Reluctantly, he pulls back, and despite the way my morning panned out, I exit the car wanting. Waving goodbye, he waits until I have the door open before driving away. As it slams shut behind me, I can’t help but feeling like my cage is getting smaller with each additional freedom.
Ishouldn’t have lied to her.
Yet the second before I opened my mouth to tell her, I knew it would kill that spark that she’s finally managed to find, wipe the smile from her face. And call me selfish, but I’ve gotten addicted to seeing that look on her, loved the way she’s stopped jumping at shadows in recent weeks.
All of that would have gone up in smoke if I’d told her that her pathetic excuse for a father was seen breaking into the club out in the slums with fucking Jax’s men.
I knew the line he fed us about Jax Carson planning a hit on the casino while we were all caught up in the annual Christmas party at the gallery was a load of horseshit. Boss did too, which is exactly why he wouldn’t let us kill him and be done with it once he spilled the ‘insider information’ he was dragging out to buy himself some more time. This way, when his claims proved to be useless, we’d have all the more reason to make the man suffer.
Yet he doesn’t need to wait for an excuse at all, so I have no clue why he insists on letting the bastard live.
Pulling into the parking lot, the space is abandoned save for a handful of cars, too early in the day. Drawing my weapon, I head towards the back door, which is currently cracked open from a busted lock and unable to latch. Cautiously opening it wider, I see several familiar faces and relax a fraction. That is, until my eyes fall on the body, face down and still.
I’ve seen a lot of gruesome things in my life, but none of them prepared me for the twisting in my gut when I catch sight of the dead blonde on the floor near the booths, her dress torn and bloody. If I hadn’t just dropped Elyse off at the house myself and knew there was no possible way someone could have grabbed her and gotten here before me, I’d have thought it was her. Their size and shade of hair are nearly identical.
“What the fuck happened?” I snarl, turning towards Aaron, who’s currently holding a gun to the back of some guy’s head.
Caleb is in a similar position, as are Seth and Jake, though the latter are forced to handle two men each to cover them all. I run a quick mental tally from who we caught on the camera, noting there were at least three more guys when we got the call.
“She was already dead by the time we got here,” Aaron growls. “Been a little busy and haven’t checked the footage, but I don’t recognize her as one of ours. No clue where the fuck she came from.”
I scan the faces of Jax’s men another time, none of them the fucking weasel that I’m looking for. “Miller?” Aaron gestures with his head towards the small kitchen. “You got this under control?”
Seth scoffs. “Not our first rodeo, E. Waiting on the boss to make the call what to do with them, but they twitch, all bets are off. Needs to decide if he wants a flat out war over this or not.”
With a nod, I storm into the kitchen, finger hovering over the trigger. If I’m lucky, the abusive jackass will try to make a run for it so I’ll have an excuse not to wait for permission.
His mouth is covered in duct tape and his wrists are bound behind his back when I find him. The walk-in freezer door is open, Grave’s back to me, and I meet Thomas’ eyes over his shoulder. I haven’t seen the man since hearing the stories, but both Elyse and G left out the part where he’d carved into the man’s forehead.
Greedstares back at me in upraised scars, and a feral, appreciative smile temporarily replaces my fury. He’s already a swollen mess from whatever Grave did before I got here, and blood is slowly pooling on Thomas’ shirt over his stomach.
Grave grabs a frozen bag of French fries and whips them at the man’s face, shouting, “Why her?!”
“G.”
He turns to face me, eyes manic and unseeing. He’s gripping the blade of his bloody knife instead of the handle, steady drops dripping to the ground beside him. Hell, the cold might not even be to keep Thomas from bleeding out quickly to extend his torture like I initially assumed. I wouldn’t have given much thought to it before these last weeks, writing him off as ridiculously dramatic as always, but now I’m thinking that Grave is actually aware that he’s spiraling and is grasping at straws to keep from going off the rails.
If even I struggled at first, he probably can’t convince himself that the body out there isn’t Elyse.
“She’s with Mav. She’s okay.”
His face scrunches up in confusion, flitting back towards the man at his feet and shaking his head with a low, agitated sound. “Blonde to red, red to ash. Can’t stop the bleeding.” He scrubs his clean hand down his face before slamming the back of the fist still clutching the knife into the rack beside him, making the shelf tremble.
Used to brushing off his nonsense to save my sanity, I force myself to try to riddle through it for once, figure out what the hell is going on in his head so I can snap him out of it. It’d be one thing if he was taking it all out on the jackass in front of him, but for whatever reason, he’s not. Instead, he’s punishi-
Punishing himself. Fuck, that’s it.
That redhead he was seeing a few years back that wound up dead. Enough rumors about it circulated that they were impossible to extinguish afterward, and honestly; she dated an unstable murderer and then disappeared without a trace. It wasn’t exactly hard for people to make the leap. Hell, even I don’t know exactly what went down with that one. It was his mess and he cleaned it up, so it didn’t involve me.
Though admittedly, after seeing the way he is with Elyse? I have to wonder if there was actually more to that story.
Pulling out my cell, I wait until it starts ringing to pass it over, tapping it against his arm. Grave takes it, answering on autopilot. “I know, I know; can’t kill him ye-“ His mouth clamps shut at the muffled sound of Elyse’s voice picking up on the other end.
Slowly, that manic gleam in his eyes starts to fade at the sound of her voice, able to get through to him in a way nothing else can. I doubt even seeing her would have the same effect right now with the way his ramblings were going, like his eyes were playing tricks on him. If my past started coming back to haunt me like that, putting a layer over everything until I couldn’t tell what was real or a memory, it’d drive me mad too.
Only when her voice tapers off into silence does a flicker of anger resurface on his face. “What’s your favorite food?” he demands out of the blue, likely just to give her a reason to keep talking. Keeping the phone to his ear, he flips his blade around in the other hand.
Running the tip of it beneath Thomas’ jaw, he hesitates with it next to his ear and the man goes stock still. “Color?” He just barely nicks the skin before carefully tracing the shell of his ear. “Same, actually.” Briefly, he looks over his shoulder to me. “Your favorite color is green now.”
