35 Turner
Absolutely ruthless. No one would believe what my eyes took in, watching Anika torture Mandy.
The woman running for mayor already lost three fingers as Anika took the dull end of the blade to cut through with more force than slicing them clean.
It made me cringe in pain, but Kayos informed me that Kit planned to do something similar to the man in the woods.
Mandy’s face had been bludgeoned. Anika used her as a punching bag, and her muscles were ones no one wanted to go against. The swelling forming around her cheeks and eyes made it so she could barely see, and there were black circles decorating her porcelain skin.
The center of her nose shifted because Anika broke it in her rageful beating.
Mandy had been unprepared for us to find her, and for Anika to beat the ever-loving shit out of her.
“I’m running out of kindness,” Anika glowered.
“And I told you that I wouldn’t care what you did to me. Kit getting what she deserves is worth it,” Mandy hissed back.
“You shallow whore! You kept these misguided insecurities inside of you this whole time, but Kit stayed your friend during that duration. She bent over backwards to help you get further to advance in your own life! Now I find out you’ve been the one who’s hindered her?”
“Hindered? I’ve been destroying.” Her leer was ugly through her swollen lips as blood spilled from her gums. “I told Ryatt how I felt about him our freshman year, but his eyes had already been glued to the new girl. He didn’t even know Kit had been there for a year until he finally saw her in the hallway.
That’s when I knew he’d never love me because of her. ”
Kit came our eighth-grade year, and her and Mandy became fast friends from what we knew.
We didn’t meet Kit until our freshman year when Ryatt noticed her in the hallway and tripped over himself because of her beauty.
After he showed us her, none of us were the same again.
Her kindness only made her more beautiful, and her loving heart was everything a broken boy needed.
“Ryatt didn’t like you before that,” I told her the truth. She’d sense it from being an Alpha herself. “He was never into you, Mandy. It wasn’t Kit’s fault, but you weren’t his type or the rest of ours.”
“Oh, I know.” She let her head toss back before cackling like the crazy bitch she revealed.
“But just imagine the power I felt when I was the one doing everything for Saul to get you guys riled up. I left the dead animals on her porch for you to find, but you never knew it was to hide her scent all along. She never left that condemned room, but you had no idea.”
Bile rose in my throat because I remembered the animals she talked about. They were strung along the overhang to greet our faces. She also punched in the windows and ruined the crappy place even more to make it look abandoned. We never entered because it looked too haunted.
Mandy had always been someone with a bubbly personality, but her narcissistic mask helped her hide among the many with her true villainous ways.
If Kayos was here to hear this or even catch wind of it, he’d take Anika’s knife and jam it into Mandy’s throat to not hear another word.
I wanted to do the same thing right now, but I knew better. She was the only link to our girl.
My arm might’ve been out of the sling, but it didn’t have the grip strength I needed to hold her down and stab her.
Seeing red line my vision, I knew if anything happened to Kit it would gut me as though she was part of my pack because I loved her so deeply without that connection.
Kit didn’t need to bear our mark to mean the world to me.
We had to find a way to save her, or I wouldn’t find my own will to live anymore.
Just when I thought we wouldn’t get anywhere, the door to the room we were in opened.
Raphael moved with someone right behind him that I couldn’t make out under the bathing shadows.
Anika had placed Mandy right below one swing light in order to put the focus on her without her being able to see what was around.
My eyes kept trying to take in the stranger, but I could tell Raphael sat a little more on edge from whoever paid them a visit.
“Sister,” greeted Anika. “You have a visitor.”
The second he stepped to the side, everything in my chest froze and locked up.
Underneath a black brimmed hat, Castiel looked up for us to see his face.
Even with the shadows hiding a lot of his features, no one wore a leather eye patch like that.
Anika appeared just as baffled as me to see him walking into their home, and it made me wonder how he knew where to find them.
How long have they been in cahoots with Castiel?
“Cass,” she greeted him like an old friend.
She stopped sawing her way through the finger with the dull end of a blade and lifted it up right before jabbing it back down to land in Mandy’s thigh.
Mandy let out a roaring scream of pain as we watched and heard the full blade go through her meat and bone before digging into the wooden chair below. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes were fixated on the spot that she tormented Mandy just now. Licking his lips, I could see how much he loved the cruelty Anika provided Mandy. “A little birdie flew my way with the whereabouts of your lost Omega.”
“Who?” She crossed her arms and stood strong against him as though they did have a history. One that didn’t put him in her good graces.
“The same one from all those years ago. The one who helped her escape before when he returned her to you.” Castiel kept his hands in his pockets of the tan trench coat he wore that helped hide his frame from any cameras that might be nearby.
A man made for stealth and filled to the brim with information he shouldn’t be bargaining with.
“And why would you help? Why now?” Anika’s questions made my ears perk up because I wondered what it would be that she was referring to. Ryatt had told us about his venture with Kit to his bar to learn the address of the cabin, but I had an inkling it wasn’t the only time they wandered in that bar.
Castiel sighed before moving her direction to stand right before Mandy. Even through her tears, Mandy smirked as though she had the upper hand on him. This time, it wasn’t Anika he addressed. “You devious little girl, how dare you use me?”
“Technically, Saul used you.” She all too happily to delivered that line. I was beginning to comprehend something else had been at play here. Sharing a look with Raphael, he was picking up on it too.
“Used you? How did they use you?” Anika interjected, asking what we wanted to know too.
“They stationed their man at my bar for Kit to follow on purpose, and they deliberately had me overhear that address to send her to.” Unbuttoning his trench coat, he wore a simple band T-shirt and black jeans.
Turning my way with his coat, he held it out for me to take.
“Would you mind holding this? It’s my newest one, so I’d rather not get it dirty to match the others it replaced. ”
Taking it, I wasn’t sure I had another choice in the matter.
Though, he left me completely speechless with what happened next.
Castiel swiftly moved his body to where Mandy sat, lording over the woman with a displeased growl.
He yanked the knife from her thigh and shoved it into the center of her throat for her to choke on her own blood.
We listened to the gargling sound, but we were desensitized to it from having too many instances like this.
Castiel had a few splatters of blood going up his arm, but it wasn’t too terrible as Anika handed him a towel to clean himself. She studied the hollowed eyes of her once friend, knowing the friendship had been a lie all along. “I take it that if you’re killing my only witness, you have a plan?”
Removing a paper from his back pocket, he showed us a list of addresses that were on it.
Now that the vermin had been killed, we could speak openly about what needed to be done next.
Well, he didn’t know if he could trust me as his single eye drilled into my skull.
Raphael nodded my way and gave the okay for him to communicate frankly in front of me.
“Turner is part of Ryatt’s pack. And before you even ask it, yes, that Ryatt. They also know the truth about Kit.”
“Ah, I believe I had the pleasure of meeting Ryatt when they came into my bar. No wonder he was acting so possessive of Kit during our friendly banter. His soul secretly knew her little secret.” Castiel let a mischievous smile take over his lips.
He emulated the devil in disguise, and I hated he became our only hope right now.
When he saw my disdain for him, he held the paper out for me to see.
“Seems how your pack is so privy to our information, I’ll be the one to tell you this end of it.
Kit and I have a mutual alliance that built our empires together, so I have known all along about every secret she has here.
Let it bother you and your other men as long as you need, but she was smart enough to send her inside man my way in order to get this note into her compound safely. ”
“He's right on that,” Raphael added. “If her person on the inside was the one to show up, we would have shot him with no questions asked. That’s how we’ve kept this place safe for so long.”
“But you let this man have a key to the kingdom?” I couldn’t get over this new fact. Castiel of all people.
“Think of it more as a partnership. We’re both silent partners in each other’s business that gives me access to this place, so I’m handing over the address to where Kit is. Would you rather I didn’t show up?”
Grinding my teeth, I knew I’d hate this man for a very long time. Though, I couldn’t deny my relief with what he handed over to us. “I still don’t trust you.”
“And you never should,” Anika finished. Turning back his way, she glared at him to tell us what he knew.
He pointed to an address that was circled at the top.
“Our informant let me know this is where she is right now, but if it changes, these are the other locations Saul might hold her at. And because I gave Kit faulty information, my debt is no longer paid to her. As her Beta, I’m asking that my wrong be righted in this exchange of information. ”
Anika narrowed her eyes, but she bowed her head in acceptance of his offer. “If she’s here, you won’t owe a debt.”
“Alrighty then,” he replied before moving to the door. “I’m also putting it out there that I’ll be taking care of Saul and his little minions, but I’d like to ask for your help with doing that.”
Giving her a look over his shoulder, she narrowed her eyes in confusion because she knew that meant he’d owe her a service. “Why are you offering me a favor?”
“Because I have something you’re gonna be interested in, and I don’t want to make you owe me to find out. By asking for your help on a mission you’re already going on, I feel it’s safe to speak to you about it.”
“What is it?”
“I found someone you’ll be interested in finding. Right now, there’s only rumors, but I know Saul is working with the people who can find out for sure. Let’s just say, I gained a favor with my offer to kill him that’ll give me the information I need.”
“And what if this person isn’t who you think?”
“Presumably, very few can do what he can, especially in our neck of the woods, but I’m finding out to make sure.
” His code was understood, Anika gasped, and he knew she would.
Raphael even dropped the gun he held in pure shock of whoever this person was.
Castiel only smiled at her before tipping his hat and leaving.
“You have my number. Get your men ready to go in an hour because mine have already been prepped.”