Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  “It’s her,” Bea whispered softly, just for me. A single tear caught on the trough of her lower lid, amplifying the deeply saturated blue of her iris. I watched as it trembled on the edge, then fell down the soft slope of her pale cheek.

  Even with everything going on, I wanted to lick that tear from her skin and taste her sorrow. She was even prettier when she cried.

  “Brenda Walsh,” she continued with a slow blink, reluctant to break eye contact even for that second. “Brett’s mum.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Boner mumbled somewhere behind me.

  “Tell me everythin’,” Zeus demanded.

  “It arrived at my house. Cleo answered the door, but she said no one was around and the box was just on the stoop. She brought it inside and gave it to me.” Bea hesitated, licking her dry lips. “She thought it was a gift from an admirer.”

  And Bea thought it could have been a gift from me.

  Silly, overly romantic Little Shadow.

  I shook my head just slightly, jaw clenched.

  She sighed softly in answer like an audible, bashful shrug.

  “So you touched it and so did Cleo,” King confirmed, his phone pressed to his ear, his other arm around Cressida. Into the speaker, he said, “Yeah, Lion? You better get the fuck down here. We got a situation.”

  I was too busy thinking to entertain any of the nonsense emotional talk that followed. Kodiak was right. This was as premeditative as it got. Whoever had murdered Brenda Walsh had planned not just the killing, but the aftermath. The intent was clearly to send Bea a gift, a token of their affection or protection. It was not the act of a stranger, but of an admirer.

  Someone was watching her.

  Someone else was watching her.

  But since that moment I’d watched Bea beautifully dismantle a peach with the sharp edge of a blade, I’d been following her too. Gentle stalking, nothing harmful. Every night like clockwork, I ran down to her house on my daily jog, stopping to run in place while I checked in the wide picture windows, past the fluttering gauze curtains into the warmly lit house Bea made into her home. I’d watch her for exactly five minutes as she spoke with her little dove or chased her one-eyed cat, as she danced around that atrociously pink living room with Cleo when they had their weekly sleepovers, or when she made dinner like a dutiful daughter for her mother.

  It was like watching television, standing removed, but undeniably intrigued as I watched her humanity, her kindness and radiant personality more brilliant than the yellow light against the dark night.

  Knowing someone else had been watching that, tuning into a channel I had long considered mine, made the tenuous grasp I held on my sanity tremble and quake.

  I would find him, because I knew it was a him.

  Bea was catnip for the freaks, the creeps, the deviants; a dark heart wrapped up pretty in a pink bow.

  Of course, she’d attracted some other killer, drawn to her light in the darkness like some sadistic moth to a flame.

  I’d find him, and when I did, I would dismember him just as he’d dismembered Brenda, only I’d do it with my bare hands and blunt teeth. He’d killed as a gift for a woman who wasn’t his. He didn’t know yet that she’d already been claimed by a psychopath, and I wouldn’t give her up for fucking anything.

  Before I could temper the impulse, my hand snapped out to wrap around Bea’s long, delicate throat. There were gasps, but I didn’t care, not even when a heavy hand tried to jerk me away by the shoulder.

  I only cared about her.

  The girl with the pink bow and the dark things lurking behind those light blue eyes.

  I needed to feel her alive, pulse beating against my flesh to settle the cold, murderous intention that seized every inch of my body from prickling scalp to clenching toes.

  And Bea?

  She didn’t flinch.

  Of course, she didn’t.

  Instead, she watched me unblinkingly as she slowly raised her small hand and pressed it tight to mine over her throat. The rightness of it surged through me, hot where I was cold, scorching through all the icy chambers of my heart until it burned. Until I was lit up like an old house and quickly going down in her flames.

  “I will keep you safe,” I said in a voice that sounded strangely like a vow. An oath when the last promise I’d ever made was to make promises no more. “Everyone who knows me fears me, and those that don’t yet, will learn to.”

  Priest

  “Like hell you will,” Loulou said, pushing between Bea and I so that I was forced to drop my hand if I didn’t want to seriously hurt my Little Shadow. “You’re the one who almost killed her already.”

  “She needs a man on her,” King acknowledged, stepping up beside me in a show of solidarity that meant something to me when it shouldn’t have. “Whoever did this, did it for her.”

  Loulou slanted me a suspicious look, but Bea poked a finger into her shoulder and hissed, “Don’t even think it, Lou.”

  I blinked dispassionately at Loulou. “You think I’d hurt your sister?”

  She tipped her chin in the air and crossed her arms over her chest. “I think under the right circumstances, you could hurt anyone.”

  Everyone around us was quiet, interested. It was a stand-off between the club Queen and its leashed beast. The tension was palpable in the air, but it did nothing to stir my blood. What did I care if Louise Garro liked me or not? This was my club long before it had been hers and it would be for the rest of my fucking life. I’d lived for The Fallen when I had nothing else to live for, and I’d die for it, for them, even for this bitch staring me down, because that was my definition of loyalty.

  Of love, if I had any of that in my metaphorical heart to give.

  “I’d sooner hurt you than her,” I said finally, bored now. I took the blade from my pocket and flipped it open to clean under my fingernails. “I’d sooner hurt anyone else than Bea.”

  I knew if I looked at my Little Shadow then, there would be hope stamped on her face, and I didn’t want to acknowledge I’d put it there. I was speaking the truth, but she was too ready to read deeper into it.

  Thoughts were the echo of emotion. They were never eloquent, but they got the point across. In my experience, words were even more useless.

  Loulou understood me in a way Bea couldn’t because she was too involved. Lou’s eyes flashed. She knew what I was, a stone-cold killer, and she knew what I had to offer, obsession, not love. She didn’t want that for her sister.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  “I guess that’s fair enough,” she conceded, looking over my shoulder at her husband. “But I still don’t want you on her for this.”

  “Lou,” Zeus rumbled. “Priest is one’a the best brothers we got. You want her safe, then he’s a good bet.”

  “The best,” I corrected.

  Bat stifled a snorting laugh behind a cough.

  “I could do it,” Kodiak said in his monotone. “I’m not so good as Priest, but I could keep her safe.”

  A growl ripped from my throat before I could think to curb the impulse, and suddenly, I was lunging three steps across the room to get in the large man’s face. “Like fuckin’ hell you will. I’m the scariest motherfucker in this place. If it’s good for anythin’, it’s this.”

  “Maybe you’re too invested,” King suggested mildly. “Never seen you lose your shit at a brother like this.”

  My eyebrow curved high on my forehead. “Oh? You think this is losing my shit, do ya?”

  Cleo shivered behind her dad, Axe-Man, and moved closer to him, prompting a grim smile to cross my face.

  I wanted to pound my chest, bare my teeth, and flourish my knives to prove to them all just how motherfucking dangerous I was. If something evil wanted Bea, they’d have to get through me first, and I doubted they would expect someone who could match the depth of their moral depravity blow for blow.

  “Priest,” Bea said softly, moving toward me with her hand extended.

  I held still, vibrating l
ike a plucked cord with tension as she placed that hand on my chest. It made me realize I was barely breathing and hardly blinking. The need to protect had brought the animal out in the man. I clamped my hand down on hers over my sternum and bared my teeth at her.

  She smiled softly back at me. “We don’t even know for sure what’s happening, right now. Let’s assume it’s less about me and more about Brenda Walsh.”

  “There was a Bible verse,” Cressida added. “Inside the box.”

  The energy between the brothers ramped higher, testosterone leaking into the room like gas.

  “Like the woman fed to the wolves,” Curtains remembered bleakly. “Up on the rez.”

  “What?” Loulou asked, turning in Z’s arms to stare up at his troubled face. “There was another murder like this one?”

  He nodded grimly, stroking his beard as he did when he was deep in thought. “Yeah, the leader of the T-Squad sent word about it today. Happened last week, but they’ve kept it quiet.”

  “Could this be Ventura?” Axe-Man wondered aloud. It was weird to see him holding his daughter delicately, strange to think a man I’d once watched throw an axe ten metres straight into an enemy’s forehead care for someone more vulnerable than himself. It gave me pause because it begged the question, if Axe-Man could do that, could I too?

  “He has come at us from all angles before,” Bat agreed. “But this doesn’t have his signature on it. I say we call Dane in on this. He spent years profiling in the military, who better to help us out now?”

  “He ain’t a part’a the club,” Skell muttered.

  “Don’t be a racist asshole,” Nova snapped, wrapping an arm around Lila’s waist so she wouldn’t physically defend her brother. “He’s a good man. I say, he wants a place in the club, he’s the kinda man we should take.”

  “He’s got skills,” Curtains agreed, almost eagerly because he was a genius, and talent was his turn-on. “We could definitely use that.”

  “He’s also got a good heart,” Lila drawled too mildly. “And he could use the brotherhood. He’s…he’s been struggling since he got back from the Middle East.”

  “He starts answerin’ some questions ’bout what the hell he actually did over there, I’m open to it,” Zeus stated. “But that’s not up for discussion right now. We’re talkin’ ’bout a woman killer ’ere. Let’s stay focused.”

  “In my experience with Javier,” Lila piped up, the clear authority because for some reason, the bastard had staved off murdering her when he had the chance once. “He wouldn’t hide behind religious bullshit.”

  Bea shifted, and I realized she was still holding that damn arm. My hands clamped down on her hips to turn her toward the pool table at our left, and she took the hint, gently depositing it on the felt as if it were a bomb. I didn’t take my hands away when she was done. They felt good in the subtle angle of her torso arrowing into her hips. Almost as good as the feel of a blade handle against my palm.

  “Don’t cross it out yet,” Zeus said, stepping forward to gently clamp a warning hand on my shoulder. “Let’s wait until Lion gets here to jump to any conclusions.”

  “Religious bullshit?” Speak of the devil. Lion held the door to the clubhouse open for Lysander Garrison, Cressida’s somewhat estranged brother.

  The atmosphere went flat like old soda.

  “What’s he doing here?” Zeus demanded.

  Lion shot him a dispassionate look as he walked toward us and stopped at Bea, checking her over visually. When he reached out to touch her, I snapped my teeth at him. He rolled his eyes but didn’t try to put a hand on her again.

  “Sander is my guy. He’s workin’ for me now.”

  “Say the fuck what?” Boner asked, eyebrows raised. “You trust that motherfucker?”

  Lion leveled his signature stern glare at the younger brother. “With my life. Now, what’s this about a Bible verse? There was a murder last month down in metro Vancouver that had something to do with religion. The details were hushed up, but I can dig into it.”

  “You do that,” Zeus urged as Lila passed Lion a note that must have been the Bible verse.

  They’d had the delayed good sense to put it in a Ziploc bag to preserve it for prints.

  “It was a prostitute killed on East Hasting. Happens all the time. Only thing that made it stand out was some quote from the Old Testament written in her blood on the wall.”

  “He’s evolving,” Bea said quietly, then cleared her throat when everyone looked at her. “If the prostitute was his first kill, writing in blood on the wall is sloppy, not premeditated. He sent me a typed note and obviously knew about my history with Brenda Walsh. That suggests thought. Maybe the first kill was an accident or an impulse.”

  “But this was theatrics,” I finished for her.

  She looked up at me with a slight smile, pleased we were on the same page. “Exactly. It’s the classic evolution of a serial killer.”

  “A serial killer,” Tayline said flatly. “What next?”

  “I’d say that about covers the spectrum,” Boner agreed.

  “Don’t fuckin’ jinx it,” Nova said. “We don’t even know if this crazy killer is one and the same.”

  “Looks like,” Lion admitted. “But listen, we need to get the police involved here, Zeus. If it is a serial killer moving across criminal elements and municipalities, they need to know.”

  “Fuck the pigs.” Wiseguy said what everyone else was thinking.

  Sure, the corrupt sect of Entrance PD had been culled when we took down Staff Sergeant Danner, but that didn’t mean any of us liked the men in blue. With the exception of Lion Danner, who wasn’t even a cop anymore, but a P.I., as a rule, bikers didn’t take too well to authority.

  Especially after Zeus had been put away for months for a murder he didn’t commit.

  Looking at our prez, we watched his jaw work beneath his beard as he stared down at his wife then over at Bea who was still standing too close to me. I could feel the heat of her shoulder touching my lower left pec like a searing brand. I welcomed the pain.

  “Do it,” he commanded like I knew he would because our women were in danger, and he would do everything in his power to make sure they were safe. “Call Officer Hutchinson and get this sorted. The rest of you, get lost. We don’t need ’em seein’ the full club. Lion, Bat, Buck, and Curtains stay. We’ll reconvene Church tomorrow.”

  With a low mumble of agreement, everyone started to move out, some of the brothers stopping to murmur words to Bea.

  “I’m not fuckin’ leavin’,” I told Zeus.

  He stared at me, studying me in that way he had of sizing up a man’s soul.

  Finally, his lips twitched. “Yeah, brother, I figured.”

  “You’re coming home with us tonight.” Loulou moved into Bea, taking her hands and pulling her out of my orbit. I bared my teeth at her, but she ignored me. “You can’t stay alone at your house when some creep knows where you live.”

  “I’m sure Priest would stay with me,” Bea suggested, shooting me a look over her shoulder.

  I knew from the dark, sticky clasp of her stare that she was remembering how I’d slit that motherfucker Brett Walsh’s throat at her feet after he put her in danger. I knew she was imagining with some dark joy what I might do to this new threat against her.

  My cock stirred. It was hot as fuck seeing that wickedness in such an angelic face. Too heady to know I flamed those dark passions.

  She was fascinated by the very thing everyone else saw in me and feared.

  How was any man supposed to resist that?

  “No,” Lou declared with all her biker queen authority. “You’re my little sister, and you’re staying with me. No one gets past Zeus.”

  Bea bit the full, pink swell of her lower lip as she glanced back at me again with a question in her eyes.

  I stared back at her implacably.

  There was no sense in arguing with her sister about this. She didn’t like me for her sister, not even my protection
was good enough. And she was used to getting what she wanted with a man like Zeus wrapped around her little finger.

  So, I wouldn’t argue.

  I would just spend the entire fucking night staked out on the beach beside their house, watching in the dark, protecting my obsession from whoever sought to take her from me.

  In fact, I hoped they dared to try, because my fingers were itching for the hot touch of blood, and my knives, too, were thirsty.

  Bea’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but in her eyes shone a glimmer akin to contentment, and I knew she got me. It was the only reason she agreed to stay at her sister’s.

  We both knew I’d be watching.

  But only I knew this wouldn’t be the first night I’d stalk Bea Lafayette in the dark.

  Bea

  I couldn’t sleep.

  No surprise there.

  I didn’t have Sampson curled up on the pillow beside me because the Garro twins were allergic to cats, and I didn’t have the resonant coo of Delilah echoing softly through my house.

  Of course, that didn’t have so much to do with my insomnia as the fact that a serial killer might or might not have chosen to fixate on me.

  I stared out the open window passed the fluttering linen drapes of the Garro’s second-story bedroom into the velvet night littered with stars. Another reason I chose Entrance over Vancouver every time. There was next to zero light pollution in our little town nestled at the base of the mountains at the last ocean bay before land took over in sweeping, snow-capped crests. I could see the Andromeda constellation in the clear autumn sky and thought about her story, its parallels to mine. Sacrificed to a sea monster, she hung suspended, a classic damsel in distress waiting for a hero to save her.

  My teeth ground together painfully, but the hurt settled me. I didn’t want to be useless, waiting for someone to attack me or someone to save me.

  It was the 21st century, I wanted to be a woman in charge of my own fate.

  I tossed off the sheets and padded over to the window, shivering in the knife-sharp wind whistling through the cracked open pane.