Chapter 11
Vex
“You’re sure this is the right place?” I eye the rundown looking house that Damian has dragged me out to. Actually, no, I’ve dragged him here. If he had it his way Barbara would be living at the clubhouse with him.
“Sure is. I remember clear as day. Miss Joe lives over that way,” he points to a brightly colored cottage across from the rough looking home we’re standing outside of. “And this is the address on the tag.”
I nod, moving onto the porch and knocking on the front door while Damian stands behind me, whispering sweet nothings to the huge mastiff in his arms. I bang again, this time louder, then move to the side to peer through the window. Nothing looks out of place, but it does look like nobody is home.
“Shit,” I curse beneath my breath.
Damian eyes me when I turn to look at him. “Here, go on an’ hold her for me a minute. Lemme take a look,” he says, climbing the shitty steps and passing the big dog over to me.
Why the hell we’re cradling a mastiff, I have no idea. Not that Barbara seems to mind as her tongue lolls out of her mouth as she gazes up at me. I stare back at her, our eye contact broken when I realize Damian is not only quiet, but also nowhere in sight.
“Prospect?”
“In here,” his voice drifts out through the open door.
The door that was most definitely locked when I tried it. How he got in is beyond me, and I wouldn’t normally care except Bellefont is the type of town where you shoot first and ask questions later.
“Prospect! Get out here before someone shoots your ass!” I whisper yell at him.
“That ain’t happenin’. Hate to say it, but looks like the owner’s dead.” He hooks his thumb over his shoulder as his big frame clears the house.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, I already gave him his last rites and got his drawers back on him, so pretty sure.” I stare up at Damian and he shrugs one massive shoulder.
“You put his underwear on him?” I ask with a frown.
Damian scoops the big dog out of my arms and cuddles Barbara to him. “Well yeah, I’m a man’s man. I’m gon’ help a man in need. Ain’t no man need the damn police or undertaker showin’ up round here and findin’ him with his cock out. That ain’t right.”
I blink once, then twice and realize it’s not actually worth trying to understand what he’s got going on. “Right. Well, I guess we better call emergency services.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mon ami.”
The hand with my phone freezes midair. “And why is that?”
The huge blonde man purses his lips, then moves them to one side, then the next, squinting at me.
“Prospect!”
“Alright, quit getting your panties in a bunch.” He rolls his eyes. “Guy is looking worse for wear. Lookin’ like he was probably tortured a while judging by the -”
What the fuck? I push past him, his voice drifting off as I enter the house, following the smell of death, freezing in my tracks when I find the body. “Damian -”
“Yeah, Vex?” His voice coming from right next my ear.
“Next time you find a dead body, give us all the facts, yeah?”
“I did. Told you he was dead and had his damn cock out. That’s all the news worth sharin’.”
Closing my eyes I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the picture of the elderly man missing his eyeballs that is burned into my brain.
Blowing out a breath I blink my eyes open, then slowly catalog the room.
Everything looks neat and tidy, if not a little dated.
There are pictures on the mantel, dried flowers in a little bundle sitting on the sideboard, and an open book on the coffee table.
Nice. Cozy. Homely. Then there is the abomination in the middle of the room.
His chair facing the doorway instead of the TV.
He’s naked save for the underwear that Damian somehow put on him.
Where the hell he found them I have no idea.
The corpse’s wrists are tied to the arms of the chair, palms facing up and in the middle of each hand is a nail pinning him to the chair.
His eyeballs are missing, eyelids pinned open, dried blood staining his cheeks.
His body is covered in at least 100 small cuts, and long burn marks mar whatever skin has not been slashed.
My stomach turns and I have to duck my head, gulping in breaths as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It’s disturbing and wrong and yet it feels… familiar somehow.
A whine to the left of me brings me back to myself, Barbara panting and whining in Damian’s hold.
“Shit. She ain’t takin’ it well, her old master bein’ like that,” Damian’s arm swings around in a broad gesture before snuggling Barbara closer. “Don’t worry, sweet girl. I’ll take care of ya.” He moves to turn and leave but freezes in place. “Ummm,”
Following where his gaze is I stumble back slightly when my eyes land on something very familiar.
“Isn’t that some Eden’s Keep shit?”
I spin, eyes wildly taking in the man sitting in the chair.
There is nothing remarkable about him, not one feature standing out.
Yes, he’s been turned into mincemeat, but not enough for me to not recognize him if he was someone from the Keep.
That knowledge should make me feel better, that he’s a stranger, but it doesn’t.
Not when the two mirrored tree trunks is an image I grew up with.
Both trunks face each other, forming a narrow doorway.
The words “Only the worthiest pass through the Gates of Eden always” underneath it.
I mean, clearly it was more a gate to hell, but as a kid, that image is burned into my brain.
Which is why here, crudely spray painted on the wall in a town damn near 40 minutes away from the Keep, it sends shivers up my spine.
It also fucking means that we have very few options in getting out of here without it blowing back on us.
Staring at the wall and ignoring Damian’s baby talk to Barbara, I slide my phone out of my cut, dialing the first number. “Prez, we got a problem.”
“You mean more than us hiding two kids and a woman who’s been beat to hell?” Prez asks drily, the sound of his boots thudding through the room before a door slams. “Hit me with it.”
I switch the call to video and turn my camera to the scene, first the body in front of me, then the Eden’s Keep symbol behind me.
“OK. Wanna enlighten me about what I’m looking at?”
“That is the symbol for Eden’s Keep. I can’t be too sure but from what me and my siblings went through before we left Eden’s Keep, he looks a lot like he’s been through confession. Albeit a fucked up one.”
The phone is dead silent as Dex’s brows hit his hairline. I wait patiently to hear back from him as Damian’s heavy-ass feet thump around somewhere in the house.
“Emergency services are out,” Dex finally says.
“Agreed. Anyone from around these parts will recognize that symbol. That’ll have the law on our asses.”
Dex nods, running a hand down his face. “Anyone see you two go in there?”
My gaze raises to Damian’s as he comes back into the room.
“In my defense, my momma raised me polite. If a neighbor gonna wave, I gotta wave back.” He shrugs.
A loud sigh sounds out over the phone. “We’re gonna need a full clean out. Body and all.”
“I can probably help with that,” Damian says, rocking Barbara side to side.
“How?” Dex asks, brow raised.
“Momma runs a funeral home. She’s tryin’ to retire, so business ain’t what it used to be, but we can disappear a body there easy enough,” he shrugs. Dex and I are quiet as church mice. “She’s a successful businesswoman,” he says defensively.
“Who owns damn near everything in our town.”
“And the surrounding areas,” Damian grins. “Lemme call her.”
I watch as Damian wanders off again, happy as a pig in shit with this dog because let’s face it, he ain’t leaving her here.
“Vex, I need you to catalog the scene, everything. Get Damian’s mom to take the body straight to her place and we’ll meet her there. I’ll call Church for tonight and you’re gonna have to bring us up to speed on all things Eden’s Keep. Got me?”
“Yeah, Prez. I got you.”
“Good. It’s the last fucking thing we need, but this shit can’t be helped. It’s better we find this now before the law turns up on our doorstep while we have the twins in our care.”
He hangs up and I let my head roll back on my shoulders, a curse flying out of my mouth.
I thought I’d moved on from that shit. Started fresh.
Now my past is back on the scene to fucking mess with me at a time I have two little girls to protect from a fucking psychopath with a badge and a woman I want to make mine.
“Fuuuuuck,” I curse to whoever is listening.
“Momma’s fired up the crematorium and she gon be here in 30.” Damian stands in the doorway, looking at me expectantly.
My brows pull in at the sight of the big fucker staring at me. “You good?”
Without a word he slowly raises Barbara in his arms so that she’s staring at me with her puppy dog eyes and her big jowly face. “What you wanna do about Barbara?”
“You know what? Today’s already gone to shit and we both need a pick me up. You can keep Barbara.”
“Aw, fuck yeah!”
I watch as he dances around the room, mastiff in his arms like a handbag dog while we wait for his mom to come pick up a corpse. I kinda thought I’d left all the weird shit in Rose Grove. Turns out I was wrong.
Loyal
“Do you think we should be worried?” Nell asks, worrying her lip.
I watch Dex motioning to some of the other brothers, not so much as barking orders like I noticed the DRMC Prez does, but giving instruction.
All the men, including Justice listen intently, nodding.
I don’t want to tell Nell that it’s nothing to worry about, especially when I know that Vex and Damian aren’t safe within the Keep’s walls.
Sniper and Justice both glance in mine and Nell’s direction, serious looks on their faces and I know that whatever is happening is most likely nothing good.