I hadn’t told Amy I was going to check out the odd fucking cult she’d grown up in. How could I not go and see it with my own two eyes? I was a police officer. Curiosity was part of the job. I’d been on a fast track to detective once upon a time, until I’d proven myself unable to stick to stupid rules. Policing was a game about the end result, surely, for the good of the innocent citizens. How you got there didn’t matter, on or off duty, or at least that was my opinion.
Not the force’s, apparently.
So my nosey nature was a given. If things were amiss, I wanted to know.
I just couldn’t help myself and had lain awake in the small hours with The Way Forward on my mind and wondering how they could be brought down. Their website had a few details, mainly stating that the savior was coming and the faithful should join the righteous. A blog hadn’t received new content for five years, but what was on there up until that point was pretty way out. It even included a counter stating how many souls belonging to Jesus were preparing for his arrival at the commune. I presumed this to mean the number of children born.
Children who barely knew who their parents were, if at all. Children who didn’t know family life, but did know harsh discipline. Children who had no contact with the outside world and the moment they hit adulthood were shamed publicly and subjected to incest and rape.
Yes, I wanted to know more. Yes, I wanted to see this prick Nigel Strand and see what I could pin on him. And if I couldn’t find something obvious, I’d make something up. No harm in that, it would still be the same end result.
Prison.
If I got him behind bars and disbanded the commune, Amy might even be pleased with me. And I wanted that smile.
I wanted her.
I headed back into the station. I was on duty until midnight. Pissed me off in truth, I was enjoying having evenings with Amy. Two in a row, one out for dinner, one eating in, and fuck, I’d enjoyed showing her just what her body could do if played with right.
We hadn’t fucked again, but I was itching to. My cock longing to feel her orgasm around it, squeeze and drip and tremble. And damn, her pretty little pert tits, I needed more of them.
But she hadn’t been ready for me. She’d been pliant and sleepy in my arms, as if a weight had been lifted from her and all she wanted to do was revel in the lightness. Who was I to argue with that? Especially when she drifted off to sleep with her cheek on my shoulder and her hand clutching my t-shirt as though I were her anchor in a storm.
I sighed at the memory and settled down to some paperwork—some lowlife asshole stealing from Waitrose I’d arrested…again. Sooner he got put away the better, it would save me the grief of arresting him over and over.
The next morning, I was poking gravel with my boot at five minutes to six and waiting for Jamie. He wasn’t late and arrived at six on the dot.
“Hey, thanks for this.” I dropped next to him and inhaled the scent of new car. Jamie always drove quality and seemed toswitch his wheels up every six months or so. This was a Jaguar. “Nice set of wheels.”
“Thanks.” He glanced at me and pulled out onto the avenue. “Always makes me look twice when I see you in uniform, Mitch. Never thought I’d be mates with a copper.”
“Ha, don’t let it fool you. More and more this uniform is a cover for Galahad business. A way to get information on the assholes we want to send to Hell. Wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.”
“The sacrifice is appreciated.”
“Does pay the bills to the ex wife, too.” I shrugged. “Though they’re all off to Disneyland Orlando soon, so not exactly scrimping by.”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry, that sucks.”
“Yeah, I know.” To think of my boys heading off to have the experience of their childhood without me was a punch to the guts. But what could I do about it? Nada, that’s what.
“You know the offer still stands for the villa in Corfu. Greece is beautiful, and flights are cheap. It sleeps ten and sits there empty most of the year. Got a fab pool with views out to sea and totally private.”
“Are you being serious?” I turned to Jamie. He’d mentioned it before when I was having a crap time, but I hadn’t wanted to go on my own. Now a sudden image of me, Amy, Nathan, and Harry popped into my head. It would be my own slice of Heaven. Blue sky, blue sea, and the people I loved.
Loved!
The kids, I loved them with all of my heart, would until the day I died. Amy? Was she someone I could love?
So far…there was no reason why not.
But what about my darkness, could she ever love me if she knew about that? The part of me that had no qualms about shooting a murderer in the head and watching his brains splatteron the wall, or yanking out fingernails to get information. That was a part of me only Galahad saw, and that’s because their own souls matched that particular shade of blackness.
“The Kosovan girls,” I said, trying to shake my ruminating. “The ones from the farm last week.”
It had been a shoot-out. The twin’s woman taken by some twat who thought he could outsmart us—he’d wound up with a broken neck for his trouble—and in the process we’d uncovered a trafficking operation. Women. From Kosovo. Brought to the UK on the promise of a better life that turned out to be a one-way road to prostitution, drug addiction, and sex slavery.
We’d soon put a stop to that shit.
