Page 3 of Devil’s Torture

It’s just paper cut to the right size.

And ink.

Somehow it feels like a lifeline which has come too late.

“Do you need us to call someone for you?”

At the caution in the officer’s tone, my eyes slide closed for a moment. Do I? The only person I want to call right now is Miller.

“No,” I murmur, “I’ll call my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend.

It sounds ridiculous every time I say it. Miller might be only 20, but he’s not a boy anymore.

They share another look, this one weighted, like they aren’t sure if they should leave me alone or not. I take a deep breath and reach for a calm I both can’t seem to find and feel deeply.

He’s dead.

It shouldn’t feel like a good thing from the perspective of a human life being lost, but I can’t deny how relieved I am. I let the breath out slowly.

“I appreciate you letting me know. I’m more than willing to help anyway I can, but I don’t have much to share which would be relevant. I left and I didn’t look back.” My voice is flat and for a moment I wonder if that’ll make me a suspect.

When they finally leave, I take a few moments to myself. Not because I’m heartbroken, but because I’m not entirely sure how I should feel and I’m not sure the relief I’m feeling makes me honest or awful. Probably both, and I think I’m okay with that.

Even though my hands are shaking, I call Miller. I’m expecting him to answer with concern lacing his words and the sounds of the clubhouse in the background. But the call goes straight to voicemail.

Not being able to reach Miller has my heart hammering in my chest even more than when I found cops knocking on my door. I try the call a few more times, becoming more frantic as they keep going straight to voicemail.

Miller is a lot of things, including worried and paranoid. He doesn’t let his phone die. He doesn’t turn it off. That’s just how it is.

With me being at home and not going to the party, there’s no way he would allow himself to be unreachable. There’s just no way.

When I look down at my phone, the screen is filled with my attempts to call him. And my hands are still shaking.

I call Lucifer, the DSMC President, when the desperation starts to crawl up my throat. The moment the call connects, I blurt out, “I’m so sorry to call you, Lucifer, but I just had cops at my door informing me about my stepfather’s death. I’ve been trying to call,” I pause for a moment almost tripping over his name before I change it, “Rune, but his phone goes straight to voicemail.” I literally can’t stop babbling. “That isn’t like him at all. Did something happen? Do you know?”

“Bexley,” there’s something like grief in his tone, but my gut tells me it has nothing to do with my stepfather. “The club needed Rune to go out on the road. He accepted the offer and is considered a nomad now. The apartment and all utilities will continue to be paid by him. The club is always here for you.”

The sound of the blood whooshing through my veins makes everything sound like it’s far away. Far, far away

I sway slightly and manage to make it to the couch before my legs finally give out.

“What?” I might gasp the question. I might whisper it.

Hell, I might scream it for all I know.

“No,” I insist, my head shaking uselessly. “He wouldn’t have just left without talking to me. Without telling me,” my tone border on shrill.

Lucifer’s sigh is filled with pain and something else. “He had to move fast.”

He says the words, but something about them doesn’t ring true. My heart sinks because I know he’s not telling me the truth.

Club business.

The phrase feels like a chasm between us. Lucifer doesn’t even need to say it.

I hang up without saying another word. With my head in my hands, two things happen at once.