Chapter 26
26
E ric knocked on my bedroom door the night after we got home from the wedding. “Mrs. King? I have a message from your husband.”
Mrs. King. I’d married him. Now I just had to survive it.
Eric had such an eager look on his face as he handed me the note that I immediately knew something horrible was about to happen.
Meet me down at the menagerie. I ’ ve got another wedding present for you.
My heart thundered in my chest, yet I had no choice but to go down there.
Who was he going to torture this time?
Reaper .
What was I going to do if he had Reaper in there?
Or Ophelia or Styx or Az or any of the other people from the club?
I dismissed Eric with a gesture to the door. “I’ll be down in a moment.”
He swung a set of car keys around his finger. “I’m heading to your sister’s place. Mr. King likes me to keep an eye on her.”
Shit! She wouldn’t leave with my aunt and uncle until just before the auction and King was making sure I knew Eric could hurt her in the meantime.
I lunged for his keys, but he snatched them away. “Don’t you go near her!”
He shrugged as he strode from the room. “That depends on you. Now be a good girl and get down there, or you’ll miss the best part.”
I ran to the safe Kevin kept in his office, the one he didn’t know I’d memorized the code to. I frantically spun the dial, opened it, and tucked one of the handguns into my jacket pocket after checking to see if it was loaded.
Then I ran for the menagerie.
I was too late! A man’s incoherent screams tore through the quiet evening.
I stumbled as it happened again. My chest was being ripped open and my heart yanked out. I ran the last stretch to the enclosure, palming the gun in my pocket. Before I pulled it out, I caught sight of the man who was being ripped to shreds, and it wasn’t anyone I recognized.
“Who is that?” I said urgently as I fought to catch my breath, trying not to puke.
King wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “That, my lovely wife, is the man who killed your brother.” He held up his phone and played a surveillance video that showed my brother talking to someone in an alley. Tears pricked my eyes at the sight of him alive. If Kevin was showing me this, were these the last moments of Geoff’s life?
I cried out when the man next to him raised a gun and shot my brother in the chest. Geoff collapsed to the ground, and when the man turned to speak to someone off camera, I caught sight of the tattoo on his throat.
Die Free. I’d spoken to that guy at Thor’s bar weeks ago. I looked back into the enclosure and recognized him now that I’d been reminded. His face was bloodied, but I could still make out the tattoo on his throat.
“He’s part of the Serpents of Death MC, but it was a guy named Reaper who gave the order as part of a deal between them. I’ll see to it he meets the same fate, little wife. Don’t you worry.”
My stomach dropped. He couldn ’ t have. He would ’ ve told me. Is this another one of King’s head games to test me?
The man in the enclosure screamed, begging for his life, offering to turn over information. He’d killed my brother in cold blood, but I still wasn’t sure he deserved to die like this. No one deserved to die like this.
King moved closer, gripping the bars of the enclosure as he watched with eagerness rather than revulsion. “He gave her a good chase,” he said wistfully. “Better than the others. She took her time hunting him, passing up chances to take him down, waiting until she was absolutely sure. It was a thing of beauty.”
The leopard had ripped open the guy’s stomach and dragged his entrails onto the ground. The stench was sickening. He pulled himself up onto his forearms and looked at us, pleading desperately. There was a flash of recognition on his face when he saw me, and I wondered if he was mentally coherent enough to tell Kevin anything damning about that night. My story would unravel quickly if he said anything about me leaving with Thor. Would he think to barter his life with the information?
He’d be dead today no matter how this played out. It could be a slow, agonizing death drawn out even longer if King questioned him. Or I could end this.
I yanked the gun from my pocket and fired a shot straight into the guy’s head. King flinched and ducked, his eyes flying wide with rage at what I’d done. I could’ve shot Kevin in the back of the head where he was standing, and I watched the realization play out on his face: the flash of fear that was quickly replaced with anger. He was so shaken, he couldn’t speak.
I put the gun back in my pocket, not letting him see how much my hand was shaking too. “My brother’s murderer should be my kill. Not hers.” I sounded icy calm, but the truth was that something feral had just been unleashed inside me. I wanted to rip King’s entrails out like the big cat had done to the dead biker, but I had to wait. Eric was on his way to my sister.
King’s mouth fell open in shock as he looked between me and the dead man like he still couldn’t believe it.
“Are we finished here?” I asked dismissively.
When he didn’t answer, I turned on my heel and headed back to the house.
Maybe I was a fool, but I didn’t believe Reaper had ordered my brother killed. The next time King took me down to that enclosure, it really could be Reaper or any of the others.
I had to stop King, and I already had the beginning of a plan. For the three days of the Black Rose Auction, I’d be on neutral ground with all the players present and my sister would be safely away. Three days of protection to take him out at the knees. It only gave me a few months to figure out the rest of it, but that had to be enough.
Just like the leopard, I’d passed up a chance to kill him. I’d hunt him now. And wait until I could tear his throat out.