Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Randall
The rain hit me like knives cutting into my sensitive skin, soaking right through my coat and running down my neck. The thick mud rolled over my boots and tried to steal my balance with every step I took.
No, you don’t. Think a little junkyard will scare me away, Little Chip? I grew up in this shit.
My chest was tight, and every instinct screamed at me because I knew he wasn’t far.
I needed to arrest him. For what he did to me, and the fact that he was a criminal…
And to get him the fuck out of my head.
The junkyard was empty, and the homeless scattered the moment I walked under the bridge.
I knew all too well the glint of the badge and the fear it elicited.
I wanted to help these people, but that would have to wait for now.
The shitty hovel was filled with old tires, broken cars, and something that smelled like rotting meat.
“Oh, that’s nice, what the fuck did you…” My voice trailed off as I stepped into the clearing, where a black tarp lay on the ground, and a collection of flowers rested on the figure covered inside.
The plants were obscuring the face, but my stomach twisted with unease.
Judas? What game are you playing…
I swallowed thickly, walking closer to the black tarp, and I gasped and dropped my flashlight when I got close enough to see the face clearly.
It was…my mother.
She was pale, dead, and soaked, with flowers pressed to her neck despite the storm trying to wash them away like her life.
It was daisies, some type of clover, and a bunch of wild weeds—nothing fancy or ceremonious, but it was placed with care. The floral arrangement screamed my fugitive’s style. The flowers were pressed against my poor mom as if he had wanted her to have some peace, even if it was at the end.
Rain slicked her thick curls to her skull, and her face was not free of abuse. It wasn’t recent, but the bruises and pain were so evident even after her death.
I dropped to my knees, the mud already trying to swallow me with her.
My hands hovered over the flowers, as if I could will them to bring her back to life.
Relief of seeing her after all this time hit sharp and almost violently in my chest, but the ache of the grief quickly swallowed it.
She was dead, and even knowing that fact, seeing it in front of my eyes was different.
“What happened to you, Mom?”
I picked up the flashlight from the soggy ground and shone it on her body. There was a note I’d missed, sitting in her grip, waterlogged and ink smeared, but still intact. I read it aloud, my voice trembling.
I’m sorry, Liebling. Everywhere I go, I seem to leave a wake of bodies, don’t I? Let this be the last…maybe. Anyways. I know this is definitely not how you wanted to reunite with your mother dearest, but I hope now at least she can have a proper burial and you get some needed closure.
P.S. I know you love watching my ass wiggle, but stop following me. K?
P.S.S. Still taste my come in your mouth, Baby?
P.S.S.S? I hope you do because I definitely do ;-)
PSSSS Sorry. Not naughty time with your dead mother and all that.
Pssssssss….S?
But seriously, though. ;-)
—Judas
I crumpled the paper in my fist, mud soaking up to my damn thigh. Rage and relief tangled in my chest like a fist trying to tear its way out of the cage.
He hadn’t killed her.
Of course, he hadn’t done it. But why did he have her here?
Was this…for me?
He had arranged this, left her flowers, the note—but still, he had left her here, alone, in the storm, exposed to the world, all to run away and try to dodge his unavoidable capture.
When I finally get my damn hands around his thick throat…
Shaking my head, I sighed, ready to zip up the tarp and call my guys to pick her up, but then my eyes caught a mark on her body. It wasn’t the bruises or the abuse marks. This was a symbol and one I had heard about on the radio calls.
Sex trafficking.
A huge organization of Russian sex traffickers was making headlines right now, and the force was left chasing its tail. Quinn told me it was his wife’s father who owned the company, and I wasn’t going to stick my nose into that family drama.
Clearly, Quinn was capable, though he was covered in baby spit-up every time I saw him when he’d visited his sister’s place here in Texas.
Pulling out my phone, I snapped a picture of the mark and shot a message to Micah.
Instead of texting back like a normal fucking person, he called me.
“Yeah,” I said with a grumble.
“Hey. Where the fuck are you? That’s definitely the Masks mark. Don’t fuck around with this, King. Send me your location, and we’ll get someone out there.”
I sighed and shook my head. “ Nah. I’m good. This is personal. Can you tell me what it means?”
Quinn was quiet for a moment, and the sound of a baby babbling and a woman shushing could be heard even as he tried to walk away.
“Randall. It’s a club that’s local there.
They put their symbol over the club’s Signia.
I don’t know what that means, or whether it’s connected to anything, but the Masks Organization has used clubs as fronts to launder money and move girls before.
Don’t get any stupid ideas. You’re still young and need to—”
“What’s the club’s name?”
He ignored me, continuing to drone on about how much potential I had and why leaving the RPD was best because life as a police officer was dangerous. While he rambled, I scrolled the internet, matching the stamp-like mark to the local clubs’ symbols.
Bingo.
“Yeah. Thanks, Quinn. Have fun being a human napkin for your brady bunch, bro.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond before ending the call and sending a quick text to Goliath, asking him to pick up my mom and bring her to the private morgue.
I needed to figure out what the hell was going on before I involved the force. Something bigger than any of us realized was going on under our noses.
I cracked my jaw and swallowed the courage I could muster to zip up my mom inside the protection of the tarp. It was all she had now.
She hadn’t died quietly. She didn’t just vanish like I’d thought, even when she never came back to the tent.
I knew then, and I know now. Something violent and secret had gotten to her.
My idiot fugitive, Judas, had walked into this shit storm after the fact, dragging her body from some very covered corners.
He either found her like this, or more likely, based on his scrawled notes he left behind trying to piece together my scrambled past, he had her brought here.
I have to find him.
I stood up from the mud, giving my mom one last look, my fingers curled around a flower I had taken from her body.
Move your ass. This is in the past—no need for dwelling. Find the killer. Do your damn job.
I turned toward the treeline with a growl. Shadows twisted between the rain and the trees, and I knew he was watching me without even seeing him. I could feel him, and that musky citrus scent of his was thick in the air around me.
Why am I hard?
God, I need a cage in Hospital Thirteen. I have no business guarding the monsters inside when I’m no better than them, clearly.
The storm seemed to tighten around me, the trees bending under the wind, while the branches scraped like fingers across my soaked coat as I moved forward. Every instinct screamed at me that he was here, and he was ready for me.
Am I ready for him?
The rain thankfully washed my pants, but the thick coating didn’t dissipate, and neither did my shame.
I’m going to catch you, Little Chip. You’ll pay for that little stunt.
I stuffed the flower and note into my coat and took a deep breath. Rain poured down my face, water running into my mouth, leaving a sharp, cold taste. My boots sank in the mud. It was even thicker here near the wooded area. I had to force myself to pick up my feet, stuck in this shit like concrete.
One step after the other.
I had to keep going.
I had to find him.
“Masters,” I yelled to the woods.
I knew, somehow, he was already moving, waiting to fuck with me. He had time to leave before I got here, but Judas Masters couldn’t resist a good game, and I was his favorite toy.
The sludge at my feet tried to drag me down as I stumbled forward, my heart hammering, waiting to hear anything over the rain.
The droplets continued to slice across my face, and I wiped them away with a shaking hand.
The storm didn’t care about my efforts, but neither did I.
My gaze kept flicking to the treeline and the shadows inside it.
“You aren’t as good at games as you think, Judie,” I said with a laugh when the movement flickered in my peripherals.
A flash of tall, lean limbs glinted in the moonlight.
His tattoos were slick with rain, and he was disappearing between the black trunks of the trees ahead.
His body turned as he ran, mocking me with the speed of a damn gazelle while I was just a fat hippo trapped in the mud.
His hazel eyes caught mine in the dark, so mischievous and predatory.
His smile told me he’d been waiting for me to see him.
“Liebling,” he called, his husky voice low and smooth, almost amused, as it sliced through the storm to me. “I wondered when you’d show up.”
I swallowed hard, gripping my flashlight like a weapon, and trying to shake off some of the tar-like mud to get a better vantage of movement. Rain dripped down my neck, falling from my curls as I shuffled closer to him.
“Stop moving, dammit,” I yelled. “I’m serious, Judas. Stop right now or I’ll—”
His body halted, and he tilted his head, that crooked grin widening, mud streaking his tattoos in black.
“Or you’ll what do what, Rookie? Shoot me?” He laughed, dark and wet, echoing in the trees. “Go ahead, Baby. You’ve got to try, at least. All your little piggy friends wouldn’t let you live that one down, would they?”
I cursed under my breath, slipping on the mud and sinking even deeper.
What the fuck was this shit?