Complete Me (The Stark Trilogy)

sending the stalker-like messages, Damien insisted I keep the security guys, and I agreed. Still, I’m so ready for this to be over that I think if Damien suggested we go live in Antarctica for a year, I would jump all over that plan.
    We pop into Starbucks on the way, mostly to get coffee, but also because I want to introduce Jamie to Monica. She’s not there, however, and so we take our lattes and head to my office. I give Jamie the grand tour, which takes about twelve seconds, and then soak up her effusive hugs and cries of “I’m so proud of you!”
    “If Damien’s not back from Chicago by tonight, do you want to rent a movie?” I ask as she’s about to head out.
    “Sure,” she says. “And if he is back?”
    I grin wickedly. “In that case, I have other plans.”
    I settle behind my desk as Jamie rolls her eyes and leaves. It takes me about ten minutes to go through my emails and handle a bunch of administrative crap. I finish tweaking the code on one of my entertainment apps, then push the update through. Then I pull out the web-based app that I’ve been working on. A cross-platform, multi-user note-taking system that Damien has already told me he’ll license for Stark International once I’m out of beta testing.
    First, I have to finish coding the damn thing and actually get it
into
beta testing.
    I’m so lost in concentration that I jump when the intercom beeps. “Yes?” I snap.
    “There’s a Monica Karts here to see you.”
    “Oh.” I’m actually a bit irritated by the interruption. I’ve never seen Monica outside of the coffee shop, and it seems a little odd that she’s come unannounced. At the same time, I don’t know that many people here yet, and I do like her. And since Damien is out of town, I can always work late and make up for lost time. “Tell her to come on back.”
    “I love it!” she says as she bursts through the door. “Your own office. That’s so cool.”
    “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
    “Oh, man. I don’t mean to just barge in like you’ve got nothing better to do. Honest. But I got these head shots and I didn’t see you at Starbucks this morning, and I really wanted to show you today. Is that okay?”
    I can’t help my smile. Her enthusiasm is effusive. “Of course.”
    She plunks herself in the chair opposite my desk, then passes me the envelope. “Go ahead. Take a peek.”
    I frown, because her voice sounds different. What I’d thought was a Northeastern prep school lilt now has much more of a British quality to it.
    My thoughts about her voice, however, disappear entirely when I pull out the first photo. It is not a head shot, and as I hold it between two fingers, my body turns to ice and I have to stifle the urge to throw up.
    “Gorgeous, isn’t he? But I suppose you know that. Go on, then. Pull them all out.”
    My hands are shaking, and I realize I’m still holding the envelope and the photo. I flinch, then drop them as quickly as if they had burned me.
    The picture falls image-side up, and though I try not to look, there is no erasing from my mind what I have already seen.
Damien
. Maybe eleven or twelve. And a girl, her face hidden, who I am guessing is younger. There is more, but I don’t want to think of it. It is bad enough to have the image of these children in my head, their bodies joined in some perversion of an adult act. I do not want to think of the other things I saw in the bed with them. Toys and leather and gadgets that no child needs to know exists, much less have experience using.
    And I don’t want to think about the mirror that hung in place of a headboard, reflecting back the image of the man behind the camera—an adult man, naked and with a hard-on, one hand on his penis and the other holding the camera.
Richter
.
    “I said pull them all out.” Her voice is cold and seems to come from a very long way away. Somehow, I realize I am in shock. But I don’t know what to do about that.
    When I don’t move, she reaches for the envelope and dumps at least twelve photos out onto my desk. “There’s a tape, too. But we won’t worry about that now.”
    I try not to look, but I can’t help but see that these photos are more of the same, though each one seems more depraved than the one before.
    She leans across the desk and taps the pile of images. “He’s mine,” she says. “He has always been mine.”
    “Yours,” I repeat stupidly as I fight my way out of the fog. “You’re Sofia.”
    She leans back in