by Khloe Wren
Maribelle joined me a few minutes later and sat with a little bounce. Seriously. “Oh, I haven’t been here in forever! I’ve just been so busy, you know?”
I gave her a nod. “I hear you there, life sure does get busy. So what have you been up to lately?”
My question was so obvious I half expected her to get suspicious of me but she thankfully didn’t.
“Oh, well, when I’m not at the coffee shop I’m helping Pastor Godfrey with his good works. He’s such a wonderful man.”
She sighed a little dreamily and I did my best not to gag as the server came over and set down our orders. After we both thanked her, she headed off and I looked back to Maribelle. “I’d hadn’t even met him until Mr. Perry’s funeral last month. How long has he been in town?”
“Seriously? Not sure how you haven’t... oh, that’s right, you were off sick the day we signed everything for the transfer.” She giggled. “Your father doesn’t do well when you’re not there. Anyway, Pastor Godfrey moved to town soon after the accident. He moved in to help me out, then relocated his church down here from Riverton. He’s so wonderful. I mean, how many people do you know who would move their whole lives just to help out a grieving girl?”
Yeah, wonderful was not the word I was thinking of using to describe the creep. “That is pretty amazing.”
I busied myself eating as I really wasn’t sure what the hell to say anymore. There was so much I wanted to rant over. Like her calling herself a girl when she was only a couple years my junior. She was clearly completely enchanted with Godfrey. There was no way I was going to be able to use her to help take him down.
“Oh.” The way her eyes lit up actually frightened me a little. “Why don’t you come to a service on Sunday? There’s two, one at eight and one at ten. I can introduce you properly. You’d love him. He’s just so wonderful.”
I forced a smile, as I decided I now hated the word wonderful. “That sounds good. I’m not much of a morning person on the weekends, so maybe the ten o’clock one.”
Never knew, I might be able to gather some intel while I was there.
“Perfect! I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
I glanced at my watch, grateful it was time for me to leave. “Sorry, Mirabelle, I’m going to have to leave. I’ve got to get back to work, but I’ll see you Sunday, yeah?”
“Oh, yes. I look forward to it and please, call me Mira. I go by that now.”
With a last, forced smile, I said goodbye and did my best to not run out of the door and to my car. Pretty sure my teeth ached after being so close to all her sugary sweetness for the last half hour. I honestly didn’t think people like that existed. I mean seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw her skipping down the street. I had no clue how she did it. How did she push past the trauma of losing both her parents and continue to be so damn shiny?
I pondered that thought all afternoon between seeing clients and typing up various documents. Before I knew it, the workday was done and I was waving to my dad as I headed out the door. Once I was home, I found myself staring at my phone, wondering if I should call Ryan. But if I did, he’d ask questions about last night. I wasn’t ready to give him those answers, or to see what his reaction would be to them.
“This whole thing is just so damn stupid.”
I shouldn’t even be thinking about him. I didn’t want a relationship. Maybe it had just been too long since I’d had sex, so my mind was latching onto Ryan. Maybe what I really needed to do was order a vibrator. I could name it and have a relationship with that. It wouldn’t answer back, wouldn’t want the children I couldn’t give it... A total inappropriate burst of laughter broke free at the thought of bringing it over to introduce to my parents. My dad would probably pass the fuck out. Could be worth the embarrassment.
Shaking my head at myself, I kicked my shoes off and headed to the kitchen to grab a drink. I was reaching into the fridge when a hand wrapped around my neck and squeezed enough to make it hard to breathe as I was pulled back.
“Don’t scream, or I’ll squeeze tighter.”
“Who—”
I couldn’t get words out past his hold on me.
“You’ll find out soon enough. Sleep, now.”
A pinch at my neck had me blacking out before I could even consider trying to fight. Not that I knew how to fight. I’d thought about getting some training after what James had done, but it simply wasn’t an option available to me here in Rocky Gully.
When I came to, I was shackled to a wall. Blinking my eyes to try to see better in the dark room, I slowly lifted my head and jerked back when I came face-to-face with the bastard himself.
“Hello, Miss Brookes. You seem to be very interested in me lately, stirring up all sorts of issues. Tell me, who did you bring in to deal with me? I found a few cameras that were not mine. Makes me wonder who does own them. I’m guessing you know?”
He stepped forward and stroked his finger down my throat before he took a tight grip on my jaw and leaned into my ear.
“I hope you enjoyed your lunch with my Mira today. It’ll be the last luxury you’ll get in a good, long while if you don’t answer my questions.”
He’d found Keys’ cameras. Did that mean they didn’t know I’d been snatched? How long before Ryan would come to check on me and find me gone? I knew full well it didn’t matter what I said. Godfrey would never let me go. My jaw ached under his grip but I didn’t even try to speak.
I was in so much trouble.
He dropped his hold and with a sigh, stepped away. “I’ll give you a little more time to think about how you want to play this. In the meantime, you can watch what happens to those who go against me.”
With that, he flipped on a spotlight that shone away from me and highlighted the naked body of a man. I gulped and shuddered against the wall. He was more boy than man, maybe in his late teens. He hadn’t even twitched when the light was turned on, spotlighting his nudity. His body was marked up everywhere. I’d guess mostly by whips, from the lines I could see. I almost hoped the poor kid was dead, but Godfrey strode over there and with a grip in his hair, pulled his head up. The wince proved he was still breathing.
“You ready for your lesson today? We have a witness tonight. She needs to learn her place too. Hopefully she’ll learn faster than you did.” He dropped his head, and it fell back down against his chest. “Or not. You know how much I enjoy the aftermath of these sessions.”
With that, he wrapped a leather harness over his face. It looked like its purpose was to keep a person’s mouth firmly closed. And be as degrading as hell. That poor teen. I couldn’t think of anything he could have possibly done to deserve this. Godfrey then went out of sight and I tensed at the sound of a heavy door opening. Light streamed in from high up, making me think we were in a basement. Two men followed him back down. All three entered the beam of light and I recognized the newcomers. I’d seen them around town. They wore outfits similar to a monk’s robes and carried themselves like they were so much better than everyone else.
Bile rose when I saw that his two goons carried whips. The wounds on their victim’s body looked like a mix of old and new. Did they do this to him daily? How long had they held him? He looked utterly broken. He barely twitched as the men started lashing him, starting at his feet and not stopping until they reached his shoulders, the odd lash catching his leather-clad face as he kept his head down, his chin resting on his chest. This teen was utterly defeated. He held no strength anymore. Tears sprung to my eyes when I thought that I would look like him soon. Is this what he’d do to me, too? Strip me naked and beat me until there was nothing left?
I’d already had one man try that, turned out I was stronger than he thought. But I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough for this. James had attacked me once, then left me for dead. Godfrey had no intention of setting me free after he did whatever he was going to do. The teen opposite me, standing so motionless as he was whipped raw was all the proof I needed of that.
Godfre
y was chanting the entire time the boy was beaten. Eventually they stopped and silently left, while Godfrey stayed behind. Once the outside door closed, he moved back to the teen, lifting his head once more. He spoke quietly to him and whatever he said must have been bad as the teen squeezed his eyes shut against it, trying to shake his head.
“Guess he doesn’t want a witness to see what happens next. You see, Todd is here to be cured. Handed over by his cousin in good faith that I could cast his demon out. We’ve been trying but sadly, the boy is still a homosexual. Shall we show what we do when the beatings don’t work?”
His chuckle was pure evil and echoed off the walls as he unhooked the chains from the wall and forced the boy to shift until he was bent over a bench. Even with the harness still in place I could hear his muffled cries as the hard timber slammed against his open wounds.
“Stop. Just stop. There’s nothing he could have done to deserve this.”
Godfrey re-shackled the boy before he stepped back toward me. “You ready to tell me who you brought to my town yet? Ready to take his place, maybe?” He ran his gaze over my body, before letting his hands follow the same path, grabbing my boobs before cupping me between my thighs as he pressed his clothed erection against my hip. “Maybe I’ll finish with Todd then move onto you. I don’t think you’re gonna talk, so we might as well cut to the good stuff, right?”
I was going to throw up. Bile rose and I gagged, but before I could aim it at him he cupped my jaw and held it up high.
“Uh uh uh. I don’t think so. Swallow that down. You do not want to make me mad, Elizabeth.”
I managed to choke it down and he released me, moving back over to Todd. The teen’s body trembled as he weakly tugged at his bonds. Apparently he wasn’t as broken as I’d first thought. Although I knew all too well that shame was a powerful motivator.
Chapter 7
Needles
“Needles! We need to go. Now.”
I’d just arrived at Scout’s with my extremely excited daughter who couldn’t wait to tell Ariel she was moving to town for good.
Marie appeared behind Scout and held her hand out to Ashlynn. “Hey, sweetheart, Daddy needs to do something with Scout, so how about you say goodnight and then he’ll be back in the morning? Ariel’s excited to have you sleep in her room.”
Marie was an expert at getting kids focused on the right shit. I scooped Ashlynn up for a quick hug, kissed her cheek and set her back down. Then I was jogging after Scout back to the cage.
“What’s going on?”
“They’ve grabbed Bess and trashed a couple of Keys’ cameras. Luckily he’s paranoid enough to set up more than he needs, so he still saw what went down. They snatched her at her place after work and took her to that girl’s old house. Nitro’s getting everyone ready, so we should be good to go by the time we roll in.”
Thankfully Scout had taken the driver’s seat because I was seeing red. “What about Ma? She okay?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary at her place, so I’m thinking this isn’t about her so much as it’s about Bess poking her nose where she shouldn’t.”
I glanced at my watch. It was past six. I’d taken Ashlynn out for a milkshake to tell her the good news before going to Scout’s. I hoped that extra time hadn’t cost Bess her fucking life.
“When did Keys find out?”
“Settle down. He didn’t see it right away. He does do other work besides watch cameras all day. He discovered it about fifteen minutes ago. If you didn’t turn up in the next five I would have called you.”
I huffed out a breath and was grateful we pulled up to the clubhouse before I could say something to really piss off my new president. The yard was filled with men on bikes, ready to go, along with a van or two, and it brought a tear to the eye. Been a prospect one fucking day and the club was already proving they had my back. A closer look at one of the vans had me doing a double-take.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Your ride. Get in so we can get rolling. Keys’ll explain more once we hit the road.”
Desperate to get to Bess, I didn’t argue, just opened the door and swung myself up into the passenger seat of whatever the fuck this vehicle was. I didn’t bother with a seat belt, just gripped the oh-shit handle as Keys barreled out of the gate after what appeared to be the entire fucking club on their bikes, with a second blacked-out van behind us.
“Hi, I’m Donna, Keys’ old lady. I’m also a nurse, so I come to these things. And this little baby is the club’s ambulance.”
Keys cut in. “And tank. This piece will get through anything. We used it to take out the Iron Hammers front gate when we had to go rescue Mac’s woman.”
I couldn’t talk. We were bringing a nurse and an ambulance with us. Potentially for Bess. Fuck me.
“Take a breath, brother. We’ll get her back. Looks like he found a couple of my cameras. He’ll want to know who’s watching him, so hopefully he’ll waste some time trying to get her to talk.”
“I fucking hope so. Fuck! I told her to let us deal with it.”
“Women have this nasty habit of being curious.”
Donna made a scoffing noise, but didn’t say anything.
Since we’d cut the trip to Rocky Gully in half with how fast we were traveling, we were already pulling up in front of an average-looking house on the outskirts of town. Bikes were parked up and down the street and as I got out of the tank they called an ambulance, I noticed everyone was armed.
“Here. It’s loaded ready to go, safety is on.”
Nitro gave me a gun and I quickly checked the clip and flicked off the safety. Since I’d been taking my daughter out for a damn milkshake, I hadn’t brought the firearm with me that I’d used last night.
“Let’s go get my woman.”
A huge beast of a man came up to me.
“Let me take the door out for you.”
A glance at his cut told me his name was Tiny, and even under the circumstances, I had to grin.
“All yours, man.”
It’s not like they didn’t know we were here. The whole fucking street would be wide awake with the sound of so many Harleys pulling up. Would have felt like a fucking earthquake, I’m sure.
One well-placed kick had the front door slamming open and I followed Tiny in and stopped short at what greeted us. A petrified young woman stood with her hand on a vacuum cleaner, the motor of the thing whining now that it was no longer moving. Tiny grabbed her and went to go out the front door with her but she screamed out.
“No! I can’t leave. It’ll hurt.”
She was clawing at her neck and when I saw what was there, I called out. “Tiny, hold up. Keys! Get over here.”
Keys jogged up to us, along with Arrow, as the other Charons fanned out through the house, turning the vacuum off, and clearing each room.
“What the fuck? She’s wearing a fucking shock collar?”
Arrow’s words were a low growl as he came up behind Keys, who was examining the thing. The poor girl whimpered as each new man crowded in around her. She was wearing a simple shift dress that was well worn, and it wasn’t enough to cover the marks on her skin. This girl had been living in hell.
“Arrow, go grab my tool kit. Don’t you worry, honey, we’ll get this thing off you and you outta here. You’ll never have to see that piece of shit again, I promise.”
Her gaze constantly flicked between each of us who stood near her. Tiny continued to hold her still for Keys to work on the collar.
“Honey, do you know where he is right now?”
No one had called out, so I was sure no one had found Godfrey or Bess yet.
She glanced down the hall toward the back of the house then whispered a single word. “Basement.”
Just then, Arrow returned with the kit and opened it up and Keys reached to grab something out of it, but I wasn’t waiting. I strode down the hall. Shit that happened in basements was never good. “Tiny, go with him down there. Arrow will help me here.”
Before I got to the door, I had Tiny, Scout and Mac with me. The door was heavy, newly installed. Looked soundproof. I tried the handle and was grateful it turned easily. The moment I cracked the seal on the door, the sounds I heard had me seeing red as fury raged through my blood. Bess was screaming, while a male voice grunted. I raised my gun and headed down the stairs at a run.
“You handle Bess, let us get him. We can’t kill him yet.”
I ignored Scout and kept my gun up.
“For fuck’s sake. Needles, you kill him now, it’s done. We take him home we can make it hurt for fucking ever if we want it to. Do not kill him now. We need to get information, return what we can to people. This shit isn’t clean cut—”
That’s all he got out before I hit the bottom of the steps and took in the hell before me. My relief that it wasn’t Bess getting raped was short-lived when I saw the badly beaten boy beneath Godfrey under the spotlight that shone down on them.
“You evil motherfucking bastard.” I scanned the darkness for Bess, who’d gone quiet. Then the room lit up completely as someone hit the lights. Bess was sobbing quietly. She was chained to a wall and had struggled to get free enough her wrists were bleeding. Flicking the safety back on, I tucked the gun away and ran the three steps to get to my girl. First I wrenched open the cuffs on her ankles, then I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in against me.
“Fuck, Bess. Don’t look. Close your eyes, baby. It’s all over.”
I reached up and flipped open the catches, freeing her arms. She dropped them over my shoulders, instantly burying her face in against my neck. I shifted my grip so I could lift her up against me and I headed to the stairs. I didn’t look behind me. If I even caught a glimpse of that fucker, I’d have stopped to shoot him between the eyes, no matter how much I understood what Scout had been saying to me earlier.
