32. Remy
Chapter thirty-two
Remy
I’m going to be sick. No one is saying the quiet part out loud, and even though we may be able to find her, it may not matter. I’ve raked my hands against my scalp so many times I actually ripped out a small chunk of hair, and I can’t make my foot stop tapping.
Wes pulls his hand away from his head and sits up, looking fit to kill me. “Fucking stop it.” He growls. “You won’t be any use to her if you’re too busy having a psychotic break.”
He’s right, and that pisses me off. I don’t dare admit as much to him, but I don’t have to, because he knows. “I thought you knew better than to go and catch feelings, Boudreaux. They turn you into a pathetic bitch, even more than you already were.”
“Coming from you,” I sneer.
He cocks an eyebrow, watching me imperiously. “Which means what?”
“Your wife ?” I almost choke on my laughter. “You couldn’t have the original, so you had to go and get yourself a replica? You sure you didn’t clone her with daddy’s money?”
“Cute, Rem, but no. What I told you back there was the sad, sick truth. Call it fate, call it shit luck, call it divine karma, I don’t care. The truth is their mother was one of our father’s whores, and eventually, she wasn’t useful to them anymore. She was killed so they could sell her babies. Some rich fuck bought Violet, and she had a good life right up until they repossessed her.”
There’s a lot of things I want to demand he elaborate on, but the only word that comes from my mouth is, “Repossessed? ”
“Mm,” he nods, leaning forward to roll his shoulders. “You’ve heard of repo men.”
It’s not a question.
I have, of course. In a business like ours, there are several classes of men.
Collectors, fixers, figureheads, enforcers, masters, and repo men. When someone owes a debt, it’s the repo men that come to collect. “You can—repossess a person?”
“Of course you can.” He sneers. “Haven’t you ever read the fine print on any of the girls you bought?” When I say nothing, he laughs. “Why would you? You never planned to keep them.” He rolls his eyes to show me exactly what he thinks of me. “You have to pay in full, of course, when you make a purchase. It’s the same for the children as it is if you’re just getting a slave. The difference is, the risk is higher with children, so the system is different. You have to keep paying your dues, year after year, or you get foreclosed upon and we take back what we lent to you.”
“I’ve never paid—”
“You’re the son of a Grand Vizier. Of course you’ve never paid dues.” He shakes his head and leans forward, pouring one of the glasses between us full of whiskey. When he hands it out to me, I shake my head, so he drains it instead and then puts it down in favor of the bottle.
“I don’t understand.” I tell him truthfully. “What do you mean, Grand Vizier?”
“Christ, Remington, your ignorance is astounding. What have you actually done with your life? Has your head just been up your sister’s ass so far you never realized what was going on around you?”
I don’t like the way he talks about my sister, but I want the information he’s giving me, so I ignore that. “I never wanted a place in this world.”
“You never had a choice.” He laughs. “Neither did I.” I don’t know if he means for me to sympathize with him, but I don’t. “My father’s empire… he didn’t build it alone, no matter how much he tries to claim he did. The Brotherhood was born hundreds of years ago, when trading slaves was far more acceptable. It was a gathering of the elite, where they could go to trade off the whore they’d impregnated before their wives found out… a place to meet others of similar… tastes .”
A brotherhood.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard of the word in this context.
Like it’s been called upon, I remember a dinner party my parents threw once, waiting at the top of the stairs for it to be over so Rhea and I could go down to eat. I’d heard a stranger call my father his brother, and he’d gotten angry, telling him he wasn’t an equal. I hadn’t realized then what that was about, but now the pieces make sense.
“What is the brotherhood?” I ask, studying his face.
He slams his head back against the headrest, clearly happy to reacquaint himself with luxury after however long he’s been hiding in squalor. He casts a glance at the other passengers. Violet is still passed out—I’d be worried she’s dead if she hadn’t moved around a few times in the last couple hours—and Kent is sleeping with his mouth open, snoring softly.
But the two of us are still awake, so I guess it’s true, what they say about there being no rest for the wicked.
“I just fucking told you. The brotherhood is our world. It’s our life—the system we were fucking bred to uphold.”
“What’s it called?”
“You want to Google it?” He laughs. “You won’t find anything. You wear the symbol on your skin, and you don’t even know the name of the fucking society?” He shakes his head, pushing up his sleeve to reveal on his forearm the same tattoo I have… the one I had inked on me before I moved to Costa Rica as their pawn. He traces the bird with his finger, focused on the details. “The Brotherhood of The Dove. ”
It sounds too ridiculous to be true, but Wes isn’t grinning the way I imagine he would if he was simply fucking with me. “The Brotherhood of the Dove?” I huff a laugh that’s not amused. “I thought that was a fucking pigeon.”
“Same thing.” Wes smirks. “You want a history lesson?”
I don’t really, but I need to know more, so I gesture for him to carry on. “Ever heard of King Juan? Old fuck, not important, but what he did was important. He was a rich and powerful man, who did what rich and powerful men do. He organized feasts and parties to celebrate himself and flaunt his wealth. He created the Order of the Dove, and he had these lavish events with lots of food and wine and pussy, of course. He didn’t last long, since the news of his feasts traveled far, and people found out he was serving ‘ pigeon’ at these events.” He laughs and chases it with a swig from the whiskey bottle.
I mean, eating pigeon doesn’t appeal to me, but when your choices were basically various types of birds and herbs, what difference does it make? Turkey, chicken, pheasant, quail, pigeon? It’s all the same.
“Rumor has it, it wasn’t really pigeon he was feeding his guests.” Wes smirks. “Whether that’s true or not, men of a certain caliber should have never been seen indulging in such lowly vices. When the Brotherhood was born, they named themselves the Brotherhood of the Dove as an homage to the men who have eclectic tastes .”
“As in…?”
“As in the exact types of people we cater to.” He shrugs, as if that really should have been obvious. And maybe it should have. “Some men like to hunt for their food. Some like to tenderize it first. Others like to play with it.”
Now I really am going to throw up. What he’s saying is revolting, and it makes my stomach sour with the bile inside. “Fucking cannibalism?”
“I mean, they make up a very small base of our clients, but I know they’re out there somewhere.” He doesn’t look nearly as bothered by the thought of cannibalism as he should, but I suppose it’s on me for being surprised.
“All of our clients have tastes that are frowned upon by what the outside world considers right or just . In the Brotherhood, all is welcome, as long as you’re willing to pay for it. You want a kid to raise? Sure, we’ve got them. You want a kid to use for other things? No problem. You want a slave who can clean your house and lick the blood off your dick after you fuck her? We’ve got them.”
The revulsion must be evident on my face because he chuckles a little. “The Brotherhood was around for hundreds of years, back before women thought they were worth anything. Some things evolved with time, and others didn’t. But our fathers? They revolutionized it… the internet revolutionized it. My father clawed his way to the top as Grand Sovereign, and he brought yours along for the ride. You and me? The little foot soldiers?” He laughs, though I can tell even he isn’t finding humor in his words. “We’re as good as rats to them. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood—the wealthy, the elite, the people who pay for our services? They keep the whole thing afloat by feeding their monsters in secret.”
I’ve never cared much to think about how they built this system, but I suppose I should have. Knowing how something is built will only make it easier to dismantle it. Though, to be fair, dismantling is not strong enough a word for what I want to do to the prison they’ve crafted in plain sight.
“Our services will always be required because there will always be people willing to pay for them. We aren’t the monsters. They are.”
I shake my head, incredulous, as Wes shrugs. “We just provide the prey.”