Beyond Redemption (Marked Series Book 2)

by Jesse Lorenzo

  Ellora let her longing for him show as she pressed her eager lips to his, silently begging for the kiss she so desperately desired. Behr couldn’t hold back any longer, delving into the heat of her waiting mouth and stroking her tongue with his in a rhythm that nearly drove her into madness. The dominant man deepened the kiss further, taking his time as he massaged the inside of her mouth, expertly sliding his tongue in and out. Behr gripped her delicate body. His strong hands pulled her hips closer. His desperation showcased his desire for her in an unmistakably intimate way as he ground his hips into her. His hypnotic undulations left her climbing higher and higher, losing herself in the ecstasy of the moment.

  Knowing that she had been frightened and lay completely vulnerable in his arms, Behr didn’t want to take advantage of her by going too far. He gave just enough of himself to help her forget all her fears, which worked as he’d intended it to.

  The sick and the eerie feeling that she was being watched faded into the back of her mind as Behr pulled her into pure bliss that she never wanted to come down from. Kissing away the leftover tears that wetted her cheeks, he whispered into her ear, “I’ve got you, love. I’m stayin’ ’ere with you t’ night.”

  Behr turned over in the bed and pulled his beloved with him, into his side. Ellora rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and wrapped her little arm over his waist. In no time at all, she drifted off to sleep.

  The terrible nightmare she had woken up from was of past monsters taking Behr away from her. Permanently. This frightened her more than anything else, even more than her own safety. She didn’t know what she would do without him, and the very thought brought a deep sadness into her heart. She tangled her legs with his and drifted off to sleep, comforted by his protective arms around her.

  Ellora’s last thoughts were of the man lying beside her, and before sleep claimed her once more, she whispered, “I love you, Behr. So much.”

  She needed Behr. She was complete as a person with him by her side, and after having lost so much already… She couldn’t lose him.

  The long hours of night gave way to what promised to be an even longer day as dawn approached. Dominick and Giddeon sat on his homely worn old couch. The contents of the paperwork Susan surrendered to them was sprawled all over the coffee table. Only a handful of names remained on the list, dwindling their chances of finding a viable lead. They had worked through the night, looking at the list of names of all the unfortunate men who had worked for Dalton in the past.

  After several calls, they ruled out job relocation, which Giddeon already knew wouldn’t be a factor. They searched the internet for any possible residency change under their names or aliases, but were hit with many dead ends. Several of Dalton’s former employees had been reported as missing by family members. Not a good sign.

  Several more former secretaries had mysteriously vanished, as well. This case was growing out of the realm of anything Dominick had ever worked on before. Solving it would be tricky and would probably take more time than he had.

  The detective was on the line with some guy he called Tony, a man he trusted with his life, to run the remaining names. While he waited, Giddeon stared at his file. His gut churned and twisted with overwhelming sickness as the pale stranger glared back. Bile had him on the verge of expelling what little contents he carried, as he glared at the picture clipped inside. It was a picture of Giddeon a few years ago, and that person was unrecognizable.

  The young man looked like a corpse; his zombie-like appearance shocked him. Pale skin and dark circles marred his otherwise youthful eyes, but the grief, anger, and bitterness had aged him. And those eyes… black, soulless, cold. The disheveled appearance that stared back at him was a disturbing wake-up call. Guilt and disgust with himself kept Giddeon from looking into mirrors for most of his life. What he envisioned in the mirror’s reflection was enough to end his worthless life as past demons jumped out at him. He had to get this whole thing over with. Years of this had him slowly dying inside. He needed to either get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, as they say. He was so ready to have this all be over, no matter the outcome.

  Something in his file caught his attention, a notation clipped to some paperwork. Giddeon leaned in, unclipped the paper, and tried to read the scribbled pen note.

  ‘In keeping a watchful eye on the boy, I’m delighted to see his darker nature progressing. I will set up a few instances to test out his instincts. Definitely keeping my eyes on this one. He could become quite useful to me in the near future. That is, if he allows his inner demons to take over.’

  What the fuck does that mean? Giddeon folded it back up and shoved it in his back pocket. The first time he’d ever seen Dalton was that day outside the club. Why was he talking about watching him as a boy? How did he know him? And where would he know him from?

  Dominick ended the call, looking optimistic. Hopefully, someone had the man in the ballroom with the candlestick. Yeah, right. If life was a game of Clue, this shit would be a lot easier. Giddeon definitely thought there’d be a lot more action when the detective first told him he would help him take down Dalton. Not like Forensic Files, or Law and Order kind of action, but definitely a lot more action than he’d seen in the last few weeks. The most action he’d had was threatening Susan.

  “Good news. This guy here was imprisoned just mere months after your parents’ murders. He has been in and out ever since, on unrelated but just as violent crimes. He will be easily accessible since he can’t get away from us. Let’s head up there now and see what we can get out of him.”

  Giddeon shook his head in skepticism. “If this man is as hard as you think he is, he’s not going to just tell you everything. He’s already in prison. What more could we do to him that’s not already been done? What would be his motivation or incentive to tell us what we want to know, Detective?”

  “I’ve already thought about that. We’ll take this file and make him think that Dalton rolled over on him willingly when the law came sniffing around looking for Ellora. We’ll tell him that Dalton and his high priced lawyers are spending a pretty penny gathering evidence on this man.” Dominick waved the file in his hand, signaling the incarcerated man.

  “We’ll fib just a little and say the District Attorney is seeking a punitive penalty in the premeditative murders of Joseph and BonniBelle Sutherland, whose deaths we know were ordered by Dalton himself.” Dominick smirked, confident in this plan. He folded his arms over his chest, waiting for more of his dark partner’s cynicism, which followed immediately.

  “I still think he will remain tight-lipped. What does he possibly have to lose?”

  Dominick’s smirk widened into a full-fledged, shit eating grin. “Ah, but he does. His latest four-year stint is over in a month’s time. He can sense his freedom so bad, I bet he can almost taste it. Last thing he wants is life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty tacked onto his sentence. I think he will roll on Dalton, especially if we let him know that we are after Dalton from the start.”

  Giddeon unconsciously nodded, loving what he heard. “I like it, Detective. Nice work. Let’s get out of here and talk to him then.” Packing up the folder, Dominick grabbed his car keys and headed out for the drive down to the prison.

  Security was pretty tight in the prison. They gave Dominick a hard time right out of the gate about wanting a room to interview Dale Nordin. Luckily, he was a persistent man and brought all the necessary documents and paperwork proving his status as a Detective. Giddeon wouldn’t put it past Dalton to have a few inside men keeping an eye on his former employee. He just stayed quiet so that Dom could handle it, lest he ruin their chances. The guard announced that he was down the hall in a secured room, and to follow him.

  Adrenaline flooded his system as he followed after him. Finally, he felt like they were getting somewhere. His heart pounded away inside his chest, hoping that they would get a chance to confront the man who might know where to find Dalton. Giddeon wanted to present the notation he fo
und clipped to his file and see if this man knew anything about Dalton ordering a kid to be followed or watched all those years ago. He knew it was a long time ago and a longshot, but something didn’t feel right.

  Giddeon knew deep down that something was up, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. Maybe since this man worked for Dalton around the same time, he’d have more of an insight into what his moves would be. Or, possibly, who the other men were who worked for Dalton, and where they had disappeared to.

  That seemed like an awful lot of what-ifs.

  The men were led down a gray concrete hallway, long, narrow, and foreboding. Each step echoed louder and louder, giving the dark man a dreadful insight into the path he was on and soon to face. Shaking the feeling off just as soon as it had appeared, Giddeon put his game face on. He had a job to do.

  Justice. Revenge. Peace.

  After unlocking the door, the guard swung it open for them. Not too surprising, the con inside was older. His appearance was withered and disheveled from a long, hard life behind bars. His long, gray, scraggly hair was greasy and lay matted down. His life looked like it’d been a rough one, and his eyes revealed as much. Giddeon recognized his hardship at once. He understood.

  The weary old man lifted his head up to see who was coming into the room, and Giddeon froze. The con was familiar somehow, but he couldn’t seem to place him. Had Giddeon worked with him before?

  Dominick cleared his throat and assumed a defensive stance. Giddeon laughed inwardly. Cops.

  The con ignored Dominick completely. All of his attention lay focused on Giddeon, with the same confused recognition on his face. Without turning his head, Dale addressed the detective. “Thanks for getting me outta my cell, boss. So, I’m here. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Dominick sat in the comfortable desk chair he requested from the cell-block supervisor in charge, pulling the same shit he had on Giddeon when he was in Portree. Old habits die hard. Giddeon did his best to stand behind his mismatched partner, willing the guy into spilling his guts with the power of his imposing glare.

  “Not sure if you’ve heard, but Dalton’s crimes have all started to come back to bite him in the ass. One by one, his former employees have been rolling over on him, tired of his threats and black mail. We came here today hoping we’d get the same cooperation out of you.” The man had a brief look of satisfaction wisp across his face. Then the confusion was firmly back in place.

  “What do you want with me? I’ve been in here a long time. I haven’t worked for Dalton for an even longer stretch of time.”

  Dominick leaned forward, ready to unleash his lie. “Ah, you see, Dalton has used his wealth to buy himself a fancy lawyer and a believable alibi.”

  The man nodded in disgust. “Of course he did, rat bastard.”

  The detective continued, happy that the man was playing right into his hands. “Well, he’s stated to our D.A. that it had to be you. According to him, it went on behind the scenes without his knowledge, and you were the one behind all the illegal activities going on in his place of business. Namely, the attempted kidnapping and murder charges we want him for. He’s making sure you take the fall for his crimes.”

  The convict cursed out, clenching his fists so tight the knuckles turned a sickly white. “That’s not possible. I’ve been in and out of here for a long time. I haven’t been anywhere near that stupid prick in years. He’s too twisted a freak to work with. I did one job for him and regretted it immediately, and every single day after that. Why me? What’s his angle?”

  Dominick tapped his folder on the table. “Well, you are the only one he could blame… Everyone else is missing. His high priced lawyer wants you for this, and they are working up quite a case on you. Turns out Dalton keeps very impressive, up-to-date files on anyone who’s ever worked for him. He’s very thorough.”

  The con pounded his fist on the table, his thunderous voice shouting his outrage as spit dribbled out of his sneering lips. “That’s bullshit!”

  “I know. Trust me, I know. We are here because we’re the ones building the case against Dalton. I want to take him down. I know he’s behind all of this. We just need your help.”

  Boy, Giddeon thought, Dominick sounded like a broken record. He’d spouted out this same shit at him in the Portree jailhouse.

  “You see, all we have on him now are all these files, which do have his own personal notes on each of his former employees, including timelines and job descriptions. Unfortunately, that won’t be enough to charge him with anything. It’s all circumstantial. You, on the other hand, could wind up losing your whole life if you’re wrongfully accused by a shark on the war path. You will be out of his way and stuck in this shithole for the rest of your life.

  “That rat bastard will just continue obliterating the lives of others, untouched and as arrogant as ever. The more unstoppable he feels, the more dangerous he will become. Please, help us. Help yourself. You only have a month left. Don’t let mistakes from your past dictate how you want to live your life in the future. You have the opportunity to right past wrongs… to dust yourself off and cash in on your second chance. Take it!”

  Giddeon had to admit, the detective was really good at revving a person up and swaying him to see things in his perspective. Dominick looked back at him and asked, “Giddeon, can you get this man a coke or something? We’re going to be here for a while.”

  The cuffed man whipped his head up at him, wide eyes protruding out of his paling face. The hardened criminal acted as though he’d seen a ghost. The bewildered scrutiny Dale directed at the marked man across the table from him was enough to unsettle even the hardest man’s stomach. “No! It can’t be. You’re… You’re not Giddeon… Giddeon Cane?”

  Tremors shook his already on-edge body as warning bells went off inside Giddeon’s throbbing head.

  “How the fuck do you know who I am?” Giddeon stalked closer to the man, and Dominick wedged his body to stand in between them. “Just who are you? Why do you know me?” Giddeon asked again, malice laced thick in his rough tone.

  Reaching into his back pocket, he snatched the now crumpled note Dalton had written and the old photo that was attached to Giddeon’s file. Leaning as far as the table would allow, he raised them up inches from Dale’s face. “Why was he following me?

  The man looked like he’d walked right into a nightmare. His eyes were still wide and bulging out at Giddeon’s towering presence before him.

  “I… I was there. I was one of them. I didn’t know it was going to happen like that until it was finished. We were supposed to just scare them out. That’s what I’d been told. But, Dalton paired me with this psychopath.”

  The beast stirred inside of Giddeon. His eyes clouded over with a familiar red haze. Blinded by the rage that bubbled up inside of him, his frame shook with the effort it took to hold himself back.

  Dominick pushed Giddeon down in his seat and stood over him, keeping a secure hand on his shoulder. “What are you talking about? Start from the beginning.”

  The convict was breathing like he’d just finished a marathon, almost gasping as he forced air into his lungs. It took him a minute to steady it enough to start talking.

  “Dalton’s first realty project was an artfully crafted building that was well over a century old and crumbling. He turned it into modern studio and two bedroom apartments. It was a prime location. But, after all his work, he was told that he would only get the project off the ground if he provided off-street parking for the tenants.”

  Giddeon was getting extremely impatient with this story. It was taking too long. He just wanted the man to spit it out, to just tell him how he knew him. He was probably the man who Dalton had follow him.

  “The only way he could do that was to relocate the people living in the rented townhouses that were unfortunate enough to sit directly beside the new building. Dalton was determined to go forward with the plan and wouldn’t stop until he had his space.

  “Dalton himself approached e
ach family in private so there would be no record of his plan. He offered each tenant insane amounts of money to move, so long as they did so quickly. Dalton was getting impatient and frustrated because every family proclaimed that they would only move if one family in particular would move right along with them. They were well-liked and respected in the neighborhood.”

  Giddeon was confused as to how any of this had anything to do with him. “Get to the point, asshole!” he barked out at him. The sudden outburst made the man snap out of his story for a second. He looked directly at Giddeon with a sorrowful, gut-wrenching expression that someone wouldn’t expect to see from a hardened criminal such as him.

  “Your parents refused to sell, so the rest of their neighbors refused.”

  Giddeon was struck dumb. His gut already knew what was coming next, but he still found himself asking… hoping that the story would be different. “My parents?” His voice came out sounding small, insignificant.

  The man forged ahead with the story, now in a rush to finish it. “Dalton figured that if one bad crime were to happen in the small community, the rest of the tenants would trip over themselves to take Dalton’s money and leave. He knew the most respected group would be the ones who had to suffer his wrath. Once out of the way, there would be no more refusals. After all, Dalton always gets what he wants.”

  The marked man shook like an earthquake gearing up to unleash its devastating power on the unfortunate. His rage grew so overwhelming, Giddeon had no control over his body. It twitched and shook, every muscle coiling and tensing, ready to dispatch this man into the very hell he helped create. “It was you! It was YOU!” Giddeon shouted over and over.

  Dale interrupted while Dominick held on to Giddeon, trying with all his might to keep him seated. “I had no intention of hurting anyone. The twisted man Dalton put me with couldn’t wait to strike. I have thought of nothing else these past years but what happened to you and your parents. It has been a regret I have suffered with every single day since then.” The man dipped his head in defeat.