29. Lex
29
LEX
" D o you know him?" Gio's question isn't a surprise. If anyone is familiar with the criminals that infest Silverwood, it would be me. Though, considering that all three of us are more than familiar with backdoor deals and murder, he could be asking himself and Nolan that same question.
Unfortunately, he won’t have to because my answer is yes.
I lean over the man splayed out on the ground in the narrow walkway between Juliet’s building and the next. My nose twitches at the acrid scent of urine and shit. Reaching into my back pocket, I feel around for a cigarette pack. When I come up empty, I curse, but Gio is already there, holding one out for me as well as a lighter.
With a grateful grunt, I take it and put the cigarette between my lips before responding. "He's a criminal for hire," I tell him out of the corner of my mouth. "Name’s Otis. I've seen him around."
Flame bursts to life in front of my face as the two of us stand over the body of the man who attacked Juliet Donovan. I burn the end of my cigarette and then return the lighter to Gio. The bastard is lucky he died before I got here.
Gio’s stare burns into the side of my face. "Is Otis a first or last name?"
I shrug.
Gio shifts at my side, crouching down and using a nearby stick to poke at the man's head, moving back the hair so we can get a better look at his face. The burn scar that covers his jaw and moves down his throat is enough of an identifying marker, but no doubt Gio isn't familiar with him. Otis kept away from the actual gangs of the town.
"You think someone hired him or he came on his own?"
The nicotine rush is much needed after a night like tonight, especially since my girl is going home with Nolan and not me.
"He didn't strike me as all that smart," I say. "Not a real self-thinker." Someone put him up to this. Someone wants to hurt Juliet. When I find out who, I'm going to enjoy flaying them alive.
Gio drops the stick and gets back to his feet, hands on his hips. The longer I look at the piece of shit on the ground, the more my gut twists. What if Gio hadn’t been here? What if he hadn’t heard her fighting with the bastard? An insidious urge swells within me and I have no reason to keep it contained. After blowing out a long tendril of smoke, I put the cig back between my lips and hold it in place as I reach for the front of my pants and unzip.
Gio’s head whirls towards what I’m doing before he really thinks about it. A curse slips free of his lips as revulsion rolls across his features. “Seriously, man? Here?”
“You can leave if you want, but I gotta take a leak.” The words form around the cig in my mouth. Holding my cock, a jet stream of piss rockets out of the head and right onto the corpse of the man that attacked my girl. Gio throws up his hands and turns around completely.
He’s seen his fair share of death and violence, but he’s still a halfway decent person. I’m not, and I don’t give two shits about desecrating the body of a bottom feeder. I shake the last few droplets over the fucker’s face before tucking myself back into my pants and zipping up.
“We should hurry up and get this place cleaned up," he suggests. "It'll be dawn in a few hours."
He's right. The people on this side of Silverwood know better than to poke their noses into shit that ain’t none of their business. They know better than to peek their heads out at the sounds of a domestic disturbance and ask questions. A nosy bitch is a dead bitch. Still, it won’t do to leave Otis’ corpse rotting out here any longer than necessary.
"Get the tarp," I order, jerking my chin toward my SUV a few yards away where the pavement ends and the grass begins.
"Roger that." Gio jogs away and I pinch the cigarette between two fingers, ashing it over the body at my feet. Shit-stain motherfucker.
My upper lip curls back as rage, white-hot and violent, spears through me. I know the reason Nolan took Juliet away, the reason he'd refused to let me take her home with me. Of the three of us, his place is the most normal. She'll need normalcy. Not the isolation I could offer out on my aunt’s farm. It’s unspoken that she wouldn’t be safe at Gio’s either. If anyone would off the daughter of Allen Donovan just to prove a point—that he’s the most badass motherfucker in Silverwood—it’d be Darrio.
Gio returns in record time, unfolding the dark swath of plastic material on the ground. I hold the cig in place as I go for the legs, and together, we lift Otis' body onto the tarp before wrapping it up like some morbid Christmas present. A snort escapes and I nearly drop my cig from my lips as I fold one corner of the tarp over the body.
“What?” Gio glances up and frowns at me.
I shake my head, but then, because the thought intruded and I can’t seem to help myself, I ask, “You think if we dropped this on Pillard’s front lawn he’d shit himself?”
“Brandon Pillard? Prep's defensive lineman?”
The shriek of duct tape pulling away from its roll is loud in the night as I rip off several strips and toss the roll to Gio. “Yeah, her ex,” I say by way of explanation.
He catches the flying roll of duct tape. “You’re a fucking psychopath,” he mutters with a shake of his head, then smirks. “But yeah, that little fucker would probs shit his pants and pass out.”
The two of us chuckle at the image as we get to work. Within five minutes, we've got the body taped shut. We lift the big ass form and cart it over to the still-open back of my SUV and with a swinging toss, Otis' body crashes against the floorboards. The bloody stains inside the plastic make me grin. Then, I notice an odd sort of bulge around the lower side of his back.
The knife, I realize, as her recollection of the attack resurfaces in my head. She’d stabbed him in the back. I make a mental note to pull the knife free before we start the process of stripping the body later. If I clean it well enough, she might like it as a gift.
I blow out another stream of smoke and shut the hatch. "What about the cameras?" Gio asks, nodding up to the burned-out light pole and a black half-globe that's stationed towards the top. I roll my eyes and drop the cigarette to the pavement, crunching the end under one boot before reaching down and lifting the remains to deposit into my pocket.
Killing is one thing. Body disposal, another. But littering? Completely unnecessary.
"It's fake," I tell him. "They haven't replaced those lights in months. This complex is cheap as fuck." Something that has been a constant annoyance since the day Juliet moved in. I'd had to rely on traffic cameras and security feeds from the stores across the street to spy on her. The lack of light had probably emboldened the motherfucker that had attacked her. Bet that made him feel real safe climbing into her apartment and—I cut that thought off with a curse and turn away, stomping towards the front of the SUV. Gio follows and gets into the passenger seat.
Cranking the engine, I keep the headlights off as I ease around the side of the apartment building. "What are you doing?" Gio swivels to look at me, his brows creased with confusion.
I gesture to the front of Juliet's apartment. "Got some planks in the back seat," I tell him. "We need to make sure no one is breaking in while she's away."
"Oh, right." Gio climbs out of the seat and reaches into the back to withdraw the wood planks and some nails. I stay in the car, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror and the area as he does his job. Twenty minutes later, he clomps back to the SUV, hammer in one hand and a familiar backpack in the other. When he hops back into the SUV, he stows it at his feet. "Nolan forgot it when they left," he explains.
My chest swells with excitement. Returning her backpack will give me another reason to see her.
"We'll have to come back for Nolan's bike," Gio says as he looks over at the Indian parked by the curb.
I grunt my response. "Later." We ease out of the parking lot, just under the speed limit. "No one will mess with it," I say. "Everyone in town knows it’s his."
"He better not fuck up my ride," Gio huffs. "I don't like anyone—even him—driving my baby."
Once we're on one of the main roads, I flip my lights back on and slow at a red light. "If she ends up back in that apartment, I want cameras inside."
The sharp sensation of someone watching me pricks at my senses. I don't have to look over to know Gio's staring at me. "Because you want to protect her or because you want to stalk her?" he asks after a beat.
A snarl of warning works its way up my throat. "Stalkers escalate," I snap. "I haven't fucking touched her." No matter how much I want to. No matter how much I crave knowing what it feels like to have her naked body under me, on top of me. To taste her sex. To pin her down and fuck her until she screams. To lead her into my den of deviancy and show her everything—all of the pictures and videos of her that I've kept over the years. To have her accept me ... and ultimately, to let me keep her.
"It's only a matter of time, bro," Gio says.
I grit my teeth and punch the gas as the light changes to green. Seething in the silence that follows, I try to tamp down the desire to take out all of this anger on the man sitting next to me. Gio and Nolan aren't my enemies. They're my brothers. Bound in blood. Forged in fire. Raised in darkness. Without them, I'd be too far gone to even be remotely human.
Without them. Without her. I am nothing if not a bag of skin, bones, and blood walking.
"I still want cameras in her place if she goes back," I repeat.
With a groan, Gio laces his fingers together and stretches them forward in front of himself and then up. "If I can get in, I’ll make it happen," he says. "It'll be safer all around to have you look after her anyway—Nolan should be fine with it too, just in case she catches wind about Rich and Josh disappearing."
My head swivels to the side as I slow around a bend in the road. "She killed a man tonight,” I snap. “Why the fuck would we care if she finds out now?”
"Jesus, watch the fucking road!" Gio shouts, his hands slapping the dash.
I snap forward and curse, swerving around a deer skipping across one side of the road. "Shit, sorry."
Gio leans in and breathes. "God, I thought you'd almost wrecked this shit. Nolan would've been pissed."
I roll my eyes. "No, he wouldn't. He wanted to do upgrades on the SUV anyway. No doubt, he'd love the opportunity, but back to the cameras. You're good with putting them in if needed?”
“Unless you’d rather do it yourself?" Gio releases the dashboard to sit up in his seat.
Get back into her space? Touch her things? Languish in her scent? My cock throbs. No. It’s not a good idea at all. I shake my head. “No, it’s probably better if you go.”
We drive out of Silverwood, hopping on a back highway that lost most of its traffic the day a nearby interstate exit had been built. Now, it’s mainly used by farmers and locals looking to avoid slow-downs and wrecks.
Several minutes pass in near silence and then, Gio speaks up again. “I don’t want you getting close to her while she’s with us.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what you mean.”
His attention sears against my jaw. “Yeah, you do.” Spoken in a low tone but no less firm, the words strike at me. “You’re in love with her. She’s not sticking around.”
“Then why are we helping her?” I demand. “Why is Nolan taking her back to his home? Why are we getting rid of the body of a man she killed?”
For a long moment, Gio doesn’t reply, but when he does, I almost swerve right off the road. “For you. We’re doing it for you.”
If I weren’t driving, I’d close my goddamn eyes at that statement. “Nolan and I know you’re no virgin, but you might as fucking well be,” he continues. “Those chicks you take back to the carriage house? They’re not girlfriends.”
No. They’re not. The women I fuck in the rebuilt carriage house I live in on my aunt’s property are paid for their time. And despite their choice of employment, I make damn sure they enjoy everything I do—as if they’re the woman I want more than my next breath, more than my own life. As if they’re Juliet Donovan herself. I don’t mind Gio knowing my business. I’d have gone crazy by now if I didn’t have someone to confide in. But what I do mind is the fact that his words—his claim—are a lie.
The front of the SUV shudders as I push the speedometer past seventy, flying down the darkened highway and beyond Silverwood’s town boundary.
“You want her too.” The words hang between us, the silence in the air before and after them making them louder than they actually were. Gio doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t refute it but neither does he confirm it.
“You tested her when she first came to Silverwood Public,” I continue. “You were curious. You wanted to know why I’ve watched her for so long.” If Gio knows me down to my core, then I know him just as well. “She surprised you, and now you get it. You see what I see.”
Juliet Donovan is more than a woman. She’s an addiction. An obsession. Every look, every touch, every breath she takes is a slow-acting poison. By the time you realize you’re dying, you’re too fucking hooked to ever let her go.
An hour later, after we’ve hit the edge of Silverwood’s town limits, I slow and pull down a dirt path. The SUV's 4-wheel drive gets a workout, bouncing along the unpaved path. The headlights wash over the darkness of the forest, illuminating the base of the trees that line the road. Finally, after another fifteen minutes, I slow when I spy the gates that are held closed by a twist of rusted metal links. Gio pops the passenger door before the vehicle even fully stops. I watch through the windshield as he stomps towards the chains and unlocks them before pushing the gates open wide enough for the vehicle to pass through. I get to the other side and let the SUV idle as he closes the gate once more and jumps back inside.
It takes another five minutes from the gate to get to the old hunting cabin my parents used to own. I ignore the cabin's driveway set before the slanted metal roof, smudged windows, and sagging front porch. The SUV bumps and sways as I drive right up over the boundary line of the grass and around to the even older outbuilding in the back.
When I stop, I cut the lights and the engine. Both Gio and I get out of the SUV, circling around to the back. "Chainsaw still in there?" he asks, nodding to the dilapidated shack that doubles as a garage when we need it.
"Where else would it be?" I pop the back and stand back to let the door rise all the way up.
The scent of death is thankfully muffled by the tarp. There's no point in using any of the cash I've squirreled away on getting a new car when I can keep this one from smelling of urine and decay.
"After we're done here, we might want to double-check Juliet's place for any more evidence. She said she stabbed the guy, so we’ll have to scrub the floors and balcony."
I never thought I’d be so grateful for the summers we spent helping Gio’s mom make extra cash by cleaning houses. We know all we need to get blood out of anything. God, I want another cigarette. I eye Gio, debating on if I should ask him for another, but we're about to open up a shit ton of chemicals. I better not.
“I’ll send an email to Mr. Ritchie and tell him we took a prank too far or something to explain the door and other shit.” Gio scrubs a hand down the back of his head. “He’ll be pissed, but I’ll send him a couple hundred to cover damages.”
I snort. “That’s more than either of those doors or the railing was worth.”
“It’ll keep him happy, though I doubt he’ll be fixing it any time soon,” Gio replies. “You know how he is—always has to find the cheapest deal for any repairs.”
Having Juliet reliant on the three of us for longer? That’s just fine with me.
"Alright." I return my attention to the body in the back of my SUV. "Let's get this fucker inside and start the process."
G stares at the tarp-wrapped corpse for a second before releasing a snort. When I arch a brow his way, he shakes his head. "I'm rocking a B in chemistry," he tells me as if that explains the sudden outburst of amusement.
"So?" I reach for one end of the body and use the loose plastic around it to drag it closer to the edge of the compartment.
Gio reaches for the other side. "You'd think I'd do better in a subject I'm so damn good at outside of the classroom."
I pause, the body still lying sideways in my trunk. "Huh." I crack my neck to one side. "I never considered that."
It does take a considerable amount of knowledge and know-how to disintegrate a human body, bones and all. We’d learned that a few months after killing Xavier Pierce. We’d returned to the hunting shack only to find a bunch of wild animals digging the old man up. There’d still been pieces of him left. One thing to be said for the human race other than the fact that we breed like rabbits is that we're durable even after death.
With a groan, Gio takes his half and I take mine. "On three, we lift," he commands. I wait and as his lips form around the numbers, I heft the body up onto one shoulder as he does the same. "Fuck, this asshole's heavy," he complains as we head for the shed.
"Not for long," I remind him. With enough lye solution and time, any amount of human weight can be overcome. Human remains are much easier to handle when they're watered down, and more than that, I hate burying bodies. It's honestly one of the least effective ways to make one disappear.