Chapter Forty-Eight
James
The rest of Theo’s words are frost in the heat of my mind. They melt too quickly to leave behind any impression. All I hear is that they know where the asshole who kidnapped and murdered my baby niece is.
“Go,” Sadie says when I look her way. Then, because she can apparently read my mind, “I’ll call June so I’m not alone. We’ll head back to your place soon and Benny will stay with us.”
I love you. Instead of giving voice to the thoughts, I kiss her forehead and turn around, rushing outside. Leaving my girlfriend behind in a hospital bed right after she’s been attacked is physically painful, but the larger need right now rests with my brother and our revenge.
Theo sends me a pin, and pulling it up on the map, I see it’s an address in Douglas. Outside, I reach for my keys, only to remember I rode here in an ambulance.
“FUCK!”
Exiting out of the map, I pull up Theo’s contact and click call. He answers instantly.
“Thirty seconds out.”
“What?”
“We’re bringing you your bike. Did you think I’d go without you?”
“Who is we?”
My answer comes when two bikes come rolling into the hospital parking lot, exhaust pipes blaring. The Springfield comes to a stop in front of me, Theo peering at me through the open helmet visor.
Then I notice who’s sitting on my solid black Harley cruiser. Acidic hatred burns my throat at the sight of my father. He climbs off the bike and holds out my helmet, which I quickly snatch from his hands.
“Everyone else was occupied," Theo explains. “He offered, and I didn’t have time to find someone else.”
“It’s fine.” The words are snappy as they leave my mouth, clearly stating that it’s not fine.
“I won’t come with you,” Rocket says.
“You weren’t invited.” Even as I say it, I wonder if maybe he should have been. Shiloh was his granddaughter, after all.
But no. He’s had nearly eight years to get his revenge. He knew the truth this entire time. Instead, he decided to fuck off to nowhere Virginia to flirt with divorcees and drown in his own fucking pity party.
“I know,” he says.
Shoving past him, I climb on my bike and secure the helmet strap under my chin. After nodding at Theo, I give Rocket one last look and say, “Don’t go inside. My girl doesn’t need to see you right now.”
We don’t wait for a reply before taking off.
“We don’t know how many guys he has with him,” Theo says a few minutes later. “It may be a safe house.”
“How did we find him?” I ask.
“Maple. Long story short, she caught him on a gas station camera and tracked the SUV he’d been driving to an old woman in a memory care facility.
Then she found a bunch of LLCs in the woman’s name and tracked addresses until she found a small house in Douglas that had been transferred to the woman last year.
Maple found the same SUV on cameras around the neighborhood a few hours ago. ”
“Where the hell has Maple been all our lives?” I mutter, awe at the girl’s abilities lacing my words.
“A cult.”
“Wait, what?”
His recounting of what he’s learned about Rose and Maple from June eats up a few minutes of our ride. But a glance at the map on my phone shows we still have an hour and a half. With our speed, we’ll cut plenty of time from that, but it won’t feel like enough.
I need to have Gray bleeding at my feet, begging for mercy he never showed my niece, as soon as possible.
~
“It doesn’t look like a safe house,” I whisper.
Theo and I are studying the small, broken down house from across the street.
It’s a mile from the Mexico border, and though I know the South Five generally operate closer to Nogales, this would still be a good place for a halfway house.
People could stop here before crossing, or Fivers could store smuggled goods there while waiting for heat to die down.
Right now, though, it just looks abandoned.
“No garage,” Theo comments.
“There’s barely a front door.”
“He must have ditched the car.”
“We’re sure he’s in there?” I ask.
“It’s our only lead.”
He’s right. So, with a few more minutes of planning, we make our move.
If Gray is here, he won’t just answer the front door.
We split up, Theo heading to the back of the house and me to the right.
Counting to thirty, I toss the rock I’d grabbed from hand to hand and keep an eye on the side window, looking for movement behind it.
Then, I pull back my arm, aim, and chuck the rock, grinning at the satisfying shatter of glass.
I duck around the wall of the neighboring house in case Gray comes looking, gun in hand.
After a moment, I carefully round the house, staying out of sight from the windows.
It doesn’t take long to make it to the front door, where I reach out and grasp the knob.
It’s unlocked.
I open it slowly, squeezing through as soon as there’s enough space.
“I will shoot you!” someone shouts.
Gun in hand, I pass through a cracked and discolored doorway to find Theo staring down a man nearly half his size.
Gray isn’t short, but he’s not tall enough to be intimidating. His muscles are lean, which has caused too many people to underestimate him. We won’t, though. He may be a pretty boy on the outside, but Gray is the deadliest of all the Fivers.
And he took the most important person from us before she was old enough to really live.
“I don’t think you will,” I say, holding my gun so the barrel is pointed to the back of his head.
Gray spins around, training his weapon on me. The move gives Theo time to step forward and bash the back of his head.
He crumples to the floor.
“Let’s have some fun.”
We get to work. I drag the limp body to the cluttered coffee table, which Theo swipes clean.
I drop him on top and we secure rope around his ankles and wrists before tying them on the table legs.
I’d much prefer to drag him back to Tucson and lock him in June’s soundproof basement.
We’d keep him alive for as long as possible, ridding him of a bit more skin, bones, and sanity each day, but the risk of getting caught or him getting free is too high.
Neither me nor Theo are willing to risk that. We have lives to get back to.
But first, Gray deserves to suffer.
“I wish we could listen to him scream,” Theo mutters as he retrieves the small sewing kit from his back pocket.
“Me too.” Unfortunately, we agreed on this during the ride over.
For at least the first few hours, he needs to stay silent.
Duct tape is too easy, thus the sewing kit.
Apparently, June had given it to him yesterday morning, along with some other tools she said he’d enjoy using when we found the sack of shit who murdered my niece.
Consciousness returns to Gray as soon as Theo pokes the needle through the corner of his lips. Immediately, Theo claps a gloved hand over Gray’s mouth.
“None of that,” he murmurs, shifting his fingers so he can tug the needle up, pulling the thread all the way through.
Gray’s screaming is muffled and he starts thrashing, trying to pull free from his restraints.
I place a hand on either side of his head to hold him still while Theo finishes his first stitch.
“I want you to know that this is for Shiloh,” he says, voice steady, “and Scottie, and everyone who loved them.” He starts on the next stitch.
“Shiloh was perfect. Innocent. A child. And you stole her.” Another stitch.
“Killed her.” Stitch. “And dumped her body like it was trash.” He yanks the thread.
It’s a long process, sewing his mouth shut while he’s awake and fighting, but the effort is worth it when the pain and fear become more and more visible in his eyes. Once finished, Theo stabs the needle into Gray’s cheek, rather than cutting it off.
He howls in pain, and the thread pulls at his bleeding lips when he instinctively tries to open his mouth. Blood, drool, and tears slide down his face, which could easily be on the cover of a horror film.
“My turn,” I say, moving around the table. Theo hands me a tiny scalpel and a pair of tweezers, which I use to slowly peel off the skin on Gray’s fingers and hand.
Then Theo pulls another of June’s gifts from his backpack, an adjustable wrench the perfect size for a grown man’s toes. “She said breaking bones slowly with something like this hurts more than a hammer,” he explains, securing Gray’s big toe inside the steel jaws.
“Make sense.”
It’s not long before Gray’s attempts at screaming finally rip through the thread. Theo replaces it with duct tape so I don’t have to pause my work cutting into Gray’s leg until his shin bone is visible.
We work together in relative silence for a few hours before the satisfaction of picking this man apart starts fading.
I want to be with Sadie.
Theo must share the sentiment, because he pulls the tape off Gray’s mouth. The man instantly starts babbling apologies and pleas to stop hurting him.
“I fucking hope that hell is real,” Theo says. “Even if that’s where I’ll go. It’d be worth it just to know you’re there first, experiencing the worst torment imaginable for all eternity.”
He plunges a knife into Gray’s chest.