Chapter 14

“You promised!”Trent shouted at me. “You lied to me!”

“I did it to help us,” I argued with him as he raged around the room. I’d never seen him so pissed before. It was completely unlike him.

“Don’t you get it?” he snapped at me. “You’re all I have left, Anson! Mom and Tia are dead! It’s just me and you. What am I supposed to do if you die? What will I do?” Tears snaked down his cheeks.

“I’m not going to die,” I said fiercely, going to him. “I won’t, Trent. I’m doing this so I can save us. So we can be safe. So we can live without a struggle and be able to find Mom and Tia’s killer,” my voice cracked. “I want to know who hurt them. I-I want to kill them. If I can get in with these guys, I might get some leads.”

He sat on the edge of his bed. I followed and sat beside him.

“You really think it might work?” he asked softly, his mood shifting.

I’d been thinking all night about it. Mom had been running from something. Getting in with these bad guys might actually lead us somewhere. I could end their lives and move Trent out of here.

“I really do,” I answered truthfully. “It’ll get us some money and maybe some answers.”

“I want answers,” he said.

“Me too.”

“OK,” he whispered.

“You’re in?”

He nodded. “I-I want to know who hurt them. I want them to die too. Does that make me just as bad as them?” He looked at me, his eyes glistening.

I hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “No, Trent. It doesn’t make you bad. It makes you just. It makes us the good guys.”

He sniffled and nodded against my chest. “Promise me that the day we become the bad guys, we leave.”

“I promise,” I murmured, holding him tighter.

“Then I’m in, Anson.”

I closed my eyes and clung to him as tight as he was clinging to me.

“OK,” I answered softly. “Good guys until the end.”

“Until the end,” he repeated.

* * *

I staredup at the mansion where Everett lived hours later, knowing that Trent was safe and with Alice. She’d been a godsend to me. To us.

I was about to embark upon something that terrified me. There weren’t a lot of options left. I knew this. At least none that could pay me so well and keep me and Trent from being separated by the system.

Exhaling, I went to the door, where I was met by two guards.

“I’m, uh, The Archangel. I’m here to see Everett,” I said, hoping I sounded like I had my shit together.

Wordlessly, one opened the door and let me in.

“Come,” a man said when I stepped into the massive foyer with its crystal chandelier. I looked around in awe, never having been in a place so. . . rich.

I followed the man through the mansion to an office. He tapped once on the door before he opened it and nodded for me to enter. I went inside to find Everett sitting behind a large desk and a boy around Trent’s age sitting in the chair in front of him.

“I can come back,” I started.

Everett waved me off and came to greet me. “Nonsense. How are you?”

“I’m well,” I replied, noting the boy hadn’t even turned to pay me any attention. He sat with his back ramrod straight. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he weren’t even alive with how still he was.

“Have a seat,” Everett said, gesturing for me to sit in a chair next to the boy.

I moved forward, sat next to the boy, and cleared my throat.

“This is my son. Dante.” Everett nodded to the boy. “Dante, this is The Archangel. He may be joining us here soon. A collector. What do you think about that?”

Dante finally turned to face me. He was a beautiful kid. Blond hair. Vibrant green eyes. Plump, pink lips. He looked like an angel. It wasn’t his beauty that got me, though. It was the haunting look in those green eyes of his.

“I think he is a fool,” Dante said in a strong voice.

Everett chuckled. “Dante is cynical, for lack of a better word.”

I shifted in my seat, not sure how to even address this kid calling me names. I needed the job, though, so I said nothing.

Dante turned back to face Everett. “Malachi and I are supposed to meet with Asher and Sinclair. I do not want to be late, Father.”

“Dinner first. You know the rules.”

A muscle thrummed along Dante’s delicate jaw.

I could sense a lot of tension between the two, so I cleared my throat.

“What’s for dinner?”

Everett shifted his gaze from Dante to me, his eyes sparkling. “You’ll love it. My chef has prepared many things for us tonight.”

I nodded. That hadn’t answered my question. I heard the rich ate weird shit. The last thing I wanted to do was eat fish eggs or something.

“So. Archangel.” Everett smiled at me from across his desk. “Have you considered my offer?”

“I have. I guess I’d like to know more about what I’d be doing,” I said. I’d promised myself I’d not jump headfirst into something that could cause Trent harm.

“Understandable. You seem like you’re levelheaded and logical. I like that in my collectors. How about a demonstration?”

“Um, sure.” I looked to Dante, who had gotten to his feet when Everett raised his hand in a silent get up motion.

“We have someone here this evening who has done some very bad things. He was collected earlier in the evening. Dante can show you how it’s done.”

I glanced to the kid who was already at the door, silent as a grave.

I followed, Everett behind me.

We walked to a door at the end of the hall that was guarded by two more men. They stepped aside for Dante, and he pushed open the door and descended the stairs. We followed to a basement level, which looked similar to the nightclub I’d worked in.

Dante continued his trek to another hall, where there was an elevator guarded by another set of guards.

My heart rate ramped up at how elaborate this place was. I remained silent, though, as I took it all in.

We got into the elevator and rode it to another level before stepping out, no one saying a word.

The room was simply a large open space with cement floors. I looked around at the stone walls and bright lights. A chair with straps on it sat in the middle of the room. A bed with restraints. A table with devices on it that I couldn’t quite make out.

“Bring him in.” Everett’s deep voice made me jump, and I looked to where he was staring and saw another set of doors there. Two guards stood in front of it. The door opened, and another set of men dragged a third man out who was shirtless and sat him in the chair before strapping him in.

I fidgeted uncomfortably as Dante strode forward to the man.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Dante asked in a monotone voice.

“P-please,” the man choked out. “I-I’ll get the money.”

I stared at the scene in front of me, goosebumps crawling along my skin.

“This is what a collector does?” I whispered to Everett.

“Heavens no. This is what my son does. I just wanted you to see that this is what happens to bad men. I have a feeling you don’t like bad men and wanted you to know we take care of them down here. As my collector, you’ll be ridding the world of some very nasty monsters. You want to do that, don’t you, Archangel?”

I nodded silently, wanting that more than anything.

Everett chuckled softly. “Then watch what happens to the monsters when they face the monster I created.”

I swallowed hard, listening as the man shrieked at Dante, who stood still as stone in front of him.

“What did he do? The man?” I asked.

“He touched what didn’t belong to him. A young girl. That’s an extremely bad thing here. Touching what doesn’t belong to you.”

“He said he’ll get the money,” I murmured.

“Well, he owes me some money, but it’s not really why he’s here. He put his hands where they didn’t belong.”

I nodded mutely, wanting him to lose those hands more than anything, Tia on my mind. Someone had hurt her like that too. When I found who that person was, I’d cut his hands from his body and beat him with them.

“You do not touch what does not belong to you,” Dante said in a soft, dangerous voice.

“I-I’ll get the money,” the man repeated. “Please. You don’t have to do this. Please!”

“I don’t make the rules,” Dante murmured, pulling a knife from his pocket. “I just enforced them.”

Dante moved swiftly, the blade slicing through the man’s arm. He let out a scream, his blood dripping onto the floor.

It was a scene I couldn’t look away from. Dante carved deep cuts into the man’s body with such precision that nausea twisted my guts. When he was seemingly satisfied, he grabbed a large saw off the table and began hacking off the man’s hands.

Just like I’d have done if he was the man who touched my mom and sister.

I watched as Dante removed one of the man’s hands before he picked up a torch and burned the stump, sealing off the blood. The man passed out, and Dante stepped away. He nodded to a guard who placed something beneath the man’s nose that jolted him awake.

Dante again said nothing and went back to removing the man’s other hand, the blood pooling on the floor at his feet, the man sobbing and crying out for mercy.

“Please. Please!” The man shrieked.

And yet, Dante kept carving.

“You do not come to Church and expect to not pay,” Dante said softly, pulling that bloody blade from his pocket again. “We bleed out the sins here.”

Dante lunged forward again and, in a smooth move, slit the man’s throat. The man’s garbled screams sounded out around us as Dante untied him.

The wound wasn’t deep enough to kill him, but it was making a hell of a mess on the floor. Standing there and watching the scene made my guts twist with sickness, but if this man had committed the crimes Everett said he did, then he deserved Dante’s blade.

The man fell to the floor, covered in his own piss and blood, trying to clutch at his neck, but he had no hands. The bloody stumps met his cut throat, the blood still pouring.

On his knees, the man tried to get to the door.

I held my breath as Dante stalked him, knife in hand and blood covering him. This kid was a living nightmare.

With ease, Dante reached out and fisted the man’s hair and brought him to a stop before he placed the knife at his throat and began to carve, the blood spurting like a firehose in the room. Some landed on my jeans and shoes, and I took a step back, that nausea aching to rush out of my mouth at the grotesque sight.

With a kick to the man’s back, there was a loud snap, and his head was removed from his body. His body twitched for a moment before going still, the blood still coming out in ugly crimson waves.

I watched in horror as Dante lifted the head up and licked some blood from the decapitated man’s cheek.

Slowly, he turned with the beheaded head in one hand and his knife in the other and walked toward us, his face expressionless. He was covered in so much blood. His face. His clothes. His hands. He was a horrifying mess.

“Father,” Dante said in a monotone.

Everett studied him for a moment before nodding his head wordlessly. Dante stepped around him, head in his hand, and went to the elevator without a backward glance and left us.

“He’s usually much more. . . refined,” Everett said, turning to me.

I finally swallowed, looked away from the mess, and focused on a spot over Everett’s head.

“Did he really touch a young girl?” I asked.

“He did,” Everett answered. “It’s a lesson in you don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you.”

I exhaled. “Are all the men you want me to collect like that? Hurting girls? Hurting kids?”

“Yes. Among other things.”

I contemplated his words. “What other things?”

“They do bad things I do not approve of. They act when they shouldn’t. They owe me money. They owe my clients money. They’ve lied. Cheated. Stolen from me or a client. It is my job to keep the Underground running safely. I take on collectors to do such things. Do you want to make the world a better place, Archangel?”

I nodded tightly, Mom and Tia on my mind. Trent flashing into the forefront.

“Then perhaps you’re made for the Underground.”

I knew Alice had told him about Mom and Tia. She’d told me she had given him the details.

“I want to find out who hurt my mom and sister and make them pay,” I whispered.

“Then collect for me. Perhaps you will find them along the way.”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Do you accept the position?”

“Yes,” I whispered fiercely. “I accept.”

Everett clapped me on the shoulder. “Then welcome to your new home. Let’s eat and celebrate, shall we? To ridding the world of evil.”

”To ridding the world of evil,” I murmured.

Finally.

Retribution. A means to an end.

I wouldn’t stop until I found the people who had hurt my family.

The world needed an Archangel.

And I had no problem being one.