Chapter 39 #3
Azrael nodded, he and Beckett immediately heading out the door.
I lingered for a few seconds, curious to know what happened.
“Hey, he’s here. Make sure you keep her there tonight,” Vanessa said. “No working.” A pause. “Alright, thanks.”
She hung up and turned back towards the door, her motions slowing when she saw me.
After a second, she pulled on her deep red leather jacket and pulled her keys out of her pocket.
“Sometimes our customers get this delusion in their heads that they own a girl or that the flirting means something more than it does,” she explained as we headed for the door.
“This one guy has been bothering one of my girls since she got on stage.”
“She works for both you and Taliss?” I asked.
She nodded, locking her office behind us. “Some of them do. It’s a way to regain their power. She had it rough, but she’s getting through it. This guy,” she shook her head. “A real fuck. You know about the dom world, right?”
I nodded. “I live it from time to time.”
“Ah, a femme dom, I appreciate that.” She inhaled deeply.
“Well, with good comes bad. He’s a bad one.
Believes that control is singular. That she doesn’t have any freewill, despite the fact that she never gave consent.
We stopped allowing him to have private sessions with her a long time ago, but he still pushes. ”
“Why don’t you just kick him out?”
“If he’s here, we can control him,” she said easily. “Locking him out would only put her in more danger. My goal is to keep my girls safe. So, I do whatever I can to accomplish that.”
“And Taliss helps you?”
“Taliss is…he comes across as grumpy and cold-hearted, but he cares about the people he employs. Come on, we shouldn’t keep them waiting. Did you know that woman?”
I nodded, following her out the door. “Zo. She was friends with Jack and Rae,” I answered as she locked the door.
“And Evie?”
I flexed my hands at my sides. “Our friend,” I told her. “Mine and my husband’s.”
“Are you worried about her?”
“They were working together while we were here,” I answered, following her down the stairs.
“Generally, when Azrael gives half-answers or doesn’t answer at all, it’s not good.
” Evie had to be alive. She had to be. She couldn’t just…
disappear while we were all sitting around that house doing nothing.
She had a family. Baily would wonder where her auntie was. If Zo hurt her—
I felt my blood chill at the thought. If Zo was behind Scarlett or she hurt Evie, I didn’t care what Azrael wanted to do with her, I was going to fucking kill her.
~~~
We pulled up to an old cabin in the middle of the woods. It was rundown, the road muddy and filled with potholes.
It looked like it had been abandoned decades ago, which was why Azrael had picked the place, I was sure.
“Couldn’t have fixed the road?” Vanessa asked, climbing out of her ’69 deep red Camaro behind us.
“No,” Azrael stated without looking back.
Beckett and I fell in step behind him, Vanessa behind us, as he headed for the door.
He unlocked it with a fingerprint and eye scan, instantly telling me that he had planned to hold someone here long before he ever found Zo and the male.
He let us in, and I instantly knew that the point of this house was strictly to bring prisoners.
There wasn’t even a single chair anywhere here. The entire place was empty of everything except for a few dust covered pots in the corner of the kitchen.
We followed Azrael down a short hallway to a closed door that had another scanner. This one for a different finger on his other hand and a DNA scanner, in which he placed a single hair.
The door unlocked and he led the way down, flipped a switch as we descended into a cold, deep basement.
The air became so cold, my breath was suddenly visible. The stairs were made of concrete, as were the walls until we got to a point where that concrete shifted to hard packed dirt.
I felt my stomach twist, and as if he could hear the unease, he sent a glance back before righting himself.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to ignore the unease. It was the first time I had been underground since the compound. Rationally, I knew I was safe, but irrationally?
God, I was going to kill Zo. I was going to stick a knife so far down her throat, the tip would slide out her ass.
As we reached the bottom, I was flexing my hands tightly.
The room looked almost exactly like the rooms he had at his place, except they were surrounded in hardpacked dirt rather than stone.
There was a long table filled with tools on one side, shackles hanging from the ceiling, and in the center of the room, two chairs holding two prisoners.
Zo looked up, her hair hanging in her face in strings, dripping in blood, her blue eyes wild.
The man I didn’t even care to look at as I stormed over and slammed my fist into her face, feeling my knuckle split. I straightened, fixing my shirt as she slowly turned back to me, blood dripping down from her cheekbone. “So, he finally told someone.”
“This isn’t our stop, rose.”
I looked over, seeing Azrael standing a few feet in front of another door. One I hadn’t seen when we reached the bottom of the steps.
I turned back to Zo and rather than saying a word, I turned away from her. “Who is the man?”
“Thomas,” he answered, opening the door, this one with a password, a fingerprint scan that was different than the first two, and the scan of his ring.
It was an effort not to turn around and punch him too, but he did look like he was already on the verge of death, and if I killed him on accident, Azrael might lose whatever progress he had in finding Scarlett.
By the looks of the two of them, he hadn’t had them long, but I knew he had been looking into Zo for quite a long time before he finally pulled the trigger.
Whatever he found, it was damning. The only question was; did Malachi know?
Did Malachi know that they were going to attack that church?
How much did Azrael tell Evie and Zo about the plans?
I know that I told Evie a lot about what was happening, but I trusted her.
Had she told Zo anything? Had Jack and Rae?
I stepped into the room the second Azrael stepped aside and felt my heart stop.
Evie was lying in a hospital bed. She had IV’s attached to her, a heart monitor, blood pressure monitor, and she had stitches in her face, along with swelling and bruising.
“Oh my God,” I breathed out, running up to her side. “Evie. Evie, hey.”
“She can’t hear you, ma’am.”
My head lifted, finding a woman sitting in a chair in the corner.
“Her name is Jacklyn,” Azrael said, walking around the end of the bed, Beckett and Vanessa following him, only for Beckett to join Evie’s side, opposite me. “She’s a doctor, trusted. Doctor Manson’s little sister.”
“Our family swore an oath,” she explained. “To Azrael only. Now we don’t have a choice, no matter what circumstances he puts us in.”
“Don’t be so crass, Jackie, they won’t escape.”
“Hmm,” she said before picking up her book.
I watched her for a moment before turning back to Evelyn. I carefully brushed her hair back, my eyes burning at her state. “Tell me everything,” I demanded.
“No broken bones, but she does have a concussion,” Azrael began. “87 stitches, some deep bruising that will take some time to heal, and a severe sprain in her right ankle. She’ll be out of the fight for quite a while, but she’ll survive.”
“If the concussion doesn’t get worse,” the doctor said.
I found her eyes before finding Azrael’s.
He shrugged.
I turned back to Evie, remembering the last time we had spoken. She had sounded fine. Everything had been fine.
“Have you gotten anything from them?” Beckett asked.
“Still working,” he answered.
“How long have you had them?”
“A day,” he answered. “They were delivered early yesterday morning.”
Yesterday morning? But he had been at the house most of that time.
Except for at night. We took shifts watching Scarlett’s heartbeat while he was supposed to be sleeping. He must have come here instead.
I carefully tucked some of her hair back before straightening and finding Azrael’s eyes. “I want time with them.”
He nodded. “That’s why I brought you here. Beckett, handle Thomas.”
He nodded, sending one last look at Evie before heading for the door.
“What am I here for?” I heard Vanessa ask as I followed Beckett out.
“To speak to Jacklyn about next steps for Evie.”
Rehabilitation, I had to remind myself. She was going to need rehab to deal with her ankle and her concussion, depending on how severe it was. I had my doubts Evie would accept anything other than using Zo as a punching bag, but I’m sure Vanessa could help in a way the doctor couldn’t.
As for me?
I came to a stop in front of Zo, every ounce of rage and pain I had felt over the last few weeks flooding through my veins. God, I hated it down here.
She only smiled. “Hey there, pawn,” she mocked. “Where’s your precious dog?”
I allowed a smile to stretch across my face. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Zondra,” I hummed, watching her face twist at the name, “I brought my teeth.”