Chapter Twenty-Six
Caius
P ounding on our bedroom door has me jolting up, panic clawing at my throat. Kaitlyn shrieks, Sunshine barks, and Nova lets out a furious howl.
What the fuck?
I burst out of bed, throwing my jeans over my boxers on the way out the door, not bothering with a shirt. Romy’s voice can be heard calming the girls as I exit the room.
“You have to see this,” Koyn rumbles, motioning for me to follow him.
I make my way to the living room area in the clubhouse, where the television is on. There’s a news alert from the White House.
President Huxley is dead.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “How did he die?”
The press secretary, with tears in his eyes, explains how the president was found this morning having apparently hung himself from his bathroom door with a bed sheet.
“There will be an intense investigation,” the press secretary vows, “but our initial findings indicate it was a suicide. Vice President O’Malley will be sworn in as president very soon. As more information is given to us, we’ll pass it on to the American people. It’s our hope to be as transparent as possible.”
Someone cuts in and barks out a question. “Do you think the suicide has anything to do with the evidence and footage leaked by hackers last night? Was he responsible for those terrible things they claimed? Is that why he took his life? To avoid the consequences?”
“That is all. Thank you.”
People talk all over each other, but the press secretary leaves the podium, not answering any of the questions, despite his proclamation of transparency.
Nees mutes it as the newscasters start discussing it. “Holy shit. That’s wild. The trash takes itself out.”
“He killed himself,” I mutter, astonished. “Unbelievable.”
That man tortured me as a teenager. He fucked with my head so incredibly much that I was practically foaming at the mouth to give him even an ounce back of what he gave me. I wanted to make him pay for what he did to me and Romy. I’d had dreams of carving excruciating pain from every inch of his flesh. Admittedly, Dragon gave me some gruesome tips.
“It’s not what we wanted,” Koyn states, arms crossed over his barrel chest, “but it’s something. At least we know his power and influence ends with him.”
One down, two to go.
Huxley, Gideon, and my father, Orion, were the masterminds behind everything. It’s crazy to believe we’re making progress on our plan, even if it’s not going exactly to plan.
“Any word on Doc Junior?” I ask, desperately wishing for a coffee to wake my ass up so I can think clearly.
Koyn, obviously in tune with my needs, tilts his head toward the bar area for me to follow. I take a seat at the barstool while he sets to making a pot of coffee.
“That guy is still lying low. With his father killing himself, though, he’ll be forced to make a statement. Once he shows his face, we can pinpoint where he is.”
“What’s the plan for him?”
Koyn shrugs. “I told Dragon he can have a little fun. Get creative.”
I grimace at what that might mean for Doc Junior. I’m not sorry, though. He was a co-conspirator in the mindfucking of my girls. He deserves whatever Dragon’s insane ass delivers.
Koyn slides a black cup of coffee my way. I sip the hot caffeine, thankful for the stoutness of it.
“Bermuda’s in the conference room with Halo. They’ve been crawling the internet looking for any sort of activity with our marks. Gideon and Bastian are on the move. Both their social media accounts were deleted. Reporters are camped out at their building, but neither of the men has shown up.”
I rub at my temple as I ponder where those two could have gone. They’re definitely on the run now that they’ve been caught lying to the masses and attempting mind control through subliminal messaging. Even if people didn’t believe the mountains of evidence and testimonies against them, their sudden disappearance proves their guilt. Just like Huxley’s suicide proves his.
“Now what?” I guzzle the hot liquid, eager for the jitters to hit. “What do we do?”
“The chips are falling as we speak,” Koyn says with a grim smile. “Now we see where they land. We’re getting closer.”
Only a few steps away to a simpler life with my girls.
It can’t come soon enough.
It’s been a week since Huxley’s suicide. Romy handled it a lot better than I thought. He’s her biological father and one of her tormentors. I’d assumed she’d want a little more justice out of him. She was just glad he’s dead and can’t hurt anyone anymore.
She yawns and offers me a sleeping Nova. I eagerly take my daughter, letting her rest against my chest so Romy can take a bathroom break. I’m stroking Nova’s dark hair and kissing her soft head when my phone buzzes with an incoming text.
It’s a video.
From Dragon.
I stiffen as I play it. Dragon’s handsome but completely psychotic face comes into view as he grins devilishly.
“Found him, Johnny.”
I’m no longer annoyed he calls me that. I figure all these guys have nicknames and that’s the one they gave me.
“He was hiding,” Dragon reveals, making a tsking sound with his tongue. “But he went to the funeral. He was easy to track from there.”
I hear muffled screaming in the background and it turns my stomach. Thankfully, Nova sleeps deeply and Kaitlyn has been out for a couple of hours. To be safe, though, I lower the volume on the phone.
“Once we found the house he was staying at, me and Katana snuck in. I knocked him out like I did you that one time.” He winks at me. Fucker. “Then we wrapped him in a sheet and threw him in the back of the SUV.”
The background is dark and doesn’t look like a house. Maybe an abandoned building or something.
“We saw those torture chairs they had at that place he ran,” Dragon says, breathing heavily as he walks toward the sound of the screaming. “So me and Kat built one of our own. Wanna see?”
He flips the screen around and I can see light in the dark, cavernous room. There are two figures. One stands stiff and unmoving. The other is strapped to a chair, screeching with terror.
As Dragon nears, everything comes into view. Doc Junior is sitting in a chair, pinned to it with knives driven through his thighs and into the wood. He’s been wrapped with barbed wire around his bare chest, the rusty metal piercing every piece of flesh it touches. Red rivulets of blood leak from each hole.
“Don’t worry,” Dragon says, gesturing to a pile of tiny used containers. “He won’t bleed out of his thighs. I superglued his skin to the blades.”
Bile creeps up my throat because this is fucking gross. I’ve seen horror movies, but this is too real for comfort.
I can hear the shower running and am thankful Romy isn’t witnessing this sick shit.
“We couldn’t figure out the head device they used, so me and Katana got creative.” He walks around to show the back of Doc Junior’s head. “I hammered a few nails in the back, just deep enough to pierce the skull. His brain’s safe for now.”
Doc Junior screams in horror. Something is in his mouth, keeping him from really belting out in pain.
A board that has been nailed to the back of the chair is what the nails going into his head are coming through. I don’t even want to know how much that hurt. Sure enough, I can see three nail heads hammered all the way into the wood. The other end of them must be poking through his skull. It’s a twisted version of how they kept us trapped and immobilized in the head contraption.
“We want him to see everything,” Dragon explains, coming around to view Doc Junior from the front. “That’s where the stapler comes in handy.”
Katana approaches with a stapler. The camera jiggles as Katana takes the phone. Dragon flips open the stapler and grips a handful of Doc Junior’s blond hair.
“Hold still, fucker,” Dragon says with a grunt.
The screams are deafening as Dragon pulls Doc Junior’s eyelid up over his eyebrow and staples it into the muscle and flesh there. His eye is grotesquely widened and now his lid drips with blood. Dragon wastes no time making the other side match, but it takes a few staples for him to get it to stick. The whole thing is gory and gross.
He trades items with Katana and then the camera is back on him.
“Now we’re going to have some fun,” Dragon reveals with a sinister grin. “Katana, light the fuse.”
The fuse, in this case, is what appears to be Doc Junior’s T-shirt stuffed in his mouth. It’s wet with something flammable. I know this because Katana holds the flame to a corner dangling from their captive’s mouth, and it ignites quickly.
Doc Junior screams as the flames grow and engulf his mouth. He squirms and writhes to no avail and is forced to watch this fire consume him. I’m thankful I don’t have to smell that shit. It must be awful.
“Put it out,” Dragon instructs.
Katana pulls out his cock and pisses on the man. The flames don’t go out as they should. With a grunt, Katana yanks out the flaming T-shirt and it falls into Doc Junior’s lap. Since he’s only wearing boxers, the fire spreads to the material there, all the while Doc Junior screams.
The torture continues and I watch every second of it so Romy never has to. This man hurt countless people, but he especially hurt my girls. Nothing can ever absolve him from that.
Eventually, Doc Junior passes out from shock. This must bore Dragon because he begins carving up the man’s neck, making a bloody mess of things. Then, with a simple, “You’re welcome, Johnny,” the video ends.
Holy shit.
That was fucking awful.
I delete the video from my phone because I don’t ever want to see that shit again. And I sure as hell don’t want Romy or Kaitlyn stumbling on it.
My skin is cold and my heart beats way too fast. I feel eyes on me and note that Nova is now awake and watching me. With a shaky hand, I stroke her dark hair, drawing comfort from the small, precious, beautiful wonder.
I’ll be the best father to her. My real father was a good man who took care of his family. We led a simple life, but it was the best life. Who cares about money and power and influence when you have this?
Romy steps out of the bathroom, wet hair brushed and cheeks rosy from the heat of the shower. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Everything okay?”
I close my eyes when she sidles up next to me. Her soft lips press kisses to my temple and she caresses my hair.
I’ll protect this with every fiber of my being.
It’s the only thing that matters.
“I’m good now,” I assure her.
Turning, I meet her mouth with mine, tongue reaching for hers, desperate for connection. We kiss with a ravenous hunger that’ll never be satiated. As if it’ll never be enough and we’ll always crave more.
There’s a future for us now and that means we’ll have thousands of moments just like this one.
For a lifetime of hell, we deserve this little slice of heaven.
It’s certainly long overdue.