Chapter 4
4
T hree. Fucking. Weeks.
That’s the goddamn eternity we’ve been through in order to find this girl since she was taken.
No one vanishes like a ghost with such efficiency unless they’re dead, or they’ve been sucked into the belly of the serpent coiled around Port Macabre.
Now we know for certain she’s not floating face down in the harbor, except what I don’t know as I survey her pale face and sunken eyes, is if she’s still alive on the inside.
What I would give to have taken each one of these sick fucks back to Noire House and severed strips of flesh from their bones day by day, whittling them down like they’re nothing more than fucking pencil shavings. I’d do it all while they’re strung up and still breathing, too.
Hawke was too merciful in giving them such a quick death.
I go to shove my mask off my face, but as my fingers meet the shell at my chin, the man in question stops me.
“Leave it on,” Hawke barks. With his gun still clasped in both hands, he checks the slumped bodies, kicking their legs.
“She needs Doc.” I search the pockets of the guy with the severed artery in his throat until I find the key for the cuffs.
“Yes, but those kids out there need him more than she does right now.”
As I push off my haunches, I survey the situation at hand. While my pulse thumps as a result of the firestorm we’ve just been through, I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet that the girl we’ve been searching for is finally ours once more.
Or, at least, temporarily so.
As I kneel over her, she turns her head away. Those brown eyes squeeze shut, and I’m about ready to mutilate some motherfuckers for what they’ve done to her.
Although, is what we’ve done to her any better, considering the life that now lies ahead of this girl?
“You’re safe now, love,” I say, except, at the sound of my voice, upon hearing my words, that only seems to make her shrink more.
Easing her wrists into a more comfortable position, I run my gaze over her, looking for obvious signs that she’s been hurt badly. My blood is raging like an inferno at the scene we interrupted, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I discover the worst has happened to her during the length of time she’s been hidden here.
Looking across the room, I don’t need to see his face to know.
There’s a special kind of fury vibrating off the man towering above the bed, and he’s got to pull himself the fuck together.
“Get it under control.” I narrow my focus on him as I make an attempt at gently massaging her wrists. I’m doing my goddamn best to ignore the way she’s clumsy and clearly doped up, yet keeps trying to pull her arms away in order to evade my hold.
Taking a step toward the bed, he cracks his knuckles.
“Yeah, we all want to spill more of their blood, but you can either help look after the girl, or you can go take a long fucking jog back to Noire House to cool off. Your choice.”
He jerks his chin, making his decision in all of two seconds like I knew he would.
The girl .
“You carry her, and I’ll set the charges. I don’t think I’ve ever been more pleased to burn a shithole like this to the ground.”
Angel reaches those giant hands of his below the girl like she’s fragile glass. As he makes contact, she flinches and makes a strangled noise. This entire scene will be killing him, but he scoops her against his chest all the same, quietly ignoring her attempts to prevent him from being the protector and guardian he so desperately wants to be in this moment.
“Remember, she’s not yours.” The words are out of me with more venom than I intended before I can stop them. He glares at me from behind his mask and raises his middle finger.
Fuck you very much.
“Quit fucking around.” Hawke snaps at our heels in that way he does, before speaking into the radio attached to his Kevlar vest. “The others have cleared the building.”
His blue eyes pierce everything he surveys from behind that mask. You don’t have to be a genius to know how much this shit affects him underneath. All the memories of his own childhood regurgitated over and over each time one of these operations is dismantled.
Which is exactly why he and his brother do it. It’s why we’re here by his side, helping pull off this raid.
The world of Port Macabre holds too many secrets, and at least the Callianos are ridding it of the worst vestiges of poison lingering in these back alleys and abandoned buildings.
On completing a final sweep of the building and confirming everything is clear, there’s a certain satisfaction that comes with knowing these maggots are done. Their bodies will be charred and buried beneath rubble by sunrise, and the news will report on a suspicious fire caused by unknown arsonists. There are no missing person reports or funerals for these kinds of men, who have already sold their souls to a higher power.
One that thrives on secrets and control.
Ultimately, the ones running this place were cannon fodder. Their destiny was always to end up eating a bullet, or worse.
I wish it was the second option.
They don’t call me the butcher for nothing.
“How long will the detox period take?” I toss my mask on the bench and unfasten my Kevlar, lifting the vest over my head. As I do so, I catch the familiar sight of blood still caked on my hands.
The girl lies on the gurney of my workshop, surrounded by the tools of my trade here at Noire House. While there is plenty of flesh on offer at all hours of the day or night in the hundreds of rooms above our heads at the mansion, my specialist services reside down here, far away from the lights, the stage shows, and the private VIP rooms.
A subterranean cave of terrors.
Or at least, that’s what those with the misfortune to end up here believe it to be.
She hasn’t stopped thrashing, and Angel had to damn near pin her against his chest for the duration of the drive back. Much the same as he’s doing now. Holding her down against the flat surface so that we can get a fucking sedative into her.
Doc eases the needle out of her vein.
“If it’s the same shit they always cook up, then it’ll be a few days. This is only a one-time thing, Grey.” The man looks at me with heavy lines creasing around his eyes as he waves the syringe in my direction. “She needs to be off drugs, not substituting one for another. You’ll have to watch her. I’d say when she wakes up, she’ll feel pretty disoriented, not to mention more aggressive than usual, while going through withdrawals.”
“Fuc—Fug—” Her tongue grows heavy as she tries to spit insults at Angel. He continues to pin her arms at her sides, while staring longingly at that sweetheart face of hers like it’s the prettiest picture the man has ever seen. I know obsession, and this is one he’s been unable to shake for far too long now.
The worst part in all that, is knowing the truth. He’s well aware of who she is and what she represents in this place, and that’s an enormous problem if he can’t let go of his own addiction.
We remain in a lingering silence as Doc proceeds with this next part carefully, methodically. Now that she’s consumed by the effects of being sedated, he can examine her properly. He drapes a thin sheet over her lower half and goes about either confirming the worst, or giving us a thread of sanity to cling to.
Angel damn near wears a hole in the floor, pacing in the background.
I’m not sure how he’ll react if Doc looks up from his position between her thighs and gives us a pinched expression, one that says it all.
My throat tightens. The silence only punctuated by the rustling sheet as he moves her sleeping body.
After taking what feels like forever to look her over, he stands upright and flicks his medical gloves into the trash.
Doc fixes me with an intense look. “What I cannot tell you is if anything has happened to her over the past few weeks.”
“What can you tell us?” I lean both hands on the counter. Something eases ever so slightly in my chest at the tone of his voice.
“Nothing points to any recent sexual activity. Other than the lingering impacts of being drugged, from what I can gather, Posey wasn’t assaulted within the past few days. I don’t believe she requires any specific medical attention.”
It’ll have to be enough, for now.
Angel comes back to stand beside her pale form, emitting the kind of fury that says he’d go back to that place where we found her and murder her captors all over again if he could.
“Text me if you need anything.” Doc works efficiently, packing up and shouldering his bag before he flicks his wrist to take a glance at his watch. He takes a moment to do one final double-check of her pulse. We’ve worked alongside each other for years within the Anguis. He knows our shit, we trust him with ours. There aren’t many who we allow into our inner circle of what we carry out on nights like tonight. While those secret society members—the very bastards perpetrating trafficking rings—indulge in whatever depravity takes their fancy, we’re busy dismantling piece by piece.
“Even for a dick pic? You know I’m dying to know what equipment you’re hiding beneath those pants.” Sue me, black humor is my default setting, even at times like this, and I can’t turn that shit off. I poke my tongue against the side of my cheek. He exhales wearily and shakes his head in reply. Doc is used to my shit-stirring by now, but he can’t go walking around looking like that and not expect me to comment on it.
“Of course you’re in a good mood, aren’t you? You got to slit some throats, and that always riles you up.”
I tut at him. “We don’t kink shame here at Noire House.” It would amount to sacrilege in a place like this—an exclusive sex club, frequented by members of the Anguis.
“Text me if you need any medical advice… relating specifically to this girl.” He scratches at his salt-and-pepper beard. I don’t know how old Doc is, but he’s aging like fine wine, of that I can be certain .
“What if I show you mine? Can I tempt you, then?”
“Goodbye, Greyson. I have more important things to do, and don’t test me, or so help me I’ll have no hesitation to use your government name.”
“Ouch. Right in the balls.”
“You like that kind of shit a little too much, too.”
“See, you do think about me when I’m not around.”
“Do us all a favor and continue to keep this one out of trouble, Angel.” Doc slaps his shoulder as he makes his way out of the room.
That leaves the two of us standing eye to eye, watching over the now comatose figure with her dark hair tangled in a bun on top of her head and neck rolled to one side.
Angel taps a finger beside her hips, then pinches the threadbare fabric covering her stomach.
Clothes.
“I know. We’ll figure something out,” I say.
He then gestures toward the caked splatters of blood, and dried smears across her chest and face.
She’s a mess.
“Yeah, well, we needed to sort this shit out first, didn’t we. I’ll figure out how we’re gonna get her cleaned up in a minute.”
As I say the words, Hawke strolls in. Freshly showered and wearing his customary black suit shirt folded to the elbows, with the top buttons undone, revealing all that tanned skin thanks to whatever unknown heritage he comes from. Fitted black slacks. Polished boots. Looking every inch the deviant lord of this castle, the man who has found his way to survive in this world where most would have crumbled.
Now, he oversees everything beneath this roof, and don’t we all know it.
Except shit like that has never stopped me from giving him a piece of my mind. I’m on him before he takes more than two steps beyond the threshold. My elbow meets his throat as I shove him against the wall.
“Did you know?” I snarl in his pretty fucking face. “Did you know she was there?”
The Callianos are keepers of a multitude of secrets, and my every instinct tells me that it was no coincidence we raided that warehouse tonight only to discover her at the mercy of those assholes.
“There was intel.” His eyes flare. “You know it’s never black and white. That shit is unreliable as fuck, whispers floating on the wind most of the time.”
Grunting, I give him another shove to his windpipe, then back up. “If I find out you or your goddamn brother knew she was there this whole time, I’ll carve you up myself and make sure to take it nice and slow. Just how you like it.” Pointing at him to emphasize my threat, I then shove a hand through my hair.
“Just ran into Doc in the hallway. He’s sorted her out, I presume?” The asshole adjusts his shirt sleeves, as if nothing even happened.
“Sedated. For now.”
“That right there…” Hawke nods his head in the direction of the man standing guard over her limp figure, with arms folded, a pitbull glaring our way. “That right there is a problem.”
Angel doesn’t move. That strong jaw beneath his beard flexes as his dark eyes remain locked on us.
I don’t fucking care.
“He’ll watch her. Doc left instructions to keep an eye on her while the drugs flush out of her system. He’s running a tox screen for us to make sure it’s no different to the usual shit they give them.”
“As long as that’s all you do, Angel.” Hawke pulls out his phone from a pocket and pinches his brow as his eyes scan over the incoming alert. No doubt a notification direct to his phone letting him know the private VIP entrance is being used. “I’ve got clients arriving. Make sure she’s secured.”
“Will do.”
Hawke drags his hand through his dark hair for a moment. Those wavy strands are always perfectly in place, but right now, they’re still damp from his shower. “Take her to the house. It’ll be easier to guard her there.”
Angel’s weight shifts, and he tilts his head to one side.
As if she’d be going anywhere else.
“Fine by me. I need to wash those motherfuckers brains off anyway.” I roll my shoulders. The night is far enough gone, I’ll be glad for a hot shower and a drink and to get her cleaned up.
Just as Hawke is about to leave, he stops in the doorway.
“I’m serious, Angel.” He swipes out of whatever is displayed on the phone screen. “We’ve got our orders to continue her initiation. You know the consequences won’t be pretty coming from the other Households if you go getting any ideas. Until they decide it’s time, you can have your fun with her. She might be fully brought into the fold now, but after they claim her, she won’t ever be yours…”
His blue eyes fix on where the man in question starts to cradle her limp form. Lifting her in his arms as if she weighs nothing more than a feather.
“So don’t go getting fucking attached.”