Chapter 23
E verly
A small army of skeleton crew amassed around us in the wide staff corridor deep in the heart of the warehouse, and Connor and Arran talked in low voices, a short distance from where I stood with Genevieve and Riordan.
“Sorry I didn’t message yet,” I said to Riordan.
“It’s no problem. I’m not here to chase you down. I came for another purpose, but this was the easiest way to get into the warehouse.” He wrinkled his nose. “The bouncer refused me entry as a customer.”
Genevieve glowered at her boyfriend and Connor. “I’ll fix that. Clearly someone still has their knickers in a twist over you.” She came back to her brother. “Are you okay? Busy with work?”
“Today was my last day.”
Her lips parted. “What happened?”
Riordan sighed then gazed at the ceiling for a moment. “Someone overheard our conversation here the other night, and gossip spreads. It got back to my boss that I was gang affiliated, and shortly before clock-off this afternoon, he sacked me.”
Dismay filled my heart. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You came here to see me, so in a way it is.”
Genevieve squeezed my elbow. “It really isn’t. Rio, your boss is an asshole.”
“Heading out,” Arran called down the hall.
The gang of men around us began to muster.
I took a step. “We’re going out for a while. Will you still be here when we get back?”
“Maybe. There’s someone else I want to see.”
Genevieve gave a startled laugh. “Don’t tell me you have another secret sister?”
“No, I promise.”
Arran and Connor circled us, and I said goodbye to Riordan, then we were on the move. Outside in the night, we climbed into our cars, and four or five other vehicles exited the car park with us, all occupants wearing skeleton bandannas. Connor was taking no risks tonight with his mission and our safety.
One of the cars peeled away, heading uphill, while Connor drove us west, away from the city and following the winding river. The rain had eased but still fell as a fine shower, visible almost as dust in the car headlights, and before long, we turned into a dark gravel yard, hidden from the street by trees and with a run-down kind of boathouse right on the water.
Doors clunked, and the men in the other cars climbed out and commenced a search. We sat in silence, lights off, and the night settling in around us. I peeked over at Arran and Genevieve’s car. Like us, they didn’t appear to be talking, just waiting in the shadows.
Then one of the crew gave a hand signal and the men disappeared, merging into the trees. I guessed that meant the coast was clear.
Goosebumps rose on my arms.
Connor finally spoke. “This boathouse belongs to Arran, but we’re taking no risks tonight.”
Hence the extra security. “What are we doing here?”
He shifted in his seat. “Ye know what I do for the club?”
“An enforcer.”
“What does that mean?”
“You…enforce rules?”
His lips curled in a cool smile. “No, Everly. I eliminate people who need to be gone. In most gangs, that means rivals who cross us. We operate a little differently.”
“You kill.” The words were uncomfortable in my mouth. I banded my arms around myself to ward off a shiver.
“I kill. I do it well. I enjoy my job.”
“Who?”
“Cassie described the men on Arran’s club list as the worst of the worst, but she was wrong. There’s a tier below that. The men who serve time for crimes so bad the news channels can’t report on the details. Or ones the police aren’t able to prosecute because of lack of evidence, such as witnesses who are too damaged to withstand a trial. If they’re in my city, it’s my job to take them out.”
Another car slid into the yard, gravel popping under the tyres. It was the one that had gone off route. Three men departed, and one opened the boot.
They dragged out a fourth person. He kicked out at them, his mouth gagged and his hands tied behind his back. But his movements were fumbling as if he’d been drugged.
Tonight’s victim.
I swallowed. “Who is he?”
“Victor Green. A rapist.”
Rapist . I stared at the man, a sour taste flooding my mouth. “Who did he hurt?”
“His girlfriend’s teenage daughter. He served eight years for what he did to that kid, then they released him back into the community because it was a first offence and he’d behaved himself behind bars. He was given a room in a halfway house only thirty minutes from where she lives. Where do ye think he went the first opportunity he had?”
My horror grew with each sentence, and absolute hatred filled me for the disgusting specimen. “He went to see her?”
“We were watching him. Took him down and found a coil of rope in his pocket along with a knife. She never knew.” He cracked his neck. Then his gaze landed on me. “This is what I enforce. Arran plays a part, too. He wants Genevieve to see because the two of them are going to get married and he wants no secrets. I don’t give a fuck about marriage but I do about ye. You’re mine, so ye need to see this. Watch me, not him, if ye prefer. Understand what I am.”
With a possessive growl, he grasped my neck and pulled me in for a kiss. My pulse sped, and I returned the kiss with an edge of desperation.
Then he released me and tugged up the skeleton bandanna he’d tied around his throat, handing me one to do the same. We climbed out. Genevieve emerged at the same time, her face equally covered but her eyes bleak in the moonlight. She came to me, her hand reaching for mine.
Her fingers shook.
For some strange reason, mine didn’t.
Two men moved in behind us, and Connor and Arran strode out to take the prisoner by an arm each. They hauled him to the building we’d parked near. Following, I took in the grim surroundings. The decaying boathouse with rusted metal panels. The thick smell of the river. It was so isolated here that the grunts and muffled shouts from the rapist barely travelled.
Up some steps, we entered the building.
Behind the frontage, the far side was half open to the elements, a gap presumably where boats would come in and go out and a gantry of steel grate flooring reaching out over the water. Deadwater River was tidal, and the water rushed fast, heading out to sea. The sound filled my ears.
“Wait here,” one of the men ordered me and Genevieve.
I stopped, out of the cool breeze that swept through the building but close enough to see the dangerous glint in Connor’s eye.
Years ago, he’d killed a man who’d hurt me. The colleague of my father’s who’d attacked me in my house. When he told me, I’d been shocked, but it had worn off. The remaining, stronger emotion was one of relief . For the sake of the girl this man had hurt, I wanted the same feeling. Knowledge that a bad person was off the streets.
Genevieve huddled closer, her fingers gripping mine.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “This is necessary.”
“You sound like them.” She took a shaky breath behind her bandanna but straightened, loosening her grip a degree.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Connor. He was saying something low to the man, then lifted his chin to Arran who cut the gag away.
“You’re fucking insane if you think you can intimidate me,” Victor-the-rapist said. “I know people. I’ll fucking bring the house down on you all.”
“Victor Green, ye were found outside the home of Phoebe Smith and her ma,” Connor intoned. “We were watching ye. We know what ye were going to do.”
“You know shit. And what has that cunt and her bitch mother got to do with you?”
Arran tutted. “You don’t get to ask the questions here.”
“The fuck I don’t?—”
Victor’s interruption was short-lived, as Connor snapped out a fist and drove it into his face. The rapist stumbled back, teetering at the edge of the gantry and over the water rushing below.
Connor lurched to grab him, steadying the man with a grumble. “Fuck. That was close. Grab the hook, aye?”
Arran tugged a chain, and a hook rattled down from the steel rafters above. In practiced coordination, they strung Victor’s hand constraints over it, then Arran pulled the chain again. With a clatter and groan, it lifted Victor to his tiptoes, his arms stretched above his head. They slid him back, over the water so his toes barely touched the gantry.
He whimpered and bucked, losing his footing and dangling. “Let me down. Let me fucking go.”
“Did ye stop when the lass ye hurt begged ye to? I don’t think so, Victor.”
Shade slid a knife from his belt and stepped up to the dangling man. He sliced open the front of Victor’s clothing, the hoodie and t-shirt parting to reveal a pasty body with crude prison tattoos here and there on his chest.
In another few slices, the clothes fell away altogether, then his trousers were next. Arran bundled up the ruined material and tossed it beside the door, I guessed to destroy it all later.
A last couple of cuts left Victor completely naked, crooked dick and all.
I wrinkled my nose at the sight.
“God,” Genevieve commented.
Victor’s gaze jumped to us. “Hey, hey! Help me. I’m begging you.”
Arran smashed a fist to his mouth, his eyes slanting our way in warning.
I took the point. We needed to stay out of this and just watch.
So I did. I kept my gaze on Connor, as he’d requested.
I watched from when the first spray of blood hit him, to the cold fury in his eyes, to the way he managed the punishment of the rapist in steady, controlled cuts. He announced the crime and the sentence, then delivered.
A man who did what he said he was going to do. I appreciated that.
But I couldn’t focus on the victim. No—that was the wrong word. The individual whose deserved sentence they were delivering. The red at the edge of my vision, the shaking, the pieces falling away, and the sounds he made. Even the smell, at one point. I couldn’t accept that into my brain any more than the tiny slice I witnessed of it, not if I wanted to sleep at night.
At one particularly gruesome hit, Genevieve buried her face in my shoulder, her soft, barely there cry reaching my ears. “They cut off his penis. I’m glad, but God.”
“Just watch Arran,” I guided her.
She snuffled but raised her head, fixing on the important part of this.
It was the strangest parallel. Just like I’d helped the anxious councillor at the event only days ago, I was able to do the same for Genevieve now. It was easy to maintain my calm and find my centre in this scene. Connor was doing a job and one I saw value in.
I couldn’t do what he did.
I couldn’t even look.
But I respected him, and I agreed that this needed to be done. Perhaps Piers’ attack and Connor’s protective kidnapping me had broken something in my head because I wasn’t panicking or freaking out.
Should I be? To the tune of Victor’s gurgle and a dark laugh from either Arran or Connor, I pondered that point.
If anything, him giving me this insight was a gift. It showed me Shade, the gang enforcer, and the reach of his darkness. It filled a gap in who he was. He’d wanted me to understand him. Perhaps I’d never truly know what enabled him to do this, but—another splatter of blood soaked his t-shirt—I wasn’t scared of him.
The death cries of Victor finally ceased. Connor and Arran handled the dangling remains, pieces hitting the water below with a deep splash or some in silent surrender.
“Just the head left.” Genevieve closed her eyes.
I grimaced, happier not to have had that image.
“Just warning you for the sound that’s going to come,” she said. “Arran said they make sure there’s no easily identifiable part left. Then the river takes the pieces out to sea. Fish must eat them. They’ve been doing this for years, and no body has ever surfaced.”
The crunch and crack of breaking bone followed. Teeth, I guessed, for the purpose of dental records.
“Done,” Genevieve breathed. “Thank God for that.”
I could only peek at Connor.
He held himself easier, his frame relaxed. After tossing something down to the water, he went to a tap on the opposite wall to us and rinsed off his blade then his arms. Arran did the same, and the two of them shared a joke.
I squinted quickly at the gantry. It was empty of any body parts, just the chain dangling over the bloodied metal floor now they’d finished with Victor.
Relief hit me in a flood.
As Genevieve had said, the body work was done. Our men had removed a predator from the city. A danger to womankind eliminated.
I took the lesson to heart.
Earlier, Arran had wondered about Red from the Four Milers then simply picked up the phone and called him. He knew the man well enough to suss him out in a less-than-candid conversation, but more importantly, he’d just done it. Like Connor had done his work here tonight. No diplomacy, no hedging around tough issues. They struck at the heart and cleaned up.
I’d stood in front of my father and let him manage me. Obeyed him even after he’d given a vile order. Turned a blind eye to things he did that weren’t legal and strayed far from the justification of moral.
I had to change.
My calm acceptance of things that were wrong. The way others treated me. All of it.
But from the way Connor prowled my way stripping his blood-spattered shirt, I had a much more present danger to handle.