“It’s not,” I digress. “And Idothink that’s what your father is and so do others.” The girls share a look I can’t decipher, but I have a feeling they’re coming to the same conclusion we all have. He’s a mass murderer. “We have tied five disappearances and killings to him so far, and I have a feeling there’s more out there that we haven’t been able to tie to him as of yet, but eventually, we will.”
“There’s more. Many more,” Girl One whispers.
“Ten that I can count,” Girl Two says, mumbling the number through her trembling lips.
“More than that,” Girl One states, squaring her shoulders. “He has a book he keeps that has names and dates in it. I didn’t know what it meant when I found it, but I think it may hold all of his secrets.”
“Can you get that for me?” I ask, trailing behind her as she swivels on her feet and marches over to the crawl space.
“Father keeps it in the pit, behind a loose block. I found it one time when he locked me inside,” Girl One replies
“He locks you in there?” I query, appalled on her behalf.
“When we’ve displeased him, it’s where he puts us until he thinks we’ve learned our lesson,” Girl Two tells me. “It gets really dark and is spooky. I don’t like it when he puts me there.”
I can imagine it is eerie and she doesn’t like being in there. I’m a grown ass man and I would have issues being locked in that pocket-sized room. He already keeps them in a dreary cell down in the basement where he locks them in, but he apparently couldn’t resist adding a layer of torture that is deplorable—even for the common criminal. I live in a world full of gray shading with a little hue of color mixed in, but even I have my standards and would never do that to an innocent woman. This man they call Father, lives in a world of black and has shaded their lives in the same tourmaline color.
I watch as Girl One digs out the loose slab and tilt my head to the side when something catches my attention. As she duckwalks back out, I get down on my hands and knees and toddle my way in. “Do you know if this space has been closed in?”
“What do you mean?” Girl One questions.
“Look here,” I point out, running my finger along the edge of the wall. It’s not only a different tinge of white, but it isn’t seamless—it’s uneven and has cracks in it, as if it was a quick job that you can clearly see wasn’t done by a professional. “Once upon a time, this space was bigger and it’s been walled off and split up.” I go to the missing piece that was just pulled out and put my hands inside, gripping the block beside it and yanking with all of my might. When it falls free, I start on the next one. And the next. I keep going like that until there’s enough room for me to slither inside. It’s a tight fit, and it’s dark, but once my eyes adjust, I cringe. To make sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me, I grab my phone from my pocket and turn on the flashlight feature. Fuck me, this man is one sick and twisted motherfucker.
“What’s back there?” Girl One asks, her voice reserved.
“Chains hooked to walls and blood stains on the floor,” I answer. “Girls, y’all need to pack your belongings, you won’t be staying here anymore.”
“Wait… what? This is our home, we don’t have anywhere else to go,” Girl One states, panicking.
“I’m putting y’all in a safe house,” I inform them as I begin snapping photos and sending them to both Booker and Marsten.
When the last photo is sent off, my phone begins ringing. When I glance at the screen, I see Marsten’s name flashing at me. “Marsten, it’s worse than we thought it was.”
“Talk to me,” he demands.
“You can’t just tell us to pack our things and then ignore us!” Girl One shouts. I turn around and place my finger to my lips, needing her to stay quiet long enough for me to wrap up this conversation.
“Who the fuck is that?” Marsten asks. “Do we have a survivor?”
“You are not going to believe this shit,” I announce then go into all the details regarding the girls. Once I’m done, I have to look at the screen again to make sure I didn’t lose the call. “Marsten?”
“I’m here,” he states, his tone sedate and controlled. “I’m officially hiring you, Nova.”
“As what?” I ask because I’m an independent contractor who doesn’t always follow the letter of the law. The FBI doesn’t usually hire me for jackshit because they know I won’t follow their directives. There’s a reason I don’t belong to any organization outside of the Kings, and that’s because they’re my brothers who have the same beliefs as me.
“The girls’ bodyguard,” he answers.
“Excuse me?” I inquire. “You wantmeto take them in?”
“I do, Nova. They have to stay alive and there’s nobody I trust more to make sure they stay that way than you and your club.”
“Fuck. Me. You’re not kidding, are you, Marsten?”
“I’m not. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t trust the men given to me. They had a direct line to him thanks to Booker and they lost him.”
“You think you have a mole, Marsten?”
That thought has an unsettling feeling stirring deep in my gut. If Stella wasn’t missing and all signs hadn’t pointed to him being involved, how long would these two women have continued to live in this house of horrors?
