29. Monster
Chapter 29
Monster
COLE
“ E ven without the psychotically happy guard, this place gives me the creeps.”
I looked between the seats of the SUV at Ash in the passenger one. He scanned out his window.
I whacked his shoulder so he would look the other way. “You spoke too soon.”
It wasn’t the same guard, seeing as that one had been a dickhead FBI agent, but a different chipper guy approached the vehicle. “Blessed da?—”
Marco rolled down the window to snap, “We’re here to see Abraham.”
Making friends wherever he goes.
A flash of irritation crossed the guard’s face before he resumed his bland, lobotomy smile. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Then I’m sorry, Abraham isn’t available today.”
Ash leaned across the center console to look at the guy. “How about you do your thing and run the plates, tell him who’s here, and let him decide?”
The guard’s mouth opened and closed again before he backed away to talk on the phone. He returned with a forced smile plastered on his face as he extended guest passes to Marco.
He didn’t take them.
Awkwardly dropping his arm, he turned to the side. “Do you know where the solarium is?”
“We’ll find it,” Marco muttered, already rolling up the window and driving forward. The verbal answer was an improvement from how he would usually handle it.
Callie is softening him already.
After she’d told us about the bracelet the night before, we knew a visit to Eternal Sun couldn’t wait, even if the timing sucked.
With most of the Black Resorts restaurants open for Thanksgiving, Freddy needed to check the ones he worked with to ensure everything was in place for the busy day.
That meant we’d had to leave Callie alone for the first time since her attack.
I would’ve felt better if I could’ve verbally reviewed the rules with her before we left for work, but I hadn’t wanted to wake her.
I discreetly checked my phone, but other than the earlier texts from Freddy that she was awake, fed, and seemed happy, there was nothing.
Marco must’ve noticed what I was doing because he met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Anything?”
“No.”
“Shit, you both are bad already,” Ash said—not that he had room to talk. His overprotectiveness with his wife was why he was there in the first place. Once he’d found out where we were going, he’d insisted on coming.
The link between Callie and his dead mother-in-law might’ve been a coincidence, but no one bought that the stabbing was.
And the bracelet on the mannequin confirmed what we suspected.
Eternal Sun was involved.
“This is where Callie lived?” Marco gave a low whistle as he drove up the road. “If it weren’t a fucking cult, it would be nice.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The place was filled with gardens, fountains, upscale cabins, and a million other things that would’ve made it peaceful if it was actually a wellness center.
But it was a cult, so the rest was a moot point.
“And the cheap land next to a nuclear waste dump would be a great place for a vacation home if not for that pesky radiation,” I said.
Ash rubbed a palm across his beard. “I dunno, the radiation could work to your advantage. If I’ve learned one thing from comic books, it’s that Callie might grow a third arm. Then she could hold all your… hands.”
“Ha ha,” I deadpanned. Though truth be told, the joke made me feel better.
It wouldn’t have changed anything if Maximo or Ash disapproved of us being with Callie. We were good with it, and that was all that mattered. But they hadn’t.
They also hadn’t looked surprised when we’d told them.
The only shocking part was it’d been Marco to share the development. A notoriously private man who—in all the years I’d known him—had never brought a woman around. Had never even mentioned one.
He kept the wonders rolling by saying, “She’d need all three just for mine.” He lifted his grip from the steering wheel and splayed his fingers. “Big hands and all.”
In a strictly observational way, I now knew that wasn’t a joke. I had no interest in him or the monster in his pants. There was no attraction there. We were tight. We always had been. But it was nothing more than that.
Nothing like what we had with Callie.
And what I felt toward Freddy.
Because for as long as I’d tried to ignore that pull, the night before had torn down those walls and the distance we’d been careful to keep between us. I had no idea how it would play out, but I was finally open to letting it.
As we neared the buildings, I clicked start on my laptop and covered it with my suit coat. I made sure nothing was visible before climbing from the car.
Like the last time Ash and I were there, Abraham came out with a few men who were armed under their linens.
“Ash Cooper, a pleasant surprise on this blessed day. The universe always delivers when the sun is shining.” He gestured to the glass-fronted building behind him. “Did you finally decide to take me up on my tour offer?”
Ash choked back a laugh. “Not going to happen.”
“Then what can I do for you?”
I stepped forward with a printout. “Got something for you to look at.”
When security had contacted us about the mannequin in the dyed fountain, we’d assumed it was a stupid prank. Then I’d opened the picture they’d sent over. There’d been no denying it was meant to look like Callie.
Security footage showed an older man we didn’t recognize strolling over to heft the mannequin into the water. He clearly wasn’t some criminal mastermind since he hadn’t been discreet about it. He hadn’t even tried to hide his face.
I’d tracked him with cameras into the resort. When security grabbed him as he was leaving, he’d admitted someone gave him the mannequin, red dye, and two hundred bucks to dump it in the fountain. He couldn’t give us any details on who’d hired him outside of the shelter where he lived. His focus had been on the offered cash he’d immediately lost at a craps table.
Abraham barely acknowledged me as he took the offered paper. Since I wasn’t the one who’d forked over fifty grand as easily as an extra piece of gum, I wasn’t surprised. He glanced down at the image before doing a double take.
Staggering back like he’d taken a physical blow, he raised a shaking hand to the photo. His voice was a rough gasp. “My goddess.”
Marco stepped forward, but I grabbed the back of his jacket to rein him in.
It was good I did because the Tommy Bahama mafia behind Abraham was better trained than they looked. At Marco’s minimal movement, they went alert.
“What happened to her? Who did this?” Abraham’s face pinched, and honest to God, I thought the man would start sobbing even as he glowered at us accusingly. “I knew this would happen when she got a job in that den of sin you call a resort.” He flung an arm out. “This is a resort. Paradise. It’s where she belonged. Not out there alone.”
Then it’s a good thing she’s not alone.
My own gaze narrowed at his words. “How do you know where she works?”
He startled at his slipup.
“Remember what I said would happen if you sniffed around my world?” Ash bit out.
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about his life or Mila. It didn’t matter. They were the same thing.
Abraham was smart enough to look nervous in his grief. “This has nothing to do with you or Veronica’s daughter. This is about Calliope. She was part of our family. Her parents are here. I don’t know how I’m going to tell them I failed.” He took a shuddering inhale. “It was my job to make sure she was safe until she returned where she belongs.”
There was no holding Marco back. He closed the distance between him and the older man. “She’s already where she belongs.”
His nerves quickly shifted to terror before landing on rage. Outsized or not, Abraham held his ground as weapons were pulled behind him. “ Dead ? How is that where she belongs? What did you do to her?”
Since I wasn’t a dumbass, I pulled mine, too, but did it as I spoke. I kept my emotions in check and used the same name he did instead of the one that showed familiarity—Marco had already done that. “Calliope isn’t dead.”
Abraham’s red face turned to me as he shook the crumpled paper in his hold. “You just handed me a picture of her body while this monster told me it’s where she belongs.”
“That’s not Calliope. Or anyone. It’s a mannequin.”
He smoothed it out and stared at it.
Ash had the good sense to pull Marco away and keep ahold of him. Just in time, too. Because at the loving way Abraham touched the paper, the big guy probably would’ve shoved it down his throat.
And I wouldn’t have moved a single inch to stop him.
The shaken man looked up at me. “Why does it look like her?”
“No idea,” I lied.
“What’s happening? I already know she hasn’t been to work, so where is she?”
“Where she belongs,” Marco said again.
When Ash and I had come to talk about Veronica’s debt, we’d agreed that Abraham hadn’t treated her like an ex-girlfriend. There’d been no affection for a woman he missed or hatred for a woman who’d broken his heart. Despite the relationship they’d had, his feelings had seemed detached.
That aligned with what Callie had claimed. That the two had been business partners, not lovers.
It was the exact opposite of how he looked right then.
It wasn’t paternal or platonic concern on his face. Not the suspicion of a protective friend of the family.
Jealousy twisted his features as he connected the dots between Marco and Callie.
He was just a couple of dots short.
Abraham was surprisingly quick to mask that emotion. Returning to his benign smile and benevolent air, he held up the paper. “It’s clear she’s in danger. The smart thing would be for her to return here. Our security is top-of-the-line. No one could reach her.”
I laughed, and not just at the idea that their system was better than ours. It also wasn’t just me who had the reaction. Marco and Ash laughed, too, making Abraham stand straighter at the perceived—and intended—insult.
Even if we lost our fucking minds enough to agree to that, Callie would cut our dicks off before she would ever return willingly.
Since we had our minds—and wanted to keep our dicks—it would never happen.
I didn’t share that. I got to the point so we could get out of there.
His reaction to the photo was genuine. He’d thought she was dead, which meant he wasn’t behind the hoax. But that didn’t mean someone else at Eternal Sun wasn’t.
“What can you tell me about the bracelet in that picture?” I asked.
“All our members have them. They signify how high we’ve risen.” He lifted his wrist to show his. He turned before sighing like he was just noticing the weapons. “Put those away and show them.”
The guards behind him holstered their guns and held up their arms.
“Is that Calliope’s in the photo?” I asked.
He didn’t look down at the image or away from me. “Thomas.”
His little squirrelly assistant came forward from behind the wall of guards.
“Go see if Calliope’s rising bracelet is with the belongings she left behind.”
The assistant rushed away to do his bidding.
He’s one back hump and a limp away from being an authentic Igor.
Guarded and on edge, we remained in a heavy silence while we waited. Abraham didn’t even try to sell us on his bullshit philosophies or a tour.
He worked to hide it, but his angry eyes kept cutting to Marco.
Man, he’d be really fucking pissed if he found out she didn’t belong to one man.
That she’d given herself to three of us.
If he had to find out, I would pay money to see his reaction.
I was tempted to tell him just to watch the way he fell apart, but I didn’t. We had enough on our plates.
The weasel returned and shook his head. “It’s not there, but she took most of her belongings with her.”
Bullshit .
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to play Calliope dress-up with a mannequin?” Ash asked. “Or who’d want people to think she met the same fate as Veronica?”
Abraham didn’t answer right away. Like his grief, his contemplation seemed genuine. He actually wanted the answer. But he didn’t have one. “Everyone loves Calliope. We’re anxiously awaiting her exploration to end and for her to return home. No one would hurt her. As far as a connection to Veronica, you couldn’t get two more different women. I don’t think they even spoke. Calliope was at a much higher enlightenment phase.”
But not because she was trying to be.
I lifted my chin and turned for the SUV. When we were nearly there, I muttered to Marco, “Tell that fucker that Ash’s previous threat now applies to Callie.”
Marco didn’t ask why I didn’t say it myself. He also didn’t mince words. Turning, he called, “Hey, fucker.”
Abraham glared over his shoulder.
“Ash’s previous threat now applies to Calliope. Be smart about it.”
Without another word, we got in and took off.
We didn’t speak to each other until we reached Star and began sweeping the SUV for bugs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his assistant crawled through the sewer system to plant a tracker from below.