by A. J. Macey
Cheers erupted when I walked in, whoops, hollers, and slaps on my back following me as I walked to the waiting glass Cheryl had set on the bar top for me. Turning, I held it up in a silent toast before downing it. The rest of the club following suit with more boisterous celebration as I glanced around the room, except for Brewer who stood off to the side with a rag and broom in hand instead of a glass. Good boy. I scanned the room for my baby but my eyes narrowed as I realized Garrett, Stone, Chase, and Kiera were nowhere to be seen. I turned back toward the bar, and Cheryl shouted over the music as she refilled my glass.
“They’re all in the office.” Her head tilted as she yelled. Confusion filled me as I grabbed my glass and headed to the office, but that curiosity turned to agitation as I heard shouting emanating from the room.
“What in the ever-loving fuck was that?” Garrett’s yelled question filled the hall.
“You wanted me to scare them, and I did,” a low, gravelly voice I didn’t recognize responded when I opened the door, but I didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary in the space.
“You sure as hell aren’t the same guy we’ve worked with the past few weeks. Who the hell are you?” Garrett continued to shout, his question directed at Chase.
My eyes narrowed. What does he mean who the hell are you? Kiera’s sigh was loud and exaggerated, her fingers rubbing her eyes.
“Me?” The odd voice was coming from Chase. It was deep, rough, and while it was still soft, there was a cold menace laced within it. “I’m Ciar.”
“Who?” Stone took over, his single word suspicious and biting as he glared at Chase.
“Chase’s alter,” Kiera finally spoke up, her hand falling to the side while her mossy, tired eyes glanced around the room.
“Alter?” I asked. What the hell is that?
“His other personality,” she explained.
“You have split personalities?” Stone asked with the smallest tilt of his head. Ciar nodded.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?” Garrett shouted. His green eyes were lit with anger as they bounced between Kiera and Chase... Ciar.
That’s going to be difficult to keep track of.
“Especially you, how long have you known?” Garrett waved a hand at Kiera who slouched further against the desk, seeming to grow more tired as the minutes ticked by.
“I knew of him, but I hadn’t met him until the other day,” she explained with a disinterested shrug, clearly unbothered by the fact that there were basically two crazy assassins in the room.
Explains why someone so happy go lucky could also be a cold-blooded murderer, I noted.
“Were you ever fucking going to tell us? I mean, fucking seriously, I don’t know if this relationship shit would have even happened if I knew!” Garrett’s tantrum apparently pushed Ciar too far as the glint of one of his silver guns caught my eye. The barrel centered on Garrett’s forehead.
“What I do with my presence is none of your damned concern,” Ciar murmured with deadly precision. “The only person in this room I give a shit about is that dove right there, and if you so much as think of breaking her heart by leaving, I will happily shoot you.”
“Ciar,” Kiera whispered, getting up from her spot, “put the gun away. Garrett’s not going anywhere, and you know it.” She threw a wink at her stepbrother, her hand brushing against the back of Ciar’s faux suede jacket as she walked by. “Now that we got that settled, you boys play nice. I’m going to go find Abby to shoot some shit for a bit before heading back to the house.” She stopped walking out the door to turn to face the room once more, her eyes darting to all of us before she left. “No killing each other,” she commanded before shutting the door behind her. Tense silence reigned in her absence, all of us awkwardly glancing around at each other.
“Well, since I don’t actually like any of you assholes, you can have Chase back,” Ciar stated, his stoic, rigid stance melting into Chase’s slight bouncing. The visible difference between the two was blatantly obvious now that I knew there was more than one. Chase’s steel eyes lit up in laughter as a tiny smile curled his lips, his jacket swaying as he hopped lightly from one foot to the other. Ciar, on the other hand, had been as still as Stone, his gaze as hard and cold as the metal his eyes resembled, and his voice was deeper, gruffer than Chase’s.
“All right, I need a drink after that,” Stone mumbled with a small shake of his head, as if he couldn’t believe that had actually just happened. Chase wrapped an arm around Garrett’s tense shoulders when he started to walk out of the room.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you, Gar.” Chase’s warm, manic tone was a complete change from only moments before. “He’s a little bit of an anti-social asshole and doesn’t like being in charge. Well, unless there’s scaring people involved.”
“Fuck off, assassin,” Garrett huffed, his voice still a little tight, but he didn’t try to dislodge Chase’s arm.
Guess that’s a good sign. Don’t want the wrath of my baby coming down on us if they decided to go head to head, I thought as we rejoined the party, the tension I didn’t realize I had been carrying since hearing them argue melting away as soon as I sat down.
Now, it was time for a celebratory fucking drink.
Despite the shock from finding out about Chase’s split personalities, that sense of accomplishment continued to wash over me as Garrett, Stone, Chase, and I all pulled into the driveway of the house an hour later. We were quiet as we headed into the house, but the hard, emotionless expression on Garrett’s face caught my attention.
“Warden, you good?” I asked, popping open the fridge and pulling out several beers for us to drink in celebration. He didn’t respond, making me more suspicious, and when he started to chug his drink, I knew something was up. He wouldn’t say anything, despite some subtle prying, so I let it go for now. Stone, Chase, and I drank our beers, the cold beverage the perfect ending to the high intensity day.
Cracking open another beer, I passed a second round out, turning my attention on Garrett one more time. His green eyes were haunted, not just angry, and his body was taut with tension. When he looked at me, I gave him a hard stare in attempt to have him explain what was going on with him but he just sighed, focusing over on Chase. The assassin’s smile faltered slightly when he saw the look before giving the tiniest nod.
What the hell is going on here?
“Come on,” Garrett mumbled, tilting his head toward the basement door, “there’s something we need to show you.” A tiny hint of worry filled me at their odd behavior, and I followed down the stairs with Stone and Chase behind me. “You’re going to need to see this.” Garrett fiddled with the television we had in one of the corners. We hadn’t used it since moving into the house, but Kiera’s meticulous need to keep it clean meant it wasn’t coated in dust.
“What is this?” Stone asked, glancing between Garrett and Chase, both of who now wore harsh scowls. The pity in their eyes only served to increase the sense of something major as Garrett pressed play.
It was a room with a single king-sized bed covered in silk sheets. My brow drew down as we stood in silence, a sinking feeling building in my stomach when a teenage Kiera stepped into the camera’s feed. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, her skin free of tattoos and her face dolled up in makeup save for her lips which were plain. Her hair was long and curled, tousled stylishly over both of her shoulders, and when I realized what she wore, my hand tightened into a fist.
“What the fuck is this, Garrett?” I hissed, eyeing the short lace lingerie as she sank onto the bed, feeling gross and uncomfortable from seeing such a young Kiera in a sexualized manner. This… this can’t be…
“Oh, fuck…” Stone whispered, his words pained and filled with disgust as he watched the video just as shocked and angry as I was.
“Kiera,” a man’s voice bit out from behind the camera a few moments later. She swallowed and took a steady breath, her fingers gently tracing her shoulders before glancing over at the trim and fit
man who stepped into the frame. I was shocked, frozen in place, unable to look away as I hoped and prayed this wasn’t what I feared it was.
My blood boiled as I watched the man in a pair of boxers and unbuttoned dress shirt start to kiss his way up Kiera’s collarbone and shoulder. Rage flared, and I saw red as I finally saw what Kiera had been forced to go through. After a few more minutes when the video started to grow more heated, I reached over to Garrett’s hand and yanked the remote to pause it, almost throwing up when I saw the position a naked, teenage Kiera had been maneuvered into.
“This,” I ground out, “this is what Frankie Casterelli did to Kiera?” I could barely think as I glared holes into the picture on the screen. “How did you even fucking get this video?”
“She was one of his main tools for his dark web porn subscription,” Garrett explained, his voice low. “It’s why her mom was killed... she refused to let Kiera be used in such a way. After she was gone, the threat of that fate was fear enough to keep her from fighting back. I found out right before she left his house, the day before she turned eighteen. Chase was the one who found the video.”
“I was looking into Frankie to see if I could help her find anything out, and I just stumbled upon it,” Chase whispered roughly, his jaw clenching as he glared at the far wall, refusing to look at the video. “We told Kiera you two needed to know, and we agreed to hold off until after the Alloy Kings were dealt with, but with Frankie locking down, the timeline against him has fast-tracked.”
“When did it start?” Stone’s quiet question thrummed with rage, his eyes having melted into two pools of furious ebony as he glared at the screen.
“When I was seven.” Kiera’s rage filled voice startled the hell out of me, my beer bottle slipping from my hand until it shattered on the ground. Turning, I saw the full extent of how deep her fury went, her eyes blazed as she stood still, trembling as she stared at herself on the screen. Before anyone could say anything, she pulled her arm back and chucked her full beer at the TV, the screen and bottle both shattering under the intensity of the hit.
“Baby,” I whispered, my throat burning as I watched her slowly come unhinged.
“Everyone. Get. Out.” When no one moved, she screamed, yelling so loudly that her voice cracked. “Now!”
Chase grabbed me while Garrett directed Stone, practically dragging us away from her as she sank to her knees, chest heaving as she broke. The way her screams echoed through the cemented room haunted me as Chase closed the door behind us. My stomach revolted as the rage warred with disgust. Who could do that to someone? Their own child, no less, I thought, walking immediately out of the house and climbing onto my bike, starting it before riding away. The ride should have helped calm me, but only one thing filtered through my mind.
Frankie is a fucking dead man.
And when I get my hands on him, his death will be slow and painful.
I’ll make sure of it.
Chapter 13
May 24th
Friday Evening
Stone
The house was mostly quiet, the only sound was the cooking show Chase had thrown on earlier before going to check on Kiera, and I was too worried about Kiera to pay it any attention. A tense calm after the storm had descended after everything that had gone down over the last twenty-four hours. Kiera had yet to talk to any of us, instead throwing herself into the job she had and only surfacing to snatch an energy drink from the refrigerator before returning to the basement. Chase had been taking her food as she worked throughout the night and this morning to make sure she was fueling herself properly. He’d tried to coax her upstairs, but according to him, she wouldn’t talk or sleep.
I rubbed my head with my free hand, taking a drink from the beer I had clutched in the other. Kiera wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. The images from what Garrett had showed us last night were burned into my mind, taunting me as soon as I tried to close my eyes. Fucking Frankie ‘Smokes,’ I growled. I knew he was bad, and in my life I’d known some dirty motherfuckers, but what he did to Kiera, his own daughter, gave him the top slot as the worst fucking human in the world in my book.
“I’m heading out, going to do some surveillance at the Solace,” Chase explained as he stepped out from behind the hidden basement door. His dirty brown hair was messy as he pushed it away from his face, and under his eyes the signature purple-blue smudge of dark circles were visible after having stayed up almost all night.
Not the only one not sleeping then, I noted, and knowing the others, I doubt they were getting any rest either. Before Chase could leave, he paused and turned toward me, a serious expression holding my attention.
“Can you keep an eye on her? I know she’s planning to finish that heist tonight, but at least while she’s still here?”
I nodded, knowing I would have done so anyway. I knew what it was like to have darkness, fear, and hatred coursing through you and Kiera’s rivaled my own. That half of my brain that had rebelled so hard against Kiera finally silenced after yesterday, and all I could think of was making sure she’d be okay. But will she want me or my help after I pushed her away all this time?
“Yeah, I got her,” I agreed. Chase flashed me a grateful smile before heading into the garage, the purr of his car fading as he pulled out of the drive and away from the house. It wasn’t more than a few minutes until Garrett came stumbling into the room, his hair even more mussed than usual as it stuck out at odd angles. He didn’t talk as he immediately beelined for the coffee pot, grumbling under his breath about how slowly it brewed a fresh pot of coffee. I continued to sip my beer, my attention somehow shifting to the TV. With the cooking show reminding me of Chase, my brain replayed learning about how he had Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. On one hand, my suspicious nature was cautious and worried after seeing how cold-hearted and distant Chase’s alter Ciar was. The priority of making sure the club and my fellow members were safe flashed in my mind before I started going through all the reasons not to worry. Kiera seemed to be at least one person he would listen to, which wasn’t surprising since Chase didn’t listen to anyone else either, and Chase appeared to have a pretty good hold on him. If Kiera had only interacted with him once in over seven months, I didn’t think he would be making too much of an appearance. Although, with going after her father I wouldn’t be surprised if he did decide to take up residence during the more... gruesome... times coming up.
And they’ll fucking be gruesome when I get my hands on Jace and Frankie.
“Want some?” Garrett’s question pulled me from my internal musings, his thumb hitched to the coffee pot that was finally full. Sighing, I got up off the couch and walked into the overly large kitchen, making sure to toss my bottle into the proper bin after Chase had lectured me a few days ago on the importance of recycling.
“Yeah, you know I’m always good for coffee,” I responded, taking down the mug with ‘Bastard’ scrawled across the front, and filled it. Kiera had gotten tired of all of us running out of coffee cups one too many times because one or two of us would use more than one in a day and decided to take care of the problem in a very Kiera fashion.
By labeling each cup with her nickname for us.
Prick for Brooks, Asshole for Garrett, and Dipshit for Chase.
And, of course, Bastard for my cup. And as I looked at the girly script I couldn’t help but smile.
“Wow never thought I’d see that,” Garrett teased quietly, but his raised eyebrows betrayed the honesty of his statement.
“What?” I bit out, taking a drink of the bitter roast. Garrett waved a hand toward my face before responding.
“You, smiling at something someone did for you.” He tapped the nickname on his own mug as he talked. I scoffed, uncomfortable enough at his acute statement that I made sure not to dignify his observation with an answer. “There’s the Grave I know,” he teased. Glaring, I took another drink of coffee while I tried to formulate my response.
“Downstairs,” I murmured, tilting my head toward the door. Brooks sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “How was the compound?” I asked before anyone could say something.
“The boys are hung over, save for the few who had been watching those two Alloy Kings. They got them and dropped them at the compound so they could get their shit and leave. Two of the patch holders discreetly followed them, making sure they went to the border and not to the cops or that Fed, Venry or whatever the hell her name is,” Brooks filled us in. Now that the Alloy Kings had disbanded, we decided to release the two men we had locked up in the outer buildings. We hadn’t done anything too illegal to them. I mean, fuck, we fed them and gave them water. Being locked in a room for a couple weeks could have been much worse, so we came to the conclusion to just make sure they would actually leave the state instead of them running to Frankie or anyone else.
“That’s good,” Garrett added, leaning against the counter of the island before he looked over at me. “You ever hear back from you police contact?”
“Yeah, this morning after the charges were sent to the judge and prosecutor. They’re going away for life. Even heard Hill and Sacher were trying to bargain anything they could, trying to leverage information about Jace Corden and Frankie to the police and Agent Venry,” I explained.
“Good.” Brooks nodded. “She should be focused that way for a while and not on us or Kiera. Especially since she’s got that job tonight. Speaking of…” His voice lowered, and he leaned his forearms against the stone counter. “I just want to double check that you’re both good with this.”