Desolation Road

by Feehan, Christine

  SEVEN

  “Damn it, Absinthe, you fucking know better,” Czar snapped, glaring at him. He stood behind the oblong-shaped table where the entire Torpedo Ink club had once again gathered.

  Absinthe couldn’t sit there. He paced the length of the room. He detested what was about to happen. He’d given Code the fork with Scarlet’s prints and her photograph knowing Code could find anyone. With that kind of information, he’d have just about everything there was to know about her. It felt like a betrayal. It was a betrayal.

  More, he’d taken a photograph of the teenager in the expensive frame sitting on the scratched nightstand beside Scarlet’s bed and he’d turned that over to Code as well. There was nothing at all of Scarlet’s past in that house but that one single photograph. That had been of a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen. She looked so much like Scarlet that for a moment Absinthe had thought it was a picture of her from high school. Looking closely, he could see small differences.

  The girl didn’t have as generous a mouth, or as full lips. Her eyes weren’t as large. She didn’t look nearly as sexy nor was her hair quite as brilliantly red, not that Scarlet couldn’t have grown into all of those things, but he was certain he would have recognized her.

  Using his cell phone, he had taken a picture of the photograph, careful not to touch it, not to move it even a fraction of an inch. This was the one thing in the house that she clearly cared for. It was out, by her bed. Enclosed in an expensive frame. The photograph was turned toward the bed so that it would be the first thing she saw when she woke and the last thing she saw before she went to sleep. At the time he searched the house he knew that girl in the photograph meant the world to Scarlet. Now he knew it was her sister, Priscilla.

  When Reaper had first met Anya, circumstances had made it appear as if she might be spying on them and Absinthe had been forced to interrogate her. Doing so had sickened him, but he’d done it for the safety of the club. He now knew what Reaper must have felt like. Scarlet wasn’t there. She wasn’t witnessing Absinthe’s betrayal of her, but somehow, for him, that made it worse. He was going behind her back. He wanted her to tell him about her past. He didn’t want everyone in the room to know her secrets even if they were his brothers.

  “I took precautions,” Absinthe said. “I’m not five fucking years old, Czar. She’s one woman, no matter how trained she is. I’m more experienced than she is.”

  “But you knew she not only was experienced in some sort of martial arts and combat training, but she was carrying weapons on her.”

  “Of course I knew it. I was carrying weapons as well.”

  He refrained from putting his fist through the wall. That would shock the hell out of them all. He was Absinthe. Always calm. Always centered. Always the one who kept his voice low and matter-of-fact when he was jumping out of his fucking skull. Like now. Because they were about to take his woman apart. His woman. He didn’t have the time to bind her to him, to get her to trust him enough to tell him on her own what or who she was afraid of. He wanted that from her.

  “We were all over him.” Master spoke up unexpectedly. “He told us where he was taking her, and we set up ahead of time and covered him. She didn’t make one move against him. He indicated immediately where her weapons were so we would know if she made one movement toward them.”

  Absinthe loved that brother.

  “I was with him at the library,” Lana said. “Checking her out after he told us he was certain she was the one. She was wearing the cutest outfit, a blouse and skirt, but I could see they were concealed-carry clothing and told him so. He already knew and he pointed out her boots to me as well. He was on it. We watched her together that evening, and later, when he went into her home when she was out, I covered him.”

  The way Lana put it to everyone wasn’t a lie at all. Every word was the truth. He had known Scarlet was carrying weapons and he knew about the ones in her boots. Lana acted as if they’d known Scarlet was away from her home, that it wasn’t a mystery. She had covered him when he went in. He could have kissed her. Instead, he didn’t look at her, but kept pacing.

  “And this date you went on with her?” Czar asked. “At the restaurant?”

  “We had him,” Maestro said. “Keys and I were on the roof across the street. He took a table where we had the perfect shot.” There was a ring of truth in Maestro’s voice.

  That hadn’t been on purpose, but Maestro would have known if Absinthe took her to dinner, he would have chosen a table for two in a secluded spot. His brothers and sisters, standing for him. There was no wonder he loved them.

  “Well, I feel a whole lot better about this then,” Czar said. “Sometimes, Absinthe, you disappear, and you scare the shit out of me. I understand that you want to get to know this woman just by taking her out and talking with her, but you and I both know, for the safety of the members of this club, you included, it can’t work that way. Especially when she’s as lethal as she appears to be. This woman …”

  “Scarlet. She has a name. Scarlet. Fucking use it, Czar. She isn’t this woman. Her name is Scarlet, and she means something to me. I don’t know if I mean shit to her, but she gives me something that I need. That I want. Her name is Scarlet.” Absinthe felt like his chest was on fire, there was so much pressure.

  Steele turned in his chair and regarded him with those dark, midnight-blue eyes of his, assessing his physical condition. Absinthe and Steele rarely interacted much. It wasn’t because they didn’t share the Torpedo Ink brotherhood, that unbreakable bond, it was the uneasy past between them that had never been resolved. Steele had been the last person with Demyan, Absinthe’s older brother, when he had died. The two had been tortured together. Steele obviously survived. Demyan hadn’t. He hadn’t talked much about that day and Absinthe had been careful never to touch him, not ready for the details. Not wanting to see how his brother suffered on his behalf, because it had been on his behalf. There was more to it, things Steele didn’t know and Absinthe should have told him, but could never manage to get out. Time just kept creeping by.

  “Absinthe, what’s wrong?” Steele asked quietly. “Your blood pressure is rising. Your heart is beating too fast. You’re always calm. You aren’t. I can feel rage in you. That’s unlike you. Where’s it coming from?”

  That stopped his pacing cold. Steele was absolutely correct. He kept his emotions locked down tight. He was careful not to touch the others unless he was prepared for the assault on his senses. He forced air through his lungs and made every effort to not only get himself under control, but to quickly assess what was happening. He was pragmatic about the things Torpedo Ink had to do in order to survive. That included investigating their women. That included Scarlet Foley. He might want her to trust him enough to tell him her past, but he couldn’t give her his, not without a true commitment from her. He never would disclose everything to her. He understood if she didn’t. Also, even if he knew, it would still mean as much if she did tell him. So, what the hell was wrong?

  “I’m sorry, Absinthe,” Czar said softly. “You’re absolutely right. Your woman does have a name. Scarlet then. Your librarian. I presume she’s extremely intelligent or you wouldn’t be attracted to her. You need a brainiac to keep up with you.”

  Absinthe took another deep breath, careful not to look around the room. Rage was present, a living, breathing entity. It was ugly. All consuming. Eating him alive. He knew Czar was giving him a chance to pull himself together and figure it out. Czar was president of Torpedo Ink for a reason. Steele was young, but he was VP for a reason. The two knew if Absinthe was acting out of character, and it wasn’t his rage, it had to belong to someone else in the room.

  “What do you have, Code?” Absinthe asked, needing something else to concentrate on.

  It was difficult to breathe. He knew already exactly who was broadcasting that kind of rage. There was only one person who had the kinds of demons that ate him up from the inside out. None of them had found a way to help and all of them had trie
d. The room was large, the windows open, but still it didn’t matter. At times, the rage inside of Savage built and built until there was no way to contain it. He was at a breaking point. Absinthe didn’t have to touch him to feel the way the past haunted him.

  Absinthe heard the screams in Savage’s mind. Pleas. Smelled blood. The scent of sex. Heard whispered words of promises and then the whistle of whips or floggers. Not the kinds of whips found in adult toy stores. Whips that could cause permanent damage if not wielded by a master. He tried not to see the images pressing into his mind. He didn’t want them there. He didn’t want to see writhing bodies marked with red streaks and tears. He didn’t want to smell burning flesh or hear the screams as a young child was encouraged to practice whipping, branding, piercing and eventually breath play.

  It was all he could do not to put his hands over his ears and rush from the room. It was years of discipline that saved him. That was always what saved him. He’d been sharing the demons of the other Torpedo Ink members since he was a young boy.

  “Her name really is Scarlet Foley,” Code said. “She’s twenty-seven years old.”

  Absinthe was relieved. He loved her name. Scarlet suited her with all that long red hair. He forced himself away from rage and hurt and the need for violence in order to crawl out from under the past and concentrated on breathing, needing to see his librarian, the woman who had the ability to save his sanity.

  “When she was seventeen, she was convicted of attempted murder. Three men, college friends. Frat brothers. One, by the name of Holden—Robert Barnes-Holden the Third—apparently brought her to a party. She was already in her second year of college and he was dating her. I pulled up the trial itself,” Code continued, “and it looks to me as though it was a clear case of self-defense, but Holden’s family is very wealthy and her family not so much. Daddy Holden bought off the defense attorney. I know he did because I dug deeper and found the payoff.”

  Absinthe had to move around the table away from Savage to one of the windows so he could take a deep enough breath to fill his lungs with air. He made certain it looked natural, as if he had to pace, but his own rage, ever present, twisted with Savage’s again, making it nearly impossible to control. She’d been seventeen.

  “They tried her as an adult,” Code added.

  There was silence in the room. Absinthe stayed by the window, needing to know details, but afraid to ask, to hear. It was going to be bad. Code always read his reports in that same tone, but this one held a note of warning. Of underlying anger.

  Or was Savage’s rage feeding everyone’s? That could happen. They were going to lose him if something wasn’t done soon. Absinthe risked a look at him. Savage had his head down, one hand over his eyes, pressing his fingers deep, as if his head was pounding. Absinthe knew it was. He was angry on Scarlet’s behalf as well as at the fuckers who had taken a little boy and shaped him into a monster.

  “What happened?” Lana was the one who eventually asked.

  Czar snagged a bottle of cold water and handed it to Absinthe, who was standing almost directly behind him. Absinthe was careful to avoid brushing fingers.

  “Holden tried to get her drunk. He must have slipped her some kind of drug. During her testimony, she said she didn’t remember how she got upstairs to the bedroom, but when she did, she didn’t object to having sex with Holden. He was her boyfriend and she liked him. She was very honest and open about that. She agreed she would have sex with him. Unfortunately, here’s where things get murky. Holden Jr. testified that Scarlet was freaky in bed. That she got off on him telling her what to do. She didn’t like regular sex. On the stand, when his lawyer asked if that was the truth, she admitted it was.”

  Absinthe swore under his breath. That was private between two people, not something for a courtroom or newspapers. Naturally, Holden Sr. would make certain everyone heard that piece of information about a teenage girl. Now he understood why Scarlet was worried about his thinking she was weird for her wanting him to take the lead. It would also make it more difficult for him when he did explain more of what he needed from her. What fucking bastards they were.

  “Holden claimed he was giving her what she wanted by bringing his friends, Beau Cabot and Arnold Harrison, in with them, and giving her orders. She freaked out when they were all over her. She began going crazy on them and when they tried to restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt herself, she pulled a knife from where one of the boys had it on his belt and slashed and stabbed at them repeatedly,” Code continued. “The doctor testified that she had defensive wounds all over her, severe bruises, that it looked as if they’d tried to tie her down, but she fought them off. She hadn’t been raped and she didn’t have sex with any of them, Holden included, because he’d been too eager to get his friends involved.”

  “The jury didn’t believe him?” Alena asked.

  “Holden’s doctor refuted the testimony saying the bruising was from the boys trying to restrain her when she went crazy from the drugs she’d been using that night,” Code said. “Her friends came forward and said she had never done drugs. Her teachers pointed out she was an honor student and well ahead of her grade. It became clear that Holden Sr. wanted her in prison, and he was going to get what he wanted.”

  “Prison?” Master hit the top of the table with the flat of his palms. “Are you fucking kidding me? Not even the county jail? They’d send a kid to prison for defending herself?”

  “They made her look like a sick freak who enticed these college boys and then tried to slash them to pieces,” Code said. “I think she’d still be there, but shortly after she was taken to prison, someone broke into her parents’ home and her little sister was gang-raped.”

  Absinthe’s eyes closed. The rage in the room increased tenfold. He didn’t know if it was Savage or him or the combination, but it was lethal. He was lethal. This wasn’t something Scarlet was just going to come out and tell him any more than he was going to tell her how Demyan had died. The ugliness in the world never failed to shock him. He’d been born to that shit, yet he couldn’t seem to get over the shock of it.

  “I wish I could say it all ended there, but it didn’t,” Code said, his voice heavy. “Priscilla, her little sister, hanged herself. Her parents came home, they’d been out for the night, and they found her. After cutting his daughter down, the father went into his bedroom, got a gun, shot his wife and then himself. The police found all three bodies together.”

  Again, silence hung like a pall over the room. Absinthe wanted to leave the room, get on his Harley and go to her. She’d been alone, behind bars, unable to do anything but blame herself. He knew how that felt. He glanced across the room at Steele. Steele knew exactly what that felt like. Maybe they all did. They’d been helpless, children really, but that didn’t matter when it came to emotions.

  “Fuck.” Savage spit the ugly vulgarity out for all of them.

  “Apparently, an advocacy group took up for Scarlet. They believed her testimony and tried to get a retrial. Another lawyer, a female, began going over the transcripts and took up her case. Holden made a big mistake trying to essentially bribe her. She recorded him. The lawyer was able to get Scarlet out of prison. She had already served three years. Everyone wanted it to just go quietly away. The judge retired, which was lucky,” Code said. “I got into his bank accounts and found interesting documents between him and Holden’s attorney. The judge took his money. Scarlet’s defense attorney took his money. The doctor he hired to refute her doctor’s testimony took his money.”

  “I’ll need their names,” Absinthe said. “And information.”

  “We’ll need all information,” Czar corrected, giving him a look that clearly said to back the hell off.

  Absinthe rubbed his chest over his pounding heart. How the hell did Savage live with this? He nodded to Czar. “At least they got her out of prison.”

  “They did,” Code said. “Holden tried to stop it. He and his son and the two frat boys, Beau and Arnold. I’ve got a couple
of pictures taken of Robert grinning at Scarlet. He looks like he’s taunting her. Now, he knows her family is dead. She was asked on the stand if she had any idea who might have broken into her house and savagely attacked her younger sister. She looked right at Holden Jr. and said, and I’m quoting, ‘How could I possibly know who would be that evil of a person?’ The photographs were actually taken by someone her new attorney had hired because she wanted to see what Holden’s son was acting like at all times.”

  “How do you find these things out?” Keys asked.

  “I dig deep,” Code said. “I find a trail. Email, court documents. I get into files. I read correspondence. I can get into phones. The attorney was certain that Holden Jr. and his friends had attempted to gang-rape Scarlet, but she was able to fight them off. She thought, out of spite, they had then attacked her younger sister. There was no way to prove it. They didn’t leave behind any evidence, they were smart enough not to do that, but she definitely speculated. If she thought that, you can bet Scarlet thought it.”

  “Did the city at least compensate Scarlet for her time in prison? Was she allowed to bring a civil suit against Holden?” Absinthe asked. He could do that on Scarlet’s behalf.

  Code nodded. “The city compensated her, but under the condition that she remain silent and not give any press conferences. She has done just that. She declined to bring a suit against Holden at that time, although her attorney offered to help her. Scarlet didn’t want anything from that family, but said she would consider it.”

  “What about the boys?” Czar asked. “The frat boys and Holden Jr. Did you get anything off their phones or email that might lead you to believe that they had anything to do with Scarlet’s sister’s assault?”

  “All three of those boys are dead.”

  There was a long silence. Absinthe, for the first time in a long while, was able to draw in a full breath. “I presume they didn’t just die of natural causes.” He kept his voice strictly neutral.