Chapter Eleven: Something Shiny Borrowed from the Dead
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course you can," Gemma said quickly and set aside the plastic cups she'd been gathering from the table.
"Can I trust Tig?" Rosamund asked softly.
"Oh honey," Gemma soothed and plucked the damp paper towel out of Rosamund's hand before she pulled her into a strong hug. "I don't know anything about you, but I can promise you that you'll never be safer than with Tig."
As Tig made his way back out to the backyard to find something to smoke, Gemma and Rosamund finished cleaning up, while back in Charming at the Teller-Morrow shop, Hale finally ran out of patience.
"Fuck you Clay," Hale shouted onto Clay's voicemail when his call was declined on the first ring. Opie raised a hand and watched Hale peel out of the parking lot, yanking his burner phone from his three-thousand-dollar suit pocket and dialing Salazar. "I know people with guns too," he spit as he pressed the accelerator to the floor.
Up north at Gemma's childhood home, everyone eventually retired for the evening in their own way.
Clay and Gemma crawled under the covers in the second bedroom, Bobby in the third bedroom while Chibs and Juice crashed in the office and Chuckie settled on the sofa.
Rosamund got to the master bedroom first and started going through the bags of clothes that Gemma brought. She found a white paper bag in the center of the stack and pulled out a prescription for emergency contraception as well as a four pack of contraceptive rings. Rosamund chuckled at the name on the prescription read, 'Sarah Palin.'
Rosamund's eyes widened with childish delight at the stack of gossip magazines. Hale had found them to be as illicit as porn, keeping Rosamund laser-focused on keeping up with the activity of the United Nations and IMF.
She looked up from the glossy-paged magazine when Tig opened the bedroom door.
"Hey," he said easily, closing the door behind him
"Hi," she said as he began slipping out of his clothes before she could return her attention to the bright, bold page which discussed pore treatment and which eyebrows defined your face.
"Dinner was good," Tig said nervously, the discomfort he felt was a foreign feeling.
"Thank you," she murmured, feeling a trill of nervousness compete with lustful anticipation as he shed the last of his clothes, her eyes couldn't help but widen as they fell on his thickness hanging heavily between his thighs before he moved with viperlike liquidity and wrapped her up in his naked embrace.
"Stop, someone's going to hear," Rosamund murmured in a panicked whisper as his hands pulled at her clothes She was embarrassingly and acutely aware of how many people were under the same roof as Tig's hands were suddenly trying to be everywhere on her body, kneading her flesh through her pajamas.
Tig chuckled at her worrying, thinking of the sometimes three-ring circus of fucking at the Club as he finagled her clothes free, crushing her to his chest, their bodies a warm line pressed together.
"You'll need to be quiet then doll," Tig teased as he worked a free hand down between them and moved his fingertips in urgent circles around her clit, making her body react with a wet firestorm. "I need to ask you something," he added in a hoarse growl.
"What?" Rosamund gasped as her body undulated with the potent sparks of pleasure his touch was creating. Tig didn't miss the crease of discomfort his touch caused to her sensitive flesh, traumatized from his enthusiastic thrusting.
"I know you're attached to this ring," Tig started as he pawed for her left hand and tugged her mother's ring off with his free hand, never stopping his fingers from exploring her, bobbing his index finger shallowly in her tight opening. "But, would you consider wearing this?" Tig asked raggedly, feeling another foreign taste of fear and insecurity fill him as he slipped the gold ring around her finger.
"Oh," she lamely managed as she stared down at the jeweled band he had acquired in murderous fucking crimes against humanity games
"Would you, will you wear it?" Tig asked as he moved his hands to grip her hips and urge her to roll over.
Rosamund couldn't find her words as Tig insisted she flip over before he collapsed his weight on top of her, scrabbling his hands quickly to push her legs apart until the ligaments began to protest. Tig yanked up at her hips as he shifted behind her, squeezing his fingers painfully hard into the curve of her hips before he kissed a wet line up the center of her back, teasing his tongue around the protruding knot of each of her spinal vertebrates.
Tig dropped a hand around his thick, pulsing hardness, the large artery in his cock thudded with pressure under his fist as he stroked his length and teased the sensitive head around her tight rear entrance.
"Will you?" Tig gasped as he let his hips fall forward so that his cock could just barely slide into her tight rear sphincter, the ring of muscle stretching with the barest of his touch.
Rosamund nodded as she tried to catch her breath and find her words.
Tig pushed inside her with a little more force, making her gasp and arch her back as her rear opening tightened around his shallow penetration. He slid a hand up the center of her back and wove his fingers into her hair, making a fist until he could force her head back, stretching her neck taut.
"Will you marry me baby?" Tig rasped in a primitive grunt as he slid his hand from her silken strands to cover her mouth at her more assertive nod just before he thrust his entire length into Rosamund's tight rear opening. She cried out behind his palm as the sensitive pink flesh of her anal sphincter spasmed, micro-tears from his aggressive pounding provided a blood slick for Tig to piston himself faster, stopped only by their intimate flesh kissing, the sound of his balls slapping against her were the only sounds that competed with her muffled moans.
Tig leaned back and became hypnotized watching his cock slide in and out of her tight asshole as his eyes danced over the pink folds of her pussy, hiding her wet center.
"Thank you baby," Tig managed as his pounding turned erratic, her body struggling to stretch enough to accommodate his thrusting length before he buried himself deeply a last handful of times until he filled her with hot, sticky come. He collapsed his weight over her while his cock remained firmly planted up her ass. Blood and semen beginning to leak onto her inner thighs, more promised to spill as his cock eventually softened and slid out of her.
Tig settled next to Rosamund and pulled her back against him, tugging the bed linen up and around them as their breathing returned to a normal rhythm.
"Thank you," Tig murmured as he pressed his lips to the crown of Rosamund's head, sliding his hand down the outside of her left arm and capturing her hand, the jeweled band cold against the center of his palm.
Rosamund moaned a response, the adrenaline that had been fueling her anxiety all day had left her drained and exhausted. She sagged in Tig's arms as he laid awake for hours just listening to her breathe.
Night passed for everyone and as the first shafts of sunlight spilled into the second bedroom, Gemma stirred before Clay, an idea on the tip of her tongue. She began stroking, touching, and caressing Clay until he was awake and whispered her idea into his ear as her hand worked his cock under the covers.
Clay came fast and hard, a smile curving his lips at Gemma's romantic streak.
Gemma's childhood home was soon bustling as coffee began percolating and everyone stirred awake and made a beeline for the kitchen when the smell of bacon and eggs cooking reached their noses and bellies.
Rosamund had slipped out of Tig's sleeping arms, cleaned up and slipped into some new to her clothes. She was in the kitchen when Chuckie appeared in the doorway with a laptop boasting a clear HD quality screen.
"Good morning," he said nervously to Rosamund's back as she cracked large eggs into a sizzling pan.
"Good morning," she said turning to him. "You're the tech guy?" she asked as her eyes flicked to but didn't linger on his strange digits.
"Yes, yes I am," Chuckie answered and settled at the dining room table.
"I'll get you the memory card as soon as I've had a few more cups of this," Rosamund said as she held up her coffee before offering him some.
"I can accept that," Chuckie concurred with and enjoyed breakfast with everyone, eager to get into the chip's contents as everyone finished their plates, drained their paper cups, and wiped their mouths with the coarse paper towels.
Gemma wiped off the tiled kitchen island as Rosamund fetched the card and set it in the center of Chuckie's clunky, articulating fingered 'hand'.
Tig walked over and stood behind Rosamund, casually pulling her back against him as Chuckie got to encrypting the tiny memory card. Gemma flicked her eyes over as Rosamund gave a small smile and relaxed against the front of Tig's body, she couldn't help but echo the smile when she saw the ring around Rosamund's left finger.
Time slowed for Rosamund as the first of thousands of illicit photos began to appear in a slideshow on the crystal-clear screen. Some of the images made Rosamund look away as the photos her uncle had heavily manipulated to show Rosamund, and her close cousin engaged in compromising positions with senators, congressmen, and wannabe presidents.
"Those have been altered," Rosamund started in a stilted tone as she narrated her shame and humiliation as Chuckie explored the copious bounty of incriminating photos and videos. Hale had enough footage to blackmail until his face was on the one-hundred-dollar bill.
Tig hugged her tighter as Rosamund sniffed hard, trying not to cry as the roomful of people she just met saw picture after picture of her from the time she was thirteen years old with mosquito bumps for tits, sitting on the laps of toxic billionaires who regularly fucked children on their private islands in international waters, far from any country's extraditing reach.
Everyone in the room lapsed into silence as Chuckie went through countless video and image files, most featuring Rose dressed up and perched on the lap or arm of some wealthy socialite, senator, or third-generation prince suffering from affluenza.
Rosamund looked around, anxious for an exit. "I need to go take care of something," she murmured and scurried from the room. No one spoke after she left.
Gemma caught Tig's arm as he began to follow Rosamund and pulled him into the other room as Chuckie continued to decrypt the thousands of images that were excellent for leveraging money, property, and power.
"This one's different Tig," Gemma warned as she squeezed his forearm and added. "Don't treat her like the others."
Tig smiled and laid his hand over Gemma's. "I knew she was different the second I saw her," he agreed with a chuckle and kissed Gemma's forehead chastely before following the path to the master bedroom that Rosamund had taken.
Tig found the bedroom door closed but not locked.
He pushed it open and found Rosamund sitting on the bed and staring out the window.
"You okay?"
Rosamund blew out a breath, "I was complicit in so much of what my uncle was doing."
Tig was shaking his head and immediately moving to her side as soon as she finished speaking. "None of this is on you baby," Tig murmured as he dropped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. "None of it," he added as he rhythmically pulsed his arm around her.
"How can you say that?" Rosamund scoffed as she rubbed at her eyes, trying to quell her threatening tears as she began to list off story after story of how she created a lot of the scenarios in the memory card's stored images and videos.
Tig listened without interrupting as she humiliated herself again and again as she recounted creating staged movie magic for her uncle's collection. He kept his expression neutral as each word Rosamund whispered just added to the surging fury he had to personally end Hale's life.
Rosamund trailed off into silence as Tig squeezed her closer. "That's all in the past."
"It's not the past, it's now, the chip is here right now," Rosamund started to rebut on a stammer before a soft knock at the door sounded.
Rosamund wiped at her eyes as Tig opened the door to find Gemma.
"Let's get out of here," Gemma called to Rosamund.
"Where?" she asked, startled at thinking of leaving the perceived safety of the house.
Gemma looked down at her hands before waving her unpolished nails. "Manicure?"
"Is it safe?"
Gemma smiled and pulled a snub-nose revolver from her oversized bag before she glanced over at Tig. "And Juice and Chibs are driving us," she added.
As Rosamund washed her face and collected herself, back in Charming, Hale continued to hound his contact in the DMV about the van's partial plate that was captured in the grainy surveillance footage. Hale drummed his neatly trimmed nails on the gleaming surface of his desk as he hung up the phone and waited, his irritation going from smoldering to fiery as time passed with nothing further to go on.
As Hale clenched his teeth until his jaw popped and balled up his hands into fists, up north at Gemma's childhood home, Tig watched from the front window as Juice navigated one of the other dark vans out of the driveway and downtown to a day spa.
Time passed as Tig returned to the kitchen and joined Clay and Bobby as they circled Chuckie as he opened file after file from the memory card, each more elicit and worth its blackmailed weight.