The Telltale Heart by Melanie Thompson Read Free Book Online

bullets tore up the padding on the walls and all the torture devices. Feathers flew into the air as chunks of debris rained down around the unconscious man. When the room was destroyed, Cam backed out and closed the door. Well so much for secrecy. If they didn’t know she was here before, they did now.
    She checked the clip in the gun. She had over a hundred large caliber rounds left. When she went back out in the passage, it was filled with clients and their slaves. Naked people, or men wearing the strange and slightly ridiculous cloth bags to hold their privates, stood in the hallway staring at her. Naked women groveled on the floor shaking with terror. She waved her huge gun. “If I were you, I’d leave now. I’m after Templecombe. I have no fight with any of you.”
    The clients and the slaves scattered, running down the passage to a set of stairs. Cam swept by the stairs and deeper into the tunnels running under the club’s main floor. She ran down a stretch with no doors and finally arrived at a massive wooden door at the end of the passageway. This was the way Drex had told her to go and this looked like the door he’d briefly described. It was old, made of ancient timbers held together with beaten metal straps. The handle was a large ring set into the wood and locked with a massive padlock. The lock hung open. The door was not secured.
    Cam laid her head against the ancient wood and listened. She heard talking. A gun fired inside and she yanked open the door. Tommy was a small crumpled figure in front of Templecombe and Edmund knelt in front of the man who had to be Templecome’s hired assassin. Her beloved Duke lay on the floor without his vest, his skin a ghastly gray, his lips slowly turning blue. The evil specter in front of Edmund, dressed in a long black coat, held the gun she’d given Drex under one of his arms pointed at Edmund’s head. With his free hand he held Edmund by the hair, his cock out of his pants hung inches from Edmund’s mouth.
    Nugent Templecombe, dressed only in a small red bag holding his privates, looked up at her and smiled. “My dear, welcome to our party. We weren’t expecting you, but I am so glad you could make it.”
    He pointed to one of his bully boys. The three local toughs were standing against the far wall enjoying the spectacle of Edmund about to suck the assassin’s cock. “Take her weapon.”
    Cam backed slowly toward the door. “Edmund, wake up. Don’t give into despair. You are stronger than that. Jinqua’s first rule. Remember it.”
    Edmund’s eyes suddenly focused. He came out of his trance, spun around, dropped into a low hibadachi stance, both feet planted, and slammed a classic knife hand into Templecombe’s groin. Then Nugent Templecome, the honorable Marquis of Barrasford, dropped his weapon and fell to the floor screaming.
    The scary assassin carrying Drex’s weapon turned and pointed the gun he carried at her. Before he could fire, she dropped him with one shot to the head. The three bad guys on the other side of the room rushed her all at once. Edmund picked up the gun and screamed. “Drop, Cam!”
    She fell to the ground and Edmund mowed the three bad guys down in a hail of bullets. When they crashed to the floor around her, she leapt to her feet and ran to Drex placing one hand on his bare chest. “Where’s his vest?” She yelled at Edmund. “Hurry, his heart is barely beating.”
    Edmund tossed the vest to her and went to comfort Tommy who sat on the hard stone floor crying softly, blood dripping from a flesh wound to the side of his face. All Templecombe’s hired help were dead. The only bad guy left alive was Templecombe who clutched his genitals while shrieking and wailing. “You have destroyed my cods. I’ll be a eunuch after this.”
    â€œWe can only hope,” Edmund provided.
    She lifted Drex tenderly, slipped the vest on