Wraith Page 11

  “Is that right?” I say only half hearing his explanation. I know damn well the woman didn’t off herself as he claims. “Take me to the body,” I demand handing the clipboard back to him not waiting for him to show the way. I only assume the body is still in the cell.

  “Yes. Of course. I would but, ah—”

  “Quit stuttering and spit it the fuck out, Georgie.”

  “Heckle disposed of her already, sir. He is the one who found her.” This halts my steps. Heckle. One of the men Roman hired on before he handed the reigns over to me. I have had problems with him fucking with the women before, nearly killing two of them. I guess he succeeded this time around.

  “I see.” I pause. Regarding good ole’ Georgie. He’s tall, lanky with hardly any muscle on him and looks as if he may have been living in his mother’s basement before moving into ours. No more than twenty I can’t place why the poor fucker is here. “After feeding them today, make sure they all get a bath,” I instruct, leaving him to go and find Heckle. I might not be able to stop the trade altogether, but I can give the women more luxury that they have received in the past. Such as more than one meal a day, clothes and a blanket to sleep in. Also a bath every couple days. It doesn’t make anything better though. I’m still a monster and will always be one.

  Walking through the yard of the compound I find Heckle right where I knew he would be—gauging the size of his prick in the training ring. The fucker might be bulky with more muscle than a brahma bull, but he is slow as fuck. I stop by the group of men shouting out jabs and encouragement to the two men sparing, Heckle and Francis. Both evenly paired but two good punches and Francis goes down, hands covering his bloodied face. “Heck!” I call out, stopping the cheering that goes out among the guys. They all immediately take note as to who is now in their presence. My authority is rarely challenged but every now and then— “You have yourself a little unsanctioned fun last night?” I ask, stepping past the small crowd and over Francis to stand face to face with Heckle. He doesn’t waver. Almost as if he is proud for killing the woman. But he is about to deny that little fact in three, two—

  “Of course not, boss. The women aren’t to be touched.” He insults me by opening his mouth. Bad fucking move, Heckle.

  “That so? You are telling me that she just what? Strangled herself?” He pales slightly letting me know that’s how he killed her. I assumed as much since the two before were nearly killed the same way.

  “Boss—” My hand flies up, slapping him across the face.

  “Insulting me? Right here in front of everyone?” I shout, slapping him again when he recovers and tries to answer. “Come on, you like to fight. Come at me!” I taunt, getting him to lunge forward. I move too quick for the bulked-up meat head and he flails past me nearly landing on his face. He rounds on me again, swinging this time. I dodge and land a swift hit to his abdomen that completely winds him. He drops to his knees clutching his chest trying to breathe once again. “Big man now?” I laugh in his face grabbing the hair on his head and pulling his face to look up at me. “I should make you suck my cock right here in front of everyone, force you to do something you don’t want to do. How does that sound?” He shakes his head sobbing now at my threat.

  “Please don’t, boss.”

  “I bet she said that, too.” With my free hand, I reach to my back and pull out the seven-inch serrated blade I keep tucked away and bring it right to the base of his throat. He wails at my actions and tries to back away but I hold him steady and shove the knife in, cutting off any air he may have filling his lungs, and pull back quickly, letting him drop to the dirt. “Anyone else so much as looks at a woman from the basement, worse will happen to you. Take care of this shit,” I order and head back toward the basement, to Roman’s office that is now mine.

  I leave the door open as I go inside and drop to the new chair I had brought in, not wanting to have the one the fat prick sat in for so many years. I find myself looking at the corner he kept Lara in. Each and every day I would come into this very fucking office and pretend I didn’t see her hunched up in that very corner, her dog bowl of water near her feet. My teeth grit together at the memory. The regret and shame that comes with it has me going for the phone I hardly ever take the time of day to look at. After that fucking list was taken and went dark, my plan to take down this fucking empire Roman built got put on the back burner as this life of shit and piss took me over. I haven’t spoken to or heard from Kinkaid in years, but I do know he came out of hiding when Doyle turned up dead. Courtesy of the man they call Wraith.

  The phone is heavy in my hand. Last time I checked it was over a year ago when I contemplated eating my own bullet after turning it on and seeing that it once again had no alerts of the list being opened. Today will most likely be no different. Frustration grows when I find it doesn’t turn on. The battery is dead. Some damn luck.

  Plugging it in I take out the bottle of Jack I keep tucked in my bottom drawer and take a swig straight from the bottle.

  Ding.

  The noise has me nearly jumping on the fucking phone. Flicking it open my jaw nearly drops. One week. One fucking week ago someone tried hacking into the files, and succeeded. “Chicago.” Still in fucking Chicago. But a different location. Some apartment above a—Chinese restaurant? The fucking hell?

  I scroll through the phone and find the number I’m looking for and hit send, not knowing if he will still be at this number. “Detective Kinkaid.” So official.

  “Its detective now? Moving up in the world I see. Coming back from the dead agrees with you.” He doesn’t answer right away but I can hear him breathing over the other end so I know he hasn’t hung up on me.

  “Wraith. You son of a bitch,” he hisses into the phone causing a dry chuckle to crawl up my throat.

  “The one and only.”

  “The fuck do you want?”

  “Not a thing, detective. I was only giving a courtesy call. I happen to know where a very large chunk of information is. If you are still interested, that is.”

  “I bet you do. What do you want this time?”

  “Just a favor.”

  “Yeah,” he says dryly, “and what would that be.”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I will settle for an IOU. Now, have you ever heard of The Hell’s Riders?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The attendance grows at the table as I sit and wait for my guests to take their seats. I have invited everyone I could possibly think of to the compound for a show. That is what they think it is anyway. A sampling of a new stock of women I received. They are all eager, ready for a taste as they laugh and drink their wine like pretentious assholes at a dinner party. “Nice turn out, my boy. You have come such a long way. I’m eager to see what you have come up with for tonight,” Roman says proudly from the head of the table. I’m to his right, where I still belong since I’m not completely in charge.

  “You will not be disappointed, boss. I have been working endlessly on this night.” His eager smile grows as he pounds his hand on the table five times to get everyone’s attention, not bothering to stand.

  “Let us start, shall we?” Roman starts talking but I stop him, standing to my feet and placing my hand on his thick arm.

  “If I may, boss?” The look of fury flashes across his face but he doesn’t let it consume him, keeping it locked down tight while in front of all these people.

  “If you wish.” The gruff annoyance in his voice is there but still he gives me the spotlight and I start my speech checking my watch before I open my mouth.

  “I was a boy when I was brought here twenty years ago, and since then I have learned two things,” I pause looking around the table at the eager drooling faces, ready for me to end my speech and get the entertainment for the night out here, “One, is that in this business, you can’t trust anyone.” At those words glances are shot at one another, some chuckling, thinking I’m making a joke. “Two, is that you are all vile creatures, not worth the ground you walk on. Undeser
ving of the air you breathe. And you—” I swing my body toward Roman who’s red faced and clutching at his chest, my words pissing him off no doubt. “You are the biggest piece of human garbage ever to walk this earth.”

  “Why you little—”

  “Oh no, old man, I’m talking now and you are going to listen.” Whispers fly across the room as some of the men try to get up to leave, only they can’t, as they are locked in. Shouting ensues as they start to realize what is happening. They are all unarmed, as per the first rule in stepping on to Roman’s compound. But I’m not, nor are my new friends on the other side of the doors holding everyone inside. “Today, you all are getting what has been coming to you since the first time you took someone’s choice away.” Behind my back I pull out my knife making Roman’s eyes grow wide as he sees himself for the last time in the reflection. Quickly, before the tub of lard can even move, I plunge the blade deep into his chest, piercing his heart in one go. That is when the fireworks start. Bullets fly as the doors burst open and my men come stomping inside filling all the rapists with led. The smell of gunpowder and copper has never smelled so damn good. Cries fall on deaf ears as they all drop to the floor along with the spent cartridges.

  “Predatel!” Roman cries out, gasping for breath.

  “A traitor? Yeah, I guess I am,” I sneer in his face. “But today I am damn proud of being one.” I twist the knife a little making him cry out and draw in a shallow breath. “Die, you piece of shit.” With a yank, I pull out the blade and watch with sick satisfaction as his blood gushes from the wound.

  “Boss, they are all dead,” Georgie says breaking into my satisfying kill. I was so preoccupied with Roman I didn’t even notice what all was going on around me. Standing, I wipe my knife of Roman’s blood on the front of his soiled suit and sheath it once again behind my back. I take stock of my surroundings. All the death that lies on the floor. Pools and pools of blood soaking into the already deep red carpet.

  “Good,” is all I can say as I stare at the dead bodies, some of them still twitching.

  “What would you like us to do next?” Georgie’s voice is somewhere in the recesses of my mind, just a distant echo through my muddled state. “Boss,” he tries again, getting my attention this time.

  “Yeah.” I shake my head from the fog and look up to my men. Ten of them pledged to do my bidding. “Your accounts have been filled and your identities changed. You are free to go.”

  “And what about the girls? In the basement?” Georgie asks.

  “I will take care of them. Leave.” With a flick of my wrist they all obey and disburse, never to be seen or heard from again. As for me? I leave the room and head for the basement.

  According to the morning repot there are seven girls down here, ages ranging from thirteen to nineteen. Stopping at my office I grab the stack of envelopes and walk further until I’m at the stairs, remembering the first time I took this walk. I flick the locks on all the doors and open them one by one then stand back and wait. “You are all free to go now,” I call out, still waiting for the first person to emerge. “This isn’t a trick. Come out.”

  The first one to show themselves in a tiny little read head, frail and sluggish with each step. She takes a moment to look into the cells she passes assuring the others who follow her out that this isn’t a trick. When they reach me I hold out the envelopes. “Fifty thousand each, it isn’t near enough to cover your grief, but it is all I can spare.” I hand the stack over to the red head and she starts passing them out. “Up the stairs is the outside, FBI will be here soon, stay put and they will find you home.” I nod my head and start to step away when the red head speaks.

  “Thank you.”

  “No. No thanking me. It is because of me you are here. Do not forget that.” With that I’m gone, leaving the women to themselves as I jump into the nearest truck and make a call to Kinkaid. I’m so fucking ready for this life-long nightmare to be over with.

  Chapter Forty

  Present

  He is sleeping soundly on the bed while I take the next watch. His story of how he upended Roman’s empire still heavy in my mind. So many questions plague me as I gaze out the small crack of the window covering. The main one still being, why didn’t I kill him? I don’t know. Part of me wanted all of this to end, the exhaustion of it weighing me down more than I expected. Was he a bad man? Yes. Did he deserve to be held accountable for all that he has done? Yes. Accountable for what he did to me? That is where I draw a blank. Part of me, the part that still holds the young girl that was given no choice, wants him dead. The other part of me, the part that just found out his intentions, is trying to figure out if there was another way. Some other decision he could have come to instead of the one he went with all those years ago. Then…then there is the small part of me, the part deep in my lower belly that heats at the memory of that night. The way he was forceful yet gentle. Whenever I would find myself thinking about it, I would push the feelings away. But now, as I look over to find him still sleeping, I wonder what it would be like. On my terms. So many times I have had that option taken from me. Maybe that is another part of me that resents him. Yes, when I was found I was no longer in Roman’s compound but I was in yet another place where my life wasn’t my own.

  Just then he starts to stir, groaning like he did while he was dreaming, the blanket he had covering himself gets pushed away when his thrashing becomes more erratic. “No!” he bellows, jerking up from the bed violently to a sitting position. “Fuck.” His wild eyes dart around the small cabin before landing on me. Then his hands go to his hair tugging slightly before brushing the strands from his face.

  “You had another dream,” I state the obvious and force myself to look away from his naked sweaty chest and out the window once more.

  “Are you going to stand there all night? Its freezing out there and snowing to beat all hell. Do you really think he is going to just show up?”

  “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought. So yes, I’m going to stand here and look out this window.” I keep my eyes focused forward when I hear the squeak of the bed then the soft footfalls of his bare feet as they step closer to where I’ve stationed myself.

  “Sebastian started fucking me when I was ten. Made me do other shit too, had me thinking I liked it. He manipulated me in a way I was too young to understand.” His words have the desired effect and I turn to face him. He doesn’t look sad or confused, simply a man telling a story. “It started out with him buying me things, clothes mostly, then he started to touch me. Made me feel wanted. Before I knew it, I started to almost look forward to when he came and visited my room. I had no idea what any of it meant until the day I saw you in Roman’s office. I pictured what Sebastian did to me happening to you and I couldn’t fathom it. I hated his touch and wanted it to stop. So, I made it stop by breaking his nose.” He lets out a light laugh. “When I got my new job as a contract killer, I found myself out in a world that I had no idea how to live in, I still don’t. You know I thought I was gay? I tried to screw as many women as possible but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Know why?” Trying to not let the image of him with other woman into my mind I shake my head, not trusting my words. “You.” The one word washes over me leaving a blanket of warmth that is unsettling yet wanted. “You were all I wanted, and when I killed you, it fucking broke me.”

  “Broke you?” I scoff.

  “Yes. You claim I didn’t break you, but you broke me. Every single piece of good that was left inside me broke the day I fucked up and killed you.”

  “You son of a bitch.” My words come out in a low rumble, before I lunge at him. My hand forms a fist before I slam it right into his face.

  “Shit!” he curses and reaches out to grip my arms in his palms. “Damn it, woman, you are always wanting a fight,” he booms out, whipping me around so my back is to his front, caging me in his massive arms. I keep up the struggle, kicking and clawing, but he d
oesn’t relent, only tightens more. “Calm down, tiger.” He presses his mouth to the back of my ear, breathing in and out, sending a scorching tingle down my spine.

  “Steven,” I rasp out breathlessly as my limbs start to relax and give into their captor.

  “Yes. It’s me.” His lips cascade down my neck, mingling with my wild hair. “If I let you go are you going to knee me in the balls? ‘Cause I kind of like them.” I can feel his smile on my neck and the one growing on my face so I shake my head. Slowly he turns me around to face him, brushing the wayward strands from my face. “Promise?” I nod again and find my hands, on their own accord, coming into contact with his hard chest. His head starts to tilt, coming down toward mine, clearly intent on kissing me. So, I instinctively raise my knee with every intent on connecting it to his groin, but before I can, he swoops down with a hand to deflect my attack then hauls me up his chest. “Knew you would go for it,” he growls, gripping my legs and positioning me around him before slamming his lips down onto mine with a hungry kiss that totally knocks me off kilter.

  Tongues and teeth fight one another as my back slams hard against the cabin wall with a thud. It hurts, but I’m too distracted by the man possessing me with his mouth and pressing his hard length between my damp thighs. “You feel that?” He thrusts his hips forward ripping a moan from deep in my throat. “You are the only woman who has ever gotten me so fucking hard.” He stops the motion of his hips and starts circling them instead. “The thought of being wrapped up inside you is all that got me off, even before I had you, all it took was just the memory of your face. Shit.” He lets out a curse making my legs tremble as something I have only felt once long ago starts to happen.

  “Oh, Steven.”

  “Fuck, yes. Say it again. Come for me, tiger.” His teeth make contact with my neck as a blinding light flashes under my eyelids and more moans fall from my mouth before he claims it once again.