Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
EASTON
“I need to check on the warehouse.” Standing slowly, I keep my gaze on my phone as my brows furrow with concern. I’m getting an alert that there’s been a break-in but the cameras aren’t picking anything up.
We recently sold our previous warehouse due to the smell of human shit we couldn’t get out of the walls. The sewage was backing up into the building due to a city issue, and they wouldn’t fucking fix it.
The location also stopped being useful as it was too close to other people. We need a quiet place to do our work when we need to erase some asshole off the face of the earth. Sometimes, the screaming is the best part.
It’s difficult to do that when you’re forced to pay attention to your neighbors.
We also like to offer the warehouse to our friends to use, and we need to ensure the building is safe.
We can’t have someone pressing their faces to the windows to see what’s happening as we engage in our extracurricular activities.
It’s not safe and could lead to unwanted questions.
While we don’t currently have anyone chained up in the warehouse, the break-in is still a problem.
“Is that code for something?” Troy asks lazily, sprawled out on our couch.
He looks really fucking good in our house.
Despite the late hour, he hasn’t left yet.
He’s still living in that godforsaken fire risk of an apartment, but Lyle has the green light to fight Ella’s alimony.
His first step was to freeze payments of it, and he’ll show she doesn’t deserve any alimony at all.
She took advantage of Troy after he was sexually assaulted and attempted to make it seem as if he lied to her and cheated.
We’ve talked about the night Olivia Ruberick broke into his hotel room with a key she sweet talked the manager out of, and nothing about that night was consensual.
Needing to duct tape your “lover” to the bed is rape.
It took awhile to safely track her down, but she died screaming at our hands as soon as the media attention died down.
If anyone goes looking for her, they’ll find she’s disappeared completely. We don’t fuck around by leaving evidence lying around, especially when it could potentially hurt Troy.
Ella didn’t believe him because he didn’t seem to be traumatized enough.
Troy keeps his emotions locked up tightly.
He wasn’t going to fall apart on the phone when he discussed what happened to him.
Instead, he did it in the shower quietly while waiting for the police to arrive.
The news stories revolve more about his divorce than his actual rapist these days.
His ex-wife is a cunt. One day, we’re going to lose our patience with her and erase her from the world as well. We veil ourselves in the public eye with our work either in the law or with the Savannah gentry.
It’s the easiest way to enact change, keep our ears to the ground for potential problems, and hide when those problems need to be resolved in a way the law would never allow.
“No,” I chuckle. “The alarm system is telling me someone broke a window and made themselves comfortable inside. It’s in the middle of nowhere, there’s no reason for someone to want to break in.”
“Let’s take a ride out there together,” Lyle says easily. “It’ll assuage Troy’s curiosity and give us an excuse to keep him for a little longer.”
Troy blushes slightly as he gets up, and I smirk because it’s adorable. He’s going back on the road for a few days, and we’ll have to give up seeing him as often as we have been. Things haven’t progressed past make out sessions and blow jobs, but we don’t want to push too hard.
He insists on going home at night after dates spent with us, and we haven’t had a sleepover yet.
A part of me is concerned he doesn’t want us to witness the nightmares he has.
The only thing that seems to be helping is the fact that he’s open to going to therapy.
He has health insurance through the league, and he finally has money coming back in.
He hasn’t broken down enough to actually speak to someone yet though.
Lyle has frozen Ella’s alimony payments for the time being while mediation is scheduled, and I can see how much lighter Troy seems. The sooner we get that bitch out of his life forever, the better.
One thing at a time. My pack and I have trouble moving slowly. We want to fix things, and coming on too strong isn’t the right move. We’ve agreed that we will be present in his life, push when it matters, and let Troy work through things at his pace.
We really fucked up as it was by not communicating with him. I’d rather talk things to death than possibly hurt him again.
Trauma sucks and there’s no timetable for healing, especially when you stuff it into a box in your head to deal with it later.
That’s exactly what Troy has done since the second Olivia was ripped off his dick by his coach.
Society doesn’t believe men when they say they weren’t interested, because of the rhetoric that men can’t be raped if they have an erection.
That’s fucking bullshit. Cocks get hard. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it.
“We locked all the doors,” Lyle murmurs as we walk. Silas is talking with Troy and keeping him distracted.
“The window is broken,” I explain, shoving my feet into my shoes. None of us wear them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Our home is where we relax, which means we’re typically barefoot. “I’m wondering if someone decided to escape the cold. We’re dipping into the low forties tonight.”
“Let me grab some blankets. Fuck, and maybe some medical supplies if the window is broken.”
Lyle hustles to grab a bag of necessities in case someone needs assistance, and then the four of us are jogging to my SUV. It’s the least flashy of our three cars. Silas prefers to be a passenger princess whenever possible, simply because he hates traffic.
“Why am I beginning to get a bad feeling about this?” Troy asks, glancing at the bag at his feet as I pull on my seat belt.
“The warehouse is further than most unhoused people would typically be,” I explain, turning on the vehicle. “Also, if they broke a window to get inside, they could have hurt themselves doing that.”
“It’s interesting that you’re more worried about someone being injured than your property being damaged,” he observes.
“I can fix a window, I’m not worried about that,” I admit, looking over my shoulder as I begin to back out of the driveway. “There’s nothing but farmland around the warehouse. It’s probably too far for a drug user to be squatting there too.”
“If it was closer to the main areas of Savannah, it would make sense for any of those scenarios to be true,” Silas adds. “There’s also nothing to really steal inside of the building.”
“So what exactly do you use it for?” Troy asks, getting comfortable in the back seat.
“Killing people the law won’t be able to punish,” Lyle says simply.
Taking a deep breath, I shake my head. We are getting very comfortable with Troy. It’s not hard since he’s so easy going. I simply don’t know if he’s going to accept the pack that’s courting him are also murderers.
“Oh.” He’s silent as I drive through the streets toward the warehouse and I resist the urge to make sure he’s still in the backseat. My doors immediately lock when you turn on the vehicles, I’m simply being dramatic. “So they’re people who are bad?”
“Yes.” I sneak a peek into the backseat as Silas speaks, and he puts his hand over Troy’s. “Pedofiles, auction house owners, and sex offenders are typically people we’ve killed. Is that a problem?”
Lyle and my lips twitch at how simple Silas makes it seem.
My eyes stay on the road as the number of buildings on either side begins to thin, and my headlights pick up farmland instead.
Troy is usually home by now since he has practice in the morning, but we’ve all been dragging our heels about ending our night.
It’s been getting harder and harder for us to watch him leave, and we’ve been discussing extending our guest cottage to him again. Rosalia is well taken care of by her pack and we see her as often as possible since she lives in our neighborhood.
“I think you do what others wish they could,” Troy finally admits. “I don’t know if I could bring myself to kill someone, but I can appreciate the allure.”
“Would it upset you if I told you we killed the woman who hurt you two years ago in your hotel room?” I ask him.
If we’re dropping emotional bombshells, then I may as well go for the gold.
“No. I think about her when I close my eyes at night,” he grumbles. “Every goddamned night. It’s probably why I’ve been dragging my heels every time I have to leave you guys.”
“Stay with us tonight,” Lyle says, breaking every rule we promised we’d follow. The rules are the ones we have for ourselves to keep from pushing too hard.
But, he opened the door, right?
“Think about it,” I add. “Maybe we can help you sleep. I can't promise to keep away the nightmares, but none of us will mind if you wake us up.”
“We’ll see,” Troy promises. I can tell he wants to. I hope he decides to after I deal with whatever happened at the warehouse.
I have spare plywood I can place over the window inside. The censors tell me where the break-in was, but I haven’t put in motion spotlights yet. That’ll be something I’ll need to handle in the morning.
Everything seems to be quiet as I pull into the parking lot, but I feel unsettled. Something feels odd.
“I’m coming with you,” Lyle says, glancing at me. “I’ll grab the bag.”
“We’ll all come,” Silas grunts, pushing open the door as soon as I unlock them. He pulls a gun I have stashed behind Lyle’s chair, while I ignore Troy’s sound of surprise.
Shit goes down sometimes when I don’t have my weapons, and this way, I’m covered. I’m still wearing a gun at the small of my back, as is Lyle, which means we’re fine as we begin to walk the perimeter of the building.