by Lake, Keri
“She talks to a skull?” I cleared my throat. “That’s … odd.”
“All right. Where do I go?”
“I never answered your question.”
“And only a psychopath wouldn’t consider it odd that she talks to a skull, so where do I go?”
I ignored the smile in his voice—all traces of humor had drained out of me many hours earlier. “Washington Boulevard. Chopina Apartments above the old office building on the corner.”
“Got it. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Thanks.” I hung up the phone, tucking it in my pocket as I padded across the apartment to the bedroom.
Lucy had awakened again when I stepped back inside, and lay staring toward the window.
I sank onto the edge of the bed beside her. “You need anything, baby?”
She shook her head.
“Lucy, I need to leave—”
Her body twisted around, and her hand shot out, gripping tight to my arm. “Please! Please don’t leave!”
I slid my fingers beneath hers and lifted her hand to my lips, planting a kiss on the back of her palm. “I’m not leaving you alone, I promise. Craig is coming over to stay with you.”
“Please, Jase. I don’t want Craig. I want you.”
I couldn’t even lie, the sound of that was music to my ears, after she’d avoided me the whole night, cringing away at my touch. For a moment, I thought maybe what'd happened would be what broke us. She’d awakened from nightmares every hour, lashing out at me and snarling, until at last, I'd calmed her back to sleep.
Myself, I couldn’t sleep if I tried. Every time I'd shut my lids, the images replayed in my mind, and I found myself already wide awake with each nightmare that'd woken Lucy. Together, we were a fucking mess. Two souls who’d survived hell, only to suffer the goddamn replays over and over.
“Luce, listen to me. Kelley is still out there. I need to finish this. I need to end it.”
Her forehead puckered, she squeezed my arm tighter. “No. Please. If you … something happens … I’ll … please don’t. Don’t do this.” The tremble in her body told me she tried to exert her strength to hang on to me, strength that seemed to be failing her with each passing hour. “Please don’t give up on me. He … he didn’t ruin me, Jase. I promise I’ll come back. I’ll be good again. But please, don’t give up on me. Don’t go.” The desperation in her voice had the words tumbling out of her mouth in a jumbled mess.
I knelt down beside her on the bed and bowed my head, tucking her hands against my heart. “I’m not giving up on you. I’m not ever giving up on you. But I’m never letting another motherfucker hurt you again, either. Every one of them is going to pay. I won’t stop until you feel safe again.”
“I do with you. I feel safe with you.” Her eyes flicked back and forth. “You’re my home.”
Leaning forward, I kissed the top of her head, breathing in her sweet smell. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
“You’ll stay with me, then?”
Directing my gaze away from hers kept me from feeling every bit the rotten bastard I was for lying to her face. I didn’t know what’d happen to me, going after Kelley. Couldn’t imagine I’d waltz in, kill Kelley, and simply waltz out afterward. The thought of him walking free, protected by the corrupt law and his connections, wouldn’t let me simply turn away. I couldn’t. He’d taken too much from me, too many times over. “I’m always with you, remember?”
I felt a dismal lurch of pain in my gut when I lifted the jar of pills from the nightstand and popped two into my palm. Placing them in her mouth, I handed her a bottle of water from the floor beside the bed to chase them and stroked her hair as she quickly swallowed them.
Within minutes, her body gradually softened, and the knock at the door came just as her body turned limp.
I peeked through the peephole. Outside the door, a tall but slim kid, dressed like a hipster in his beanie, thick black glasses, a flannel shirt and beat-up Chucks stood with his hands tucked in his pockets. Cracking the door an inch, I peered out, one hand on the hilt of Black Betty at my side. “Craig?”
At his nod, I opened the door, but eyed him warily for a second before waving him to follow me into the bedroom.
“What happened to her?” His voice trailed behind me.
“She went after Jolana. Conall … from the club. He …” My jaw clenched, as, fists tight, I stared down at her, so helpless and passed out, unable to cope with being awake. “She took a sleeping pill. Just … be there for her when she wakes up. Don’t scare her, or anything. Just keep her from hurting herself.” From my holster, I slid my Glock and placed the gun in his hands. “Anyone comes through that door, shoot ‘em.”
“Jase … I don’t know …”
“It’s them, or her.” I pointed a finger at him and leveled my gaze. “Promise me you won’t hesitate to keep her safe.”
“I promise.”
“I’m trusting you. If I don’t come back tonight, I want you to take her with you. Don’t let her stay here alone.”
He gave a sharp nod, and I rounded the bed, kneeling beside her. Craig must’ve taken a cue because he walked out of the room.
I stroked a finger down her face, where the worry lines of the last two days had softened into smooth skin. “Whatever happens, mia Luce, per te farei di tutto.” I would do anything for you.
I kissed her lips and pushed away, ready to blow every one of her nightmares right out of her head.
If I could kill every last of them, eliminate any chance they’d come after her again, maybe she could crawl from the darkness that’d claimed her and find the feisty, fighter spirit I’d fallen in love with. Because although her physical wounds might heal with time, I worried about her mind. I’d already been through that with my brother, whose soul was dead long before he’d been killed.
I couldn’t stand to watch the same happen to Lucy.
61
Jase
New Beginnings Cathedral, an abandoned church, sat on the corner of an unkempt lot, where weeds and overgrowth hid the rusted lawn furniture in the back. Reed had once gone on a retreat to there a good eight years back, with some of the kids from The Ladder, but the building that had since gone to shit. Blackened tin cans and broken beer bottles littered the ground, and the windows had been boarded up with graffiti-sprayed particleboard.
Proof that even God wasn’t immune to abandonment.
After parking the Camaro on the next street, I performed a quick weapons check. At Dax’s approach, I exited the vehicle and, tugging the hoodie up over my head, led the way, as we stalked toward the building.
“Motherfucker hasn’t changed,” Dax said behind me. “Still the same old shithole.”
“Reed always hated coming here.” Made sense why. If the vault back at the mansion was anything to go by, the shit he’d have been forced to do would probably have me throwing up, and I hated myself for not paying closer attention. Had I known, I’d have killed David Kelley then. Maybe Reed would’ve turned out different.
Casting glances over my shoulder, to make sure no one aside from Dax followed, I kept to the shadows. One after the other, we slipped along the edge of the building toward the back, where broken windows on the first floor provided the perfect means to get inside.
Ducking low, I shined my flashlight into the darkness of the open floor. A wall had been torn down, the stacks of splintered wood and broken drywall left across the floor, while doors hung precariously from their hinges. Curls of peeling paint clung to the baby blue walls like clusters of sleeping butterflies. Everything quiet. Untouched.
“Viktor said you need the tattoo to get in.” Dax spoke low behind me. “Auction is in the main hall. Girls are kept basement level.”
“I’ll get into the auction. See if you can get to the basement through the backway.” I nudged my head toward the adjacent brick building, an add-on that stood behind the church. “We’ll meet in the basement.”
Dax gave a
nod. “Don’t get killed,” he said, and he took off toward the brick building.
I tossed my gun inside and climbed in through the window. Slipping the rifle back over my head, I made my way down the hall, stepping over trash and crumbling brick, as I swept the gun left to right, peering into empty rooms.
“'The fuck are you doing back here?” The voice had me swinging around, and I lifted my gun toward a stocky, bald male in a black leather coat and dark jeans. With an AK strapped over his shoulder, he mirrored my pose. His gaze fell toward my arm, as if looking for the tattoo.
“Pasák sent me up from the basement.” I lifted my sleeve to expose the circle seven.
Using the barrel of his gun, he pointed me toward an open doorway at the end of the hall. “I got this end covered. Get back to the main hall.” His two-way alerted from his belt clip, and while he spoke into it, I took off toward the door.
An electronic female voice filled the otherwise quiet hallway, and I followed the sound until I reached the main hall. Two big guys, covered up to their necks in tattoos, guarded the entrance, and I strode up to them, much more confident in how the shit worked. At a glimpse of my tattoo, they casually stepped aside, not sparing me a second glance. It didn’t make sense. I had a gun strapped to my back. Could’ve opened fire on all the bastards, but the tattoo seemed to communicate everything they needed to know.
A peek inside the hall showed rows of chairs filled with men. Some in suits. Some dressed liked thugs in long jerseys and ball caps. Others looked like hitmen in leather trench coats and slacks.
I stepped inside and walked along the perimeter, as if keeping guard. At the front of the room, a brunette, no more than sixteen, stood in a bra and panties, arms crossed in front of her body. Above her, an oversized wall-mounted screen showed a mugshot of her face alongside an amount of fifty grand.
My stomach turned as two older, graying men battled back and forth with their bid paddles. The electronic voice kept track of the dollar amount, which, within seconds, had already reached another ten grand. My muscles remained tensed, as I imagined Lucy on that stage, and the flare of anger had me searching the crowd, scanning each of the faces for Kelley.
He didn’t appear to be anywhere in sight.
Exiting the room took me back through the wall of security outside the door, and when one of the men grabbed my arm, alarms blared inside my head to attack.
“Got a smoke on ya?” he asked, releasing my arm.
With a quick glance over my shoulder, I shook my head and kept on. I needed to find Pasák. Needed to blow the whole fucking operation to the ground.
At the end of the hall, the EXIT sign had been spray-painted over in black and read, ‘To Hell’, and an open mouth had been drawn around the frame of the door, like being swallowed into the darkness below. Pulling my flashlight, I hardly made a sound, my boots light against the concrete, as I rounded the staircase to the basement.
A boom of laughter steeled my muscles from below, before the electronic voice above faded into a thick Slovak accent that echoed into the stairwell, followed by the muffled scream of a woman.
Without so much as a breath, I padded down to the door and peered inside the basement of the building.
Across the garbage-plastered floor, a platform had been set up in the center of the room. One lone floodlight dangled from the ceiling, and a beam stretched from one end of the room to the other. Hanging from a chain, a slim blonde teetered on her tiptoes, with her hands tied behind her back, a gag in her mouth, and her eyes blindfolded. Except for a tiny pair of pink panties, she wore nothing.
Standing before her, Kelley stood with his arms crossed, like a man showing off his prized car, while an older man fondled her tits, beside him.
Tesarik. I’d only seen him once in the mines, but I’d never forget his face. The bastard had his hands in everything, it seemed, including trafficking young girls.
Four other men with guns stood off to the side, one of them rubbing his chin and smiling, his eyes fixated on the girl.
She wailed and wriggled in her bindings, while the older man gripped her throat, slid his hand down the curve of her ass, tugging her panties down, and examined her from behind.
At a touch to my shoulder, I swung my gun, pointing it at Dax. He held a finger to his mouth, and my muscles sagged with an easy breath. As he crouched behind me, I turned my attention back to the room.
“You go for the girl,” I whispered over my shoulder. “Get her the fuck out of here. Kelley is mine. Got it?”
“Yeah.” He gave a sharp nod, his gaze anchored on the stage. “Got it.”
“We’ll take out the gunmen first.” I scanned the room for any others, eyeing the top level of the basement, which looked like a kind of attic. “Lots of firepower upstairs, so no fucking around. In and out.”
“She’s seventeen. Beautiful. Clean as a whistle. Still a virgin.” Kelley stepped toward the older man. “Wild as a mustang. Her father paid the prosecutor to keep her from being tried as an adult. She's been in and out of juvie for years. I think you’ll be happy with this one, Tesarik.” He patted him on the back, and their laughter thundered in the sparse room. “Five-hundred-fifty thousand for her.”
“This is more than we negotiated,” Tesarik said.
“I’ll have one of the most dangerous criminals on my ass, once I tell him his daughter ran off. He’s going to lose his fucking mind.”
“I didn’t think you’d deliver, Kelley. I must say I’m impressed.” The older remained staring up at her, his hands still roving the woman’s body as if he couldn’t get enough of touching her. “My lovely Nicoleta, you will be my most vicious act of vengeance yet.” His thick Slovak accent carried across the room even as he spoke near her ear. “Your father will fall to his knees and beg our forgiveness when I’m done with you, his most prized possession.” Her body recoiled, as he bent forward and suckled her breast, his exaggerated moan curling my fingers into fists.
Behind me, Dax let out a low growl, and I glanced down to see his scarred up hands balled into fists at his side, too.
“I’ve another gift, for you, Tesarik.” Kelley signaled two of the men standing idle, and both of them followed behind as he approached one of a series of doors off to the right.
He threw back the thick door, ushered the two men inside, and after a moment, they dragged a body out of the dark room and dropped it to the floor.
Beaten black and blue, the man squirmed like a worm on the ground. Red slashes across his body showed where they’d cut him, his skin coated in grime and blood.
“This is detective Matt Burke of the Detroit Police Department. My confidante, Detective Anderson, tells me he seems to have lost video footage of the last girl you requested, as well as images of our meetings together. As I understand, they were sent to him through the mail.”
Detective Matt Burke. I recognized the name. Had seen it somewhere, but my mind couldn’t place it.
“By whom?” Tesarik asked.
“A P.O. Box that belonged to Jolana.”
The envelope I’d sent to him earlier in the week. That was where I’d seen his name. The one Roman had insisted I mailed on a specific day.
Kelley crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve already taken care of her. Now what would you like to do with Detective Burke?”
“I swear to God …” The man on the ground shielded his face behind his hand. “I don’t know where they are! I swear to you!”
Standing over him with his hands behind his back, Tesarik toed his body with his boot, and the man writhed against the ground, groaning when he rolled onto his back.
“Kill him,” Tesarik ordered, and one of the men stepped forward, aiming the gun at the Burke’s skull.
Throwing a quick signal to Dax, I lifted my AR, peered through the scope, and capped the executioner square in the forehead before he could take the shot.
All five spun around toward us, and before the other could draw his gun, I shot his shoulder and blew a hole in
his neck.
While one of his men fired back, Tesarik, took off in the opposite direction toward the north end of the building with one of the guards, a bald man, who carried the girl over his shoulder.
I slid back against the wall and popped a new magazine.
Dax spun away. “I’m going to head him off at the other end of the building.” He raced toward and up the staircase after Tesarik and the guard.
Bullets pinged around the frame of the door where I hid. I sank low, caught the last gunman in the shin, and as he fell, nailed him in the skull.
I dashed out from my hiding spot, into the open space, and cracked an extra bullet into the downed bodies, to be sure they were dead.
Kelley left the staircase for the upper level of the basement, disappearing behind a wall. Aiming upward, I fired toward the upper floor and took off after him up the staircase.
Rounding the top of the stairs, I skidded to a halt at the click of a gun at my back. The thump of shoes advancing toward me had my muscles twitching with the urge to spin around with my gun cocked, until the barrel hit my temple.
“It’s a shame, Jase. A damn senseless shame that it had to come to this.” The barrel of his gun pressed deeper into my temple, forcing me to my knees. “Drop the gun,” he commanded, and when I slid the AR off my shoulder, he kicked it away. “If your brother would’ve left it alone, we wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be saying your last prayer, and your brother wouldn’t be dead.”
“He was dead long before they killed him.”
“Might you be suggesting that he didn’t enjoy our little retreats?” Kelley chuckled. “Your brother was more fucked up than you know.” The wet sound of him licking his lips at my ear drew my hand to the blade at my side opposite where he stood. “And Lucy … I can’t wait to have her strung up again. Conall broke her in, but I’ll break her completely.” As his words raked across my skull, I slid Black Betty out, my finger curling around the hilt. “See, I had Detective Kyle track her down and fetch her for me. And when I defile her for the last time, I’ll be sure to give your regards.”
