The Writer He Haunted (Shadows of Sin #3)

Preface

Everett

Dialogue Spoken in Russian

February 14th, 2022

Bang!

The shot rang through the Tserkov’, echoing off the walls unforgivingly.

The archbishop’s head snapped back, violently, blood splattering across the statue of their beloved god.

I lowered the gun, watching as he hit his knees for the first time since he was a boy, and I wondered if during his last thought he had pleaded for mercy. It would meet deaf ears, I was sure. He would go where we were all heading, but even the Devil didn’t have mercy on kid fucking, diamond mules posing as archbishops.

“Sad,”

Evelyn stated coldly from my right, “he had such a troubled past.”

She cocked her head to one side. “I thought it was just the Catholics that suffered from issues like these.”

“Don’t be so perturbed, dear sister,”

Azrael sang from across the aisle where he was pulling a dagger out of one of the boys in training. “All churches suffer from predators. They just hide it better than the Catholics.”

I watched the man fall, blood gushing from the side of his neck, soaking some of Azrael’s clothes. “You only believe that because you hate religion.”

Azrael smiled, wiping his blade on the victim’s robes before snapping it back into his cane. “Hate is such a strong word, my little mountain-boy—”

I frowned.

“—and it is not just my belief, you would know that if you ever paid attention.”

I paid more attention that he would ever know, and all I saw was someone who should’ve stayed in that asylum.

I holstered my gun and glanced around the room. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Greyson?”

I asked, finding his eyes behind his blood-splattered mask. “You’re hunting down the people after Emily.”

Emily, the second girl in our family to be Claimed, and I had to say, she was exactly what I imagined Greyson choosing as his future toy, although he didn’t see her as a toy but a partner. Just as Jack saw Rae.

He was too soft for this world, in my opinion, but I couldn’t deny how well he worked. Emily was no Rae, that’s for sure, but I trusted Greyson. I trusted that, even though he didn’t follow many of the same rules we did, he understood that if that girl spoke a word about our world, he’d have no choice but to kill her.

If he couldn’t do it, there were three more of us who could.

“I wanted to stop in and say hello,”

Azrael smiled. “But I should get back to little brother dearest, shouldn’t I? Our poor little mouse is just desperate for our return.”

I lifted my chin at his slight confession. “How do you know that?”

His smile widened. “Just because the three of you are too afraid to put cameras on your women doesn’t mean I’m not. Not even the fiery daffodil can find all of them, and she’s smarter than almost all of you.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line, but there was no reason trying to talk to him about it. I’d let Greyson know about it eventually, as for Rae? She could handle herself; I’d seen it plenty of times before. “Goodbye, Azrael.”

“Don’t flood the world red without me,”

he sang on his way towards the front doors.

Evelyn watched after him in disdain. “I’ve known him six years and I still have nightmares about him.”

“I’ve been having nightmares about him since I was born,”

I muttered, crouching down beside the archbishop. I pulled out a pair of pliers from my back pocket and opened his mouth. I searched for his diamond tooth, grabbed it carefully with the pliers and plucked it out of his jaw, the sound reminding me of a boot getting pulled out of the deep mud.

I held it up to the light streaming in through the stained-glass windows, the blood dripping from the roots and falling to the stone floor. It was a fake tooth, surgically placed into his gums. The top was a cap and it had been hollowed out to hold the diamonds. When I shook it, it even rattled.

The dentist was good, but he wasn’t better than me.

I smiled when I was satisfied with the shine and slapped his cheek. “Thank you for your service.”

I wrapped the tooth into my handkerchief, slid it into my back pocket to place with the others when I got back to our temporary apartment. I wiped my hands on my pants and stood. “Did you call—”

She gestured to the phone already to her ear before turning away from me.

I watched her for a moment to verify who she was calling before pulling out my own phone and calling Malachi. He picked up on the third ring.

“Is it done?”

“Yes.”

We sent the Delepski’s a very clear message, if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn’t cause another problem. “They’re all dead,”

I answered, glancing around the room covered in about a dozen dead bodies, blood splattered across their sacred place.

The artwork had seen so many sinners confessing their sins, I was sure they wouldn’t mind the blood on the walls once they realized how many people of their congregation had sins so deep, they would never be forgiven.

The Delepski’s had once been welcomed allies with us until, that was, they crossed a line. They decided to sell blood diamonds on the black market, using their teeth to export them across country lines.

A slow process, but one they had been doing for two years before we finally caught on. Using kids as a work force and killing them when they couldn’t pull their weight didn’t sit well with any of us.

They could sell diamonds all they wanted, we didn’t care, but when their business started turning gruesome, when the abuse of women and children started becoming more prevalent, well, we just couldn’t let that stand.

Malachi decided to send them a message, their only warning, which Azrael had made very clear that he disagreed with. If they didn’t listen, well, it was their family’s blood that would ‘turn the rivers red’ as Azrael liked to say.

“Good, I need you on another mission. A long one.”

That’s what Evie and I did best. Long games were our bread and butter. “Who?”

“The Kingsmen’s.”

I smiled, turning to Evelyn who had just finished up with our cleaners. “We can start tomorrow.”

“Evelyn needs to make a stop in London,”

Malachi went on. “You come to Colorado Springs; we’ll join you shortly.”

I rose a brow, confirming that Evelyn had heard him. At her nod, I turned back to the holy man covered in blood. “See you soon.”

I hung up. The Springs was filled with debt that needed collecting, people who needed reminded of where they stood in this world.

I was the heir to Malachi’s Kingdom, which meant that every job was important to me, no matter how long or short, how gruesome. I wanted to absorb it all.

Every ounce of it.

If I was going to take up the mantel, I would do it right.