Chapter 30 #2
“Well, why the hell not?”
“I mean, I just don’t see her starting over in some new country, a new identity, a language she doesn’t speak… Plus, we can’t protect her out there.”
“I can.”
Logan stares at me.
“You would go with her?”
“Of course I would. I’m not leaving her again.”
He passes a hand over his eyes. “Be reasonable, man. You can’t just leave the States for good.
And that’s what this would mean. Everything we’ve built together, over the last twenty years…
you can’t just wave goodbye to that. And the second you guys return, you’re both in jail, and she’s getting far more than ten years, I can guarantee it. ”
“I’m aware of all that. If we leave, we won’t be returning.”
Logan shakes his head in disbelief. “I know she means a lot to you. But is she really worth…”
I’m up before he can blink, my fist closed around his collar. “Go on,” I dare him. “Finish that sentence.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he capitulates. “We’re all on edge, okay? Let’s figure something out that works.”
“This works. Go ahead, boys. Make arrangements.”
I sit back down resolutely, an angry nerve ticking in my jaw.
“Alright,” says Logan guardedly. “Now that the most urgent situation is being… dealt with, I have two more things I need to talk to you about.”
I nod, trying to swallow my anger.
“So, the first thing is I think we still have a rat in our midst.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, Vale was clearly not working alone. The key situation, for example. He definitely did not just give it to the pet. He had to have handed it to someone else first. What I mean is, he wouldn’t get involved on such a lowly level.
For more than one reason. Too smug, first of all.
You know how he was. And second, far too dangerous.
He was never one to stick his neck out.”
“Fine. And? He’s dead now. Sure, let’s weed out the little fucker, but it’s hardly a pressing matter.”
“It may not be the most urgent matter,” says Logan steadily, “but it’s definitely pressing. Angel is—”
“Angel is a sad little group of losers that’ll never amount to a thing, and they’re down a member anyway.”
“Well, so are we,” snaps Logan. “And I think you should listen instead of interrupting every two seconds.”
I fold my arms and turn a stony face to him.
“They’re not half as weak as you seem to think they are.
You’ve been… well, otherwise occupied these past six months, but they’ve been rising in power surprisingly fast. They’ve made allies of some very important people.
People that we used to be able to count on.
There seems to be a general consensus that Devil is on the way out, and Angel is on the up-and-up. ”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit or not, that’s the public perception. There was just a four-page spread on them in Forbes. Can you believe it? That’s a national magazine. What we need to do right now is find our rat, before shit hits the fan.”
“Okay,” I agree. “So do it.”
Logan hums in exasperation, but nods his head. “We’re on it. And now, there’s one last thing.”
“Yeah?” I grunt, doing my best to quell my own rising frustration. This meeting is turning into a marathon, and I need to get back to my pet.
Now that I’ve found the solution to her legal troubles, I’m back to thinking about her, or more precisely, what I was doing to her before being called away to deal with all this shit.
Should’ve left her tied up, I think, suppressing a little smirk.
But I obeyed her request, just this once. We both remember far too well what happened the last time I left her handcuffed to a bed.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to get into the habit of listening to her, though.
“I would rather speak to you alone about this,” says Logan in a low voice. “It’s kind of private.”
“Just spit it out.”
He sighs. “Fine. I’ve been going back and forth about telling you for a long time.
I know how happy you’ve been these past months, and I tried to convince myself that it would be best to just turn the page.
But it doesn’t sit right, keeping a secret from you.
And the longer I wait, the more I struggle with the heaviness of it.
We’ve never kept secrets from each other before, and I really want to come clean, but I’m worried you might not understand the… the circumstances.”
Well, here goes. I suddenly remember the weird way he was acting earlier this year. I don’t want to hear about it right now, while my cock is aching to get back to my pet, but I guess my curiosity is mildly piqued. “Yeah?”
“So,” he begins, clearing his throat, “back when you asked me to check on her that very first time, well, I did check on her. But maybe not in the way you intended.”
I lift an eyebrow in confusion. What the hell is he talking about?
“The truth is, I… I brought her to Oakdale River, and threw her in.”
“What?!” cries Everest.
I lean in and stare at him. “I’m going to need some more details,” I say, my voice low and steady.
He blanches, and I know he can tell from my tone that I’m furious. But he speaks again, his voice loud but shaky. “I was very worried. I thought she was guilty, and I was scared about how obsessed you were. I felt the whole situation was endangering Devil.”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want to know what happened.”
“The… the cameras weren’t down because of a technical issue.
I turned them off. And so, I brought her to Oakdale River, pushed her out of the boat, and I…
I… I asked her about the nanochip while she was struggling in the water,” stammers Logan.
“She was struggling because… because she couldn’t swim.
She clearly had no clue what I was talking about, but then I guess I still wanted to punish her because of you, because I thought you were spiraling… ”
“I wasn’t spiraling,” I hiss.
“Right. Right.” Logan wipes at his brow. “I made her walk home.”
“From Oakdale River?” gasps Everest. “That’s more than two hours!”
“Yes,” confirms Logan, his face ashen. “And it was the middle of the night. Only, she didn’t make it.
I waited for her here for several hours, and she never showed up.
So, I drove back, freaking out, thinking something had happened to her.
I found her passed out in the middle of a street.
Luckily, there weren’t too many cars.” He pauses, barely managing to look up at me.
“Anything else?” I growl.
“I… well… by the time I brought her home, I felt terrible… and she smelled so bad from the water that I believed… I believed I had no choice but to give her a shower. I averted my eyes, but… well… I know that you won’t like that… that I saw her… that she was naked…”
“She was naked,” I echo, my voice harsh.
I rise slowly from the table and turn toward the cupboard behind me. Both Everest and Igor pale as they see me fumbling through the drawer, but Logan’s face is in his hands and he never notices a thing until I press the gun I fetched to the back of his head. He inhales sharply.
“Okay, man. Okay. I get it. You’re angry.”
“No, I don’t think you do get it,” I say in a strangled tone.
I close my eyes. Somehow it feels like just yesterday when I found her that morning sleeping on the floor.
She’d fallen into my arms and lifted her head for a kiss, and I had withheld my affection.
She must have been so relieved to see me, so thankful, believing I would protect her.
She was sadly rewarded for her faith in me.
Tortured at Logan’s hands, humiliated beyond belief when I asked him to go unlock her handcuffs.
And then… I grimace in pain as I remember it.
And then, I allowed him to win her at poker, and I beat her in front of him, in front of Vale, in front of them all, when she refused to go.
Of course, she refused to go. She didn’t know it was all for show. She didn’t know she was safe with him, because she hadn’t been safe with him.
That was why she kneeled before me, that fateful day, and begged. Not to be spared, but to be spared a death at Logan’s hands.
A sudden suspicion nearly strangles me.
“I will allow you to leave this Earth painlessly,” I snarl, my finger on the trigger.
Logan’s eyes grow wide with shock.
“Oh, come on, man, don’t say that…”
“LISTEN TO ME!” I bark. “I will allow you to die painlessly, if you can look me in the eye and promise me you did not touch her.”
His mouth actually hangs open. “What the fuck, dude? What the fuck?”
“Stand up,” I order, my voice harsh. “Turn around slowly. Face me. Look me in the eye.”
He stands up then hesitates, his hands shaking at his sides.
“Do it,” I insist.
He turns around slowly, very slowly, and lifts his eyes until they meet mine.
It’s all I can do not to look away. His terrified expression is like a blow to my stomach, and all the wind is knocked out of me.
I look in his eyes and see all our life together.
The first time we met, when we were six.
Beginning of first grade. We had been assigned seats next to each other, and from that moment on, we were inseparable.
We played at recess together. We did our homework together.
We copied off each other on tests. When the teacher demanded silence, he whispered jokes in my ear.
If he was sick, I’d invent an excuse to stay home too.
School wasn’t school without him. Life wasn’t life.
There’s an unspoken plea in his eyes, and I have to force my tears from welling up in mine. I can’t even remember the last time I cried. Probably when the doctor pulled me out of my mother. Oakley boys don’t cry.
And here I am, about to bawl like a motherfucking baby.
But my finger remains steady on the trigger. Because he didn’t get it, but now he does. The days when he was the most important person in my life are over.
Now, it’s me and my pet. And if anyone hurts her, they die. That includes him.
“Did you touch her?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head wordlessly, and I remove the safety. He closes his eyes, and I can tell he’s doing his best to accept his fate.
I take a deep breath and put my finger once more on the trigger.
“Damien,” says Everest suddenly.
“Fuck off,” I grunt. “This is between me and Logan.”
“I get that. But listen, Damien. You have a message. No. Three messages.”
“I said, fuck off.”
“On your cell phone. I think… I think you need to look at this.”
“In a minute.”
“Damien, please. Just… just tell me. Where did you leave Seraphina?”
I tear my eyes away from Logan, a strange feeling, something like dread, suddenly constricting my chest. “What do you mean?”
“Where did you say you left her?” he repeats, his voice urgent.
“In my apartment. Why?”
“I think they have her,” he blurts out. “Angel.”
Time suddenly comes to a standstill. I stare at him for I don’t know how long, my arm still rigid in front of me, hanging on limply to the gun.
Everest hands me my phone, and I look down numbly at the three messages.
Three messages, and an image attachment.
The first one reads:
You killed my brother. You really think that was the end of it?
The second one:
You murdered the person who meant everything to me. Now I’m going to return the favor.
And the third one:
Got her, fucker.
The image gives me a horrible sense of déjà-vu. My pet, bound, gagged and naked. Only this time, she’s kneeling in muddy grass, an empty coffin a few steps away and a gaping hole visible just in front of her. A gun is pointed at the back of her head, execution-style.
I let my own gun fall to the ground.
There’s a long, stifling silence, broken at last by Logan’s trembling voice.
“We’ll get her back, Damien. I swear it to you on everything I have, on our brotherhood, with God as my witness, we’ll get her back. I won’t rest until I find her for you, and I will bring her home. Okay?”
I fall down heavily on my chair, pressing my head to the table. I’m absolutely drained of energy.
“I think… I think it’s too late,” breathes Everest.
The everlasting optimist has capitulated. But his words give me a sudden surge of resolve.
“I am going to find every last one of those fuckers,” I snarl.
“I am going to find them, and I am going to kill them. They will each die a slow, horrific death. They don’t realize what they’ve done.
They’ve just declared war on Devil. Motherfucking war.
And with their final breath, they’ll look at me and understand.
No one beats me. The Devil always wins.”