Chapter 2

The base.

This is where the magic happens. Where our family side business takes place—mostly the bloody part.

But also, the research. Sari has his Dr. Frankenstein lab here, next to my Matrix corner. Then there’s a nice lounge with a big kitchen and a TV area, where right now Uri is taking a nap on one of the large sofas. Uri is here so much you’d think he hates his house, which is damn impossible since it’s on Lake fucking Michigan. But Sari is here and Uri tends to be very protective of him.

Sari is the gentlest and sweetest of us seven, and we bros do shield him from time to time. But Uri’s sociopathic, guard dog tendencies skirt the smothering limit. Lately, it has made Sari huff and kick him out of the lab a couple of times—which is entertaining to see, like a kitty pawing at a Great Dane. If he only knew how closely Uri keeps an eye on him… What would he do? I was certain before, but now? After seeing Sari stand up to him? Not so much.

I’m staring at the few errant pine needles gathered in small piles in the back garden outside the floor-to-ceiling window when Sari’s voice reaches me.

“I got all the DNA I need from the donor. Here.” His long, delicate fingers are holding an ice pack. His light blue eyes are filled with worry, but a small, understanding smile tilts his lips. His black hair is tied in a long braid falling down his delicate shoulder. “It will reduce the puffiness.”

Not the ache. From the way he phrased the sentence, I can infer that he knows I’m numb again and therefore not even going to feel the coldness on my skin.

“Thanks.” I grab the ice pack, being careful not to touch his fingers, and press it under my eye.

“Do you remember if you were hurt anywhere else?” His words remind me why it is dangerous for me to fight. Because the pain turns numb after the fight is over, and I can’t know how serious my wounds are, not without a medical check.

I shake my head and the sudden grim thoughts away. “I’m fine.”

“You got blood on your gloves,” Sari lets me know.

“It’s not mine.” Damn it! I should have taken them off before fighting, but I’d been so taken by my grizzly that now I have to get rid of them. Never keep evidence that can link you to a place or a donor. I should add it to Linda’s code, the one our foster mother gave us when we started our family side business. And since Michael and Ollie, Rague’s husband, added their input to it…I guess I can too.

“Two against one should be child’s play for you. Were you too bloodthirsty and got socked in the face?” Linda stops in front of me with a proud smirk on her face. Her tiny persona and perfectly styled blond hair suggest a normal-ish, sweet sixty-year-old person, but her mischievous eyes and predatory saunter tell another, be-crazy-careful story. She’s a retired secret agent—she still takes the odd contracts on the side—and worked for a bunch of different agencies back in the day. She taught us almost all she knows about torturing and killing. While Meg took care of our mental development, trying to work through our traumas.

They both did their best in raising us, and as parents should, gave us the right skills and some extra ones to fend for ourselves.

“Something like that. And there were three,” I feel the need to clarify.

“Gabe said you left a witness.”

I wish snitches really could get stitches.

“Were they hurt?” Sari hurriedly asks.

“No. He was very capable of taking care of himself.” I can still see all that delicious muscular vigor in action.

“Background check?” Linda likes to check in with us even though we’ve been doing this for years now. I guess that when you’re usually at the wheel, it is hard to sit in the passenger seat.

I’ll focus on learning about my bear after I savor my time with August. “Serena has it ready. I’ll give it a look as soon as I take care of my donor.”

He’s waiting for me in the FUNS room, which stands for Fucked Up Nasty Shitheads room—a name I coined myself. I even ordered a plaque, it should arrive in a couple of days.

“You think this donor has information on Phoenix?” she asks. And I hum in confirmation.

Phoenix is a new shadowy figure who got on our radar when he started a red room on the dark web, the business of live streaming the beating of young teens for the entertainment of sick viewers. Rague’s husband, Ollie, has a personal vendetta against Phoenix since they almost killed his little brother, Sully.

We still don’t know who Phoenix is. I’ve been playing a cat and mouse game with them for the last few months. But I found out they have their hands deep in drugs, kidnappings, and assassinations. And that’s why August Gene Baker is here with us tonight.

Sari goes back to the lab while Linda and I keep walking until we reach the glass wall of the FUNS room—it allows us to enjoy the show without being seen, since it’s one-way glass. The other walls inside the room are entirely covered in plastic to protect against blood and fluid sprays. I solely took the task to buy it, and today, I chose black, as Raph prefers, with small red skulls. It’s a bit gloomy, but it fucks with the donors, and my brothers as well. It’s a win-win if you ask me. I gotta enjoy the little things.

I tap the code on the door panel and go inside. The donor is sitting naked, bound with metal chains to a chair that is bolted to the floor. Gabe is standing on the left, taken as always by his phone. Without taking his eyes off that thing he leaves the room, closing the door.

I take off my light blue leather gloves and throw them in the trash. They will end up in the incinerator. What a waste. Bought them at a flea market for five bucks. They were my magic pair; they cast their last spell tonight when I met my grizzly.

I look at my bare palm where a long scar—a promise I shared with my brothers—runs diagonally, almost reaching the number three on my wrist. A brand seared on my skin by those scientists who experimented on me as a child. A daily, indelible reminder of what I endured and who I’ve become.

I make a fist, and my eyes are caught by the irregular, burned skin on the back of my hand and fingers, it’s even more evident and jagged when stretched. Those dark days are in the past, but the signs they left will never go away.

A low grunt from my right makes me redirect my attention to the donor. He’s finally waking up, and my body responds to it, to what’s about to happen. My senses are null now, but when I take care of my donors, those ghostlike sensations turn real and unforgettable. The sensation of hot sweat rolling down my skin, of a cold knife in my hand, and the acrid smell and taste of fear.

Sometimes, I think I have a vicious succubus living inside of me, feeding on my senses, only coming out to play when there’s blood or pleasure involved. I just can’t deny the impulsive sucker.

And I’m fucking ready to do some serious damage.

I lift my fist and land it on the donor’s face. The loud crack of a jaw shattering—one can hope—resounds in the room.

“Shit!” The donor curses, either because of the pain or the acknowledgment of his dire situation. No broken jaw then… Damn it!

“If you want people to listen,” I start and pause for effect, “you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. Have to hit them with a sledgehammer.” I point to my right at the long tray filled with different kinds of weapons—dissimilar knives, a rusty hammer, a small saw, a few wooden skewers, and a metal cable, among others—and enjoy the slight but noticeable jerk his body makes. “Only then, you”ll notice you”ve got their strict attention.” I grab the machete off the tray and smile at him. My sense of smell is coming back as my blood is starting to pump fast inside my veins.

“That’s from Seven. We watched it yesterday.” Michael’s voice comes from the outside galleria.

Raph adds with his perpetual condescending tone, “He got the quote wrong.”

“I had to change it slightly to accommodate the occasion!” I raise my middle finger at the one-way glass’s general direction.

“Gandalf, could you be more lame?” Gabe feels the need to utter.

“Eat shit!” I retort.

“You need to turn your voice gruff and monotonic. The way the killer says it in the movie is creepier,” Lori—Ollie’s best friend and our new crazy addition to the family business—suggests.

“Gabe could help you adopt a robotic tone,” Uri’s sleepy voice interjects.

Is everybody out there? “Fuck off! Way to ruin the mood!” I say, not looking at the mirrored wall, but keeping my eyes on the donor as I ask him, “Do you believe in Jesus?”

“No.” He snorts arrogantly, but I can see the fear of pain and death slowly crawling inside him, reaching his widened eyes and trembling hands.

“Good for you since you’re going to meet his estrangedbrother, Lucifer, very soon.”

“Brother? Lucifer is a fallen angel, not God’s son. He’s more a cousin to Jesus.” Uri starts the controversial dialogue.

“An uncle. He’s much older than J.C.,” Lori counters.

“Foster brother?” Michael says cutely.

“They aren’t related,” Gabe declares.

Now is really not the fucking time for a religious discussion.

“He’s a fallen angel. That’s pure justice if you ask me,” Linda comments.

“Real justice is like real love, it doesn’t exist,” Gabe adds, gifting us with another of his happy statements.

“Did you down a glass of cynicism before getting here?” I hear Lori asking him. Since he started working in Gabe’s law firm, he’s tried to minimize his taunts, but it has to be hard for him, seeing that he loathes Gabe with a vengeance. And I’d like to say the sentiment is reciprocated by my brother, but I can’t. Gabe barely tolerates people in general.

“Could you turn off the intercom? I’m trying to have fun here, for fuck’s sake,” I tell them before sighing and concentrating once again on the task ahead.

“Let the games begin,” I announce joyfully. “Let’s play Waldo, one of my all-time favorite games.” I grab the iPad from the tray and tap a couple of times on the screen. My donor is not looking at me, but he’s watching his surroundings, surely trying to figure out his location while pulling on the chains around his ankles—his hand and wrist are broken, courtesy of Grizzly.

“January thirteenth, Patterson family’s assassination. Oh, look who’s exiting the restaurant across the street from their house… It’s you!” I turn the screen toward him, and he glances at it for half a second. He’s turned rigid, but is trying very hard to hide it. “January twenty-sixth, David Carson’s homicide, along with his girlfriend’s and sister’s. Here you are a block away, eating pistachio ice cream—you are a messy eater, by the way. And then here, buying a big fat tub of lube at the pharmacy in the same building where seventy-year-old Miss Price, her two sons, and three dogs—tiny, sweet Maltipoos—were tortured and killed the same day, February second. Seriously, do you ever pick on someone your own size?” I ask him, then slap him hard on his face when he keeps avoiding my eyes.

“And on February fourteenth, one hour before strangling Sarah Dallas and her husband in their appliance store, where were you? Who’s the idiot with the checkered Rambo shirt staring at their store window? It surely looks like you, August.”

“Amateur,” Raph comments.

I grab his chin painfully tight, reading the hurt on his twisted mouth, and force his rough face up. “You do have thick skin, but as wrinkly as an elephant’s. Have you ever heard of sun protection? Moisturizers?”

The donor blushes. Figures. His tanned face is pulled taut. He’s wearing a grim expression.

“That’s the worst way to torture yourself,” Lori utters seriously. He’s a beauty fanatic.

“Fuck you.” The donor’s voice is high-pitched as he addresses the invisible people hidden by the one-way mirror.

“Bully bitches are not my type,” Linda replies.

“Didn’t I tell you to turn off the intercom?” I hiss, but they completely ignore me.

“I don’t think we’ve had a more pathetic donor before,” Gabe says.

“This is number twelve on the most pathetic donors list,” Raph clarifies. He has a spectacular memory.

“The one Rague took care of three weeks ago cried like a baby just looking at his face.” Michael laughs. I was there, it was very pathetic indeed.

I let go of the donor’s face. “Can you blame him? Rague is huge, and that lemon-sucking expression of his is what nightmares are made of.”

I turn to the tray and, letting go of the iPad, I grab the machete while my family keeps going with listing the worst donors. I feel totally at ease. I do this far too often. We all do.

My eyes are laser-focused on the donor again. “Why were you after the Black grizzly bear tonight?”

“Black grizzly?” I hear Lori ask.

But the donor’s reply has my attention. “Fuck you.”

So repetitive! And exciting. I crave the ones with a fighting spirit; it never fails to get the adrenaline pumping, anticipating the moment when they’ll break under my hands.

“Ahhh, wrong answer.” The sharp, pointy end of the machete slices easily through the donor’s inner thigh. The sight of the dripping, ruby blood and the scream of pain bring my sense of touch alive, and I can feel the hard handle of the machete in my hand. Fucking finally.

“This is how you work on your victims, right? I should have probably started with it. Do you have the right answer for me now?”

He grits his teeth and sends a murderous look my way.

The blade swings to the right, cutting off his nipple, which flies somewhere onto the black plastic covering the floor. Another wail, another splatter of blood, and my sense of smell is back right when the donor decides to pee himself. Better than feces.

Yep, I’m a glass half-full kind of guy—most of the time.

“How about now? Ready to talk? Not yet? Good! Always wanted to use these skewers.” My eyes land on the long pointy wooden sticks on the tray.

Michael’s excited voice suddenly fills the FUNS room. “That makes me think of the gridiron, a torture device.”

“Let’s hear it,” Uri encourages him. He loves to find new ways to extract information and pain out of our donors.

“Basically, a grill…for roasting people. It looked like an iron grid and was placed over a fire or burning coals. Some people were even coated in oil first to ensure proper…um, broiling. But they weren’t eaten afterward…probably.”

“On the contrary, I bet my Prada re-nylon backpack they were culinary masterpieces.” Lori’s teasing comment makes me smile and frown at the same time. The small brunet, fashionable twink always has that contradictory effect on me.

“I prefer more creative techniques,” Uri mumbles.

“Torture, apparently, lives on in the minds of creative people,” Sari states. “I read once about a terrifying, but I admit, creative form of torture. A hungry or diseased rat is placed in a bucket on a person’s bare stomach or chest. The bucket is then heated from the outside, forcing the agitated rat to chew its way through the unfortunate person’s flesh…and any organs it happens to encounter on its way out.”

“Don’t like rats, even less diseased ones,” Raph says.

“You’d love naked mole-rats. They’re wrinkly and ugly,” I tell the donor, but he insolently grunts, earning a well-deserved hair pulling from me. “Their sense of smell and hearing are highly developed since they are almost blind.”

“They’ve a unique mechanism for cancer resistance and can live a very long life. I wrote a paper on them in college,” Sari offers his scientific point of view.

I do really find them interesting because they developed a biophysical mechanism to shut down the activation of sensory neurons that drive pain—they evolved pain insensitivity. Kind of like I did, but for them, it was over years of evolution. For me, it was a defensive mechanism, which turned out to be defective.

“Don’t like rats,” Raph repeats.

“Never hurt an animal,” Linda reminds us of our code.

“Unless it’s to ease the pain,” Lori adds, and there’s something in his voice, a darker tone I’ve never heard before. “I’m up to try it, though, since we’d give the rat a raw-gut buffet he’d thoroughly enjoy. What do you say, Red Beard?” he asks me, turning into his creepy, teasing self again.

“Where are you going to find a rat?” Michael asks him, making me sigh while I pull hard on my beard. The sting feels good, but doesn’t lessen my exasperation.

“Anywhere. We live in Chicago,” Gabe replies.

“Bob’s your uncle,” Lori utters. This is another of his grandmother’s British sayings that nobody really gets.

My donor’s eyelids are slowly closing. He’s lost quite a bit of blood, but come on, surely not enough. I grab a couple of skewers and slide one all the way through his shoulder. That forces his eyes to open, and his mouth as well—the screech he lets out is deafening.

Nevertheless, I’m savoring every single sensation in its entirety, dreading the moment I won’t be able to feel them again.

“Answer my question, or I’ll turn you into a colander. Why were you after Grizzly Bear?” I threaten him, twirling another skewer between my fingers in a warning motion.

“He needed to die,” he chokes out.

So they wanted him dead. It wasn’t just a revenge beating. Fuck, his brother”s wife must have cleaned him out.

“Here is another question, what did Phoenix want from you?”

The donor starts shaking his head. He looks frightened, more so at hearing that name than the sight of me, the person who is torturing him.

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know who Phoenix is, but they contacted him. That’s all I could find, and I need more.

“How much are you attached to your right foot?” I ask before letting the machete cut through the air and get stuck in his ankle. He howls and sobs as I repeat the movement a couple of times before the foot comes off.

I wipe some sweat from my forehead, well aware of the warm, wet, skin-to-skin friction. My bruised cheek throbs, reminding me of the alley and my bear. Wait, since when is he my anything?

I focus on the whimpering shithead in front of me. “You still have the other foot for three, two, one.” As soon as I finish the countdown, the machete is up in the air again.

“Wait!” the donor chokes out, saliva drooling down his chin and dropping on his shaky knees. “Phoenix gave me a time and place to meet,” he slurs.

“And?” I prompt, impatiently waving the machete again.

“Didn’t come. Waited f-for an hour.”

Is he telling the truth? “Uri?” I ask my bro since he’s the most skilled torturer among us.

“Seems sincere.”

So why the fuck did Phoenix ask to meet a mediocre hitman and then stand him up?

There must be something else. What am I missing? “What else?”

He suddenly laughs, a short irritating chuckle. “You know what I like most about my job? The excruciating pain I can create in a person’s soul while I’m working on their loved ones.” He coughs, spitting blood, but that unfortunately doesn’t shut him up. “They always beg me to stop, to take their lives instead, and blah, blah, blah. Why the fuck would I, when witnessing their unbearable agony is so sweet?” Another wheeze, and in the heavy silence, it sounds like a loud curse in church.

I’ve heard, seen, and experienced worse, could even say I’m used to it. I’m blasé, almost unaffected, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to listen to this crap.

I tighten my fingers on the skewer, and wrapping my other hand around his neck, I start pushing the sharp wooden tip into the donor’s stomach.

“It is indeed sweet. Now be a dear and describe in detail how this skewer slowly sliding inside you and perforating your organs feels.” His only answer is a gasp and a weak croak followed by a splutter.

“Concise, but I’m afraid I’m going to need words.” I grab the other skewers, and one by one, I keep piercing him like a cheating ex-boyfriend’s voodoo doll.

The others are watching the show without delivering any comment, and I should be one hundred percent invested in what I’m doing since my succubus will soon suck away my senses again.

But it’s as if I left my mind in that alley with Grizzly. Can’t stop thinking about him. He piqued my already very heightened curiosity to another level. I’ll know everything about him before the sun rises.

I need to.

Every single thing.

With a twist of my wrist the bike roars, leaping forward.

My vivid black Harley Nightster is going one hundred miles an hour. Perfect speed for this time of day—or rather, time of night—when kids are safe in their beds, to let the monsters creep around.

The gravel road ahead stretches in the dark.

I squeeze the throttle and rev it, tucking myself against the tank as I pass a slower old Ford Explorer. I’m driving along the moving car when it suddenly swerves into my lane. It forces me onto the side of the road, and I fight to keep the bike upright, guiding the wheels back to the lane. I look up just in time to see a bunch of four-by-four wooden planks lying across my lane a few feet ahead. I automatically press the rear brake pedal and feel my Harley’s tires losing friction on the paved surface, the back one starting to spin.

I grip the front brake and shift my weight to the rear, yanking the handlebars to the right with force. My body gets abruptly thrust to the left, but I hold tight, putting my foot down for balance. The squeal of rubber sliding on the road is quickly followed by a cloud of smoke coming from the back of my bike as it stops parallel and a few inches away from the pile of planks.

The smell of bike exhaust and burnt rubber fills my lungs, bringing some easiness to my racing heart. I let out a long, relieved fuck. And just then, I remember the old Ford. I turn my head toward the road over the wood and see two red taillights recede and disappear into the darkness. It’s too damn dark to get a good look at the plate.

My eyes fall back to the planks. They lie all over the road, leaving only a very narrow space to pass by. Whoever was behind the wheel of that gray Explorer knew what he was doing. Remarkable skills or damn luck? And why did they almost push me off the road?

They didn’t even stop.

I lower the kickstand and pull my helmet off before dismounting to check that my baby has no scratches on her. Luckily, she’s fine.

I unzip my leather jacket and grab my phone from the inside pocket, dialing 911. I don’t want to make the call. But I can’t just go and hope that a patrol car will pass by. This road is never busy at night, but it”s too dark, and someone could get hurt. So, the police it is.

After a very quick anonymous call, I wait fifteen minutes, during which no car drives by, before seeing the unmistakable glow of the red and blue cop lights in the distance.

Since I’m already late and I’ve done my redeeming good deed of the day, I quickly straddle my baby, and after firing her up and enjoying her low, deep-throated, somewhat syncopated vibration—such a distinctive, sexy sound—I pull on the clutch. I pick up speed as I head up the road, revving the engine and flying past blurry buildings, enjoying the last minutes of my ride.

An image of the redhead from two nights ago starts a flutter low in my belly. I thought he was a beggar when he turned up in the alley. That long unkempt beard was ridiculous. His playful, flirty attitude was such a contrast with his smooth and vicious fighting style. That caught my interest, even though I know that guy is bad news. He took August Baker—his brother, Marcus, told me all I needed to know after I broke both his knees and some ribs—and threw him in a blacked-out van while his blond accomplice sedated the fucker.

And he did it all while checking me out with those gold-brown eyes.

I shift gears, slowing as I take a turn to the left onto a local road. I ease into the brake as the bike comes to a crawl and then stops in front of the cemetery gates. It’s closed at night, but that’s the only time I come here.

I hang my helmet on the bike’s handle and walk to the brick wall that surrounds the graveyard. I let my fingers stroke the stones until I feel the depression in one of them. A hole perfectly sized for the tip of my boot. I quickly climb the wall, using a nearby tree branch to haul myself up, it slightly cracks under my heavy weight, and then I jump down on the other side. My boots land on soft grass, and I straighten, checking the surroundings. The small flashlight hanging with my keys isn’t necessary—I’ve come here so many times in the last years I could walk in the dark and still find her grave—but I turn it on anyway.

A gust of wind suddenly hits my face, and the fragrances of greenery and dry flowers assault my senses. My brown boots stop near a bench, and I sit, leaving the flashlight near my knee on the wooden seat, pointing right at the tombstone.

Loretta Mary Jefferson. 2001—2018. Loving daughter. Left us too soon, the epitaph reads.

My fingers go to the black beaded bracelet around my wrist. Caressing each little stone delicately, I let out a sigh.

“I received an anonymous letter three days ago. The writing was messy, I couldn’t understand much. But they know the truth and…and have new information I should be interested in.” I swallow the ball that has formed inside my throat. “Why now, Loretta? Why me?”

I pause, letting silence fall on the graves surrounding me once again.

“You know why I keep coming here. I just can’t let go. Eight fucking years. It doesn’t matter what I do, who I help, who I make suffer. Doesn’t change anything.”

I place my elbows on top of my knees and let my head drop in the cradle of my hands. It will never go away, the stain on my soul is a permanent one. A reminder of how blind I’ve been. I deserved everything that happened to me.

She didn’t.

I look up at her grave again. I can still see her so clearly, her blond ponytail, floral jean jacket and red shorts. Her trembling lower lip and big brown eyes filled with repulsion and so much fear.

“Fuck!” I cuss, wiping a solitary tear from my cheek. I jump up, and that’s when the back of the bench where I was sitting explodes, sending splinters and shards of wood over the grass. I leap to the ground, hearing two more bullets hitting wood. Keeping myself low, I crawl behind a group of old tombstones as the shots keep following me. One scrapes my calf, making it sting like a bitch.

“You’re dead, motherfucker,” I growl while sliding my gun out of the holster and slowly leaning left from behind one of the headstones shielding me. I quickly shift back when a bullet embeds in the gray slate a couple of inches from my head. It came from the west, near the cemetery wall, so that’s where I aim my gun, keeping myself shielded and shooting blindly.

When I’m out of bullets, I retract my hand, and after changing the magazine, I wait. And listen. The silence is broken by a car door slamming and the screeching of tires.

I jump up, and grabbing the flashlight from the ground, I run toward the wall. I climb up and over it, aiming my gun left as soon as my feet touch the ground. I exhale and shoot two bullets at the car leaving the parking lot. One hits the trunk. I’m able to memorize half of the plate before it disappears into the night.

I let my arms fall down as I reach the large tire tracks left on the ground. It was dark, but the car looked suspiciously like the Ford Explorer I saw when I almost hit those planks of wood.

“What the fuck is going on?” I ask out loud.

My phone starts vibrating in my pocket, and when I grab it, I realize the screen is cracked. What a motherfucking day!

“I’m on my way,” I say.

My cousin, Opal, sighs on the other side of the line. “Did you change your mind?”

“No,” I awkwardly tell her. “Be there soon.” I hang up.

Fifteen minutes later, I halt my Harley next to her white Corolla in a deserted Costco parking lot. I dismount my bike and open the passenger door to her car before getting in.

“Do you have it?” I ask her.

“Hey, Opal, how are you? We haven’t seen each other in a while. You look fabulous!” she retorts condescendingly, crossing her arms and giving me her stern cop stare. Because she is a cop. And my half-cousin. My uncle had fun with Opal’s mom out of wedlock, and she was the result. He already had two older sons with his wife, but he didn’t reject Opal. She came visiting from time to time, and since I lived with my mom a block away from my uncle’s house, I spent a lot of time with her—in opposition to my cousins, who were never really interested in her. I grit my teeth thinking about my old life.

“Really? The silent treatment? Get out of my car, butthead!” Her sassiness always makes me smile. She was like a sister to me; we were…close. But that was before everything turned to shit.

“Opal, you look…” I glance at her. Her mother’s Hispanic heritage is in her short, soft curly brown hair and big brown eyes, while my uncle’s traits are in her large, pouting red lips and dark caramel skin. She’s lost weight. Don’t like that.

“What are you wearing?” I ask her, looking puzzlingly at the red dress she is wearing. She is a tomboy. Always has been. She even went to her school prom in pants and a white shirt.

“It’s called a sheath dress. Why? Is there something wrong with it?” She nervously strokes invisible wrinkles on the wool fabric.

“No,” I hurriedly say, don’t want her to hurt me. She has a mean pinch…or she used to. “But why are you wearing it?” Not to meet me, that’s for sure.

“I have a date,” she mumbles before throwing a file on my lap.

“A date? At eleven p.m.?” She goes on dates?

“With a colleague.” She clears her throat and opens the file on my legs with a flick of her fingers, shooting down any other questions I might have had about her date. “The man you asked me to look into is Ramiel Masters, twenty-five years old, two hundred pounds, six-foot-two. Wowza! For a white dude, he’s got a lick-a-licious bod.” Fuck, yeah he does. “He’s a game developer, a very successful one. He was raised in a foster home and kept contact with some of the other kids he grew up with. A couple of tickets for speeding, paid both the very same day. He’s clean as a whistle.”

Nobody is. Everybody has secrets. Including Ramiel Masters. The guy staring at me from the picture, though, doesn’t look like the one in the alley. His red hair is short, no beard in sight, and a serious expression veils his gold-brown eyes even though he’s smiling, showing dimples. It almost feels wrong, like this is not the same guy. There’s no trace of that impishness he openly showed me the other night or the deep interest toward me.

But it’s him. Ramiel. Those three sexy dimples on his freckled cheeks are building a strange, warm anticipation in the pit of my stomach.

He’s holding a popular video game case and wearing red gloves. His arms look massive, contoured with the big muscles beneath. A long-sleeved, simple cotton shirt hugs the curves of his hard pecs and wide chest perfectly. The tightest jeans I’ve ever seen are so snug on his strong thighs, they might as well be painted on. A metal chain curls around his side from the front pocket to the back one.

My gaze falls on a line in the file. Marital status: single. A feeling that suspiciously resembles excitement spreads inside my chest at the discovery of his unattached status. I grit my teeth and push it the fuck down, trying to focus on something else.

“How about the black van’s plate I gave you?”

“The vehicle is registered to a shell company offshore called Cinderella and Co, LLC. It’s a cleaning company. The address for the Chicago branch is in the file. Serena Botinsky is the CEO. She’s in her twenties, lives in L.A., has no criminal record and no apparent connection to Ramiel Masters.”

So why was he using that van? “Was the van reported stolen?”

“Nope. Why are you interested in a hot game developer, Hunter? Is it related to your work?”

“Yes and no.” I wince at my automatically vague reply. I haven’t seen Opal in a long time, despite her numerous attempts, and she agreed to help and meet me at the last minute.

“You know, at the precinct they named me the Truth Whisperer. When they need a tough guy to talk in the interrogation room, who do you think they call?”

I know very well she’s capable of ripping me a new asshole.

I open my mouth, but she shuts me up with a pointed finger. “Don’t you dare say Ghostbusters!”

I feel a small smile coming up, and we exchange a brief conspiratorial gaze. Fuck, I missed her. More than I’ll ever admit, but this is how it has to be. She shouldn’t be seen near me. It’s not good for her reputation. Her career. Her life.

“Thank you for this.” I raise the file from my lap. I never asked her for help. I have a couple of people I can pay to get background checks, but they were both unavailable and I needed to get this information as quickly as possible. “I wouldn’t have asked you, but…”

“Hunter, we’re family. If I can help you, I will. I don’t give a fuck what people think. I’m a good cop, and you were one as well.”

Her praise should make me proud, instead I feel bile climbing up my throat. Because that was a long time ago—almost another life.

“No, I fucking wasn’t,” I growl. I fist both hands on my knees and turn my head toward the window as I try to push away the unwanted memories. My eyes burn with shame and anger.

“You’re a great P.I.,” she attempts at sugarcoating it.

“You keeping an eye on me?” I mutter.

“Always, butthead.” The affection dripping from her voice makes me turn my gaze toward her. She grabs my balled-up fist. Her hand is so much smaller than mine, but her grip is strong and effective.

“Hunter, I know you don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re right, I don’t. It’s in the past. Done. Caput.” I pull my hand back, annoyed by her attempts at making me talk.

“We could clear your name.” Fuck, not this again! She’s like a dog with a bone.

“No, we can’t.” I sigh.

“Loretta’s father died.” Her words hit me in the gut like a metal, robotic punch would.

“What?” I murmur after a minute. That’s why there were no fresh flowers on Loretta’s grave.

“Four days ago. There’s nobody else.” Instead of giving me relief, the news adds another weight on my shoulders. His broken heart must have finally given out.

So he wasn’t the one who wrote that letter.

“What’s the point? Leave it alone.” Before she can fight me, I add, “Even if we succeeded, I wouldn’t want to be a cop anymore, Opal. Can’t ever serve near the people who let me down.”

I went to the police academy with them, worked on the streets with them, ate and laughed with them, helped when I could. I thought they knew me. But Opal was the only one who didn’t turn her back on me. Brothers and sisters in blue, my ass.

“No, you think you let yourself down.” So perceptive, my cousin, because, yeah, I think that too. “I didn’t see it either, Hunter. And he was my fucking brother,” she continues.

I shake my head at her. Damn her, I really don’t need this now.

“Cal was your half-brother, and he went to study theology at the seminary a year after you came,” I counter.

“We talked on the phone.” She weakly argues. “And Jasper? He was Cal’s brother; they grew up together. Shouldn’t it be his fault, as well? We both didn’t fucking see it. Thought he was a fucking saint.”

My hand goes to my wrist, and I trace the bracelet around it with my fingertips, the familiar bumps and edges of the cold stone beads remind me of my sin.

“Haven’t you done enough acts of penitence?” she keeps going.

“I lived almost next door to them. Went to his church. Listened to his damn sermons every other Sunday.”

“Jasper did too!”

I growl and clench my teeth. On some level, I know she might be right, but I watched Cal fall and crack his neck. Heard Loretta’s scream. Witnessed her tears of horror. Loomed over Cal’s dead body with fury burning in my gut.

Once again, I force the images back into a mental vault. “Have you seen him?”

“Jasper?” she asks, mercifully letting me change the topic. I nod, opening my eyes again. “Yes, briefly yesterday. At the police dinner. He’s always too busy fundraising for his political campaign, but likes to take pictures with me. The public loves that the guy running for senator has a sister on the force.” She frowns.

“Not his P.I. cousin? Shocker.” I try to make a joke, but it’s swallowed by silence.

“He probably promised favors to a few people to hide what happened to Cal…and you.”

I bet he did. I don’t blame him though.

“Can you check this partial plate as well?” I pass her a piece of paper with the numbers written on it.

She sighs. “Why?”

“Can you just do it?” I give her my best please-leave-it-alone look, but of course, she ignores it.

“I’m putting my neck out for you again while gathering all this information.”

“And I appreciate it.”

“I have a date in thirty minutes, no time to waste. If you want to know about the plate, tell me why. Now.”

“Somebody shot at me and then took off in that car,” I confess grudgingly.

“What!” Her high-pitched cry almost makes me deaf. “When? Where?”

“Around thirty minutes ago. At the cemetery.”

“Fuck! You think it’s related to Loretta or Cal?”

I ponder if I should tell her about the anonymous letter I received but decide to leave her out of it. “After all these years? No. Probably an ex-client.” Just like Marcus Baker. Maybe it was him. Not him-him, since he can’t walk with his knees both broken. But maybe he paid someone. Need to go see the fucker again. Should have killed him. Or ask Ramiel to take both brothers.

Ramiel. I like his name. Unique just like him.

“He came,” Opal suddenly whispers, but her dark tone sends an ominous sense of doom down my spine. I turn my eyes toward the shiny gray Mercedes stopping in front of Opal’s Corolla.

Now I know the reason we met in this empty parking lot. Jasper. God forbid someone sees me anywhere near him.

He exits his expensive car while we do the same. He’s wearing a posh gray suit that covers his long thin body, and shiny black shoes. I haven’t seen him face to face in eight long years. His hair has turned gray at the temples and he has wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. I have to rapidly blink a couple of times because seeing him is quite a shock. He looks so much like Cal, if it weren’t for his glasses and thinner lips, I’d think he came back from the dead to torture me.

We get out of the car and stop a few feet from him. He’s wearing his usual political half smile, but he looks tense. He closes the distance and gives Opal a quick hug.

Then he turns to me and offers his hand. Such affection. I grab it, trying to cover my puzzlement at his…presence. Just when I’m about to let go, he tightens his grip. “You look…fine.”

Fine?“Do I?” I ask him with a hint of derision while pulling my hand free. The sting in my calf caused by someone shooting at me reminds me how not fine I am.

“Yes. Yesterday, Opal told me you called her.” I send a furtive glance her way and catch her apologetic wince. “And I have to admit, I was surprised. You haven’t tried to contact us since you got out.”

That’s true. And I’d hoped the meaning would be crystal clear, but Opal’s persistence is like my dog’s humping urges…it has no boundaries or a timing.

“Didn’t want to ruin your political ascent,” I remind him. Jasper isn’t an introvert as Cal was, but he’s always been a snob. And having an ex-convict who killed your own brother as a cousin just won’t do.

“And I appreciate it.” He seems honest. “Everything okay?” His eyes dart from me to Opal.

I only nod at him, not willing to tell him what’s going on—in part because I don’t have the slightest idea.

Jasper doesn’t seem convinced.

“Hunter heard about my date, and he checked the guy out.” Opal points at the file still in my hand. Jasper’s sharp gaze flicks from it to Opal’s dress.

“Completely forgetting that I’m quite capable of defending myself, overprotective butthead.” It’s always been so easy for Opal to lie. Obviously, it was for Cal as well. I guess it’s a family trait that skipped Jasper. Or did it? He’s a politician.

He seems to accept the explanation, or maybe just wants to leave. He checks his Rolex, and I know this awkward encounter is going to be over soon.

“Glad we’re still on the same page.” Jasper sends me a long, you-get-me look.

I don’t fault him for wanting to protect the career he’s worked so hard for. He surely made a lot of sacrifices to get where he is now. And I totally understand the unquenched hankering that drives someone to do whatever it takes to reach their dream. I felt it too once upon a time.

“Don’t let us keep you. We know you’re a very busy man,” Opal tells him with a too-sweet smile. I swallow the grunt back.

“Right.” He looks straight at me before getting inside his car and driving away.

“What the fuck?” I groan, stroking my face. “Why did you tell him about my call?”

“I was excited to see you, and he’s family… It slipped.” I frown because that’s not like her. “I didn’t think he’d come. Sorry.”

I pat her shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “Go have fun on your date. Not too much fun, though.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll let you know about the partial plate, but I’m not very hopeful. Be careful please.”

I let go a grunt. “Thanks for this.” I lift the file and then move toward my Harley.

“Are those boys still with you?” she asks, and I only reply with a nod. I see the moment she gets it. Whatever she hoped for when I asked for her help won’t happen. Nothing is going to change. She needs to keep her distance from me.

She gives me a small, sad smile and then gets inside her car. My heart squeezes painfully inside my chest, but it’s the right thing to do.

I’m going to visit Marcus Baker to find out if he’s behind the shooting and the wooden planks on the road. When I’m done, I’ll turn to the game developer.

Ramiel Masters.