Chapter 31
Tomás
I nudge Zasha with my foot. Dead, of course.
He’d need a second brain to be still alive after that headshot.
Karsten is keeping off to the side, but I collect the weapons strewn beside the Russian before I go to where Aaron is helping Rafael check himself for damage.
Aaron has removed his cuffs—must’ve found the key on Zasha.
Rafael has stripped off his vest and opened his shirt, wincing as he pokes his ribs.
I squat next to him, deposit the shotgun on the floor, pull off my helmet and mask, then my goggles. Rafael nods to me. He looks in pain and badly bruised. One shirt sleeve is torn, but I get a thumbs up.
“Tough guy, you fucked up that throw.” I grin to soften it. “Broken a few ribs?”
He coughs. “Maybe. Bruising mostly. I only have a few pieces scraped off my arm. Next time you come in at ground level. That doorway, they almost caught me placing the charge.”
Which is when Aaron realizes who I am—he only glanced at me before. He’s frozen, his mouth open.
“It’s me, and I’m sorry about you know what.” I place my rifle before him, gesture at it.
“What’s that for?”
“Just in case you want to shoot me. Would you like a knife instead?”
He shakes his head, eyes closing. “Fuck you. Come here.” Then he drags me in and slaps my back, his arms are around me, and I swear he sobs before he pulls away.
“Ouch. That asshole kicked me a few times. Got bruises on my bruises.” He swipes at his eyes.
I let him pretend to be hurt enough for those welling tears. Whatever happened here is as bad as anything I’ve seen, minus the piles of corpses of the innocent.
“Now you can explain. Why, Tomás? Juniper gave me all sorts of theories. Did you know?”
She’s arrived with the other woman in tow. I give them both a nod and check Karsten is staying back. He isn’t, so I wave him away. We need to figure out this whole situation, but we have time.
I stand up as Rafael gets to his feet. Aaron rises.
“I knew something was off, that they couldn’t be wanting you dead just to frame me. Or not enough to really do it, I thought. The gun, I couldn’t be sure. I tried a press check, but the light was bad. I took a chance. I didn’t see I had a choice.”
“I see. Shoot me and hope it was empty, or else they’d kill you? Well…want to pick up all this crap?” He switches topics like it meant nothing, indicates the weapons and eyes Karsten.
I nod and wait. I can see he has more to say. He’s frowning, studying the bloodbath, two men dead, one slightly mashed by the spear, blood on the walls, plaster pieces chewed from it, here and there. Smoke and its smell lingers.
“I guess I don’t care if you weren’t sure. I understand. It was shit situation.” Finally, he locks his focus on me. “And fuck, I’m so grateful you came for us.”
A weight lifts off me. True friendship—when you can see the other man’s side after he almost killed you.
“That was always happening. He helped.” I jerk my chin at Karsten, who smiles. “Now we need to get everyone happier, check for stuff we missed, and discuss what to do, while he is locked away somewhere safe.”
“With pleasure.” Aaron limps toward Karsten. “Just going to chain you to a wall for a moment, sir.” The sir is packed with irony.
“What? Tomás!”
“Not my call. If my friend doesn’t trust you enough, you can get locked away while we chat.”
“Fuck you all,” he mutters as he’s led away. “I enabled this. I got the equipment and made it all possible.”
“You damn well came here multiple times to rape girls.” Hoping for an excuse to punch Karsten, I pace after Aaron, and Rafael follows me. “Behave, and you get to leave.”
His glower is spiced with menace, but who cares.
I pause. “Would you ladies like to find some clothes, food, water?” I’m not sure what they want first. “Painkillers? I have a first aid kit.”
“Thanks. This is Georgia. We’ll find something.” Juniper nods. “I don’t usually get around naked. I’d do more stabbing of those fuckers, first, but it’d make it hard to clean up the mess.”
“Shit.” Bloodthirsty wench. Like I said to Karsten, muchos huevos. “Remind me not to annoy you.”
Georgia is smiling at that exchange, if timidly. I swallow, feel my jaw muscles ripple, and remind myself some women are tough critters too.
The bruises and cuts on them both are a thousand reasons for killing Karsten and burying him here. “Get Aaron a new pair of pants if you find any his size.”
“Will do.” Juniper gently places her hand on the other woman’s back as they set off down the hallway.
A quiet question from Georgia to Juniper reminds me this has become more complicated—not that killing two men ever could be. “Your friends aren’t police or anything, are they?”
“No. They aren’t.”
I lean on the doorway, watching as Aaron chains my so-called enabler to the wall then Rafael and I explore the layout of the house, to be sure we’ve missed nothing, with Aaron limping after us.
It is strangely a normal house, apart from a few specialized fun rooms as Aaron informs us they were called.
The rest has an abandoned air. Of the five bedrooms, only two were used by the men.
I note where they’ve set up a dedicated desktop computer with multiple screens, as if for gaming.
Knowing them, they screened their own homemade torture scenes.
Those files Karsten wanted erased, if they’re not copied onto external drives or on the cloud—highly doubtful—this is where they will be.
Satisfied that we won’t be ambushed or surprised by anything, we go to the dining room where the women are waiting.
The kitchen is behind the rectangular pine table, and already they’ve heated up a burger meal, which is probably what one of the men had left the house to fetch, plus found three untouched thick shakes.
“Would you like some?” Juniper indicates the neatly sliced burgers and piles of fries.
Rafael shakes his head. “Gracias, but no. I might go watch the front door, actually. Tomás?”
“Sure.” He turns and heads off. “I don’t need food either, Juniper.”
Rafael is probably feeling out of place in this discussion.
Though he’s a friend, I promised to erase him from any consequences that might explode out of this unsanctioned murderous raid.
That the property is supposedly owned by a shell company may make it easier to get away with what has happened.
That blood he left on the wall will have to be scrubbed. The shotgun pellets. The flesh.
Could we burn down the house in a few weeks’ time, without being seen doing it?
“Tomás?” Aaron says.
“What? Oh? I was thinking.”
“Do you have a plan for how we get back to, well, civilization, without this all being discovered?”
I lean into my chair, rub the back of my neck. “I figure we need to see what Georgia is going to be happy with first.” She’s currently stuffing her face with burger, and I smile at her. “No hurry. You should take your time.”
“None at all.” Juniper puts her hand to Georgia’s shoulder.
She tries to chew and swallow fast, so I distract by mentioning the other problem.
“Karsten.” I tap the table with my knuckles. “He came here for years. They blackmailed him but he came here because he wanted to.”
“Fuck. Another one?” Juniper pulls a disgusted face. “He told you that?”
“He enabled this raid, as he phrased it. I promised to do things for him, and he pretty much told me that, yes, he came a few times. So, I won’t be sad if I have to opt out.”
Georgia has swallowed the last of that mouthful and is eyeing the fries. Aaron pushes the plate to her, and she grabs a handful.
It’s impossible not to notice the finger-shaped bruises on the girl’s neck, or the bandaged finger stump. She can’t be more than twenty-two. This sort of torture is what you do to get your enemy off guard. Or to satisfy your own fetishes. But on a girl they grabbed and planned to murder?
None of their victims has ever been traced to them.
“I think they killed some of their victims. I also think maybe Karsten helped with that. They filmed him, sometime after Riley was assaulted, and it was bad enough that he caved in. But it might be worse, if that’s possible.
He sent that video to Riley to scare her off an investigation of the CNC Frat members.
I think he could have organized the first assault too. ”
“Holy fuck.” Aaron grimaces, halting with a fry held in mid-air.
“Ick.” Juniper says. “So he’s as bad as the other two, or worse. Can we make him really dead? Though Georgia needs to tell us if anything we do is something she doesn’t agree with.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m so grateful you came, uh…”
“Tomás.” I fold my arms and wait for her to continue.
“Tomás, I’m alive and haven’t got to worry about them anymore.” Her voice trembles. “I don’t think anything you want to do will be more awful than them.” She grimaces. “You can bury them in a fucking volcano, and I will applaud. Is that enough?”
I nod. I’m taking charge here more than Aaron, who is the man I always relied on for big decisions here. But he looks dazed. That flashbang, the trauma from this place, I expect it to affect him badly.
“Georgia, we would need you to explain your absence from family or work without ever speaking of them,” I say this as gently as I can. “Which will be difficult. If you reveal what happened, Rafael and I will be charged with murder.”
“A therapist? Can I? I think I will need one.”
Aaron raises his hand. “I can help there. If you’re willing to fly to London to see one. Expenses paid. I’m rich. You’ll have to avoid saying some details, of course.”
She nods but her hands are shaking. “Thanks. That will do it. A London therapist? I fucking never saw this house. I wish I hadn’t, for real. Go on. I’m sorted. I promise.”
“We can talk later if you want to,” Juniper whispers. “Just so I can be sure you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” she whispers back.