Chapter Twenty-Four
One day later…
T he motel sat well off of Highway 5 in the back of a cracked and cratered parking lot.
This job should be easy. Mr. Leonard Gibson was a sexual predator who preyed on young girls anywhere between the ages of one to eight and tonight, he was going to die.
Everything looked quiet when Justice drove by the motel and he parked his nondescript four-door sedan a few blocks away.
He missed his dog, but Axel was chilling at home because he wasn’t sure what he was walking into.
Locking the car door, he walked through the dark, sticking close to buildings as he made his way to the motel. At just after midnight, the place was as empty as it possibly could be.
Dressed in all black along with gloves and a hooded mask, Justice took the pathway that threaded below the stairs and along the front of the motel rooms.
Thankfully, the doors had locks and not key cards. Otherwise, he would have had to come up with plan B. Reaching room 101, he picked the lock, eased open the door, and closed it.
The room was empty, but he’d known that before making his move.
The mark was currently walking back from eating at the roadside diner down the street.
A laptop sat open on the small desk and he hit the space bar. It was password protected, but Justice didn’t need to see it to know what it contained. The fucker had avoided doing hard time due to a technicality. The DA had mishandled files or some shit like that.
One of the victims’ fathers had put out the request.
Savage had investigated and determined that indeed Gibson needed to pay for his crimes one way or another.
“Don’t shoot me.”
Disbelief held Justice for a split second and then he rounded on the voice that came from the shadows near the bathroom door. A bathroom he’d fucking checked.
How the fuck had he missed a victim? He stared into the eyes of the young teenager who looked to be about sixteen, if that.
Was this kid an accomplice? Justice lifted his gun and the boy’s hands raised.
“Justice.”
When the kid spoke his name, recognition dawned.
“Azrael? What the fuck are you doing here?” Justice growled, keeping his weapon on the kid.
“I work for Erebus.”
Justice had briefly met Azrael at Dave’s place when the former SecDef had taken in three of Solomon’s boys and given them a home. What Dave had not done was let Erebus employ any of them.
“Wrong. You don’t work for Erebus.”
“So the fuck what? I didn’t work for Erebus when Solomon forced me to kill.”
The boy’s beautiful dark eyes snapped with anger and the long, straight, equally dark hair was tossed wildly from his anger-filled face. The kid should be in fucking high school, not here doing this shit.
“How’d you find out about this?”
“Solomon used to let me look through the jobs. I know what this guy did.”
So, the kid had access to Erebus jobs—photos and statements of horrific crimes made by people who, in his own opinion, weren’t even human.
Great.
What a shit show.
A noise snagged his attention and Justice put a finger to his lips.
The scuff of shoes and then the rattling of keys sounded near the door.
“Stay hidden,” he hissed, and Azrael melted into whatever shadow he’d been in—the kid was that fucking good.
Justice sat in the office chair at the small desk, then quickly rolled until his back was to the wall, and placed his silencer on his lap.
A key sounded in the door and Gibson coughed when he entered the room. The man shut the door and flipped the deadbolt before yanking off his jacket.
Hitting the lights, some sixth sense must have alerted the predator of his or Azrael’s existence because Gibson pulled a gun.
Justice stood and fired his silencer, sending a bullet into the fucker’s head. A hole appeared in the middle of the man’s forehead.
Gibson’s surprised expression turned blank and he fell forward, half on and half off one of the queen beds.
Justice would have liked to confront the fucker and let him know why he was at death’s door, but this time, he didn’t have that luxury.
Tucking away his weapon, he picked up the shell casing and walked toward the body.
Azrael stood from the shadows and kicked Gibson off the bed. The dead body toppled over and landed on the floor.
Leaning over the guy, Azrael gazed at the blood pouring from Gibson’s head.
“Rot in hell, you sick fuck,” the boy whispered to the dead predator.
“Come on,” Justice murmured and pulled at Azrael’s arm to get him moving.
“That was a nice shot.”
“It was point blank so no biggie. Does Dave know you’re here?” He frowned.
“He’s not my dad.”
“So what? You going rogue?”
“I could.” That fearless chin tipped up and Justice found himself actually liking the kid.
“You’re too young.”
“I’m eighteen and I’ve probably killed more people than you could dream of.”
At the kid’s flat tone of voice, Justice heard the bitterness and a hollow-sounding void that was a bit concerning.
“You’re good kid, I’ll give you that. I didn’t even know you were in the damned room.”
“That’s the way I was trained. If I was seen, I was punished. I didn’t like getting punished.”
Having seen the cages where Azrael had been kept, Justice clenched his jaw. He had heard of how Echo suspected that Solomon had molested the boy. Azrael wasn’t talking about his life with anyone, so all that remained was a fucked-up mystery, but it wasn’t hard to guess.
Had Solomon molested Fisher? The thought sent his stomach roiling.
“Let’s go,” Justice croaked, stalking to the door.
“Where to?”
“My car first and then we’ll figure it out.” He shot a quick glance out the door and found the area clear. He drew Azrael out of the room and they made it to his car several minutes later.
“Where’s your brother?” Justice asked, remembering that Azrael had a twin.
“College, can you believe that shit?”
“Yeah, I can.”
Justice tucked the boy into his car and slid behind the wheel. He flipped on the overhead light and studied Azrael in the dim light.
“How did you sign into the Erebus website?”
The boy’s eyes darted away, lips pressed flat, and again that chin tipped up. Justice knew for a fact that Solomon’s login had been deleted by now, so he figured Azrael had probably stolen someone else’s access.
“Whose account login did you steal?”
The pretty boy’s lips twisted and his arms crossed.
Justice gave a pained sigh and started the car. Pulling out onto the road, he drove for several miles in silence.
It was going to take roughly two hours to get from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, so he figured he might as well stop for food. The least he could do was feed Azrael before the boy got his ass chewed out.
Dave’s place was lit up like a baseball stadium when he arrived at the front gate.
“Name?” the guard on duty asked, looking at a clipboard.
“Justice. I have Azrael with me.”
The guard stooped over and took a look at Azrael before hurriedly pressing the button for the gate to roll open.
“Oh goodie,” Justice said, rolling up his window. “They’re expecting you.”
Azrael huffed a half laugh and twisted his hands together in his lap, a sure sign of nerves.
When Justice parked the car, he noticed Dave coming down the front walkway. Behind Dave came Stone, and in the background stood Real along with several of Dave’s bodyguards.
Justice felt for the kid.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said with a sigh and opened the car door.