it was very modern, with lots of stainless steel, small tiles and low-level lighting. She stirred her Bolognese with one hand and held a glass of Australian shiraz in a Dartington glass in the other. Andy Williams was playing in the background on her wireless speaker system. She imagined the man of her dreams behind her, kissing the back of her neck. He would guide her glass to the worktop and wrap his arms around her waist. She would dance into his embrace and turn around to see his eyes. He would have such kind eyes. It would be the first thing she had noticed about him. They would dance together and he would turn off the lights. Sara’s head was teeming with romantic ideas but then she remembered she was on her own. She emptied the glass into her mouth and poured some more.

She didn’t need the fancy gifts or the luxurious hotels. What she wanted was someone who would dance with her in the kitchen. If she could escape from Christian she felt that she could be capable of love very soon. She couldn’t wait to dance again and again at dinnertime in the kitchen, to wake up together, to snuggle on the sofa together and watch films. She couldn’t wait to have affection on tap. She never had that with Christian.

Christian did everything perfectly in the beginning. But like a true narcissist, once he had hooked her in, the affection and romance dissipated and she quickly became a sex object. The dramatic change in his behaviour left her confused and desperate to fix it. She believed she was somehow to blame. He made her feel as if it was her fault.

In the beginning, he was in touch constantly. They exchanged messages all day long. He would find time to see her most days. He would stay over. They would sit up talking until two in the morning. He showered her with gifts. He told her he loved everything about her. He talked about what their future would look like. He said he couldn’t wait to introduce her to his friends and how jealous they would all be. He booked hotel stay after hotel stay. Every time, he would tell her to have a spa treatment. He took her to fine dining restaurants and they would share their food. When a relative died and she sent him a text, he cleared his diary and went to be with her for the day. When she had a cold, he turned up with a thoughtful gift bag of medicine, sweets and magazines from the supermarket.

It was like no relationship she had ever experienced but suddenly, almost overnight, he changed. It was around about the time she fell in love with him. He became distant, less affectionate and less available. When she questioned him, he became nasty and would gaslight her. He would criticise her, tell her how spoilt she was and make her question herself. He was chipping away at her, knocking down her confidence. And it was working. She was a very good feed for a narcissist like him. A sumptuous meal for his manipulative appetite.

When she looked back, she realised that she had been happy for only a few months of their short relationship. The rest of the time she had spent questioning herself, always trying to please him and surrendering to his every wish. The compromise always had to come from her. It was exhausting and every time she got close to throwing the towel in, he would revert back to being the Christian she had first met. But only for a short while.

The manipulation and control had been slow but well planned-out and gradually she was going from a vibrant woman to a blank canvas. She was empty. She was sad. She began to develop a depression. Sara’s friends saw her deteriorate and begged for her to end it. She knew they were right but every time she built up the courage to end it, he would revert back to phase one and brainwash her into staying. She must have tried to end it with him 10 times but every time he would tell her she was crazy and overreacting and that they were great together. She would tell him she was starved of affection and romance, he promised to deliver and a week later she would be at rock bottom again.

Last week she ended it. In her mind, it was over. She knew he would keep trying to worm his way back in for another feed of her energy like the vampire that he was but as long as she didn’t have to see him, she could stand her ground.

George came into her life at the right time. She had never been short of offers but she had not been able to make the jump all the while Christian had his claws in her. She had been on dates that friends had arranged and she would have a nice time and then Christian would go back to phase one and again she would want him and only him. He was like heroin and she was fighting what seemed like a hopeless battle. She was convinced if he stayed away from her, she could move on successfully – and soon.

She met George at the doctor’s surgery. She had made an appointment to ask her doctor if he could recommend a therapist who could help her break away from an abusive, controlling relationship. As she was making her way into the building, she spotted a handsome man trying to help an elderly lady out of his car. She went over and asked if she could help. The lady gratefully took their arms and she walked between the two of them into the building.

That lady went on to confide in Sara that her son George needed a woman like her in his life and that he had been single for too long. George looked tolerantly embarrassed as she told Sara she didn’t want George to leave it as long as she had to have a family of his own. Sara didn’t pry but she did seem rather old to have a son of George’s age. She must be in her eighties, Sara thought.

George was attractive. He was tall with sandy coloured hair and pale blue eyes. If a beach could look like a person, it would be him. He looked like family, togetherness, fun and lifelong memories, if a person could look like that.

Agewise, he seemed to be in his early forties. It was his kind eyes that she noticed and the abundance of wrinkles around them when he smiled. He must smile a lot, she thought to herself and it was as if a knot she didn’t know she had unravelled in her stomach. She wanted to know more about him. She didn’t love Christian any more. The fact that she was attracted to George and was intrigued by him was confirmation of that.

Things took off with George quicker than Sara had expected. She had attempted to date men recently but was always drawn back to Christian. She was fully aware of who he was yet she was trapped in his web. They would argue, she would ask for space and in that time, she felt happy and genuinely believed she could move on but Christian would never give her space for long. A day or two, maximum. One text from him, one more wisecrack would have her smiling again and any spark she thought she had with anyone else would quickly be extinguished. She knew it was a trap. She knew she was a game to Christian but she also knew she didn’t have the strength to leave. She had hoped that, with time, one more act of complete humiliation would be enough for her to end it all. She was not happy to admit it but what she needed was for someone to sweep her off her feet.

George came in to her life like the spring after winter. The world was in colour again. It had very much been black and white before now. Bleak, even. The bare trees and bitterly cold temperatures resonated with her mindset.

With George, it happened organically. The flowers began to bloom and she could feel the dormant Sara being resurrected.

After swapping numbers in the doctor’s surgery that day, he did everything the right way. He didn’t make too much contact, just enough. He invited her out to dinner. They arranged a time and a place and that was that. They didn’t speak again until they met, four days later.

Christian had been in her bed that morning so she was on the brink of cancelling the date. Her mind was torn and conflicted because she had only ever been a one-man woman. But, after Christian had finished taking what he wanted, he slapped her arse and told her to make him a coffee. When he left, he kissed her briefly and told on her on the doorstep he would be away on business for the next 10 days. It hadn’t escaped her that it was half term. She exploded and they had a furious argument. She had told him so many times that he made her feel as if she was only good for sex and that she had had enough. He told her that he had had enough of her never being happy and she told him to leave and not come back. He said no one would ever make her happy and called her an ungrateful bitch.

It was the best thing he could have said. Once again, he had made it painfully obvious to her that he wanted only one thing from her. And so she decided she must go on the date, even if it never amounted to anything. It proved there was another life outside of Christian and his world of false promises.

She met George in a cosy, backstreet Italian restaurant. She wasn’t nervous. She was too drained and lacking in self-esteem to care if this went anywhere or not. She was just glad she had actually managed to go through with a date this time, rather than cancelling, as she had done with most of her previous offers.

As she walked into the restaurant, she immediately spotted George sitting contently on his own. He was much better-looking than she had remembered as she gazed at him sitting there with an air of confidence about him. Not arrogance, but a steely, manly yet comfortable demeanour. She felt warm and the knot inside her stomach began to unravel some more.

George blushed perfectly when she walked into the restaurant and stood to greet her. He wanted to take her coat, not just because that’s what he thought should happen but because something immediately made him want to look after her. The waiter took her coat and gestured to the table where George was standing. She looked him up and down. All six feet four inches of him. He was exactly the type of man she was attracted to. Tall, broad, well-dressed and with kind eyes and a smile that suggested he was nervous. A smile that said he didn’t do this very often – which was a great comfort to her.

They ordered a bottle of red wine and Sara began asking him all about himself. She was surprised to learn that George was a detective in the Hampshire Constabulary. She hadn’t given much thought to what his job could be but she hadn’t thought of the police. She knew he was someone with authority by the way he held his council and knowing that he was on the right side of the law reassured her further. She was in the presence of a man with integrity. As her fondness for him grew by the minute, she was also wondering what on earth had kept her with Christian for so long. They didn’t share a single value in common. He was every parent’s worst nightmare. Why couldn’t I see that before?

It was George’s turn to ask about her. After asking the usual, unassuming questions, Sara was caught dead in her tracks when he asked her something she hadn’t prepared for.

“How long have you been single?”

The heat rose to her cheeks as she thought about the best way to answer his direct question. Her mind took her back to images of her and Christian naked in bed together earlier that day. As she quickly raced through possible answers in her head, she remembered what he did for a living and decided she had no choice.

“I am very newly single.”

She raised her eyes away from her plate and met his, feeling ashamed. She took a sip of her wine and exhaled.

George placed his hand on top of hers.

“It’s OK if you don’t want to talk about it now but I am looking for someone who is single. If that isn’t you, let’s enjoy our dinner and leave it there.”

Sara knew she would be mad to miss out on this. It needed to be explored further and she had 10 days of Christian being “on business” to get to know George.

“I am single. Really, I am. I’m sorry, it’s just that you came along unexpectedly and I don’t normally jump from one thing to the next. I am a believer in fate, though, so I am happy to be here. I’m happy we are having dinner together and although I’ve only had my starter, I already know I would like to see you again.”

George squeezed her hand this time, smiled and blushed. She could tell she would have the ability to hurt this man and she was not prepared to do that. For the next 10 days, she was single and she would deal with Christian when she saw him – whenever that might be.

She deserved a life with someone who wanted her completely and so she had to see if she could have that with George.

The pair talked and talked and had more wine than they should have. They hadn’t realised they were the last ones in the restaurant and ended up laughing as they left at how long they had been in there and how the staff must have been desperate for them to get out.

Sara got in a taxi. George had offered to accompany her but she said no. She really needed to take her time. She was sure he was a gentleman but her home was her safe place and she didn’t want him having her address just yet. Policeman or no policeman. You never know who the nutters are these days, she thought. That way, there would be no chance of bunches of flowers arriving and surprise visits.

She didn’t want anything to scare her off because this was the closest she had got to escaping Christian’s web. Her own thought process shocked her and revealed the extent of Christian’s abuse. Never before would she have laid out a slow, step-by-step guide in her mind to dating but she was so nervous now. Nervous about giving her heart away again. And whoever got it this time, she hoped would be the last.

She had promised him a text when she got back to let him know she was safe and he said that was good enough. He pulled her in by the waist to kiss her on the cheek but she turned and kissed him on the mouth. He put one hand on the back of her head and she leaned in to him. It wasn’t wild and passionate. It was nice. It was soft. It was gentle. It was enough. It was just perfect.

CHAPTERTHREE

Christian was sitting at his desk in his private office watching a video he had secretly made of him and Sara having sex. He was torn between arousal and wanting her dead. The excitement of meeting “X” a couple of days ago had started to wear off and he had wondered occasionally if he would miss her. It’s her own fault. She is an ungrateful bitch. Who does she think she is, blocking me? No one cuts me off. She will realise her mistake soon.

Christian had asked X how he would do it. But X refused to share that information and instead asked for Christian to confirm that death was the result he wanted. Christian said it was. He gave him £3,500 in a brown envelope. Half now and the same again when it was done. X promised to have carried out the order within three weeks. Christian wanted it done now because he feared he might change his mind but X said he needed to follow her and learn her pattern. Christian didn’t question him. He was the expert, after all. The murder expert. Christian offered him more money to do it quicker but X just laughed. He took his envelope and left without saying another word. That was that. In just under three weeks, Sara would be dead. Christian was charged up.

A knock on his office door startled him and he quickly turned off his home-made porn. With one click Sara was off his screen and soon, with one Mr X, Sara would be out of his life.

After not hearing anything from Christian for a few days, Sara felt the best she had done in months. She felt calm and in control. Breaking away from him was like giving up alcohol, smoking or drugs, she thought. She felt strong, confident and better off without him.

Too many times had she been sucked back in, knowing the pain it would cause but unable to resist. He would come and go, literally, and she would hit rock bottom again. She had known for months that she needed to regain control and this time she felt as if she had cracked it. She decided that it was essential to block his number. She didn’t love him any more. She didn’t want to be with him. When she thought about the prospect of his being with his wife, after telling her he was single, her stomach would churn. They were probably all playing happy families on holiday while she was left alone and feeling worthless. Not any more.

She had escaped for the final time and she needed to seize the moment. She deleted all of their messages, all of their pictures and deleted him out of her life. Christian ceased to exist in her world any more. She felt elated and optimistic.

For their third date, George took Sara to a new Spanish restaurant. They had grown close very quickly and, for both of them, it was as if they had known each other for years. He loved her naïvety and wanted to look after her. She loved his chivalry and felt secure.

He was an alpha male, didn’t mince his words but was polite and respectful with it. Of course, the police thing was appealing, too. She would ask about cases he had worked on and, although he couldn’t tell her too much, she was in awe of what he did and his drive to protect the community.

After sharing several small dishes of tapas, with George’s large hands making them look like bowls of food for the Borrowers, he insisted on paying the bill again. Afterwards, Sara insisted on taking him to a cocktail bar just around the corner for a nightcap. She didn’t want the evening to end. As they left, they held hands for the first time and Sara felt at peace. George felt like a very lucky man and thought he had better tell her soon but words like that didn’t come easily to him.

They walked down the high street in the mild October air. It wasn’t freezing but a nice autumnal chill surrounded them. The shop windows were full of Hallowe’en displays which were more spooky because it was night-time and the shops were closed. Skeletons hanging and witches loitering in darkened windows in almost every one.