Chapter 5: Darkness is My Bride

Jason Griggs rose early that morning. His empire crumbled around him, and he had to oversee the destruction. His mind teetered between sanity and psychosis as his guilt consumed him. By killing his twin, Jason had in effect, murdered a part of himself. The most terrible part of it all, Jason Griggs was fully aware his world was crashing down around him, yet nothing he could do would stop it from happening. That bitch. That Black Puma bitch had brought this on him.

Griggs stopped at the door, staring blankly at the woman in his bed. It took a minute as the recollection of having her husband killed and taking her as his own crept back into his fevered brain. Why the hell had he done that? Her curvaceous body did nothing to tell him why he had wanted her so badly that he would kill her husband. She was just a woman; he could have two hundred women by just snapping his fingers. Why this one?

Sheila lay on the bed rolled into a tight ball. Her world had been blown apart, exploding into a million pieces. Her ... lover ... master, whatever he was, grew more unstable each day. Every blow to his organization by Black Puma sent him reeling in new directions. Every twist and turn he made affected her. His anger burst forth in blinding flashes, and Sheila caught the brunt of each outburst. To add insult to injury, she wasn’t allowed to claim her husband’s body. The City planted him like garbage in a landfill. He rested in Potters Field with a number and no name on an insignificant flat stone marker.

Jason Griggs hovered on the edge of sanity—most often on the wrong side. His last hope arrived from Florida, and a new plot hatched. Griggs refused to leave his hideout. He no longer left the lower levels of the underground structure.

Much of the day, Griggs sat at his desk, drinking bourbon straight from the bottle and whispering to himself. When he had flashes of anger, he would seek out Sheila and ... use her. Her own mind had begun to unravel. She wanted Griggs dead but lacked the courage to kill him herself.

For Jason Griggs and Sheila Wells day and night merged. Darkness and light became inseparable, or at least indistinguishable. The darkness inside each of them ate at their souls, threatening to consume them whole.

Around ten in the morning, the darkness consumed Jason. Guilt and anger built until he could contain it no longer. He needed an outlet, something he could use to release his rage. He walked out of his office, watching the people bundling all that money, placing the packs in neat stacks for distribution to the legit businesses. All the while, Sheila Wells worked on her computer, taking a tally, and entering the numbers into spreadsheets. She would then name the business and dollar amount that was to be taken to it to be cleaned. Every time she said the name of a laundry or cleaners, the group broke into laughter.

The business suit she wore fit her like a hand in a glove, with the fabric clinging to her appealing curves. Griggs watched the woman while his inner demon grew more displeased every minute. His cock twitched, and swelled, it tented up in his pants. Standing up, Sheila moved to a pile of money and with her back to Griggs, she bent over the stack, checking, and recounting the stacks of 50’s and 100’s. Her ass stuck out in Griggs direction. He could wait no longer.

In a quick stride, he moved to her, lifting Sheila’s skirt over her hips with one hand, and shoving her face down into the pile of money with the other. With angry quick tears, he shredded her pantyhose, then ripped her thong and twisted the remnants out of his way.

“Keep your face down there,” he barked at her. Opening his fly, he pulled his stiff prick out and rubbed her pussy lips. Dry as a parched desert, but he didn’t care. Didn’t care if she wanted it, didn’t care if she would enjoy it. It had nothing to do with her, apart from his control of her. To prove the point, he jabbed inside her unwilling opening in one, massive hard thrust.

“Damn dry whore,” he hissed as he jabbed inside her with a vicious, hostile gusto. “You’re so fucking tight, your husband must have had a pencil dick,” he snarled.

Why did he have to insult her husband? Wasn’t it enough he’d had him killed? “No ... please not in front of them...” she begged. Against her will, she began to react to his aggression. The moisture grew, and she pushed back as he thrust inside her. A moan, long, low and from deep inside her escaped her lips.

Pulling her arms behind her, he clutched them with one hand. He plunged his cock, deep inside her, interring her balls deep. He watched her pert ass moving as he fucked her, squeezing, and pinching her ass with his free hand.

“Ah,” she let out this little gasp and another deep moan. “Make them leave,” Sheila pleaded. Letting go of Sheila’s hands, he pulled her to him by her hair. Tucking the suite coat from her shoulders he tossed on the table in front of her, covering a bundle of 800,000 dollars of neatly wrapped money.

“No.” His hands opened her silk blouse and pushed her bra up above her breasts. He fondled them, pinching the nipples, and twisting them. Her ragged breathing rasped from her as the moans and groans increased. She hated this ... but loved how it made her feel. Both were true and it shamed her.

He rammed her with heated aggression, abandoning any concern for the onlookers. Harder and rougher Griggs stuck his cock deep inside Sheila Wells’ wet pussy. The sensations stunned Sheila as she whimpered and cooed. Her shame tearing her apart far more than his onslaught.

“Oh, sweet Lord, oh God,” she screamed. He pushed her down over the table once again, forced her feet further apart, and taking her hips in his hand he picked up his pace even more. Sheila’s body quivered from the pleasure.

The shame boiled inside her, but her pain couldn’t compare to the humiliation of enjoying being fucked like a dog in front of the people she supervised. The gawking continued from the horrified onlookers, unable to look away from the hard, violent attack. The pained looks of empathy, and the uncomfortable gazes of women that thanked the powers that be it was her and not them. Some of the men tried to hide their own arousal, crossing legs, dropping hands in front of their own tented pants. Then there were those few who felt the need to help, their own shame revealed in their fearful countenance. But they stood their ground, knowing Griggs would kill them if they interfered.

He couldn’t hold back any longer. He moaned and for Sheila what had seemed like an eternity of terror, shame and ecstasy concluded as he spurted the warm cum deep inside her. Jason’s cock belched out the sticky seed, coating her insides. His dick grew limp, then plopped from her, a few thick globs clinging to it. He turned and walked away, letting it hang between his legs. Thin contrails of semen dangled, danced, and dribbled to his trousers, his shoes, and the carpeted floor. He slammed the door behind him, feeling the flames from her eyes, burning into his back.

Pulling her skirt back over her hips, without missing a beat, Sheila turned to her employees. Her expression of quiet calm returned, belying the anger and shame, boiling inside her. She smoothed her suit, trying to straighten wrinkles that weren’t there, she felt the nasty discharge, oozing out of her crotch. It trickled down her legs, and clumps of disgusting semen splashed between her feet. Her body still trembled from her orgasm.

“Wipe those stupid looks off your faces and get back to work,” she ordered. Her own thoughts turned to Jake, her husband. She wanted to cry for him. She wanted to mourn ... she wanted to die with him ... wanted to escape. Her eyes landed her on coat and that one pile of $800,000 not yet allocated covered so neatly by it. Just sitting there, no one noticing it amid the chaos that had just ensued, and all eyes averted from her. No one would miss that bundle. She would wait until everyone left and pack that away in a suitcase.

And so, her plan was born. He could take her body, but not her soul. Over the next few days, she accumulated four million dollars. All Sheila Wells needed now was to take the money and run. That, and stay alive to have a new life.

Meanwhile, Raeann Blackthorn watched every piece of footage on Puma, every photograph. Read every news report, digested every eye witness account. She devoured, dissected, and analyzed everything available on the Black Puma. At long last, she thought she knew the woman and understood her well enough to defeat her. After all, Rae had a secret plan. Her own baby blue, protective suit was equal to Pumas.

To keep in shape, Raeann worked out with Griggs’s enforcers. It was no test of her ability. She made short work of the men, if men they be. She beat the goons in short, furious flurries. She didn’t even bother donning her armor for the fights with these fellows. They weren’t enough of a challenge to require any protection.

This job caused her consternation. The boss who hired her, Jason Griggs, was a loose cannon. She almost regretted taking the job, with Jason Griggs standing at the mouth of madness. She didn’t like working for nut jobs. No telling what he would do from one moment to the next. Even so, once you accept a hit, you can’t back out, no matter what.

“It’s all unraveling,” Steven said, as Shawanda strode around his lab. “The insanity of Griggs rips apart his organization at the seams. The reports from our informants indicate Griggs is slipping deeper into paranoia, depression, and insanity.”

“Is this it?” Puma asked, ignoring him while observing the black catsuit. “Is this my new ... what do you call them ... costume?”

“I call them protective suits,” Steven Denton said, “and yes that is it. I designed it to spread out the impact in a greater radius. Listen to me. This funk that Griggs has fallen into makes your job harder, not easier. He isn’t leaving that damn bunker.”

“Sixty days ago, my timetable had me killing him in thirty days. Shit happens. We adapt. I’ll find him and kill him, or turn him over to the cops,” Shawanda said to him.

“How do you feel, Ms. Puma?” he asked.

“I’m ready for Wimbledon,” she said. Shawanda took the suit down, feeling the material. “Not much heavier,” she said as she pulled costume from the rack, comparing the leather like material to her previous garb.

“You’ll be able to move in it the same as the last two. It’s more resistant to impacts, and like I said, it will disperse the blows out better,” Steven weighed his next words. “There’s a new hitter in town. A woman from back east.”

“I wish,” Puma let out hiss, “I wish he hadn’t hired a woman. Tell me, Steven, can you make the suit where it concentrates more energy at the point of impact? You know magnify the effect of a blow or kick?”

“I can, but it’s the reverse of the technology I used on the suit. You’d feel every blow, and every bullet impact. Sure, it would still stop bullets, but offer no protection from the impact. After all, you can only put three pounds off coffee into a three-pound coffee can.”

“Why did he have to hire a woman?” Puma asked again, her mind pondering the fact she would be fighting a woman. “What’s her name?”

“My informant said she’s Cold as Ice. I don’t know if that’s her nom de plume or just an expression for her cruelty,” Steven said.

“Cold as Ice,” the computer announced, “professional name used to identify one Raeann Blackthorn, aka, Cold as Ice or merely Ice. Credited for over one-hundred-fifty hits covering five states. Never arrested or questioned. Source, FBI Organized Crime Taskforce files. She is considered a walking lethal weapon.”

“A kindred spirt,” Puma said in hushed tone.

“I started tennis at eighteen. I got good but nowhere near enough to go pro,” Lacey told the old man, turning to him. “Well?” she asked, her voice ripe with anticipation.

“It’s good, though a bit hot for my taste,” Collins smiled at her. “Shawanda will love it, though. Where did you learn to cook chili?”

“I’m a Texican. All Texican’s can make Tex-Mex,” Lacey Barnes told him, lifting a spoonful to her mouth, tasting the concoction. “Not bad. So, what was it like to be a marine?”

“Vietnam wasn’t much fun,” he said. “But I was proud to serve. The CIA,” he paused thinking how to phrase it, “borrowed me, for a few years, then I left the service. Unsure what to do with my life, I followed in my father’s footsteps. My family has been service oriented for generations. Enough about me. So, you’re a Texas girl. Do you ride?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Now, that I’ll have to see,” Shawanda Jones said, walking into the kitchen.

“You will,” Lacey smiled, turning toward her, holding the big pot of chili, beaming. “Dinner is served.”

“Oh, you cook too? Look out Collins, I have your replacement lined up.”

If she could pull this off, it wouldn’t take Raeann long and she could retire. Find a respectable profession and start a new life. A life minus death, an absence of killing, and she could be free of doing the dirty work of others. If she could pull it off, of course. The mountain lion wouldn’t go down easy. She didn’t like the idea of killing her either. Watching the footage of her fight, there was much to admire in her form and perhaps her purpose. After all, like her, the people she worked for were bad people.

Then there was her body, for there was no denying the Puma had a physical beauty. Blackthorn loved the powerful form of her adversary. If things were different, they might have been friends, perhaps more. If Black Puma were on her side of the line, they might have been partners. Unquestionably her kills were efficient. Beyond efficient. The taking of the man’s testicles, that was both callous and novel. This cat showed no mercy. In that, they were also the same.

Still, the proficiency of the bitch was a worry. Killing Puma would not be easy. This fight was to the death. Win or die, with zero room for error. Her own suit was the key, with her own suit making genius having found a way to amplify her impacts. Testing it, she shattered a brick with one blow. She’d hammer the air right out of Puma’s lungs and smash her ribs to immobilize her. Once she had her incapacitated, she’d kill her with a few well-placed swift blows. She didn’t want the woman to suffer. None of this was desirable to her, for the more she studied the woman, the more she did not want to hurt Puma or kill her. Yet it was her job.

Had she not been able to write her own ticket she would not have taken the work. But once you take the money, politics, personal beliefs and even compassion are put to the side. They become irrelevant. After all, Rae didn’t strive for any greater good, unlike like her opponent. No, she simply worked for her own betterment and that of her child.

The failing organization wasn’t quite in the disarray that everyone thought it was. That was the plan, though, to make them believe that it was all falling apart. But Griggs degeneration into madness was real enough. Even so, it would appear—and be reported—that Griggs’s deep sanctuary held only him. That word would be communicated to the spies that Puma had inside the organization. They would tell her that Blackthorn had left, disgusted with Griggs, having quit the job, and returned to Florida.

Griggs was in the dark that he was the bait. He wouldn’t have liked that, but if Raeann couldn’t kill Puma his days were numbered anyway. Whether Puma died or killed Raeann, Griggs would be finished. Someone would move in and take it from him, likely killing him in the process. Blackthorn didn’t like the idea of Griggs surviving her by even an hour if she failed. So, he was the perfect enticement. Had it not been bad form, she would kill Puma and then kill him. Her future employment meant she couldn’t betray an employer, no matter how insane they were. Soon enough, she would be free of this life. A few more kills like Puma and Raeann would be set for life.

Shabby Heights took the news of Griggs men’s desertion well. His lunacy had been well reported through the grapevine. It wouldn’t be long, and Black Puma would know, Griggs cowered in fear, unprotected under that dilapidated strip club in Shabby Heights. It would just be too tempting for her not respond since he was devoid of protection.

The scruffy apartment surprised Lacey. The worn, faded curtains and ratty furniture looked more like it belonged to one of the whores from the street below than Shawanda, who stood peeking out the blinds at the street.

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Black Puma — Cat’s Claw

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