An Embarrassment of Monsters: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 3)

by MariaLisa deMora

  “Kuellen is present. A young male, too. Owen, he’s got the boy on a bed in the far-left corner of the room.” Owen moved the phone, stopping when Alace broke in with, “Wait. There’s something else. Go back to your right a little.” He did and held the phone still. “There’s a video recording setup in the corner of the separating wall. It’s active, it looks like he’s recording right now. I’ll find out if he’s streaming it live.” Owen pulled the phone back, and August soundlessly closed the door.

  Owen turned to meet August’s gaze, finding a dark scowl had settled on the man’s features. “I have a bandana. You?”

  “Same. All I got, though. Wasn’t expecting to have to mask up on the op I was on.”

  Both men repositioned packs to retrieve the articles they could use as face coverings. Whether Kuellen was live-streaming or not, neither of them wanted to be on video that would then have to be managed. There’d always be a tiny fear something would surface, sometime or somewhere. Owen had to thread the ends of the folded bandana under and around his headset, watching August do the same. Both were already wearing thin gloves, so with only their eyes visible, and those partially blocked by their visors, they would be unrecognizable on tape.

  “Owen.” He dropped his head, focusing on Alace’s voice. “He’s streaming. It looks like—I think he’s part of the ring. The ones we identified with like-minded perversions. That’s why he had not only the one video of our girl but others from the same sick bastard. Do you remember what you did there? What you said?”

  “I do. Oh, how I remember.” He’d looked straight into the camera after killing Warrant and promised everyone watching he’d come for them, too. “Looks like I am making good on my promises.” He pushed out a slow breath. “Age on the boy?” Knowing up front would stop any mental stuttering upon seeing; at least he hoped it would.

  “Teens. Mid-teens. Fifteen maybe.”

  “Okay.” Not the worst. Not the best, of course, no age was right to have your personal dignity taken from you. No age the right one for sexual violence to be perpetrated upon a child. “Okay. We are going to do this thing. Leave the recording going, do not kill it yet, Alace. I have a message to deliver once August has Kuellen secured.”

  “Terminal force or containment only?” Owen appreciated August’s question; one he’d have asked himself if he’d been brought into a mission late.

  “Containment if possible. He has a lot of videos not from this circle jerk of perverts, and I would like to be able to sabotage many of those.”

  “Roger.” August shifted behind him, rising on the balls of his feet before settling back. “Green here.”

  “Green. Roger.” This time it was his hand that reached for the doorknob. As he opened the door, the sounds he’d been suppressing flooded back full force, the music pounding throughout the room. Kuellen wouldn’t be able to hear them, or see them, he realized. Both the man and boy’s faces turned towards the back wall of the room, away from the door.

  “Open yourself.” Kuellen held a bag aloft, something Owen didn’t recognize. Too large to be a bag of IV fluids, the tubing attached was larger, thicker. The boy’s hands drifted along his sides as he lay on his stomach, naked ass in the air, cheeks reddened from what must have been a spanking. Prelude to the main event. The boy’s hands gripped his own cheeks, pulling, and Owen realized he was presenting himself, the order Kuellen’d given a known and expected piece of instruction.

  It took only seconds for Owen and August to dart across the room. Kuellen’s reactions were slow, delayed so much he wasn’t even looking at them yet when August gripped his arm, a twist causing the bag to fall. It splatted on the floor, tubing breaking free and sudsy liquid spewing across the concrete. An enema.

  Owen had the boy in his arms, putting his body between where the cameras were and the child, trusting August to contain Kuellen. He grabbed the thin blanket rucked up at the foot of the bed and draped it around the boy, who was staring up at him with wide eyes. Blood rimmed the boy’s mouth, the bright color mixing with an old scum. “I’ve got you,” Owen said aloud. “You’re safe now.”

  The boy’s lips opened, and a toneless screech came from him. Owen could see the boy’s tongue had been split, severed about halfway back, so he had two fleshy stubs inside his mouth. Oh my God.

  “You’re safe. Safe.” Changing to the throat mic, he instructed Alace. “He needs medical. Call Doc and tell him there will be an incoming patient that is not me.” Speaking aloud to the boy, he attempted to reassure him. “I’m going to take care of you.”

  The boy screeched again. His eyes rolled up and back into his head, and he went limp in Owen’s arms. Fainted. He didn’t die. He’s still breathing. He fainted is all.

  “I’m locking the vault door.” Alace’s voice was steady, calm, and so in control, Owen knew there’d be no way she’d let anything go sideways. “He won’t get out without you, Owen.” The pressure around them changed, pressing in on his skin, and he realized how lucky it had been that Kuellen was preoccupied when the door had opened earlier.

  Owen muscled the boy through the door and into the basement proper, seeing the bars stretching the width of the server section, noting for the first time the temperature difference between the jail room and the server space. He bundled the boy into the blanket and settled him at the foot of the stairs, out of the way, and without a direct line of sight into the jail.

  “Set your phone up to watch him. I’ll keep an eye out.” Owen nodded, knowing she’d see the movement. “I’ve got you, Owen. Go back in and deal with Kuellen.”

  “Yeah, boss.” Camera activated, he leaned the phone against a nearby post. “Good visual?”

  “The best. Go do your job.”

  He walked inside to find August had Kuellen on his stomach on the floor, arms already angled behind him, zip-tied in place. August’s boot was against Kuellen’s upper back, pushing the man’s face against the floor. Kuellen’s bare feet were scrabbling against the concrete, finding no purchase to execute an escape.

  “What are you doing? You can’t do this.”

  Owen ignored him and pulled two zip ties from his backpack, then secured the man’s ankles together, running one through the other as he latched it. The roll of tape was next, and unlike earlier when he had to be quiet ripping a strip off, Owen made certain the sound was clearly audible to the man on the floor.

  “Stop it. You can’t do this to me.” Kuellen’s voice had gained a higher pitch in the extremity of his fear, the sound bouncing around the small room, overpowering the music. Owen taped Kuellen’s calves together first, then his thighs, before moving to run a final strip of tape around the man’s upper arms, inches above the elbow. “Please.”

  Bitter bile rose in Owen’s throat, and he stifled his body's automatic reaction, his implacable gaze trained on the man's face.

  “He’s a log.” Owen pushed up from the floor as August flipped their captive over. He placed his boot over Kuellen’s groin this time and shifted forwards, pressing hard enough the man groaned and whipped his head side to side, the only movement Owen had allowed him to retain.

  “The boy?”

  “Safe.” Owen looked around August’s back, directly into the camera. “Y’all watching? Y’all see this? Ain’t the first time we’ve met, motherfuckers.” He stepped towards the equipment in the corner, the light on the camera blinking as it streamed live. “I made you all a promise last time, and this is me making good on that. Gonna find you and kill you all.” He snapped his mouth closed, switched to the throat mic, and asked, “Alace, can you see who is watching this shit?”

  “Already on it. I’ve dialed in on Georgia, Texas, Montana, and three back in Jersey. Counting Warrant and Kuellen, that’s eight total, which is what we thought based on their attendance at the auctions. None of them have disconnected. I’ll track them all down, Owen. You do what you need to do.”

  “I’m coming for you.” He returned to normal speech for the sake of the camera, staring down wh
at he hoped was a pipeline of terror connected directly to the screens these perverts sat in front of.

  “You think you’re so smart, all scattered like you are in different states.”

  He wouldn’t say where they were, because the omission would leave them believing they were still safe. If one member of the ring got spooked and moved, it was likely the rest would remain in their bunkers, feeling protected until he came and busted down their door.

  “I’m the big bad wolf, and you’re all just little piggies. Gonna blind you now, little piggies.”

  He ripped off another piece of tape, leaning close as he secured it lightly to the camera lens. He wanted light and shadow to still enter, knowing the play of bright and dark would be more terrible than severing their visual channel altogether.

  Closer yet, he breathed on the microphone attached to the setup, then hoarsely whispered, “Gonna let you hear everything, though. I want you to imagine this is you, helpless on the floor. Got you under my thumb, subject to anything I decide to do. Listen to it. Listen, and think about what’s gonna happen to you when I find you. Gonna blow you all down in the end.”

  “Jesus, Owen. You’re scary.” Alace chuckled darkly in his ear. “Gave me goose bumps.”

  “Yeah, well, they made me angry.” He turned back, seeing August’s cheeks had risen behind the mask, indicating approval of Owen’s tactics. Still using the throat mic, he said, “Need to hook all your guys up with the same gear, boss lady. Would make this mission a tad bit easier.”

  “Is this the point where I get to remind you that you went rogue on me, striking off on your own and scaring Doc half to death?” Her mention of Doc gave him pause, wondering what she meant. “He called me, you know? That’s why you’ve got the help you do have. So one, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and two, don’t ditch the partnership again.” Welp, that explains everything. “Do you think Kuellen knows anything that doesn’t also exist in his data?”

  “Doubtful. He is an angry intellectual, but obsessive. Have you seen the organization of his porn videos? Each is categorized in multiple ways, from sex acts to age of participants, even type of vocalizations. I have no doubt his network of perverts exists inside his computers.” The man had continued to sputter, trailing off into more groans as August leaned more weight into the leg pinning him to the floor. “I think I go for dramatic effect, then we toast him and dispose.”

  “Owen.” Alace’s voice was lower, quiet, as if she was guarding her words, and it brought him back to full alert. “He’s got the video of you and Warrant. It’s titled End of a Friend and is filed under remarkable deaths. He’s got you on video. It’s been downloaded—” She sucked in a gasp. “Nearly two thousand times.” He flinched at the knowledge. “Let’s finish this. I want to take it down, and then track each of those downloads.”

  “Can you do that?” Owen flinched again, this time at his verbalization of doubt in Alace’s abilities. “Strike that, of course you can.” Straightening his shoulders, he locked gazes with August and held until the big man nodded, taking a big step backwards, ceding the scene to Owen.

  Kuellen’s face was pale. He was sweating profusely as Owen knelt and put one knee directly in the center of Kuellen’s chest. Leaning forwards, Owen pressed hard to rob him of air. Aloud, he said, “You’re dying today. Any last words from the pervert in the room?”

  “I can pay you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can. What you don’t realize is I’m not interested in a payout.” Owen shifted more weight to his knee. “Payback, now that’s another thing.” He feigned surprise. “Hey, you know how focused I am on an eye for an eye.” Owen shook his head back and forth, tracking the size of Kuellen’s pupils as they widened, darkness engulfing his eyes. “You gotta know I saw what you did to that boy’s mouth.” Thumb flicking the safety strap away, Owen tugged his knife free of the sheath. “Hold his head.” When August moved, Owen shifted so the toe of his boot dug into Kuellen’s dick. “Gonna get messy. Real messy.” A pair of pliers appeared in front of him, and Owen took them with a silent thanks. He gripped the tip of Kuellen’s tongue and pulled hard, earning a muffled scream from the man. It was loud enough for the live-stream listeners to hear. He did it again, harder, eliciting a louder scream. “Equal force effects equal resistance. Now let’s see how well I can do with my carving technique. Thanksgiving was never my favorite holiday.”

  Selecting a point on the surface of the extended tongue just behind the teeth, Owen sliced decisively through the muscle. Blood pooled around the blade immediately, swelling as he neared the tip. By the time he was finished cutting through the organ, blood was filling Kuellen’s mouth, choking off his inhalation and cutting off his screams.

  It didn’t take long. Between Owen’s weight controlling his breath and the suffocating blood, Kuellen was dead within minutes.

  Owen stood and walked back to the video station, got near the microphone again, and whispered, “That’ll be you, sooner or later. That’s gonna be you.” Using the throat mic, he told Alace, “Cut it. Shut it all down.”

  “Done.” Her response came at the same instant the red light died, and he smiled behind the bandana. She’d waited for him, for his request, giving him control for this. “The boy’s stirring.”

  Looking down, Owen saw less blood on his torso than he’d expected, Kuellen’s inability to take a real breath having restricted the amount of blowback he’d coughed onto Owen’s clothes. “On my way.” He tossed the tape to August. “Close him up.” Binding his mouth closed would help keep from leaving a massive trail of DNA wherever they wound up taking the dead pervert. “I’m checking on the kid.”

  Back out in the main room, he realized the noise from the servers had changed, lessening until the only sounds he could identify were the whistling of the HVAC exchange vents. Angling to where he’d left the boy, Owen found him awake, blanket strategically wrapped around him to allow freedom of movement. Subvocally, he asked Alace, “Can you make it warmer in here?” To the boy, he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. No one here can hurt you, ever again.” He couldn’t promise the boy wouldn’t ever be hurt, because he didn’t plan on being around the kid that long. From the boy’s skeptical expression, Owen knew the kid didn’t think he’d keep even that tiny promise. “The man who was keeping you—” Owen hesitated over which word to use, and the boy filled in the blank.

  “Prisoner. I’m a prisoner.” Soft consonants ran together, giving little distinction between phrases. Without the ability to use his tongue to shape the words, they were slurred and scarcely intelligible.

  “Yeah, he was keeping you a prisoner. He’s a bad guy. You’re a good guy. I get it.” Owen wanted to reach out and physically reassure the boy but remembered how long it had taken his kids to accept that overtures from Owen were always going to be positive ones. He didn’t want to scare this boy, not when the kid wasn’t afraid of him. Not yet, anyway. “What’s your name?” He briefly considered giving the boy his in advance but wanted to wait. There’s more than me at stake now.

  “Wobme. I’m Wobme.”

  It took an instant and another repetition of the set of sounds, but Owen finally recognized what the boy was saying. “Your name is Rodney.” The boy—Rodney—nodded frantically, eyes widening at hearing his name spoken aloud. “Rodney, you’re safe now. I have a friend who’s a doctor. I want to take you to see him, and then we’ll get you to the authorities.” Taking the kid to the cops would be a huge gamble. Owen could take measures to restrict the boy’s knowledge of his location. Assuming Kuellen had brought him in unconscious or incapacitated, Owen’s house, even just a few doors down, would be safe. If he could get Doc to wear a mask, even a surgical one, and use nitrile gloves, there’d be nothing tying them to the boy. “Can I do that? Take you to my friend?”

  “He won’t hurt me?” This came through clearer, and Owen wondered if he was already developing an ear for the boy’s vocalization efforts.

  “No, Rodney.” Owen considered how
Warrant had stripped Kelly and Shiloh’s individual personalities away, and wanted to start the process back to normalcy for Rodney now by reaffirming his name every chance he got. “My friend’s a good guy, like you.”

  The boy’s jaw worked as he tried to frame a response, the stump of his tongue retracting towards the back of his throat, the movement so alien Owen had a hard time not flinching.

  “Owen, August needs you back in the room. Keep the kid outside.” Alace’s voice was as calm and composed as she always was, and Owen appreciated it a lot in this moment. When nothing else around him was normal, Alace remained dependable.

  “I have to go back into the room, Rodney. I have a friend with me here, a different friend but still a good guy. He’s going to help me get you out of here.” Better to position their mission around the boy in his mind, give Rodney a little faith maybe someone had missed him and sent rescuers. Rodney’s fingers dug deep furrows in the blanket, pulling and twisting the fabric in his agitation as he tried to speak. Owen pushed, “Rodney, can you stay out here for me? Right here by the stairs. Those lead up to the rest of the house. In a few minutes, we’ll go up them and through the door. I’ll unlock it, and we’ll go out, and then we’ll get you to my doctor friend.” Emphasizing the rescue aspect, he struggled to find a tone that would reassure the boy—Rodney’s attempts at talking grew more difficult to watch as he became agitated.

  Reaching a breaking point, the boy threw his head back and screamed, the same keening shriek from before. Head still angled backwards, he said in a slurred rush, “Aldo will hurt you. I’m scared. Aldo will kill you.” The sounds of tape ripping came from the room behind him, and Owen ignored whatever August was doing, remaining focused on the boy.

  “No, Rodney.” Owen took a chance and rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, bringing his arched frame upright so he could lock their gazes. “Aldo won’t hurt anyone else, ever again. I promise you that.”