Chapter Nineteen
Walton, Utah
Drake sat alone in the hotel restaurant and sipped his crappy coffee, deep in thought about Briley.
The night before, he’d brought his A-game to the bar and he’d served it up piping hot for her. She’d responded beautifully, and they’d spent almost two hours sitting at the bar together, drinking and laughing. Flirting shamelessly.
At some point – Drake didn’t know exactly how or when – the flirting had flipped over from an act to the real thing. He’d started off just going through the motions – honed through years and years of chatting up hot women – all the while hating Briley with every fiber of his being. This was the bitch, after all, who’d actively participated in hurting untold women, covered up murder, encouraged a psychopath with a God complex to terrorize a bunch of people. So he’d looked deep into her mint-green eyes, and looked her stunning body up and down and watched her blush in response, and he’d meant exactly none of it.
Until he suddenly did.
And now he was sitting here trying to convince himself that he wasn’t an absolute shit of a person for being genuinely attracted to an awful, corrupt, repulsive person. Except…
Except now I’m not so sure that she is an awful, corrupt, repulsive person .
For their whole lives, Drake and Dux had had this bizarre natural ability to read people. From the time they were small, they could tell what a person was feeling and thinking just by looking at their faces – especially their eyes – the way they held their bodies, the tone of their voice. They were especially adept at sniffing out liars and fakes; they always knew when someone was hiding something or not being straight with them.
Perhaps tragically, the twins had never used this astonishing gift for anything more than seducing the opposite sex: as a tag-team package deal, they’d managed to get women interested in a threesome, and in most cases, it was the woman’s first such experience. Not a single woman left the bed unhappy, unsatisfied, or unwilling to make a return trip.
It wasn’t until Drake and Dux had patched in to the MC that their skills became useful for more than just introducing a woman to the absolute joy of being soundly fucked by two attentive, attractive men at the same time. The former Road Devils President, Wheels Jordan, had noticed their abilities, and had immediately handed them the roles of Enforcers, backing up Ice when there were some heads to kick in; the twins had been ass-kickers who were also brilliant interrogators. They managed to get confessions and information through asking the right questions and beating people’s faces in.
At this point, Drake wasn’t super-proud of that time in his life, but it had been his choice and his reality for a long time – his and Dux’s. When Wolf had taken the MC legal and above-board, he and his brother had both heaved sighs of relief.
They’d never lost the ability to know what people thought and felt, though – and the night before, he’d been surprised at what he read coming off Briley.
The woman wasn’t a monster. He knew that, he’d bet every penny that he had that she wasn’t…but she was on edge and nervous, that was for damn sure. She looked and moved like a woman who didn’t like herself very much, who wanted to get far away from who she was. When Drake looked at Briley, he didn’t see a horrible human being with a black, twisted soul, relishing being part of a torturous sex-cult, eager to cover up abuses and atrocities.
No. He saw shame.
And if there was one thing that was universally true, people who believed in what they were doing didn’t feel shame. Monsters were virtual strangers to it, and sadists had never learned the word.
So. If Briley was feeling shame, then what was it about? Maybe Gideon? And if she was shameful about her part in Gideon’s fucked-up garden of nightmares, then how happily was she involved in it? What if she wasn’t a willing participant at all?
It was a whole lot of ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ and Drake knew that damn good and well. But that didn’t mean that he was wrong.
Ice and Dux came into the restaurant now, and any thought of Briley flew straight out of Drake’s head, because the men looked furious. He watched as they walked over to his table, studied their expressions and strides with mounting alarm.
“What?” he asked the second they got to his side. “What the hell?”
“Iris is gone,” Ice said grimly, his face even colder than usual. “Viking sounded the alarm at seven thirty and Kansas checked all the video showing the parking lot. Two guys grabbed her up at just past six this morning.”
“Six?” Drake echoed. “She was outside that early?”
“Looks like she was running out for supplies,” Dux told him. “The guys found baking stuff out on the kitchen counter and a note to Viking saying that she was going to buy eggs. She got up before he did and crept downstairs at the bar, and he slept through the whole thing.”
“So – Viking’s sleeping with her?” Drake asked, interested in that tidbit despite the seriousness of the situation. “For real?”
“Apparently so,” Ice said in a clipped tone, meaning that he was done with this line of conversation. “So we need to get your good friend Briley to start talking.”
“You think that she had something to do with what happened back in Denver?” Drake asked, disbelieving. “Nah, I don’t buy it.”
“Well, you won’t mind if I don’t take your word for it,” Ice said. “Seeing as how you’re thinking with your dick again. Some more.”
“Just because I don’t think she’s Gideon’s little hench-woman doesn’t mean that I want to fuck her,” Drake said indignantly. “Maybe I want to avoid barking up the wrong goddamn tree. If Iris is in trouble, it seems like wasting time on the wrong person isn’t a great idea.”
“Agreed.” Ice narrowed his eyes. “So let’s go ask your little cop friend is she is the right person. Me and Dux followed her home last night, after all, so we know where she lives.”
“Ice –”
“What?” Ice snapped. “You don’t have to come lover boy, I’m happy to go and talk to her on my own. I might not be a whiz at non-verbal cues and mind reading like you two, but I’m sure I can get her to tell me what I want to know. I just have to ask nicely, until it’s time to not ask nicely.”
“Fuck,” Drake muttered and threw some money on the table. “Fine, Ice. You win. Let’s go talk to Briley.”
**
Briley was putting on her boots when she heard a knock at her front door. She glanced at her watch and sighed. The sweet elderly lady next door, Mrs. Nowicka, came over most mornings looking for her cat, Iza. Sadly, Iza had died about three years earlier, but Mrs. Nowicka was often found wandering the street in nothing but a bathrobe and slippers, searching for her beloved pet. More than once, Briley had been called at the police station by worried neighbors who couldn’t convince the confused woman to go back inside.
She swung the door open. “Hi Mrs. No–” When she saw Drake standing there, she paused; when she saw his double standing next to him, along with an annoyed-looking Scandinavian giant, she stared.
“Drake?” she said in disbelief. “What are you –”
“No time to ask nicely,” the blond with the scary eyes snarled. “So we’ll just invite ourselves in.”
“What –”
The three men shoved her inside and that was when Briley started to feel frightened. She looked to the small cabinet on her left, where her spare gun was kept, and she lunged at it. Drake – or maybe the other one – stepped forward and smartly grabbed both of her arms, twisting them behind her back and up. It didn’t really hurt, but she didn’t have any defense except to kick at his shins, and so he simply turned his enormous upper body away, stepped back, and then he was out of reach.
She opened her mouth to scream, and the other one – or Drake – shoved her scarf between her lips, tied it tight behind her head.
“Arghhhhfff,” she spat at them. “Faaaaarrrkkkkooo.”
“OK, darlin’,” said one of the twins. “Loud and clear. You’re pissed. Let me just say that I don’t blame you in the slightest.”
“Me neither,” said the other one. “Not a nice way to start the day, is it?”
“Iiihhlllklyoon,” she muttered darkly.
“OK, enough.” The blond giant pushed her into a chair and tied her up with a rope that he’d brought. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, got it? After I’m done talking, if I think you can behave yourself, I’ll take that gag out of your mouth. If I don’t think you can control yourself, you’ll come for a ride with us back to our place of business, where you can scream until you’re blue in the face and nobody will hear you. You can answer all of my questions there.”
Briley froze then, staring up at their faces, her mind whirling. She had no idea what the hell was happening here, but it was clearly a set-up: Drake meeting her at the bar was no coincidence, and obviously she’d been followed back home. But why her?
Suddenly, she knew – she just absolutely knew .
Gideon. That fuck Gideon sent these assholes to shut me up. I’ve become a liability, or I did something to upset him, or I’m being blamed for some cock-up somewhere. This is it. I’m toast.
She’d always known that this day would come; being under Gideon’s thumb and helping him was always going to end this way. The truth was, that she was glad.
Finally. I’m finally almost free .
“OK, so.” The giant sat across from her, his eyes the coldest that she’d ever seen. “We know that you’re helping Gideon. We know that you go to that fucked up cult compound every night, we assume to report, or get a new assignment, or to screw him. Maybe all three, we don’t actually care. What we do care about is that two of Gideon’s asshole soldier-types snatched up Iris from our parking lot. We want her back. You’re going to help us.”
As soon as he’d said the name ‘Iris’, Briley had immediately stopped struggling and just stared at him in disbelief. Iris? Iris had been with these guys somewhere, and they wanted her back? Back from – Gideon? But Gideon had told her nothing about Iris at all, not since she’d informed him about the motorcycle club in Denver.
Motorcycle club… scary, tattooed, badass, criminal dickheads. Guys kind of like…
That’s when the penny dropped.
“You’re the Road Devils?” she said, but it came out garbled and incomprehensible. “You guys are in a motorcycle club?”
“It sounds like she’s trying to ask us something,” the one twin said to the blond. “And it’s not even abusive.”
“Fuck you,” she muttered again. “Stupid prick.”
“ That didn’t sound so nice,” the other twin said. “But maybe we can see if it’s possible to have a reasonable conversation?”
“You get one chance, Briley,” the blond said with terrifying menace. “You screw this up, it’s straight to our club for you. Got it?”
Frantically, she nodded; she was now pretty sure that they weren’t here to hurt her at all. This was a fact-finding mission, and she had information that they would find helpful. After all, they had a common enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe…
Maybe if I help them, they can help me .
“Here we go.” The blond removed the scarf, cocked his head at her. “You going to talk to us?”
“Yes,” she said and coughed a bit. “I want to talk to you.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yes.”
“OK, so.” He crossed his huge arms and glared at her, while the twins sat. “You can start by telling us just why the hell you help this sick fuck Gideon.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she said in a rush; this was the first time that she’d been able to talk about any of this with anyone and she was going to get what she could off her chest. “He’s – he’s blackmailing me. He’s got something on someone who means a lot to me, and he knows that I helped her, and if any of it came out, my friend would be in jail, and I’d be fired and jailed myself.”
Scary blond glanced at the twins. They nodded.
“Go on,” he said.
“So… well, that’s kind of it, really.” Briley shrugged. “I do what he tells me, when he tells me, or my friend pays the price.”
“What does he ask you to do?” asked the one twin.
“All kinds of stuff, really. Most recently, he had me find out about vehicles in the area the night that Iris ran away. That’s how he knew about the van being registered to a Denver garage, owned by an MC.” She looked up at them. “I’m assuming you guys are members.”
“We’re asking the questions,” the blond said abruptly. “Do you cover up Gideon’s murders?”
“ Murders? ” She was aghast. “What – what murders? Who murders?”
“Lily, for one,” the man said severely. “Or did you just think that he’d let her go on her merry way after she humiliated him by flirting with some guy in town?”
Briley was silent, stunned. “No –no, he didn’t kill her. He sent her to the cult re-education center in New Mexico.”
“The – what?” They all stared at her, totally disconcerted. “The fucking what ?”
“The place where Gideon sends the women and Guardians who disappoint him, it’s some compound in the desert. That’s where he started his whole cult movement idea thing, way back about fifteen years ago. The group split and some moved here to Utah with their Master, while ten or twelve men stayed behind to do recruiting and to keep the center open in case Gideon and his Garden ever had to flee Utah. What Gideon told me is that when members need to be reminded of what they have in the Garden, they get sent away and they have to earn their way back in. It’s like banishment with strings.”
“You really believe that?” the blond guy asked. “That they just go to the desert until they see the light and then they get to come back?”
“ Yes ,” Briley said earnestly. “It’s absolutely Gideon’s MO – humiliation and throwing them out of his little personal paradise, making them crawl and beg to be forgiven, engaging in re-education that’s really just brainwashing… that’s him all over the damn place.”
“Except,” said the one twin. “Iris saw him murder Lily in the compound basement. He did it right in front of her.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “ No . No, no, no.”
“Oh, yes,” he said mercilessly. “You really didn’t know?”
Numb, she shook her head. The twins stared at her hard, like they were looking right into her head and her heart, then they nodded at the blond.
“OK,” the one twin said. “Assuming that this place even exists, would he have Iris sent there? To New Mexico?”
“ No way. No, if two of his goon squad assholes have grabbed her from your place in Denver, then I can guarantee you that they’re bringing her back here. He’s furious that she escaped, and he’ll want to deal with her personally. If he’s really killing people who disrespect or embarrass him, then he’ll definitely do that to Iris.” She paused. “You know, all this time, I really thought that she’d gotten away and was safe. I mean, I assumed that Gideon had sent someone to check things out in Denver, but he hasn’t said anything in a while. I figured that she’d just moved on and he’d hit a dead end.”
“But you didn’t ask him?”
“I’ve learned the hard way not to ask Gideon anything,” she said simply. “I just do what he tells me.”
The twins exchanged glances, but the blond guy’s mind was clearly on things that had nothing to do with Briley’s issues.
“So we can just ambush the goons on their way back here then,” he said. “Just wait on the road leading to the compound and get them to stop. We grab Iris and if we really feel irritated, we kick those fuckers until they walking back to the Garden in wheelchairs.”
“Well, actually,” Briley said slowly. “Maybe don’t do that.”
“Why the hell not?” he demanded. “You worried that Gideon will be unhappy with his little lapdog?”
“Jesus Christ,” Briley said. “ No , I don’t give a fuck what he feels about anything, and I never did. What I’m thinking is that maybe – maybe there are other women in that compound who want out. Maybe we can help them.”
“Like who?”
“There was this one woman…” Briley thought about the brunette with the eyes so much like her own, sitting behind Gideon in the tub, telegraphing something at her, trying so hard to communicate. “She didn’t say a word but – I think she was begging me to help her. I couldn’t then, but maybe now I can.”
“What are you thinking?” the one twin asked her. “Because you obviously have a sort-of plan.”
“I’m thinking that you don’t stop them from returning to the Garden with Iris,” she told him. “Instead, wait for them to take her back inside, then when I go for my nightly command performance with Gideon, I find her. Let’s work on the assumption that she’ll be in the basement, so I’ll get myself down there. I’ll free her and then find anyone else who wants to leave too.”
“Then what?” said one of the twins. “You just mosey on out of there with Iris, maybe this other woman, maybe more women, and Gideon and his soldier boys are just going to stand aside?”
“They will if you guys are outside kicking them until they walk back in wheelchairs.”
There was a stunned silence as they all stared at her.
“So –” said the blond. “So you go into the lion’s den alone and get these women, and we clear the path out of the compound?”
“Yeah. We work together. The four of us.”
“And just why the hell would we trust you ?” he demanded. “Who’s to say that you won’t tell Gideon about us waiting outside? About this other woman maybe wanting to escape? About this whole plan? One word from you and we’re surrounded by Guardians with weapons, and we’re dead where we stand.”
“Because,” she said. “If I help you, then you’ll help me.”
“How?”
“You take me with you when you go back to Denver,” Briley said. “I walk away from my whole life here and you go get my friend, the one who Gideon is blackmailing me over. You get us both someplace safe where we can start again, away from the fucking human nightmare that is Gideon. If you agree to do this for me – for us – then I’ll do whatever it takes to get Iris to you. I promise you.”
“Huh,” said the blond, sounding grudgingly impressed. “Not a bad pitch, officer. Not bad at all.”
“So, we have a deal then?”
“Not yet.” The blond pulled out his cell phone, headed into the kitchen for some privacy. “I’ve got to run this past the boss.”