Chapter Twenty-Five #2
With the address the biker gave me securely in my hands, the Uber he paid for pulled to a secluded farmhouse, about twenty minutes west of Rapid City, slowing to a crawl before coming to a complete stop, parking behind the RCPD squad cars.
Cautiously getting out of the vehicle, I kept my head down and made my way up the front steps when a familiar, beautiful older woman stepped out on the porch to greet me, her eyes rimmed red with tears.
“Aunt Karen?” I gasped.
“Kyllian?” She stopped dead in her tracks before pulling me close, her arms engulfing me in a warm, motherly hug. “Oh, thank God. I’m so happy you are safe.”
Looking around, I asked, “What’s going on?”
Aunt Karen pulled back, her hands settling on my shoulders as she looked me over, searching for any sign of injury.
“There’s been trouble,” she whispered, casting a worried glance at the squad cars parked in the drive.
“The police are here because someone tried to break in last night. They think it’s connected to Kaycee and Keely’s deaths. ”
My eyes widened. “Keely’s dead?” I whispered, the words catching in my throat.
I already knew about Kaycee, my sweet, fragile cousin, who died horrifically along with her husband a few days before Firestride kidnapped me and took me to Deadwood.
But Keely, my closest friend, my stepsister from my mother’s second marriage—I refused to believe it.
Not Keely. She was strong, a fighter; Aunt Karen had to be wrong.
Aunt Karen pulled me further into the house, the scent of wood-smoke and old memories a stark contrast to the fear that had become my constant companion.
“They found Keely the other morning. It seems... it seems he’s escalating.
” Her voice trembled, her grip tightening on my arm.
“The police are convinced the break-in last night is connected to the murders. They’re searching the area, looking for anything, any clue. ”
Her words hung heavy in the air, each one a nail in the coffin of my dwindling hope for peace.
Taking a seat at the kitchen table, I asked, “I don’t understand, Aunt Karen. What is going on?”
Sitting next to me, she took my hands and said, “This nightmare began the night Kaycee asked me to watch Karter for the night.”
“Karter?”
“My granddaughter. Kaycee married a nice young man named Jake Edwards. He was good to my girl and grandbaby. A good man who loved my girls to pieces. Someone broke into their home that night and killed Jake, then my baby girl. The RCPD tried to keep a lid on the murders due to the graphic way Kaycee died, but a local newspaper got wind of it and ran the story. It was in all the papers.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I was at the bus depot when a police officer stopped me and asked if I knew the young couple. I recognized Kaycee. I’m sorry, Aunt Karen. I should have said something.”
“NO!” Aunt Karen damn near shouted, hugging me tightly.
“You did the right thing, sweetheart.” Releasing me, she sniffed.
“Anyway, after Kaycee’s death, a friend of Karter’s biological father showed up and told us to get Karter out of the city until he found the bastard who killed my girl.
Robert and I packed up Karter and left. But two days ago, the RCPD called me and informed me that my niece Keely had been murdered as well, and we needed to return. ”
“Wouldn’t it be safer for you to stay gone? I mean, if a madman is killing family members.”
“That’s what Robert said, but the detective in charge was adamant. He needed us back in Rapid City so they could put us into protective custody.”
“And the break-in last night?”
“They messed up,” Aunt Karen sneered. “The officer fell asleep in his squad car. He never saw who it was. If it weren’t for Robert’s due diligence, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Looking down at my hands, I carefully asked, “Aunt Karen, could this have anything to do with back home? I mean, could the club be cleaning house?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. My brother is dead, and the Soulless Sinners executed Steele for that stunt he pulled at Rockefeller Center. I don’t even know who’s running the club now, and I don’t want to know. I left that life a long time ago. I have nothing to do with Satan’s Angels.”
Sighing, I looked around the beautiful country kitchen, the rustic charm a stark contrast to the knot of dread tightening in my gut.
“Could this be about my father?” My words felt hollow, a desperate plea for a simpler explanation.
But the memory of his desperation, the chilling gleam in his eyes when he spoke of deals made in shadow, wouldn’t leave me.
Was this some twisted echo of his past?
Another debt I was going to be forced to pay?
“I don’t know, Kyllian,” Aunt Karen muttered, her voice thick with a weariness that went beyond mere exhaustion.
The weight of her words pressed down on me.
“Your father’s debts were wiped clean when he sold your mother to the club.
And your mom paid dearly. I am so sorry for that.
” The accusation hung in the air, a silent indictment of a man I’d tried so hard to understand, to forgive.
Selling my mother—the thought alone was a bitter poison.
To think I might be linked to that monstrous act, to be the unwitting conduit for its repercussions. .. it made my stomach churn.
“Right now, all the RCPD knows for sure is that there is a madman out there, killing off members of my family and, sweetheart, even though we don’t share blood, you are family.”
Family.
The word felt both comforting and a burden. Aunt Karen was offering me solace, calling me family, but a chilling thought clawed its way to the surface: what if protecting her, protecting this family, meant confronting the very darkness my father had unleashed?
It was a choice I was terrified to make.
To investigate my father’s past meant potentially unearthing a truth that could shatter everything I thought I knew, a truth that might force me to act in ways that would stain my own soul, making me a reflection of the man I loathed.
And the alternative—to do nothing, to let this madman continue his rampage while I clung to ignorance—felt like a betrayal of Aunt Karen, a betrayal of my mother’s memory.
I was trapped between a past I couldn’t escape and a present that demanded a sacrifice I wasn’t sure I could bear.