The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  Shaking his head, Burke lifted his phone, examining it for any damage, then stuffed it into his pocket. “Can’t.”

  “Why not? Just one drink.”

  Staring off, Burke contemplated whether or not to say anything, and a renewed spark of anger had him gnashing his teeth. Fuck Corley. “I got asked to investigate something at the Slaughterhouse.” Burke sniffed, kicking back in his chair. “Last time I do any fuckin’ favors,” he said under his breath.

  Straightening, Anderson frowned. “'The fuck he give that to you for? You’ve already got a heavy load. Slaughterhouse is my ‘hood.”

  “Corley was going to check it out himself, so I offered to do it for him.”

  Anderson cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Tell you what, I’ll check it out for you.”

  Burke massaged the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he worked the burn from his eyeballs. “No. Thanks, but no. Corley wants me to check it out.”

  “I’ll report back to you, whatever I find.”

  Burke stood up, taking note of the proximity between him and the cubicles, where the other officers were busy talking or typing away at their computers.

  Corley would never know. Besides, Burke wasn’t particularly interested in doing the man any favors at that point.

  Slumping back into his seat, Burke huffed and squinted his eyes, catching the lift of Anderson’s brow as he waited for answer. “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “It’d be stupid for you to drive out there.” Anderson waved a hand at him. “You got enough shit going on. I got this.”

  “Check out the basement. Sump pit, I guess. You find anything, just let me know.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks Kyle. I really appreciate it.” Expelling a breath, Burke flipped on the computer to finish up the report he’d been working on. “One less fucking thing I have to think about.”

  “Really,” Anderson assured him. “It’s no problem.”

  18

  Jase

  The sounds of the shower droned through the bathroom door, as I sat on the bed, studying the video that I’d uploaded from Reed’s SD card to the laptop. For three days, I’d scoped Sphinx, watching for Viktor. Had never once caught him coming or going, as if the asshole never showed up for work.

  I had to find a different angle, another way to get to him. I had a link in Sparrow, but she seemed to know about as much as I did.

  I’d isolated a shot from the video, in which the faint outline of a face reflected off the window, in hopes of identifying who’d recorded it. As much as I zoomed, though, the glare of the glass kept me from making out the details. The person standing off to the side failed to sharpen, as well.

  “The more you zoom, the more it’ll blur in that program.”

  I twisted around to see Lucy, damp hair falling around her shoulders, dressed in my black Made in Detroit T-shirt, her smooth bare legs peeking out beneath. I hadn't even noticed the shower cut off.

  “The dude in the mirror won’t come in focus—the light in the room is blurring too much of his face, and the reflection is too indirect.” Even with the perfume of my soap on her skin, her natural scent gave it a feminine floral flavor that watered my mouth. “I could show you a program we use at the Muckraker, if you want.”

  I didn’t want. I didn’t like pulling her in to any of my business, but if it meant identifying at least one of the men in the video, I’d ignore my misgivings. “How?”

  “You’ll have to download the digital evidence manager. It’s just a simple add-on that works with Photoshop.” She gripped the back of the chair. “May I?”

  Nodding, I stood up from the chair, but parked myself beside her, unwilling to have her snooping around the files saved on the device.

  The second she plopped in the seat, she went to work, flipping through search results and programs so fast, if she had been stealing files, I’d never know, with as quickly as she typed and switched screens. In what seemed like only a few minutes, she had the program loaded up and the image opened.

  A few click-click-clicks of the cursor adjusted the image, removed layers, stripping the blur and the lines in the picture.

  My fascination alternated between her work and her level of concentration, as she expertly weaved through each of the functions on the side of the screen.

  I crossed my arms, studying her more than the actual program. “So, you guys have a side gig with the FBI, or what?”

  With an airy chuckle, she continued working. “When you’re following corrupt politicians, sometimes it’s the small details that matter most.”

  “You guys must have a field day with the mayor, huh?”

  “The new one’s not so bad.” She increased the magnification, and the face in the window sharpened into wavy blond hair and brown eyes, until I was staring at Reed’s face, clear as day.

  “No shit.”

  She pointed to the other blond, who held the camera while circling the woman strapped to the table. “That’s Conall.”

  I perked up at that, breaking my stare of Reed’s pissed off expression. Conall seemed stocky, muscular, but didn’t appear tall beside the table. Tattoos covered his arms and neck, and I could just make out a scar along his cheek. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen him at the club, on occasion.”

  “Does he work for Viktor?” I asked.

  “I think so. I’m not sure what their relationship is. He’s creepy.” After a quick glance at me, she turned back toward the screen.

  “The video on your camera. You take it?”

  Eyes glued to her fidgeting hands, she nodded.

  “You know who the men were? The ones dumping the body?”

  Lips tight, she shook her head. “It was dark. Couldn’t see anything beyond their flashlights.” She tipped her head toward the screen. “The other guy …. Is he who you thought he was?”

  “Yeah, unfortunately.”

  She slid from the chair on the side opposite to me and stood. “Well, I’ll let you … do whatever you were doing.”

  “You’re pretty good at this stuff.”

  Her cheeks dimpled with a smile. “Thanks. Stalking’s no walk in the park … unless you’re spying on a politician’s mistress.”

  The comment brought a smile to my face. I had to admit, she'd impressed me. I thought I’d come to know just about everything Photoshop, and I'd just got schooled by a stripper.

  19

  Jase

  I pulled alongside the open plot of land, set on the south corner of the train tracks, and nabbed my supplies, hidden in what looked like a small schoolbag. Before I’d left the apartment, I’d thrown together a quick dinner of rice and fish for Lucy, cursing myself for the hard-on I got every time I saw her tied to the bed.

  I wanted to hate her, because a part of me still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t turned over those photographs to Tesarik, the night we’d stolen the guns, but goddamn if the woman didn’t make a bastard lose his train of thought while trying to get the truth out of her. Tied up and untidy didn’t make her any less attractive than the night I saw her made up in her stripper costume.

  I inwardly groaned at the thought.

  The way the thin cotton of the T-shirt had clung to the round globes of her breasts, I had a pretty damn good idea those puppies were real and probably sensitive as fuck, with as many times as I’d seen her nipples pop.

  Had to get her out of my mind. Eleven months, I’d spent fantasizing what I’d do to the bastards who killed my family. Eleven months, I’d endured torture, endless black nights, and nightmares so vivid I’d knock my skull against the wall. In a matter of a couple weeks, she’d already begun to quell that raging fire inside of me. I could feel it hissing beneath my skin into nothing more than steam. I couldn’t afford the distraction, and yet, at the same time, I couldn’t let her just take off and alert all her Seventh Circle friends where to find me. However insignificant, she had some connection to Viktor and Conall.

  So
she had to stay. I’d just have to find a way to tame my dick. Keep my distance. That’s all there was to it.

  A white glow hung between the black sky and the silhouettes of the treetops. A fine mist of fog and powder clung to the air from the factories, and as I exited the vehicle, the sour stench of the wastewater plant hit the back of my throat.

  Across the pocked, abandoned lot of the old junkyard, where scrappers had turned the place into something of an archeology site, the faint sound of barking dogs and shouts confirmed I’d found the right place. Once a thriving, Hungarian community, Delray had become a ghost town, as homeowners gradually moved to the suburbs and the housing market went to shit—a place where criminals could lay low or gather, without the risk of getting caught.

  Scouring the dark net had led me to a forum where I’d learned when the next fight was expected to take place.

  Flashlight in hand, I crossed over discarded bikes, planks of rotted wood, and car parts so coated in rust they’d become part of the dirt they were buried in, toward the edge of the small woods. To the right, tires had been stacked alongside slabs of wood and a tarp stretched over the top, looking like a makeshift fort.

  A deep guttural growl hit me from the right, and I turned to see a brindle-colored mastiff breed tethered to a tree. Shining a flashlight on it revealed a grisly maw that'd been torn away, and its ribs poked through its fur, as if it hadn't eaten in days. Goddamn, it looked like something out of a zombie flick. Its jaws snapped with a weak bark, far less powerful than I’d have expected from a dog so mean-looking.

  More barking caught my attention, and I lifted the flashlight to see over a dozen dogs of different breeds chained to the trees, with nothing but rusted out burn barrels for shelter. The one closest to me seemed to be in the worst condition, perhaps a losing dog.

  Anger twisted in my gut. Starved. Probably abused. Mutilated and forced to fight. They were painful to look at. I’d always had a kinship with dogs. As a kid, I'd brought home a stray pit that’d wandered its way into our backyard and named it Razor. The dog'd reminded me of my brother and myself at the time. Lost. Beaten. Just looking for someone to give a fuck about it.

  Razor saved my life once, a memory easily dredge up, even from ten years back, as I stared down at the rotting mastiff.

  My arms are tethered to the post that my stepdad, Robert, likes to call the whipping post—a rusted metal T-shaped clothesline in the back of the trailer. I’m just tall enough that I don’t have to stand on my tiptoes, like Reed does, when Robert straps us to the top of it.

  I used to fight and lash out when he took us out back for punishment, but eventually learned it was easier if I just got it over with. I could scream at the top of my lungs, and no one in this trailer park would give a damn about another white trash kid.

  To the right of me, my dog Razor, chained to the Oak tree, is barking and growling like he’s possessed. I cringe every time he takes a running leap toward me and strangles himself when the chain doesn’t give.

  My stepdad stands behind me, and I glance over my shoulder, to where his leather belt dangles from his hands. As he clutches the bended loop of the strap, the buckle swings back and forth, warning of pain I know too well.

  “I’m gonna ask you one more time, boy. Where the fuck d’you put my gun?”

  I can’t tell him. If I do, we’ll starve. Stealing Robert’s gun was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but we needed groceries, and since my mom and step-prick pissed the cash away on drugs, I had no choice. I planned to hock the gun at the local pawnshop for cash, and stash the food for Reed and me, otherwise we’ll be left eating out of dumpsters in the streets. No matter what Robert does to me, I have to keep it a secret. For Reed.

  “Told you. I don’t know.”

  The spring winds drift across my back like an apology, before the first crack hits my spine.

  I make a noise in my throat that doesn't push past my clenched teeth, until another crack streaks like flames across my skin, and the sound that rips through my chest is an inhuman howl. I’m trying not to cry, but the pain is more than I can stand. My wrists burn, and everything around me starts to fade in and out. With each strike, my body goes limp, my legs too weak to hold me up. Acid burns inside my chest, like I want to puke, and that’s when the first growl hits the air.

  My stepfather’s outcry breaks into a deafening shriek of pain.

  I twist enough to see Razor has broken loose from his chain and my stepdad’s arm is lodged between rows of teeth, as they wrestle each other. My dog has taken him to the ground, and Razor’s growls are loud, vicious, like he might kill the bastard and eat him after.

  “You call him off! You call him off right now!” My stepdad’s voice thunders over the snarling and the swishing sound in my ears. “Call him off, and I’ll leave you be!”

  As much as I’d love to hear the dog devour him, I press my dry lips together and whistle. “Razor.”

  Still growling, the dog alternates between jumping at my stepdad and backing himself beside me.

  Sadness stabs my heart, because I know I’ll have to get rid of him, or risk that Robert will kill him, after this.

  The wounds on my back have gone cold and numb. Shallow, panting breaths keep my skin from stretching too much, but the dizziness has my head feeling too heavy for my neck.

  “You get rid of this piece of shit by tomorrow, or I’ll gut him open.” My stepdad’s voice comes from behind, and my whole body locks up at his words. “And if you don’t have my gun by tomorrow night, I’ll still gut him.”

  Hands balled into fists at my sides, I broke from the memory to the mangled dog still barking at me. Skirting the span of his tether, I kept on until I reached the edge of the woods.

  Shouts intensified, the deeper I ventured onto the property, the lights brighter, spreading out to the surrounding trees. Two armed men stood at the opening of a ten-foot-high chain-link fence lined with barbed wire at the top, which surrounded the event. As I'd expected, the fights were guarded by gang members, or bikers from the Detroit Devils MC. Kicking back beers, they laughed, not particularly vigilant.

  My goal was to find Marlon ‘Bulldog’ Stafford, identifiable by the bulldog tattoo on his arm. The first task would be getting past the bikers. The dogfights represented another faction of criminal activity on the rise. With so many police raids, getting into them was often as difficult for a civilian as an undercover cop. They tended to scrutinize spectators who might try to infiltrate the fight.

  Inside, the ring would be crawling with drug dealers and gang members, as the events tended to net more money than a series of drug transactions on the streets.

  Sneaking inside could be suicide.

  I just happened to be fucking crazy enough to try.

  I had a knack for trespassing into places I shouldn’t be, so I backtracked a few steps, weaved through the colony of barking dogs, and around to the back, where a lone port-a-john sat butted up against the high fence. The shadowed side of the john offered just enough room to squeeze in without being seen. I tugged a pair of bolt cutters from my bag of supplies, and in just a few quick and quiet snips along the corner post, I had a decent-sized hole in the fence to crawl through.

  I kept to the shadows, concealing my face in the hood of my jacket, as I neared a clearing where cars had parked, their headlights blaring into a circle of bodies that'd gathered around a large, roughly fourteen-by-ten wooden box.

  Beyond them, a tent had been set up with tables, on which cups sat stacked beside a keg and half-empty fifths of liquor. Large bags of hot dog buns, condiments, bottles of Coke littered the rest of the table. A grill stood off to the side, and the smell of burning meat filled the air. Like a fucking picnic.

  Barking drew my attention to the right of the crowd, where dogs growled from cages—mostly pitbulls and mastiffs, from what I could make out in the shadows. I inched closer to the ring, my stomach turning at the sight of two dogs tearing each other apart, their coats saturated in blood.r />
  Fury pulsed through my veins. Gritting my teeth, I looked away to where a brindle canary mastiff had been tied to a tree. Alligator clips attached to his body told me he’d been shocked to death.

  My heart beat rapidly in my chest, fingers itching to open fire as the cheers echoed inside my head. Keep it together.

  The whole place smelled like death and the rotten stench of the executioners who worshipped it. Like strolling into a fucking cult where animals were sacrificed at the altar.

  Violence warmed my blood and I wanted to succumb to it. To let that cloud of darkness, like blood drops in water, blind my eyes and transport me to another world—a place where I could punish them all.

  Find Stafford.

  Stepping past the murdered dog, I made myself part of the crowd, merging into a tight circle at the edge of the wooden box. Inside the ring, two dogs sat at either corner, where cross-marks kept them momentarily separated. Each growled and snarled, letting the other, and their handlers, know they wouldn’t back down.

  Behind a gray Pitbull stood the man I recognized from the file, and on his arm, the defining tattoo that marked him for death.

  Stafford.

  The crowd shifted, the wicked energy like static electricity, waiting to snap me with a renewed spark of anger.

  I closed my eyes while a sense of panic washed over me, and once again, the memories took over.

  Sickness twists in my stomach. Flames lick my throat, and my chest feels as if it might explode. Dirt kicks up dust behind me as I pound the road toward home.

  I skipped sixth hour because Robert threatened to gut my dog as punishment, if I don’t return the gun. The wounds from my beating the night before remind me that Robert doesn’t play when it comes to his threats.

  The train’s horn blares in the distance while I cut across the lawn. How many damn times have I dreamt of hopping that train with Reed and getting the hell out of here?

  As I round the front toward the backyard, I call out for my dog. “Razor!” My voice is hoarse and dry from running. “Razor!”