29. Ezekiel
29
Ezekiel
I slip out of the ballroom after the Councilors do. The three men head toward a private room at the end of the corridor where another of their guard stands waiting at the door.
“Are you back for good?” a woman asks, stepping into my line of vision.
I turn toward the sound to find Vivien whatever the fuck her last name is. At least she’s on her own. Her minions aren’t flanking her.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Are you back home for good?” she asks, trying to sound flirtatious but clearly irritated likely at my earlier dismissal of her.
“Why?” I ask, shifting my gaze around her when the door opens to glimpse the backs of two men. The Councilors disappear inside. Hoxton and another of the men stand guard outside.
She takes a step to the right, placing herself squarely between me and my line of vision to the door.
“Just wanted to know if you were back so we could pick up where we left off.”
I furrow my brows. “I didn’t realize we’d left off anywhere.”
“I mean,” she starts, tilting her head to one side, pushing her hip out in the opposite. She licks her lips suggestively and I have a vague memory of her kneeling before me, but that’s where it ends. Like I told Blue, I was drunk. Very drunk. That or maybe she just wasn’t very good.
Vivien reaches out to adjust my bowtie. I raise an eyebrow.
“You know, Ezekiel, we were getting to know each other and?—”
I take her hands and move them off my person. “You’re wasting your time, Vivien. I’ll be very clear. I’m not interested.”
She seems stunned by this, and I imagine it’s not often she’s turned down. I suppose technically, she’s beautiful but like I told Blue, she’s a viper. I assume most men tuck tail when she approaches.
“You can’t be interested in that girl you brought.” She snorts. “I mean, that hair. And is she even Society? I’ve never seen her around.”
A gong chimes and from behind her, the door opens, and the Councilors emerge. In my periphery, I see Vivien’s posse approaching, pointing. I guess she’d slipped away.
“Your friends are coming,” I tell her. “If you don’t want to be humiliated, I suggest you walk away and don’t approach me again. Not interested. Never was. Never will be. Not sure how to make that any clearer.”
“Viv! You sneaky thing! Did you steal her away again , Ezekiel St. James?” One of the women giggles, giving me a flirtatious poke on the chest.
“She’s all yours,” I say and extricate myself.
Wyatt Hoxton separates himself from the other two guards and turns down a staff corridor. The gong chimes once more, the halls thinning out. I follow Hoxton, watch him slip through the last door. I think about him on top of Blue.
Think about him putting his hands on her.
Touching her.
I push the door open and enter. It’s a staff men’s room with lockers along one wall, stalls along another, and a long, mirrored counter with sinks opposite the door I just entered through. Apart from the occupied stall where I can hear a man taking a piss, the room is empty.
I lock the door.
A toilet flushes and Hoxton steps out of the stall. He does a double take.
“You can’t be in here,” he says.
I glance down as he finishes tucking himself back into his pants. For a big guy, he has a small dick. But most men like him do. It’s why they’re such assholes.
“This is a staff room.” He walks to the counter, and rather than washing his hands, he picks up a comb and runs it through his hair.
“You should wash your hands, you know. Says so, right there. Employees must wash hands.” I point to the sign.
He glances at it, then at me, pale blue eyes narrowing in his fat face.
“You’re with that girl. With the blue hair.”
I narrow my eyes, study his features.
“Do we have business?” He sets the comb down and turns fully to face me.
“We might.”
He cocks his head, watching me. “What business would that be?” He shifts his gaze down to my hands, then back to my face. “Ezekiel St. James.”
The tattoo. Jericho and I have identical tattoos. It’s common knowledge.
“What business do we have?” I ask. “I guess I have a question for you.” He raises his eyebrows. I step toward him. “What makes you think it’s okay to shove your dirty, unwashed hands down a sixteen-year-old girl’s pants?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks, and for a moment, I wonder if I got it wrong. But then, his expression changes. I see the instant it all clicks into place. Not that it matters, because I’d already decided I was going to do what I’m about to do. Whether or not he remembered what he did to Blue is irrelevant.
Hoxton’s face morphs, that mask of civility that was barely there dropping, the monster beneath surfacing. He reaches around back, under his jacket. I expect a gun, but he draws out a switchblade instead, pushing a button to release the knife and stepping toward me, his violence practiced.
But I’m no stranger to violence. When he slashes the knife through the air an inch from my face, I duck backward and grab his wrist. He’s strong, but so am I. And I have much more rage inside me than any one man should.
I keep hold of his wrist, slamming it against the mirror, hearing the glass crack, watching it splinter.
Blood from the back of his hand spills into mine and I do it again, slamming it hard enough to knock the knife out of his grasp. It clatters off the counter and drops to the floor.
He doesn’t need it though. This man knows how to fight. But so do I.
He slams a fist into my gut, and I stumble backward, but I’m up fast, dad taught me that, taught me to swallow the pain or there’d be more. Pussies always got more. A rage I haven’t felt in a long, long time takes over, that beast within wide awake and given free reign, autonomy over my body, my limbs not my own, but belonging to this thing. This animal inside me.
The killer inside me.
We’re on the floor. I taste blood, my own possibly. His? Likely. I pummel my fist into Hoxton’s face. He’s gotten soft, fat.
“Tell me. Tell me why you’d think putting your filthy hand inside a sixteen-year-old girl’s pants is acceptable. Precursor to your little dick following? Is that it? You like to rape little girls, you fucking pig? You fucking filthy, disgusting pig.”
He laughs and it throws me off. Something isn’t right. He fights back but he’s no match for my growing rage. For my years’ worth of fury. When his fingers close over the switchblade just above his head and bring it up to my face, I take hold of his hand and twist it, turn it, and, looking into his beady, evil eyes, I plunge the dagger into his gut.
Blood spurts across my face, covering my hands, my clothes. It’s warm and bubbling and Hoxton’s eyes are wide as he coughs once, twice, blood gurgling in his throat as I thrust the blade upward, cutting through flesh and fat and guts, disemboweling the bastard, feeling his life drain from him, spill all around him, the stain of it permeating every sense until all I see is red. All I smell is blood. All I want is blood.
A familiar sound breaks into the moment.
I sit back, drag in a breath. Try to make out what the sound is. I know it.
It’s my phone ringing in my pocket. I don’t reach for it, and it stops. I look down at the man before me. Arms and legs splayed. Head to one side. Eyes open. Blood trailing from his mouth, his gut.
“Fuck! Zeke!”
I look back at the door just as it slams open, and Jericho crashes inside the splintering frame.
He takes in the scene. I follow his gaze. Get to my feet. I walk to the sink and switch on the water. Jericho closes the door. It won’t stay though. It’s busted, the frame ripped apart.
I wash my hands, Hoxton’s switchblade clattering loudly against the porcelain sink.
“What the fuck did you do?” Jericho asks.
“He recognized her. It was a matter of time,” I say, tone calm. It’s mostly true.
“Jesus Christ. Look at you.” He looks down at Hoxton. No need checking for a pulse. He’s dead. “Stay here. I’m going to get the car. There’s an exit at the end of the corridor. Where’s your phone?”
“Pocket.”
“When I call you again, you fucking pick up. Stay. We don’t need anyone seeing you like this.” He vanishes and I bend to wash my face, my heart rate normal again. I push water into my hair. It’s sticky with blood. I look down at Hoxton and feel much the same as when I killed my father and his mistress. Nothing. Not a damn thing.
When the door opens again, I turn to find my brother stepping inside holding a trench coat.
“Put this on,” he says, and I take it from him. “Let’s go. We have to leave him.”
I take the switchblade from the sink, close it and casually tuck it into my pocket.
“Did anyone see you?” Jericho asks as he checks the corridor before we step out and walk swiftly down the hall to the exit. We step outside, cool night air feeling good against my skin.
Sirens wail. I pause. Did someone already call the police?
No. That makes no sense. We’re The Society. We have our own police.
We climb into my brother’s car. “Where are Blue and Isabelle?”
“Dex is taking them home. Did anyone see you?” Jericho asks again.
“I don’t care if they did,” I say.
“For Christ’s sake.” He drives out calmly, exiting the compound.
Those sirens grow louder, lights flashing in the distance, traffic building.
“What the fuck was that? What are you, some sort of fucking vigilante now?” Jericho asks.
“I told you he recognized her. It was a matter of time before he put two and two together. We shouldn’t have brought Blue here. That was a mistake.”
“At least we know now. Hoxton would be working for the Councilors. One of them sent him to Lucky’s house to get those files. And I have a feeling it was them who intervened to get Lucky out on parole so early into his sentence. They want those files back. We need to find them.”
“I’ll get it.”
He looks at me, eyebrows furrowed. “How?”
“She has it. I know she does. I’ll get it tonight.” I draw my phone out of my pocket to call Blue as our car slows to join the building queue. There’s an accident up ahead.
The phone rings. Did she bring it with her to the event? Yes. She put it in her bag. I remember that.
“What the fuck?” Jericho says.
I look over at him, disconnecting when the phone just keeps ringing. He opens his door. I shift my gaze up, out of the front windshield.
“Isabelle?” I hear him ask.
I open my door, but this doesn’t make any sense. Isabelle is here?
“Isabelle!” Jericho runs toward the accident scene.
I look at the car that’s been hit. The airbag that’s been deployed. I’m out and running before I can make sense of what I’m seeing.