Sanctum (Sacred Series Book 1)

by K. Michelle

  “When were you on the fucking streets, Dessa? It sure as hell wasn’t recently, I do know that.”

  She takes a seat next to me on the couch, propping her feet on the coffee table, making herself at home. Her freshwater scented perfume teases me. “I was like fifteen. Or sixteen. Right before I went to Sally’s. She practically chose me while I was as dirty as a rag.”

  “How did I miss this?” I turn to her, looking her dead in the eyes, and she gives me a shrug.

  “It’s not something I advertise, Cohen. Jesus.” She sighs, regretting opening her mouth. “I got to school early and showered in the locker-rooms. I met the right people who taught me the right things. That’s all you need to know because I am not diving into that era of my life.”

  Right on cue, Evan comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another one in his hand, drying off his dark hair. Dessa chokes on a chip, coughing and hitting her chest. Evan smirks and continues past us to his room. That’s what she fucking gets for gawking. Once she works it out and grabs bottled water from her bag, she’s back on me again.

  “A little help next time? I could’ve died, asshole.”

  “Evan would’ve been here to save you.” I don’t look at her. Instead, my focus is directed towards the file with my mom’s name, from Henry’s office. None of it makes sense.

  “Oh-my-God. You’re jealous.”

  I scoff, “Please. Humor me some more.”

  Then her lips hit my ear as she whispers, “You don’t have to be, Russo. He wasn’t the one inside me last night.” I look at her out of the corner of my eye, brow raised. God, she’s a sight to behold. Her shiny blonde hair fanned around her frame in waves. Bright blue ocean eyes hooded by long black eyelashes. Those red lips pull up in a proud smirk. “I mean, not that I’m not thinking about it.”

  “Thinking about what?” Evan pipes up as he walks back in. Clothed.

  “Funny you ask. I was telling Cohen here, I was thinking about—”

  “What we need to talk to her about,” I interrupt, looking over as she’s grinning in amusement. I roll my eyes. “We need you to talk to Dennis about,” I slide the picture in front of her, “about this guy.”

  “Ooookay. What exactly do you need to know?”

  “That’s the thing. We don’t want you to know too much. It could get dangerous for you.” Evan stares at her, dead serious. I look at her, and her expression changes, understanding the importance of this.

  “Gotcha. So, what is it that you need?”

  I point to the picture. “His name is Mike. I got some information, but I need to know what storage unit he worked at. So, I just want you to casually tell Dennis you met him online, and he mentioned working at one of the storage units. You just were curious if Dennis knew of him, and if Mike’s a good guy. That will give us what we need to know.”

  “Does Mike have a last name?”

  “We need you to get that as well,” Evan says with a grin.

  “This is going to be so obvious. I barely talk to Dennis, let alone ask him about boys.”

  “Well, consider this a new bonding experience.” I cock my head her way, and she takes a deep breath.

  “You boys know you’re gonna have to pay up when it comes time for me, right?”

  “I mean, we could pay up now,” Evan says with a wink and wiggles his eyebrows. I turn my head to catch Dessa’s reaction. She’s all one big mischievous smile right now. Interesting.

  “We need this tonight. Evan and I have another errand to run. This is time sensitive. I trust you’ll get it done and come back with accurate information.”

  “Well, seeing as I have no clue what this is about, nor does it concern me, it would do me no justice to lie about it. So, don’t assume I would do that, it’s insulting.”

  I’ve poked a bear.

  “Good. We understand then.” We both stand, and I drag my finger from the bottom of her neck up to her chin. “Come back tonight. We’ll reconvene.”

  She smiles, grabs her shit, and heads for the door. “No, if you want your information, you can come to me,” she turns back to face me, “Till next time, Russo.”

  Then she’s gone, and I’m stuck still staring at the door she walked out of.

  “She’s already hot, but the way she’s not afraid to give either of us shit lights me the fuck up.” Evan does this whole-body shiver, and I look at him like he’s lost his mind.

  “Did you just shiver?” I ask, and he wiggles his eyebrows at me again. “Henry is out of town for another five days. Tonight is the only night that no one should be at the offices. We need to go back and see if we can find anything else on my mom or why they would have pictures of Dessa.”

  “Shouldn’t we keep her with us? The thought of Sanctum watching Dessa isn’t exactly ideal.”

  “I can’t give her a clue yet. Not until we know what’s going on. Dessa can save herself, and if she knew, she’d go off. Can’t give away that we know anything,” I pause, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t track her,” I add over the glass of whiskey in my hand, smiling into the glass.

  “You sneaky son’bitch. What did you put it in?”

  “Two. Her phone and then her necklace that I don’t think she’s ever taken off a day in her life.”

  “How the hell did you get it on her necklace, then?”

  I stay silent, smirking into my glass again.

  “No, you didn’t,” he jumps up laughing, “You fucking did! The fact you were able to focus enough during sex is impressive,” he laughs harder, “Was it everything your inner high school boy imagined. Did you buy a ring? I know you’re a big tough guy on the outside, but a big-ass teddy bear on the inside.”

  “Ah, shut up.” I chuckle with him. “There was a lot of neck grabbing last night. She didn’t suspect a thing.”

  “Look at you. Sleeping with the enemy.”

  “Nah, she’s never been my enemy. And that’s exactly why I hated her growing up. I pushed her as far away as I could, as long as I was still able to drag her back in when I wanted to. But she’s resilient because she did the same damn thing to me. Our fight or flight responses were always in tune with each other.” I rub my hand through my hair, putting it up into a man-bun. “We should head out to the office. See what else we can possibly dig up.”

  “Agreed. Let’s go in. If we find something related, just put it to the side. We’ll sort through all the shit here afterward.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. We can assess when we get there, see what we’re dealing with.”

  Thirty minutes later, we both take the stairs to the eighth floor. I use my key to enter Henry’s suite. Vicki is long gone, so I don’t have to worry about her nosy ass. We both have our briefcases, so as far as anyone is concerned, we’re here for work, which isn’t wrong. And it’s not like we haven’t done this before, it just wasn’t to snoop through Sanctum files we have no apparent business snooping through.

  “I’ll start through the filing cabinet if you take his back up computer. If it’s still here, that is. Then I guess … just look through everything. Every drawer, nook and cranny. You name it.”

  “Copy.”

  Evan is the tech guy, learned it for Sanctum, now using it on Sanctum.

  How the wheel turns.

  We both start searching. Henry is an absolute imbecile and left his computer here. It wasn’t even locked up. Then again, I don’t think he was expecting his son to turn against him, but still, this is the carelessness we’ve been catching on to.

  Henry spent the majority of my life training me to work under him at Sanctum. I should’ve never been exposed to the things I was exposed to at my age. My mom was too sick to stop him, otherwise she would’ve. Even from her bedside, she filled me with all the love she had, trying to preserve any innocence she could. But it was the family business, as he put it. He kept the drugs in circulation on the streets, but in the right hands—same with weapons. It was the whole idea of Sanctum, to keep this city clean. A holy p
lace. Which meant him making sure the bad guys were in the right places and the bad things were in the right hands. It meant him dictating the direction of the city, controlling it, managing it. I thought my father was a badass when I was younger, anticipating the change to shadow him. Until it no longer became fun. When Henry first taught me torture tactics—negotiation tactics—I learned to hate him. Especially when he made me hold open an eight-year-old boys’ eyes as he had Vex kill his dad while I was only fifteen, I didn’t dare disobey him in fear of what was in store for me. It was selfish and vindictive behavior, and I’ll always regret that day for the rest of my life.

  For years, Henry had his way catered to him. Staff to serve him. A son to get the information. A business to do the dirty work. And a dead wife he no longer had to care for. Not to mention an entire team of pricks hanging on to his every word. Why? Promises. Hope. He feeds these men Kool-Aid sweeter than Jamestown’s, taking care of their family, making their pasts go away, and, my personal favorite, getting their whole family to heaven. Lake Meadows is his Sanctum, and he’s their Savior. In his words.

  I’m digging through the files and notice some have names I remember my mom going by or folders inside of files that look suspicious. I take a picture of each file and set each one to the side, so nothing is out of order.

  “How’s it going over there?” I ask Evan.

  “I’m getting close. I found a couple of very well-hidden files on here. I’m exporting a copy of them for us. I just want to check a few more places. But I think we’ll figure something out. Not sure if it’s what we want, but we’re about to get our hands fucking messy.”

  “Good. I’ve wanted a reason to bury Henry for a long fucking time.”

  “You’re not alone, brother.”

  My dad voluntarily took Evan in. He lived with his mom growing up but was with us more than he was there. Living with her was a very loose term. She suffered severe panic attacks and a personality disorder. He never knew if she was coming or going, or if anything she ever told him was true or not. He always found solace in my mom, and she treated him more like a son than his ever did. Henry was more than willing to take him under his wing along with me. Evan occasionally came on the rides I went on. Henry did his own thing with Evan, even though a lot of it was on the inside, like computer shit. I know he still taught Evan similar skills as me, just maybe not as in-depth.

  I shut the cabinet and eye the stack of files. The rattle of the cabinet weirdly caught my ear. I open the drawer again and go around to the side, shutting it hard from there, and a spot in the wall slightly vibrates. “Oh, hell yes.”

  “What?”

  “He has a hidden spot inside the wall.”

  I move the cabinet out and open the small door by pushing on it. There’s another safe, but this doesn’t worry me because Henry is a dumbass and tells me his shit. I guess several combinations he has a habit of using before opening it. Inside there are several files, and I take all of them. If they’re important enough to hide here, I want to know what’s in them.

  “Let’s get out of here. You done?”

  “Yep.” Evan shuts the laptop and grabs the USB out of the side. We make sure everything’s like it was and put what we’re taking in our cases.

  “One last stop before home.” Dessa.

  “I’m fucking hungry, let’s get food before I have to sit through the sexual tension you guys put out into the universe, let alone the enclosed room I’ll be stuck in with you.”

  “Whatever. Quit whining.”

  It’s going to be a long-ass night.

  I walk up to the two-story brick home. Only a couple years of my life were spent here, but they were the most comfortable years I’d known, surrounded by acceptance and love. At the time, I didn’t know how to live in that environment and took advantage of it. Lifting my hand, I knock on the dark red door. It doesn’t take Sally long to answer, and the moment she does, her face lights up as if a firework went off between us. I’ve been back a few days and haven’t seen her since I left four years ago, never having come home for any of my breaks. As much as I missed Sally, I wanted—no, needed—to stay away from Cohen. I feel like a dick for not visiting, but I don’t want to bring her into this situation I’ve been in either. I don’t want anything falling back onto the one person who’s loved me in a way I didn’t think was possible. I don’t want to drag her through my life only to wind up disappointed in me. It’s bound to happen.

  A familiar, friendly face is on the other side of the open door.

  “Hi, Sal,” I say with an uneasy smile.

  Her hand covers her mouth and then her heart before she leaps forward, wrapping her arms around me. “Dessa Collins, I will chap your hide if you ignore me and push me away like that again.”

  “I love it when you have a backbone, Sal. I taught you right,” I say, adding a wink. It gets me a smile and another hug, but with this one, my arms wrap around her too, soaking up love to make up for the lost time. It’s been four years since I’ve had her arms around me, and it feels like home.

  “Come in, come in. Are you thirsty? Hungry? Do you need a place to stay?”

  I laugh at how easily she spun into her host personality. Sal can’t help it. She’s a nurturer.

  “I’m okay. Thank you, though.” I give her a genuine smile. “How are you?”

  She smiles back and takes a seat across from me, grabbing my hands. Her black hair has faded, salted with the occasional grey hair. Her smooth skin has smile lines sprinkled over her face, and her blue eyes are still the kindest I’ve ever seen. She truly is a beautiful woman, and even if she weren’t, the kind of person she is would make her just as beautiful.

  “I’m good. I’m good. Keeping busy volunteering at the library. I read to the toddlers on Wednesdays and the Elementary aged kids on Mondays. Then there’s Book Club and tennis. A girl has to keep her figure,” she adds with a wink.

  “Especially with all the shit you bake.”

  “Language,” Sal tries to sound tough, but she’s biting back a smile. I could recite every bad word in the dictionary, and it wouldn’t matter. This woman is thrilled to see me, and the love she freely gives me glues back the little shards my biological mother chiseled off with her knife.

  I smile, squeezing her hands back, and look around the kitchen with wide eyes. “You painted. It looks great in here! And the wallpaper is gone! Finally listened to me and got rid of the seventies for good?”

  “I even made sure to wait until you left. I knew how much you loved my retro kitchen, and I didn’t want to take it away until you were off to college.”

  Barking out a laugh, I remember begging her to change the kitchen and the wallpaper. Everyday. Multiple times a day. Now I’m looking at white cabinets with stainless steel fixtures and a dark granite countertop. The walls are an earthy grey, if that’s a color. And then something through the doorway catches my eye and wipes the smile off my face.

  “What is that?” I get up from the table to get a closer look, just to be sure I’m not hallucinating. “How did you get these? How did you know I did this?”

  “I’m insulted you don’t think I’d support you. Or follow up on my girl.”

  Tears build in my eyes as I look at numerous paintings of mine hung up and down the hallway. I cough to cover my emotions. “You know if you wanted to pay for my apartment, you could just send a check next time.”

  She gives me a sweet smile and places her soft hand on my cheek. “Dessa, you are the most talented artist I know. You create stunning pieces, and I’ve never seen anything like them. It would be a shame not to have them hanging in my home. I consider myself lucky.”

  “But how? I would’ve recognized or noticed the address.”

  “Honey, I may be getting old, but I’m not a fool.”

  “Of course, you’re not. I won’t question your ways,” I chuckle, “What do you see in this one?” I point to a painting that’s one of my favorites. One I painted after receiving the letter that change
d everything, the reason I came back. People see the yellows, oranges, and soft pinks and feel joy, cleanliness, something you feel when the snow has cleared, and it’s finally the first fifty-degree day you can enjoy after a long winter. Crisp cool air blowing on your face, but the sun shining down on you at the same time.

  “I see desperation,” Sal says, and my eyes pop open and my breath hitches. “I see you trying to cling to something good so desperately because it’s all you’ve ever wanted. Like stability, love,” she pauses to look at me, “hope. I know you better than you think, Sweetheart. If I didn’t know any better, I would think I birthed you.”

  “Why?”

  “You think we couldn’t be more different, but we’re the same.”

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Sal. But I’ll always be grateful for it.”

  “I love you, too.” She holds my gaze for a few more seconds, then adds a wink. “How about dinner? Hungry?”

  “Actually, I’m starving. That sounds great. Is Dennis here by chance?”

  “He’s not, he had to run to the units but should be back ...” right as she says the words, the man himself comes through the door, “Hi, Sweetie.” She smiles at him, and he smiles at her. A man of few words, but his love communicates loud and clear through his eyes.

  He kisses her cheek and turns to me. We never talked much. Not that we didn’t get along, because we did. We just didn’t have much to say to each other. Our “bonding time” was watching Law & Order reruns in silence, which was fine with me. The only other person I could enjoy comfortable silence with was Cohen. But I hated Cohen outside of those woods. Dennis is a solid guy. A man’s man, who doesn’t say much, but when he does speak, he speaks with purpose—a trait I commend.

  His eyes open wide when he sees me, and he hugs me. “Good to see you, girl.”

  “Good to see you, too. Sal keeping you busy around here, I see?”

  “Always.” He smiles and heads to the living room to plop in his recliner.

  “Do you need any help, Sal?”

  “Heavens, no. You go sit, and I’ll call you two in when it’s ready.”