Chapter 23
HARLOW
"Zeus is a really fancy name for someone who isn't very fancy." I stepped around my torture box.
Lotz-Moore crouched inside, ball gag in his mouth. His ankles were zip tied. Hands bound with a pair of fluffy pink handcuffs.
Boner's touch. He'd insisted on the addition. Honestly, it was perfect.
"He reminds me of a raccoon," Boner said. "All scrunched down like that." He mimicked Lotz- Moore's position. Sniffing at him like an actual trash panda.
Lotz-Moore glared back at him.
"Hey, asshole." Boner tapped on the perspex beside the man's head. "I'm not scared of you. You're in the box and I'm not. Do you know what happens in this box?”
He seemed to be enjoying this, so I sat back to watch.
"See that tap there?" Boner pointed. "We're going to turn that on. Water is going to drip out of there. Slowly. Nice and slow." He drew the words out for emphasis.
"Sooner or later, it's going to reach here." He touched his Adam's apple with the side of his hand.
"Then it's going to come up a little bit more." His hand hovered in front of his mouth. "Then some more." He moved his hand up to his eyes. "And then…" He held his hand over his head.
"No more you."
Lotz-Moore bash his shoulder against the side of the box, as if somehow that would get him out of there and save him from the inevitable.
"I think he likes the idea." Boner grinned up at me. "He could do with a good wash."
"I don't hear him objecting," I said easily.
Lotz-Moore turned his glare up at me, a hint of pleading in his eyes too. He was sure someone would come for him. No one was coming.
"Hey." Cass stepped into the room.
I put out my arm, wrapped it around him when he was close enough. "What did you find?"
"Archer and I waited, but no one turned up for him." He nodded towards Lotz-Moore, speaking loud enough to make sure the man heard.
"He made a few more generous donations to various charities. I sent the evidence of his insider trading to the FBI. Along with a few clues that point fingers away from us. When they go looking, they'll find a business deal that went wrong. And possibly some mafia ties I happened to find."
He looked pleased with himself. Rightly so.
"Nice," I said approvingly.
It wouldn't be a stretch for the authorities to assume the mafia made him disappear. They didn't seem very forgiving when it came to business deals gone wrong, especially if he tried to screw over one of their own.
I was half-tempted to release him out on the streets and let them take care of him, but he might run. I wasn't going to take that risk.
Besides, making an enemy of the mafia seemed like a bad idea to me, in spite of Archer's assurances that he knew people. Contacts like that only got you so far if you put a toe over the wrong line.
"Interesting no one came to check on our friend here," Boner said. "He was more out in the cold than he thought."
"Or I disabled the alarm system he tried to use," Cass said, a sly smile on his lips. "No one was coming because they didn't know to come. I managed to find out who he'd send the message to if it went through, though."
“Oh?" I asked. I tried to ignore the dread that crept into my mind.
I thought this was over, did we have more to deal with? Minions of Lotz-Moore who might come after us out of revenge?
"He had a security company on speed dial," Cass said. "I paid the balance of it. They won't be a problem."
I nodded, relieved. "Thank you. Great work." I kissed his cheek.
"It seems like Mr. Lotz-Moore didn't have many friends," Boner said. He crouched down in front of him and tapped on the box again. "Hey in there. I'll be your friend. Wait. No I won't. You're an asshole."
He tapped again before standing up and stepping away. "Can you believe it was Archer's phone that took him down? Who knew technology could be so useful?"
Cass glanced up from his own phone and shrugged. "Seems useful to me. In the right hands."
"The 'right hands' is the important part there." Boner said, pointing a finger gun at him. "This guy was anything but 'the right hands.' Can we turn the water on now?"
"I think he's waited long enough." I ran a hand over the back of my neck. "I should get down to Angel's Rest anyway."
The fire department had put out the fire, but I needed to go and see for myself. I won't lie, I wasn't looking forward to it. No one wanted to see years of hard work lying in ashes.
"Cass, would you like to do the honors?" I gestured toward the tap.
He frowned at it before shaking his head. "No thanks, I'll leave that to you. It's your mission after all."
"Have at it," Boner told me.
I smiled and leaned over to turn the tap. The water started to drip on the plate directly below it, one plink at a time.
Lotz-Moore flinched.
"We'll be back soon," I told him.
"Don't die too fast," Boner laughed.
Lotz-Moore inched away from the water, but there was nowhere to go. All he could do was curl up in the corner and watch it fall.
I sighed as I peered in the front window at the rubble that used to be my beloved restaurant. Not much was left. The tables and chairs were lumps of ash. The walls were singed. The floors too. Everything still smoked. A heavy, pungent smell hung in the air. It stung my nostrils. My eyes.
My heart.
"This sucks," Jules said, putting an arm around me.
He and Archer had headed down here, ahead of us, hoping to find out more.
"Yeah," I said softly. It was bricks and mortar, yes, but it was more than that. It was memories. I met Cass and Jules here. And Erin. Shelly too.
With the good memories there were bad. I'd also met Gina and Yvette here. Hypnos. Lotz-Moore.
"Maybe this isn't a bad thing," I whispered. "As long as this place is standing, I'll remember all the things that happened here. Now we can start over."
"You want to rebuild?" Jules glanced over at me, his brow creased as if he couldn't understand why I wouldn't take the insurance money and walk.
"Yeah, I do," I said. "What I built here was something special. If I rebuild, it can be even better. Why wouldn't I want to do that?"
"I don't know." He looked back at the debris. "Because you have the chance to put it all behind you? Your sister and all of those monsters."
"Is that what you'd do?" I asked gently.
He thought about that for a moment before saying, "Fuck no. That would be letting the asshole win. In my book, assholes don't get to win."
"Amen to that, brother." Boner offered him a fist bump.
Jules hesitated for a moment before accepting, tapping his hand against Boner's.
"This place will be amazing. Rising from the ashes like a phoenix," Boner said.
He raised his hands in front of himself, fingers upright, splayed apart, pushing them up slowly like they rose toward the sky and beyond.
"I'm keeping the name," I said, before they decided to call it Phoenix Rest or something like that.
"I'd expect nothing less. Looks like we're going to be busy for the next while." The enthusiasm in Boner's eyes suggested he was up for it. Of course, he was up for anything.
"We are," I said. "I've already made an offer on the other restaurant. We're going to be renovating two at a time. I hope you're good with that." I smiled up at Jules.
He groaned. "I guess so. After I finish my father's job down in the Hamptons. I guess I should do that." His expression was grudging, but accepting. He'd give his father this opportunity.
Hopefully Forrest didn't squander it. I wanted them to have a relationship with each other, when they were ready. I knew Cass wanted that too. He wanted his father back in his life.
"Did they say anything about who started this?" I asked.
"They aren't sure." It was Archer who answered. "My bet is Lotz-Moore paid someone to do it. It wouldn't be difficult to find someone with an accelerant and a lighter."
"I'm glad it didn't damage the businesses to either side," I said.
Getting to me was one thing. Hurting other people in the process was something else. This was my battle, my mission, not theirs.
"The fire department had a quick look. There's minimal damage," Archer agreed. "It was contained to the restaurant."
"Are you sure it wasn't faulty wiring?" Boner said, shooting a sly look toward Jules.
"It wasn't fucking faulty wiring,” Jules growled.
"Accidents happen," Boner said, continuing to grin.
"Like me wrapping wiring around your fucking neck?" Jules suggested. There wasn't much heat in it.
"You won't do that. You love me too much." Boner draped an arm over Jules' shoulder and another over Cass.
Jules smirked, but turned away. "They said we have to stay out of the building for a couple of days. They have to do a thorough check to make sure it's safe before anyone can go in there."
"Then we start cleaning up," I said on an exhale.
That was going to be dirty work, but we were up for it. We'd been doing dirty work for a long time now. A little bit more wouldn't hurt us.
Archer's nostrils flared. I had a feeling he was thinking about exactly how to scour the place until it was thoroughly clean before we started any kind of rebuilding. Of course he was. He'd be right there with the elbow grease, scrubbing until everything shone, and then some.
"It's going to take time, but I have some ideas about what I want the new place to look like," I said. "And I have a name for the other restaurant in mind."
They all turned to look at me and I said, "I'm going to call it Angel's Justice."