Chapter 13
KIT
The fuck is she thinking?! Why would she willingly put herself in danger like this?!
“Which fucking club?!” I roar across the room where Cipher looks like he wants to tear my throat out.
“You know how many fucking clubs there are in Sydney and surrounds? She’s a needle in a fucking haystack, mate! You want me to pull a miracle out of my arse too?” Cipher’s fists are balled tight like he’s seconds away from making it physical.
“Okay ladies.” Doc steps between us with his palms raised. “Take a fucking breath before someone starts bleeding on the floor.”
“You grew up with the fucking hob-knobs of this city, Julian,” I snarl at Cipher. “Where the fuck do the gangsters hang out?”
Cipher’s lip curls, his uppity accent breaking through as he speaks. “What? Because Daddy had a yacht, I must’ve snorted lines with the mobsters at the marina? Get fucked, Kit!”
Before I can throw another word at him, Colt’s hand lands flat against my chest, his ghostly silver eyes locking with mine.
“She’s different.”
Two simple words. But they silence the room, because when Ghost speaks, we fucking listen.
“Different how?” I snap. “Crazy different? Because you don’t need to fucking remind me.” I drag a hand through my hair, pacing.
“Not crazy.” Colt shakes his head. “Intentional.”
I stare at him, trying to decode whatever the fuck that means.
“Mate…” Wes moves up beside me, his eyes trained on Colt. “You keep saying that kinda spooky shit and I’m gonna start thinking you’re clairvoyant. Besides…” he trails off, nudging me with his elbow. “Insulting our leader’s new girl is a bad move, man. She’s already scary enough sober.”
Nobody laughs at Wes’s attempt at humour, Colt’s gaze flicking back to meet mine.
“She’s got deep trauma,” Colt explains. “But also, she creates it in others. I saw it in her eyes.”
The entire room is dead silent for a few long beats, all of us trying to decipher his meaning, knowing it’s important. I just can’t figure out what the fuck he means.
“Pretend we are first graders, Ghost,” Wes urges. “Spell it out for us.”
Colt sighs like we are slow moving idiots and cuts to the point.
“She’s a killer. Either a contractor like us, or… someone who picks victims for herself, following a pattern or routine, and may even leave a calling card.”
I blink.
Then blink again as Wes starts laughing.
“Mate, are you saying she’s a serial killer?”
I roll my eyes. “Bell Bishop is no fucking serial killer. She just likes people to think that, so they give her a wide berth.”
Colt just shrugs. “I’m telling you what I see.”
“Ghost seldom misses on this stuff,” Bruiser points out from his lazing position in the armchair as he tosses a pinned grenade up and catches it again like it’s a fucking tennis ball.
“So… what? You want me not to fucking worry about her?” I snap. “Snake, the fucking craziest leader the Serpents have ever had, not only has my little girl, but has my…”
“Has your what?” Wes wags his brows. “Yesterday morning you were single, mate. What the fuck happened last night?”
“Bell happened,” I mutter, spinning away from my team to stare at the fucking shambles of the Christmas tree Rhonda trashed.
That bitch of a woman will pay for this.
For fuck’s sake. Everything has turned to shit.
I’ve kept my distance from Sydney’s gangland on purpose. I don’t need that fucking shit in my life, and it’s bad enough we often get hired by fucking mobsters, but gangs? Nah, those fuckers keep jobs in house, dealing with things themselves.
“You all have contacts. Reach out. Narrow the search. I want places the Serpents frequent.” I turn back to my team, seeing them all nod, and fuck, even though I’ve been a total prick out of my mind with worry, they still have my back, getting their phones out and doing what I asked.
So, I fucking do the same.
My contacts are those mobsters I get hired by often. The last fucking thing I want is to owe them anything, but this is my kid, and my woman we are talking about. I’ll do whatever it fucking takes to get them back safely.
Night has fallen over the city, the air still mild with the lead up to what’s going to be a sweltering Christmas.
I feel like a fucking failure not knowing someone was in my home stealing my kid right from under my nose. I’m supposed to have a fucking fortress, but in my desperation to drown in Bell last night, I didn’t hear a fucking thing.
It’s like those fuckers have the best luck, breaking in the one time I’m distracted—
Wait… Fuck… That can’t be a coincidence.
Fuck.
“FUCK!”
“What is it?” Wes asks as I open my phone and hit Tillie’s number, but I don’t answer him, anger clouding my fucking vision as I wait for my sister to answer the fucking call.
“Have you found her?” Tillie’s worried voice rushes out as soon as the line connects, still snowed in across the other side of the world.
“No,” I snap. “But I need you to tell me more about Bell.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Tillie’s voice turns high pitched, and my eyes flick to Wes as I speak.
“The one night I’m distracted by Bell, is the one night the Serpents come in and kidnap Libi. That’s no fucking coincidence,” I hiss, and Tillie is quiet for a moment before she speaks quietly.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m fucking saying, your psychotic friend did her best to keep me fucking distracted while those fuckers took my little girl!”
The roar of my voice booms through the living room, and each of my men glance at me, pausing their phone conversations as Wes curses next to me.
“Firstly, calling her psychotic is not an insult. She wears her trauma proudly,” Tillie snaps through the line. “Secondly, why the fuck would Bell ever want to harm Libi? She doesn’t even like kids, but Libi? She adores her.”
I scoff at that, but Tillie isn’t finished.
“And thirdly, how the hell did Bell distract you? Were you two arguing all night? Are you really that immature, Kitson?”
I ignore her questions, because fuck, that means admitting to fucking her best friend, and even though I want to talk to her about it, now isn’t the fucking time. Especially when there’s a high possibility I’ve been played, and Bell was in on it.
“Do you know what your best friend’s favourite pastime is?” I snap, trying to steer the argument away from me falling for Bell’s pierced nipples.
“Which one?” Tillie snaps. “The one where she works hard to stay sober, or the one where she lures men, seduces them, and slaughters them?”
I stiffen at her words, running them through my head over and over.
She didn’t just say…
“She lures men?” I ask, remembering how she lured me, walking in here with that little black dress on that clung to her tits. How she came to collect on her thank me later tease, but fucking pretended like she wasn’t interested. It’s all part of her fucking game.
She lured me and seduced me, but she didn’t slaughter me. Not in the physical sense, but fuck, my heart is shredded with Libi being taken.
“Jesus, Kit. Are you really that dumb? The Seduction Slayer. The serial killer that’s been haunting Melbourne’s men. All predators, I might add.”
“The Seduction Slayer serial killer is Bell?”
“Shhhh!” Tillie hisses through the phone. “Not something you need to repeat out loud.”
It’s too fucking late. My team already heard it, but their eyes turn from me to Ghost, and a fucking chill ripples up my spine.
He fucking knew. That’s what he was talking about before.
The fucker simply shrugs and returns to texting on his phone.
“Look, I’m just as worried about Libi as you are, but Bell has nothing to do with it.” Tillie’s voice draws my attention again.
“How the fuck do you know she didn’t have anything to do with it?” I ask, turning away from my men to look out the front window and the glimmer of city lights in the distance. “You agreed she’s a psycho.”
“When you are someone she cares about, she would never harm you. She would kill for you, though. So the only thing you should be worried about is not if she helped orchestrate Libi’s kidnapping, but what roles will she play in getting her back.”
My heart sinks. Am I grasping at straws? Just trying to put the blame on someone else because I was the one who fucked up?
Maybe.
Wouldn’t be the first fucking time.
Shit… I don’t really think Bell had anything to do with this. She adores Libi. She’d never hurt her.
Bell Bishop isn’t like other women, Kit!
“Bell’s gone,” I tell my sister. “Her last text message said, ‘I’m as safe as a girl like me can be in a club full of gangsters.’ You know what that means, right?”
I hear my sister’s sharp intake before she responds. “Yeah. Those gangsters are dead men. That’s what that means.”
“Be serious, Tills,” I snarl. “If Bell is who you say she is, it means she’s gone in without any intel on her mark, right? Like wouldn’t she normally study her victim? Plan things?”
“Shit. Yeah. She does do that. She’s very particular about the setting. About the position and how it will look when it’s discovered.”
For a long beat, I’m fucking speechless.
“Kit? Are you there?”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You should analyse what you just told me and ask yourself if having a friend in your life like that is really alright.”
Tillie scoffs. “She takes pride in her work. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“You’re missing the point,” I snap as Cipher crosses the room to me and holds up his phone to show me a message.
Serpents frequent Cronulla. Usually one of the pubs, but sometimes they go to the smaller bars and clubs. If you’re looking for them, that’s most likely where they will be. Cronulla.
“Fuck, gotta go, Tills. We just got a lead.”