Rex (The Knightlye Brothers #1)

Prologue

Rex

H ow much damn information does one person need to go through before he finds that one clue, that one vital game-changing piece of intelligence that will give him the knowledge as to what the hell happened?

Apparently, a fuck ton. I’m not even joking; I have files taking up more space in my office to do with this case than I’ve had when working multiple cases at one time.

It’s insane. Fucking madness, really. There’s one major difference with this case compared to every other one I’ve ever worked on, though. It’s personal.

For as long as I can remember, The Khaos Group has always been a major part of my life.

I suppose that’s what happens when your family is one of the original founders.

It became our family business. The Khaos Group isn’t like most security and protection organizations out there.

It started out as a vigilante group. It was created as a necessity when it became apparent that the law couldn’t touch certain individuals because of the power they held, corruption, or just because the criminal hid behind their organization and its members.

Anyway, after about ten years of them handling the worst of the worst the world had to offer, different countries began to recognize that The Khaos Group was more than a little bit necessary.

The work they did was needed, and slowly but surely different countries began to use The Khaos Group until it became what it is now.

A sanctioned organization, with the ability to do what is necessary worldwide without any repercussions from the law when the members step outside the lines.

My current case isn’t one that came to me through the normal channels within The Khaos Group like every other case I’ve ever worked on or been a part of.

This case came from a request, a request made by a person I fucking owe big time.

Avery ‘Wreck’ King is a member of Devil’s Inferno MC located here in Devil’s Point.

My youngest brother, Jake, is actually in the middle of prospecting for them right now, but that’s not the reason I took this case for Wreck.

No, I took this case to repent for my sins.

To try and make amends for trusting in the wrong person and unknowingly torturing an innocent man.

That innocent man I unknowingly hurt was Wreck.

That entire situation was fucked up from start to finish.

There’s no other way to describe what happened.

Megan Williams was someone I considered a really good friend, at least I did back then.

I’ve known her since we were kids. Our friendship had been forged at a young age and continued on into adulthood, so when she came to me in an absolute state, practically in hysterics, crying so hard I couldn’t even understand what she was trying to tell me at first, I never thought to not believe her.

That she wasn’t being one hundred percent honest with me when she finally managed to tell me that Wreck had attacked her.

I took her word for it. I didn’t investigate her claim like I would under normal circumstances.

I didn’t see the need to. Not with the evidence I was seeing in front of my eyes.

That turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.

Looks can be deceiving, as I came to find out the hard way.

After I used my Khaos team to attack and take Wreck from Devil’s Ink, the tattoo studio he runs for Devil’s Inferno, I spent three days torturing him in some horrific ways.

I don’t even want to think about some of the things I did to the poor guy.

The ways I hurt him, using not only my body as my weapon of choice but also actual physical weapons too, especially when he never fucking deserved anything I was doing to him.

I have no problem inflicting pain on those who deserve it, but not innocent people.

No, that’s not me. It makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about what I did.

For the love of all that’s holy, I’m one of, if not the most skilled interrogator within The Khaos Group.

I’ve spent my entire life honing my skills to be one of the elite.

I’m one of the most lethal and deadly men to walk this earth.

The training and skills I have under my belt aren’t for the faint of heart.

Wreck didn’t stand a fucking chance. If I hadn’t been called away to work a rescue mission when I was, I’m almost certain Wreck wouldn’t have ended up surviving what I had planned for him.

What I’d done for those three days was child’s play compared to some of the things I had planned for him upon my return.

Thankfully, I must have done something right in a past life, because that didn’t end up coming to fruition.

Instead, while I was away working on the rescue mission, Jake caught wind of the fact I’d been holding someone for the exact amount of time that Wreck had been missing, and he investigated.

His position as a prospect for Devil’s Inferno meant he was fully aware of Wreck being missing and the search that was taking place to find him.

He trusted the feeling he had in his gut.

The one that told him Wreck might be closer than he could have ever dreamed of.

He found and freed Wreck from where he was being held inside The Khaos Holding Facility located on our family property, getting him the medical attention he needed after the hell I’d put his body through.

Jake explained to me when I got home from that job how confused he was when he first discovered Wreck; he couldn’t understand how I could do something so out of character.

He knows me maybe just as well as I know myself, and he knew I’d never just go around hurting someone who didn’t deserve it.

It just wasn’t me and didn’t align with the fact my entire life has been dedicated to ridding the world of evil and helping those who need it.

He was determined to get to the bottom of everything, to figure out the truth behind my actions, and get to the bottom of it he did.

Without even trying. It was by pure chance Jake got the answers he was searching for.

The day after Wreck was rescued, Jake went to the hospital to speak to him, hoping that he had some sort of insight into why I had taken and tortured him.

Talk about getting a surprise when he never even had to talk to Wreck to gain any of the answers that had been eluding him.

Hell, he never even had to enter Wreck’s hospital room; instead, he heard Wreck’s best friend and Devil’s Inferno Vice President, Shadow, arguing inside with a female voice he knew very well, Megan.

The thing is, Jake, as well as both of my other brothers, Seth and Austin, had tried to warn me more than once over the years that Megan isn’t someone to be trusted.

That she puts on an act when around me and is someone totally different when around others.

Someone who is more manipulative and vile.

Hell, I’m pretty sure one of them called her a downright bitch of the highest order at one point.

I never heeded their warnings. God, how I wish I would have.

That’s another massive regret I have to live with for the rest of my life, not trusting the word of all three of my brothers when I really should have.

Thinking that I knew better than them just because I’m the oldest out of us all, when I so clearly didn’t.

Anyway, as soon as Jake heard Megan’s voice coming from that hospital room, the pieces began to click together for him.

He realized that the only reason I’d have harmed Wreck is if I truly believed he deserved my ire.

He knew Megan had to be behind what had happened; it was the only thing that made any sort of sense.

He went out of his way to expose her, and holy hell did he expose her, and he destroyed her world as she knew it in the process.

I actually wish I’d have gotten to witness her downfall in person; I’m sure it was beyond spectacular to watch.

The moment Shadow learned of Megan’s lies and betrayal, he couldn’t break up with her fast enough.

He was done with her. He didn’t even think twice about it.

Not that I can blame him; I distanced myself from her myself when I learned the truth about what she’d done.

It was beyond inexcusable. There was no forgiveness to be handed out by either myself or Shadow.

Her true colors had been exposed. There was no putting the genie back in the bottle. We were done.

Megan didn’t get off lightly for her actions either; she didn’t just get to walk out of that room without paying for what she’d done.

With Wreck and Shadow’s blessing, my mother, the Knightlye Matriarch, and one of the people behind the everyday running of The Khaos Group arrived just after everything had been exposed and took Megan to be dealt with personally.

My mother is a motherfucking badass; there is no other way to describe her.

She should never be underestimated just because she’s a woman or the fact that she’s getting older.

She’s still one of the most dangerous people to walk this earth; she has more training under her belt than some members of the armed forces.

She might not work out in the field anymore, having transitioned into running the organization a few years back, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still keep her skills sharp.

She still trains every day, even with the workload she has.

She’s terrifying when she wants to be. She also had more than a little motivation to ensure Megan realized the errors of her ways.

She was on a warpath because of the way Megan had used and manipulated me.

Mama bear mode was activated. Megan had every reason to be terrified of what was to come.

When I learned the cold hard truth about what I’d really done upon my return, something in me broke.

Everything I thought I knew about myself, everything I believed and stood for, shattered because I chose to trust in the wrong person.

I know I became a shell of my former self, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening.

I didn’t trust myself anymore. I didn’t feel worthy of being called a protector when I hadn’t done that with Wreck.

I’d harmed him. Tormented and tortured him, and he never deserved it.

It didn’t matter what anyone in my family said to me or how much they tried to convince me that it wasn’t my fault, that I was manipulated by a master manipulator.

It just didn’t matter; the guilt of what I’d done was eating me from the inside out.

Then came the game changer, the thing that kicked my ass into gear and brought me out of the darkness that was eclipsing my life.

Wreck came up with a plan to help me. Yes, the man I fucking tortured was determined to help me heal; he didn’t blame me for what I’d done.

He told me that even though he didn’t blame me and forgave me for the part I unknowingly played in Megan’s plan, he knew I needed more to forgive myself and to accept his forgiveness.

So, he gave me the only task he could that would make me accept that what he was saying was the truth.

He asked me to find his missing brother, Dre King.

Which brings me back to now, and all this fucking paper covering every available surface in my office.

This isn’t even all the information I need to go through or have already looked over either.

This is just the paper files Wreck handed me to do with his own search for Dre, which took him away from Devil’s Point for six months until he ran out of leads to follow.

There’s a handful of paper files I’ve added myself too, when I thought I may have found something and wanted a different perspective.

Reading something on paper and not through my secure laptop screen does that.

Did doing that help? No. I’m still no fucking closer to finding answers than I was when I started.

It doesn’t seem to matter what information I go over or how deep I dive into Dre King’s life; I’m still coming up completely empty as to what happened to him.

It’s beyond baffling. There is nothing in Dre’s life that could have caused him to be kidnapped and fall off the face of the earth in the process.

Maybe that’s it, though; maybe the answers I’m searching for don’t lie in the life he was living before he was taken; maybe, just maybe, they lie in the past.

What harm could it do in searching? It’s not like I’m finding anything with the current direction I’m going. It’s time to take a different approach and hope and pray it pays off.