Chapter Ten
Utah
Early the next morning
Briley approached The Garden of Divine Light from the south road, the one that didn’t go through Walton. It took an extra hour to go around, switch roads, and come back this way, but she was used to it. It was better than being seen by the townspeople going to and from the compound.
She couldn’t let her fellow police officers see either.
She pulled up to the guardhouse at the gate, saw that it was that creep Michael on the gate this morning. To be fair, the Guardians were all creeps, but this one hadn’t fully shaken his ex-pimp vibes when it came to looking at women, and he also had a pathetic, puppy dog desperation to please. Briley knew just by looking at him that Michael wanted nothing more than to crawl up Gideon’s golden ass and live there. Michael would do anything that his Master asked, and he’d do it happily, if it meant advancement in the Garden and basking in Gideon’s approval.
Ass-kisser Michael nodded at her, buzzed her into the compound. As always, Briley immediately felt tense and sick at having to deal with Gideon, then she got herself together the way that she did every single time:
You’re doing this for Cheryl, to protect Cheryl. Keeping Gideon happy keeps her safe .
Briley took a deep breath, felt her heart rate slow. She hoped hard that she’d be able to get away without having Gideon’s repulsive dick in her mouth again, but if she had to have his cum on her face once more, that’s what she’d do, and she’d shower at work before starting her shift. Again.
Anyway, it’s not like you have a choice .
Briley entered the main reception area of the Garden, looked around for whoever would be coming to meet her that day. As she waited, she saw some of the women from a distance – the servants, as they were called – walking around doing whatever endless chores they seemed to get through every day.
She spotted two of them carrying armloads of dirty sheets and she studied them. Two hallways over, they floated past, eyes averted, not even acknowledging her physical presence. They looked vague and fuzzy and unmoored and once again – for about the thousandth time – Briley wondered if they were on something, if they were even aware that she was standing there. She wouldn’t put it past that fucker Gideon to dose these women; surely drugged servants were more compliant, dutiful ones.
This whole place was a nightmare, and as a cop Briley should have been doing everything in her power to close it down for good. To rescue these women who surely hadn’t known what the hell they were really signing up for when they came here. To put the Guardians in jail for what she suspected was serious physical and sexual abuse of these women done with their Master’s full approval, and Gideon…
Ah, yes. Gideon. The ringleader of this whole horrible, disgusting circus. The bogeyman running wild in the waking dream, the self-proclaimed prophet lolling on his throne of lies and brainwashing and violence.
She hated him.
And she couldn’t do a goddamn thing about him – not with what he had on her.
“Officer Cross.”
That smug, slimy asshole Zachariah was standing there, his gold uniform buttons gleaming in the weak sunlight, the gold angel wings marking him as Gideon’s favorite Guardian proud over his heart. He was a stupid, petty, mean man who did what he was told without question or thought – which made him as dangerous as Gideon, in her opinion. After all, they were one and the same; Zachariah wasn’t only Gideon’s right hand, he was his heartbeat that kept him alive, his very thoughts brought to life.
“This way,” Zachariah told her as she left her gun on the table by the door. “The Master is in the bath.”
Her heart sank as it always did at the thought of Gideon meeting her in his private chambers, made worse by the fact that he was already naked. She steeled herself for another rape: she’d already suffered through several and she’d suffer more before this ordeal ended.
Sure enough, Gideon was lounging in his sunken tub. It was about six feet across each way, and about four feet deep. Briley tried hard to not think about what he got up to in that damn thing – she’d never been in there and hoped hard that today wasn’t the day that she took the plunge, quite literally. Two women-servants were in the bath with him: a brunette was behind Gideon massaging his back and shoulders, and a redhead was on his lap energetically riding his cock.
For a split second, Briley was disgusted at the sight, then it came to her (with a wave of shame and self-loathing) that if the redhead finished Gideon off now, she wouldn’t be pressed into servicing him. This was what Gideon had done to her in less than two years – he’d made her into the kind of woman who rejoiced when another poor woman squeezed an orgasm out of Gideon so she didn’t have to do it.
As much as she hated that fucker Gideon, Briley hated herself more.
“Officer,” Gideon said, his voice a bit breathless, his hands on the redhead’s hips, moving her faster. “You have information for me?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“I traced the van licence plate to a business in Denver, Colorado,” she said briskly, ignoring the large, ugly tattoo rippling on the woman’s slim back as she gyrated on Gideon. “It’s a garage.”
“And?”
“And apparently the business is owned by a motorcycle club called The Road Devils.”
“A motorcycle club? How did our little Iris end up getting driven away from us by a member of a group of men like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone from her life before?”
“I don’t recall her having any connection to Colorado.” Gideon grunted, lifted the woman almost out of the water with a violent thrust; she stifled a gasp of pain. “Or to a biker club.”
“Maybe she kept it from you?”
“Impossible.” He moved his hand to the woman’s delicate throat, gripped her hard as the tempo of his thrusts accelerated. “She told me everything.”
“But she was contacting this guy somehow without you knowing,” Briley pointed out. “So maybe Iris had more secrets than any of us really knew.”
“Indeed.” Gideon’s face was contorted in that way that invaded her nightmares. “But we can work on the theory that she’s in Denver right now.”
“Yes, I –”
Just then, Gideon grimaced, groaned, and came. Briley forced down vomit, willed her stomach to cooperate – and that’s when she realized that the brunette was staring at her. The woman’s mint-green eyes – eyes so close in shape and color to Briley’s own – were intent and huge and begging Briley for…what?
Help?
In the two years that Briley had been under Gideon’s thumb, no woman-servant had ever raised their head in her presence, let alone made eye contact. And now here was this woman, dutifully massaging her Master’s shoulders and not missing a beat, staring directly at her, silently trying to communicate.
It was only for a second, and then the brunette dropped her gaze again. Briley blinked and then returned her own look at Gideon, who was flushed and breathing heavily, pushing the woman off his lap. She’d served her purpose and now she was just another body in the tub… now with a bruise around her throat shaped like fingers.
“Right-Guardian Zachariah!” Gideon called to his man standing guarding the doorway. “In here now!”
The smarmy prick was there in three seconds, smartly clicking his boots together. “Master.”
“You and Guardian Michael go to Denver,” Gideon said. “You go to the garage address that Officer Cross gives you and see if Iris is there. If she is, you bring her back to me. She can be injured in the process, you understand, if she resists and you need to get physical, but she must return to the Garden alive.”
“Understood, Master.”
“Go and get Guardian Michael immediately and bring him here. I want to speak with both of you together. A motorcycle club is a possible challenge for us, depending who they are and what they do, but it’s a challenge that we must meet. And defeat.”
“Yes, Master.” Zachariah bowed, backed up and hurried out of the room.
“What will you do to her?” Briley couldn’t stop herself from asking the question, though she knew full well that it was none of her business. Again, those clear-green eyes were up and gazing at her, and they were as helpless and hopeless as Briley felt in this moment. “If you get her back?”
“Not if ,” Gideon snapped. “ When . And before you even think of asking me another question, you remember your place, you pathetic cunt. The only reason that bitch Cheryl is free and not in jail is because of my grace and mercy – but when you get out of your lane, I feel less merciful. You are where I want you, and that’s where you fucking stay, unless you’re prepared for Cheryl to pay for your insolence and disrespect. Am I understood?”
“Yes,” Briley murmured, ducking her head. “I’m sorry, Gideon.”
“Get out,” he spat. “Stay on top of this club in Denver, and you report to me daily about them.”
“Yes, Gideon.”
“Fuck off. Now. Before you really piss me off.”
Briley spun on her heels, bolted down the hallway to the stairs, through the reception room. She grabbed her gun, made sure nobody had emptied the chamber, and walked out to her car. She had less than an hour to get to work, and it was going to be close. She never wore her uniform to the compound, so she had to get changed at the precinct – and thinking about her uniform made the waves of shame and guilt wash around her now.
So here she was, starting yet another day of being a traitor to her badge and her oath; another day of being a hypocrite. Another day that she had to get through, knowing that she was aiding and abetting Gideon in his monstrous, inhuman behaviour, in actively allowing him to continue hurting and abusing these women – all while she stood by and watched.
Another day that she hoped to not survive, when she prayed to be killed honourably in the line of duty, despite being the most dishonourable person she could possibly be. It was getting harder and harder to live with herself. Briley wondered how things would end for her, when they inevitably ended.
At this point, death was the only escape that she saw, for herself and Cheryl – and she was dangerously close to welcoming it with open arms.