Pierce scrubbed at his jaw. “Let’s see how this plays out. Will Michaels recognise Eagle?”
“Yes.” They’d met.
“Then he’ll keep an eye on him.” It was an assumption, but a good one. Damon knew what Eagle meant to me. He would also know I was watching this play out.
Our attention was drawn back to the screens at the Irreverent Inferno. Damon hadn’t said a word and Cawfield had just let Eagle’s eagerness speak for itself. But the room seemed fuller now, from the cameras that showed the view behind Damon’s back. I countered up those hooded figures I could see and came to twenty-six. I recounted just to be sure.
“There’s an extra person present,” I whispered into the silent control room.
“I count twenty-six,” Nick offered.
“Did you count Damon?”
“Ah,” he said, clearly recounting. “Twenty-seven with your man.”
“So, maybe they don’t all attend when they have one of these meetings,” Pierce surmised.
“Which means we have no way of knowing how many potential suspects we have,” I concluded.
“Fuck,” both men murmured.
“Welcome,” a hooded figure said from the centre of the room. The music swelled and then tapered off to nothing. Echoing silence filled the room. “We are in the third circle of hell,” he advised, arms raised momentarily and then returning to his side. “Choose your vice wisely, for you shall be there all night. Prove your worth.”
Then the music returned as the members all said that phrase we couldn’t decipher. We watched as the hooded figure who had just spoken started to wend his way around the room, stopping here and there to check on members, clearly asking questions to determine their “vice” for the night.
“So,” Cawfield said next to Damon. “Are you as promising as you appear?” It seemed a genuine question. “You have a chance to prove your worth beyond those of your fellow initiates. Will you accept?”
Damon’s body shifted, it was obvious he was looking back at Eagle again.
“And if I say no, someone else will claim this corner?” he asked.
I seemed to be breathing under water. I couldn’t get enough air. Everything felt heavy. My heart. My head. The world right then. A pressing weight that threatened to crush. I wanted out from underneath it. I wanted out from this voyeuristic room. But I couldn’t leave Eagle.
And there was nothing that could tear me away from Damon, it seemed.
“Of course,” Cawfield said. “This is the prime spot. That’s why he was already here. A temptation. An illicit invitation. To those of us who have what it takes to accept.” A lengthy pause. Then, “Will you accept, Initiate?”
“What is expected of me?” Damon whispered. “Here?”
Cawfield moved closer, as though to whisper back in his ear.
“Let yourself go. He’s willing. Paid well for his participation tonight. Let yourself go. Open up the darkest parts of your soul and let… yourself… go.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I breathed.
Cawfield reached over for something just out of sight and returned with a riding crop.
“Oh fuck,” Pierce muttered.
He used the crop like a feather, running it lightly down Eagle’s chest, onto his thigh. Eagle’s cock jumped. He let out an aroused moan.
My hand covered my mouth to stop the insistent need to scream inside. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t stand by and watch. This was sick. Not just the act of stimulation through pain. I’d seen that before. I may not understand it, but I’d seen the evidence that it existed. That there were people who needed this sort of thing. I’d never considered Eagle one such as that. But what did I know? He offered a varied service to his clientele.
But this set-up. This sensual tease Cawfield was performing. It felt like a trap. I hated it. I hated him.
Gluttony. Greed. Anger. Heresy. Violence. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t work out what Cawfield was doing. But I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like this. It felt wrong. Not just morally wrong, but gut clenchingly wrong.
I shook my head as Damon contemplated his options.
“When this is over,” I said to the room at large. “I am going to beat the ever loving crap out of Joseph Cawfield.”
Nick and Pierce both looked at me, but neither man said a single word.
“Your choice,” Cawfield said on the screen. “Prove your worth.”
He stepped back, behind the screen. Still close enough to see what would transpire. To direct. But also in a position to turn people away from entering. He’d claimed this corner for Damon. Why?
Was it some sort of sick need to prove Damon was all those things he’d suspected? Was it a twisted and perverse illness that gave him some form of satisfaction to watch a man fall? Was this his obsession? His gluttonous cause?
They were all in the third circle of Hell. Initiates and full-fledged members. Did this debauchery provide them something they all needed?
I fumbled with my pocket, hauling my cellphone out and staring at the screen.
“Who’re you calling?” Pierce asked distractedly, as he watched Damon take a slow step toward Eagle up on the screen.
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t speak.
I swiped at my contacts list and hit dial. The phone rang five times before slipping to voice-mail. I listened to the sound of my father’s voice as I watched Damon walk a complete circle around a panting Eagle on the screen.
Voice-mail. On a Saturday night. I hadn’t called my father on his phone for a very long time. Even if he was out with friends, entertaining a woman, wouldn’t he answer to see if I was all right?
No. He’d not see me. His not answering was par for the course.
But it didn’t stop me looking at the various hooded figures on the multiple screens in front of me and wondering if he didn’t answer because he was busy in the third circle of Hell.
I swiped the call closed without leaving a message. I simply could not talk right now.
“Eagle,” Damon murmured, his back to the screen and Cawfield who stood guard there. A few other members had moved closer, but not close enough to listen in.
Damon kept his voice low, only loud enough for us to hear over the sensitive listening equipment Nick had sewn into the cloak.
“Eagle,” he said again, leaning closer to the swaying boy. “Are you all right?”
Eagle’s face lolled to the side, dilated pupils looked up at Damon. He nodded his head. Once.
“Are you here by choice?” Damon pressed.
Another single nod of his head.
“Do you understand what will happen if I step away?’
“Yes,” my young friend murmured.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Eagle,” Damon whispered back.
“Then why… are… yous… ‘ere?”
Damon’s cloak shifted with his agitation. “I’m sorry. You’re on your own.” He moved to turn away.
“Want… yous,” Eagle said so softly even we had difficulty hearing. “Please.”
The camera lenses on Damon’s cloak fluctuated with his sudden movement. It took a second for the images on the screens to settle.
“I won’t give you what you want,” Damon said, voice low. “This isn’t what I do.”
I closed my eyes, relief a rush of emotion I could barely process.
Eagle was smiling when I looked back. A beautiful stretch of lush lips.
“Keen likes yous,” he managed, swinging slightly. “I like yous,” he added, and it sounded salacious, even if his head drooped. “Just do it.”
“You’d rather me than someone more…” Damon hesitated. “More accomplished.”
Eagle chuckled, it sounded weak. “Turned on… just seein’… y’in that… hood.”
Damon let a long breath of air out.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, slapping the crop against his thigh, I think. We could see it move in one of the cameras, but it didn’t land on Eagle.
Damon must have sensed his time running out. And one look at the camera angle that showed behind him towards the screen, indicated he’d amassed quite an audience.
“Few days.”
“Have you seen a woman? Dark curly hair, dark eyes. Might be drugged.”
“Are you going to chat him up all night,” a voice said over Damon’s shoulder. “Or give in to your obsessions.”
A harsh breath of air escaped Damon, but he didn’t spin around to face the heckler.
“Others are keen to try this one out,” the same voice added.
“Eagle?” Damon pressed.
Eagle’s head rose a half inch, his eyes stared unfocused past Damon.
“Make it hurts,” he whispered. “You gots… to make it.. hurts.”
A low growl came from Damon’s throat.
“Please,” Eagle begged.
Fuck. I breathed heavily through the hand covering my mouth. Pierce looked pale and wouldn’t glance at me. Nick Anscombe had his lips pressed in a thin line. Neither man was comfortable with how this was going.
Neither man had a solution to the disaster we were witnessing up on the screen.
“God help me,” Damon murmured and we watched as he swept the crop down Eagle’s side like Cawfield had done before.
Eagle moaned loud. Loader than I would have thought the act would warrant.
“He’s helping Michaels out,” Pierce said. “Making it easier.”
“This is easier?” I demanded, voice a little too high pitched.
“Putting on a show for those watching. Selling Damon as best as he can.”
That was Eagle. A showman. Even drugged, strung up, and bared.
A sob escaped my lips before I could stop it. There were things in this job that made me question the world. Dark, devious, disgusting things. Eagle was not an innocent. Far from it. He stretched the prostitution laws pretty thin. But he was sweet and young, and someone I considered mine to protect.
I couldn’t watch. Maybe I was a coward. Maybe I was just too weary of it all. I should have stayed. I should have borne witness to Damon’s discomfort. To Eagle’s sacrifice to make it easier on my boyfriend. But a part of me also knew Damon would not welcome me seeing this.
I stood up from the chair I’d been glued to and crossed to the door.
“Open it up,” I said, not taking my eyes off the door handle as loud moans were interspersed with the thwacking sounds of a riding crop hitting flesh.
“Keen. Where are you going?” Pierce asked.
“Open it up,” I repeated, my voice about to break apart.
“You can’t drive over there. You can’t ruin the sting.”
Something about those words struck me, making my whole body jolt as I gasped a breath.
This was wrong. All so fucking wrong. And it had nothing to do with the sting.
“We’re being played,” I said to the door as panting and moaning and murmurs of fervent appreciation came out of the speakers, pounding against my ears. Sharp pinpricks of pain against my skin, as though an icicle struck flesh and not the soft leather of a crop.
“What do you mean?”
I turned around and looked at Pierce, thankfully he blocked the screens.
“Can’t you see it? Damon was set-up. Cawfield singling him out. Taking him to Eagle, of all people. Making him have no choice but to do what needed to be done to protect my friend from greater harm. It’s a set-up.”
“Why would Joe Cawfield want to set-up Damon?” Pierce asked slowly, but he had that contemplative look on his face that meant he was listening.
“To get at me.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“He’s had it in for me since I started in CIB,” I pointed out.
“Yes, he has,” Pierce surprised me by agreeing. “But this is different. This is malicious in a way he’s never been with you before.”
“He gets off on it.”
“Possibly, but there’s more.”
Pierce was pushing me. Forcing me to go where I didn’t want to go. Knowing I was onto something. And only I could get the answer out of the depths of my jumbled mind.
Only I could join the dots correctly.
I stared at the floor. The sounds of Eagle orgasming reverberating off the walls, on the inside of my head. Clouding my thoughts. Stealing my resolve. Shattering the line of dots as soon as they formed.
Damon. How the hell would Damon get over this?
I hated this job. I hated this room. Right then I hated Ryan Pierce for standing there patiently and waiting for me to work this out.
Joe Cawfield was a misogynistic bastard. But he was, I’d thought, a damn fine cop. Was he the CIB traitor? Did he have a secret life?
Hell, my father had one, couldn’t Cawfield too?
“I don’t know,” I said at last. Ryan’s shoulders slumped. “I just don’t know.”
“Well,” Pierce said softly. “That makes two of us. Because I think you’re right.”
He looked back at the screen. I forced myself to follow his line of vision. Cawfield, I was guessing, approached Damon, and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Knew you had it in you, Initiate,” he said in that same digital tone of voice from before. “You like the kink, don’t you? You like the control. This place is right up your alley. Just what else are you capable of, I wonder? Just how far are you prepared to go?”
“He’s setting us up,” Pierce said into the stunned silence. “And I don’t know why either.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I hear things. See things. I know things.”
He wasn’t setting us up. He was setting Damon up. And I only realised that when I walked into my house. An envelope lay on the wooden floor, obviously pushed through the gap at the bottom of the front door. It was several feet inside, so had been delivered with a hard thrust.
I stared at it for a long moment, after I’d turned the alarm off, making sure it hadn’t been activated, or deactivated, by Carl. Somehow the sensors had missed the envelope, though, but then there is always a grey area of insensitivity to these things.
I leaned down and picked the envelope up, then turned it over to see if it was addressed. There was nothing written on the yellow packet, so I slipped a finger under the seal and broke it. Tipping out the contents onto the hall table. I used a pen to push the different pieces about, until I had a clear view of the four enlarged photos it had revealed.
Someone, and I could just guess who, had used similar technology to Nick Anscombe. Enabling identification under the cloaked hoods that were worn at the Irreverent Inferno. We’d managed to get seven clear pictures of hooded attendees at the event tonight. Nick and Pierce were working on identifying them.
But I didn’t need to use sophisticated computer equipment to identify the hooded figure in these shots. They were all of Damon.
I stared down at photographic evidence of what had transpired tonight. Cawfield hadn’t spared me any consideration. They were graphic. Eagle mid release. Damon striking hard enough to raise a welt on the young man’s smooth flesh. Anger shining in his dark hooded eyes.
The anger was for the situation, not Eagle. The anger was his frustration at not having found out anything more about where his sister was.
But Cawfield wanted me to think otherwise. The black block lettering that spread across a picture of Damon landing his crop across Eagle’s buttocks was clear enough.
Is this what he does to you, too?
Cawfield had just played his trump card. Assuming I wouldn’t know where and when this had been taken. Assuming I wasn’t aware of the role he’d played in setting this up.
I was moving before I’d finished that thought. Checking my dining table to ensure Carl hadn’t visited, and pulling the whisky bottle down off its shelf as I dialled my phone.
Pierce answered on the second ring.
“Everything all right?” he said in way of greeting.
“Cawfield’s been to my house.”
“Motherfucker.”
I explained further, detailing the photos, while I poured whisky into a glass.
“If you go after him,” Pierce said, “we could blow this thing wide open and have nothing to show for it.”
“If I go after him as a cop, we could blow this thing wide open and have nothing to show for it.”
“How else are you going to go after him?”
“As a woman scorned,” I said, as I dipped my fingers in the glass of whisky and dabbed them on my neck like perfume.
I shrugged my shoulders as Pierce thought about that and then sloshed the drink over my shirt for good measure.
“I’ll back you up,” Pierce finally said.
“If you’re spotted he’ll know.”
“Then at least come back to ASI and we’ll bug you.”
“No. Joe Cawfield and I have a few things to get off our respective chests. This is personal.”
“For you or for him, Keen?”
I paused in my screwing of the cap back on the bottle of booze.
“He’s just made it personal for me.”
“And him?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.” Cawfield hated me. But he also wanted in my pants. And neither of those facts meshed with what was happening here.
“Jesus,” Pierce breathed. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s just a fishing expedition,” I said steadily. “I’ll have more to go on if I do this alone.”
Silence.
“Trust me,” I added, unsure if those words would mean a damn thing to Ryan Pierce.
But they must have. Or he had a better capacity to trust than I did, because he just let out a long breath of air and finally said, “OK.”
Nothing was OK. Joe Cawfield was after Damon and prepared to use me to get him. We still had nothing solid on Samantha Hayes’ murder or the Boardman Lane assault. Sweet Hell was skirting the law, but not enough to warrant moving on it. And the Irreverent Inferno was in the middle of it all.
What the hell it all meant, I didn’t know. But as I grabbed my keys off the hall table, shoved the photos back inside the envelope uncaring of fingerprints now, I knew I’d fucking find out.
H.E.A.T. Book Bundle (H.E.A.T. Books 1-3) Page 52
