Chapter Five
Chapter
Five
Present day
Aiden scowled at his phone, tempted to
heave it as far out into the lake as possible. The only problem
with that was the fact that Deefer was a lab who loved water, and
he would just go out and fetch the damn thing.
He thrust the offensive
device into the back pocket of his jeans in frustration. The test
he’d just received had come from a retired FBI agent that he had
known since he was eight years old. He had reached out to Aiden to
tell him that Miles Duncan had been released from jail two
weeks. Two motherfucking weeks!
“Hey, what’s up?” Nick’s
voice broke through the red haze of rage that had descended. “You
look like you want to rip someone’s throat out, and not in a good
way.”
“How the hell can you rip
someone’s throat out in a good way?” Aiden asked as a way to divert
the conversation. “I would have thought there was only one way to
do it and it would all be pretty damn bad.”
Nick sat down on the log beside him.
“Well now, as you know, there is more than one way to remove
someone’s esophagus, and some result in a quick death and some not
so much. I would have thought that if you were the one getting it
ripped out then you would want it quick and therefore that would be
considered the good way. And don’t think I’m not onto your
diversion tactics. Something had you angry a moment ago, and I want
to know what it is.”
Aiden sighed in resignation. Nick was
nothing if not stubborn, and if he wanted an answer, then he would
be like a dog with a bone until he got it. “I got a text from the
agent that dealt with my family’s case.” Nick froze, his entire
body going on alert, and he turned his head to look at him. Aiden
didn’t have to go into detail because Nick knew everything about
what had happened.
“And what did he have to
say?” Nick said in a quiet deadly tone.
“Duncan was
released.”
Nick cursed, his jaw tightening to
such a degree Aiden could have sworn he heard his lover’s jaw
crack.
“When?”
And this was the part he knew Nick was
not going to take very well. “Two weeks ago.”
“Fucking motherfucking
bastards!” Nick raged, leaping up to pace in front of the lake.
“Who the hell was in charge of that fuck up? Did they not fucking
think the sole surviving member of a family killed by that prick,
the one who actually identified the Platform bomber had a right to
fucking know that the asshole he put away was loose?”
Oddly, watching Nick rage at the
system, cursing fluidly, had a calming effect on Aiden. He grinned
as Nick started to talk about what he was going to do with whoever
was responsible for not reaching out sooner. The thought of Nick
pulling someone’s balls off and stringing them through the man’s
ears had him laughing. Not so much because of the violence of the
act itself, but because of the vivid way Nick described the
move.
“What the hell are you
laughing about?” Nick growled in his direction when he’d finally
calmed down enough to catch onto Aiden’s amusement.
“I think the next time I
have a fight or murder scene in one of my books, I am going to get
you to dictate the action for me,” Aiden said with a grin. “Your
words are so damn colorful, you will absolutely take my readers on
the journey of ripping a man’s testes off and fashioning them into
jewelry. That shit’s gold, right there.”
Nick huffed a laugh and dropped his
hands to his hips. “Goddamn you, Aiden. How is it that you can talk
me out of my mad better than anyone else I know?”
Aiden stood up and walked over to
Nick, wrapping his arms around his waist. “That’s just one of my
many skills I guess.” He sighed and placed his forehead on Nick’s
shoulder, reveling in the warmth of Nick’s embrace when he wrapped
his arms around him. “Duncan is out, and according to Agent
Dougherty, Duncan was released two weeks ago, but hasn’t missed a
single check in with his parole officer. He’s still back in
California, and I don’t see him heading this way. He did his time,
and he’s free. I don’t think he’s going to risk going back to that
place.”
At least, Aiden hoped not. The last
memory he had of Duncan was from the courtroom where Aiden had
given the evidence that put him away for twenty-four years.
Duncan’s lawyer had successfully argued that Duncan was not of
sound mind, and his imprisonment was served within a psychiatric
facility instead of maximum security.
“Maybe not,” Nick
murmured, tugging Aiden closer to him. “But either way, we are
going to up our security here at the house. As much as I would
dearly love a few minutes with the man for what he took from you, I
don’t want the crazy prick anywhere near you.”
Aiden loved the fact that Nick wanted
to protect him, even though he was well trained and knew how to
protect himself. He had the same deep protective streak
himself.
“Oh shit!” Nick suddenly
said, and Aiden pulled back to look at him. “I was so caught up in
that I forgot the reason I came out here.” The lake access across
from the house they were renting was one of the reasons they had
chosen that property. Aiden walked Deefer here every day, but Nick
hadn’t wanted to go with them that afternoon. “Sam called. He
wanted to know if we’d meet him tonight in town for a
drink.”
Aiden grinned, “I am assuming you said
hell yes.”
Nick returned the grin. “Sure did. I
had almost given up hope that he’d call. It wasn’t the easiest
conversation to have asking Dev to talk to Sam, but if anyone could
get that man to talk to us, it would be Dev. I was planning on
going over to CTF on some pretense tomorrow to try to talk with
Sam. Christ, he’s stubborn.”
Aiden arched a brow. “Takes one to
recognize one, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, he’s more
stubborn than me.”
That remained to be seen as far as
Aiden was concerned.
Aiden let out a shrill whistle, and
Deefer came charging out of the forest as they started back toward
the house. “I was starting to wonder myself. Dev said he gave Sam
my note three days ago.”
He and Nick had agreed that they would
try the soft, subtle approach first. Well, to be fair, Aiden had to
convince Nick that that was the best approach. Nick’s way involved
a rope, a panel van with darkened windows, and potentially
twenty-to-life as a potential consequence. Not to mention the
consequences they would have had to face from Dev and the rest of
Bravo team.
“Do we tell him that we
moved here because we knew he was living here?” Nick asked, and
Aiden had to think about that for a moment.
“Eventually we will, but I
don’t think now is the right time. He’s run from us once, and I
don’t want to risk him doing it a second time.” Sam was meant to be
their third, Aiden just knew it. Sure, he hadn’t ever thought of
himself in a ménage relationship growing up, and it had never
featured in his future in the years he and Nick had been together,
but that had changed when they met Sam.
Aiden had imagined many times over the
months since they had first met what it would be like as a triad,
not just intimately but also on a day to day basis. Sam
complemented the two of them perfectly, and together their lives
would be so much more than what they could be.
They just had to convince Sam of
that.
****
It was hypnotic.
The way the flames seemed to move as
if dancing to a tune only it could hear. Even knowing that it was a
chemical reaction and that it wasn’t a tangible being, the way it
consumed whatever lay in its path it was hard not to think of it as
a physical entity. It moved so fluidly it was
mesmerizing.
The flame he watched now was even more
beautiful to him, because he was the one that had called it. He had
studied fires and how they burned for a long time, and this one
danced to the tune he had orchestrated. The flames seemed to dance
across the wood of the windowsill and as soon as it reached the
synthetic fabric of the hideous curtains, it burst into life.
Exploding again and again as it traveled up the length of the
curtain. It seemed to defy gravity as it traveled toward the floor
at the same time.
His blood thickened as the fire began
to weave its magic, moving faster and faster up the wall and to the
ceiling. Fire moved fast, and it would soon consume the entire
wall. The room began to fill with an acrid smoke that some would
find cloying, but he had always liked it. He remembered watching a
movie a while ago, where one of the actors told the lead character
played by Vin Diesel that he smoked all the time because he
preferred smoke to air. He could respect that.
Keeping his eyes on the flame as it
licked its way across the roof with unbelievable speed, he walked
backward through the door. The chill of the night air would do
nothing to dissuade the fire from consuming the entire structure.
He walked down the stairs of the cabin, and back toward the
driveway that led to his vehicle. When he reached it, he couldn’t
bring himself to actually get in. The beauty of what he had created
was hard to turn away from. The flames were now visible in the
windows of the upstairs bedroom.
He smiled fondly as he remembered the
woman he had fucked in that room. He had picked her up at a bar in
the town over, and he had brought her back here. She was a young
little thing, with a tight body, and he’d known that she came with
him with the expectation that she would be paid for her services
rendered. Hell, he had promised her as much. He closed his eyes,
reveling in the spike of arousal that shot through him when he
remembered the look on her face as he turned the light erotic
asphyxiation that she had been enjoying into the real thing. There
was nothing like the rush of power that came with ending a life
with his bare hands.
He opened his eyes and watched as the
flames he had created now engulfed the entire cabin. Climbing into
his truck, he thought about what the fire department would make of
his handiwork when they eventually turned up. Would they appreciate
how fast and hot it burned? Would they discover the secrets hidden
within? He figured he was doing the actual owners of the property,
an older couple with no children, a favor by setting it alight and
bringing the authorities out here. Otherwise, it might have been
months before anyone realized that they were missing.
But he would know. The two of them had
died at his hands two days ago only moments apart from each other,
and he had left them lying in each other’s arms in the downstairs
bedroom. He really was a romantic at heart. He pulled out onto the
darkened highway and headed north. A moment later, a flash of red
and blue in his rearview told him that his creation had been
spotted and emergency services were on their way. That made him
happy. Like any artist, he loved knowing that there would be
someone there to watch and enjoy his craftsmanship.