EPILOGUE ONE
DEX
My borrowed black tactical gear fit like shit and weighed too much but it did the job and got us through the third door of the prison where Ledger Raymond was secured, along with our fake IDs that proclaimed myself, Falcon, Nelson and Beau, and Crush as prison guards for the facility. Not that any of us had an idea what guards should be doing at three in the morning, but it didn’t matter.
Right now the screens and cameras recorded exactly nothing because we’d paid for the privilege. The doors opened on demand because we had paid for that too. Beau’s promise paid off—so far. I was keen to get this job done and get the fuck out before the time limit on this favor expired and we became permanent residents of the penitentiary.
“One more door.” Falcon had memorized the map as well as I had, and we were counting gates as we passed, as well as color coding them in our heads.
“Orange,” I muttered.
“You boys are serious,” Beau remarked.
“It’s a good thing,” Crush snapped.
I liked that the Allstars hockey captain wasn’t any happier than we were to be here. His friend waited in the car outside. What I didn’t like was that we didn’t have one of our people with the transport team, but as Nelson kept reminding me, we were all one team now. Tonight was supposed to cement that fact.
“If you say so,” Beau murmured.
We’d left the girls back at the frat house, both exhausted after handing in group projects. Which meant that Falcon and Nelson were also exhausted, but they held up. I hoped to fuck they did, or we were two men down.
We passed the orange gate, and Nelson started counting.
“Thirteenth on the right.”
“From here?” I clarified, willing myself not to get the wrong door.
“From this door.”
“Counting.” I marked it out, Ledger Raymond’s ugly as fuck face burned into my memory. He’d be a whole less pretty and wouldn’t need anything to breathe out of after I was done with him.
We made it to the cell, and I frowned. “Did you already open this door?”
Beau shook his head and glanced at me. “No.”
“Fuck,” Crush swore, and Falcon wasn’t far behind him.
A rumpled pile of orange pajamas was crumpled on the floor at the far end of the cell, the remains of the body housed within them stained with enough blood that it obviously wasn’t in any condition to breathe.
“The hell happened here?”
“Back up,” Falcon said sharply. “Unless you want to join him.” He slid a blade into my hand and nodded forward.
I stared at the blond headed man sitting on the bunk bed and the identical twin who emerged from the shadows on the opposite side of the cell. Both were dressed in white baggy pants and singlets and both were splattered with blood.
“Three guesses on who that belongs to.” Nelson looked ready to puke beneath his guard’s helmet.
No guesses were necessary. Key—or Kash, I never could tell them apart—rose on long, steady legs.
“We heard you needed a favor.”
“We wanted to make up for scaring your girl.”
“We believed it was necessary.”
“We were wrong.”
I blinked. After a day, when she could stomach it, Zinzi had related their odd and terrifying incarceration with her when she was sure she would die at their hands, their strange way of speaking. Now, I understood the rabbit hole-esque feel of her time with the twins, if not a touch of her terror.
“This is your…apology?” I said carefully, straining for understanding.
“Yes.” One of the twins smiled, and it was utterly terrifying. Devoid of all emotion, like a void.
“Gotcha.” I turned back to my new team. “We do not need to be here anymore.” I pointed back the way we came then turned back to the twins and inclined my head because they seemed to like formalities. “Thank you.”
The other twin also smiled horrifically, apparently delighted with my response. “You are welcome, Dexter Breaker.”
That he knew my full name freaked me the fuck out. I sympathized with how my girl felt, trapped with these assholes in a room for untold hours at a stretch.
“Moving,” Nelson muttered, his voice straining.
That the twins had done what we came to do but with apparent ease bothered everyone except perhaps Beau who seemed to understand them the best. We retreated, Falcon and myself counting every single gated door we passed back through and locking it as we went, though I doubted that would contain the twins, or their clean up.
And when we got back to the car unscathed, Beau called the guard house to let them know that we were out, not a single one of us spoke on the trip back to the frat house. I climbed back into bed with Zinzi after a scalding hot shower where I scrubbed my skin clean despite not having technically committed a sin tonight. Then I held her tight, didn’t sleep at all and promised I’d never fucking let her go ever again.
When the news reached her that Ledger Raymond was dead over breakfast the next morning and she asked if I had a hand in it with questioning eyes, I kissed her hard, relieved that I didn’t have to lie.