Master of Salt & Bones

by Keri Lake

  Not now.

  It’d make sense that I’d get hit with a migraine, though, because God has a morbid sense of humor, and what better time to have my vision go blurry than when I’m cruising at one-hundred-fifty miles per hour?

  Through the haze and white fog, I concentrate on the solid yellow line that separates me from oncoming traffic.

  Another zap of electricity strikes my skull.

  One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand.

  The throbbing ache settles deep inside my head, and I work my jaw in a desperate attempt to make it go away.

  I set my thoughts on Isa. Her smile. The sound of her voice. Soft skin beneath my fingertips.

  Relax.

  The blur begins to sharpen at the edges, while the pain dissolves. The air thins in my lungs, and I exhale as clarity seeps back into the fringes.

  The dusky orange sky gives way to the dark cover of trees, and I check my phone one more time to see the dot hasn’t moved. About a mile up the road, from the looks of it. I slow the vehicle and catch sight of the Whitman Woodlands sign off to the side. Turning into the narrow drive, I kill the lights. Gravel pops beneath my tires as I roll down the obscure path. Before reaching the cabins, I turn the Bugatti off the road and throw it in park.

  A half-mile up the drive, a row of cabins sit in darkness, with one lone vehicle parked out in front. I stalk through the woods toward them, careful to stay in the shadows. Sweeping a hand over the gun tucked inside my jeans, I trudge through the brush, pausing when I feel the slight vibration of my phone against my hip. Tugging it out of my pocket, I glance down at the dot blinking on the screen and halt my approach. Using the dim light from the screen, I angle the phone downward and scan the ground. A mound of dirt ahead catches my eye, and as I get closer, I notice what appears to be fingertips sticking up from a fresh grave.

  The private investigator, I’m guessing.

  Tucking my phone back into my jeans, I keep on toward the cabin, careful to avoid the floodlight’s halo, and once I reach the south wall, I flatten myself against it and listen for voices inside.

  Nothing.

  Keeping low to avoid being seen, I peer through a window and spot Isa strapped to the bed, all four limbs tied to each of the four posts. My attention is drawn to the white gauze wrapped around her ankle, dotted in what looks like blood. Silver tape covers her mouth, and she squirms and writhes on the bed in a disastrous attempt to get loose.

  Tugging the gun from my pants, I rack the chamber and let it lead the way, as I creep around the house and up the staircase to the front window. Scanning the rest of the interior shows no sign of Boyd. Only sparse furniture and an open kitchen. Carefully turning the knob on what appears to be the only door, I push it open, cringing at the chasing creak of its rusted hinges.

  Isa stills on the bed, only her legs in view from around the corner, as I make my way toward the back room.

  “Don’t move.” The familiar voice arrives from behind, and I halt my steps, keeping my gun held out in front of me. “Pass me the gun. Behind your back.”

  “You hand her over to them, you’ll never see her again.”

  “Pass me. Your fucking. Gun.” Boyd has always carried an edge of fake benevolence in his tone, and the hostility that bleeds through is strange, coming from him. “I’ve got a bullet with your name on it, Lucian. All I have to do is pull the trigger.”

  From the other room, Isa’s muffled screams tell me she can hear our exchange.

  The cold rush of adrenaline pulses through me as the seconds tick off before this motherfucker’ll lose his patience. “You killed Nell, didn’t you?”

  “That meddling bitch just couldn’t keep her hands out of it.”

  “You were afraid she’d find out the truth about Amelia. And Roark. And Isa.”

  “She was out to destroy everything. She told that fucking investigator everything.” The words hiss through his teeth.

  “How do you know what she told him?”

  “Who do you think hired the bastard?”

  Boyd is the last person I suspected. In fact, I’d have pegged Friedrich before this asshole. “Why?”

  “There were things I needed to know. Things you weren’t telling me. And then I learned of Isa. The daughter I never knew.”

  “So, why would you hand her over to them?” I kick my head to the side, catching a shadow of him in my periphery, a few steps back, along with the gun pointed directly at me.

  “If I thought cutting her up into tiny pieces and giftwrapping her organs would get me into Schadenfreude, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  And I’d do the same to him, if I got wind he was behind it. Only I wouldn’t bother to giftwrap the shit. “You’re a heartless prick, Patrick. A sick and disturbed man.”

  “Says the Devil of Bonesalt.”

  “Did you kill Isa’s mother?”

  “Jenny? What do you think? That I would stand by and let some junkie whore slink back into my life like a nightmare?”

  I thought I had problems with women. This guy is the Godfather of bad decisions. “You kill me, and they’ll come after you. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t have to kill you. You’re going to hand me that gun right now.”

  “Now, why would I do a stupid thing like that?”

  “Because I know the truth about your girl. Why she came back to Tempest Cove. What really happened the night of that party.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. Good one, though.” What really happened was served to me in an envelope from Rand, dug up from one of our many contacts.

  “Pass me the gun.”

  “Fuck off, Patrick.”

  “You really are the Mad Son. Pass me the fucking gun!”

  “No.”

  “You like to straddle the line between life and death? Huh? Let’s see how long you hang there with a bullet in your skull.”

  At the sound of a gunshot and shattering glass from behind, I drop to the floor. I don’t know who fired, just that it didn’t come from my gun, and the tortured pitch of Patrick’s outcry is a sure bet that a bullet hit him, somehow, instead of me. I twist around to see a massive figure standing on the other side of the broken window next to the front door.

  Makaio, I’ll bet.

  A hard thump vibrates over the wooden floor planks, and I glance back to see Patrick holding his knee to his chest, scooting back against the wall across the room from me. When his eyes meet mine, he scrambles for his fallen gun, and I fire a shot, just missing his arm, which he recoils back.

  “Motherfucker!” he grits out, reaching for it again.

  Not a second later, I twist back around, and a shot rings out, its bullet flying over me, hitting the wall ahead on a puff of drywall dust.

  The chasing sound of Isa’s screams through the tape skate down my spine, and my first thought, my only thought, is that she’s been hit by the bullet. Urgency ignites in my veins. Another gunshot echoes in the room. A fourth. Isa’s screams heighten. I keep low on another shot, and don’t even allow myself to do a sweep, or look back at Patrick, before I army crawl into the next room to get to her.

  Another bullet whizzes past, and a cold hot pain streaks across my shoulder. “Fuck!” I grit my teeth and ignore it, until I’m through the door, separated from Boyd by the bedroom wall.

  Isa’s screams, still muffled by the tape across her mouth, draw my attention to where she struggles against her binds on the bed.

  I climb over her, covering her body with mine, feeling her jerk and twitch with another gunshot. Patrick screams again, as if he’s been hit a second time.

  Finally, the melee settles to quiet.

  At the sound of heavy footfalls across the floor, I point my gun toward the bedroom door, muscles sagging when Makaio steps into the room carrying two guns.

  “Boss? You okay?”

  “Peachy.” Pushing off Isa, I tear the tape away from her mouth and give her body a onceover, loo
king for any sign of injury, or stray bullets. The only blood I see is the small bit that dripped from my shoulder onto her cheek, and the oozing wound at her ankle. The streak of red at my shoulder, without an actual hole, tells me the bullet only grazed me.

  “Lucian,” she says out of breath, before breaking into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Shhh.” I stroke a hand over her hair and kiss her. “You’re going to be okay. Relax, Isa.”

  After checking my own body for sign of injury, I loosen her binds, and the sound of groaning from the other room makes me pause.

  “You didn’t kill him?” I ask Makaio.

  “You said you didn’t want any more investigations on your hands, so I shot him once in each leg. If you want, I can finish him off, though.” He lurches toward the man who sounds like he just got his ass handed to him.

  “No.” Sliding my hands beneath Isa’s body, I lift her into my arms. “He’s her father. He deserves better than that.”

  Makaio opens the front door of the cabin, and I halt at the approach of distant headlights. Ducking behind the adjacent wall, I dodge the bright beam crawling up the driveway and nod to Makaio, who slams the door shut.

  “You’re fucked.” Boyd’s weak voice is broken by the hard pants of breath while he sits bleeding out of his bullet wounds. “I called … them. To collect her here.”

  Teeth grinding in my skull, I lower Isa to the floor, my mind spinning with what to do.

  “Want me to take care of them?” Makaio slides his gun from its holster and I shake my head.

  “No. You’ll set off an investigation that I don’t need.”

  Obnoxious laughter bounces off the walls, steeling my muscles, and I snap my gaze to Boyd, who’s undoubtedly trying to drum up as much noise as he can. Swinging my attention back to Makaio, I give a quick jerk of my head toward the noisy prick, and the hard thunk of a punch silences the man.

  Crouching low to peer out through the window, I see the men haven’t yet exited the car. “There’s a window in the back room. Get the two of them out of here.”

  I don’t yet have a plan in mind, all I know is, I’ll be the one leaving with Isa.

  No matter what.

  The tight clutch of my arm draws my focus to where Isa grips me. “I’m staying with you.”

  “If they find you, you might as well be dead for what they’ll do to you. Go with Makaio.” Finger hooked beneath her chin, I press my lips to hers. “Now.”

  With Boyd’s limp body hoisted over his shoulder, Makaio takes Isa’s hand, guiding her toward the back room.

  After giving them a moment to break away, I swing back the front door to find three Blacksuits standing alongside the sleek black vehicle parked beside Boyd’s. Two of the men, I recognize as Dominic and Louis. Haven’t seen the elders since they visited my office two months ago. The other man I’ve seen a couple times, but never formally met. A tall, beefy guy who could probably rival Makaio in size.

  “Gentlemen,” I say, stepping out onto the porch. “Good to see you again.”

  “What are you doing here, Lucian?” Dominic asks, around a thick cigar that sticks out from between his lips, as he grips the porch’s handrail at the foot of the stairs.

  I close the door behind me to shut out any scuffling sounds as Isa and Makaio make their escape through the back window. Not that the old man would hear much with his hearing aid, anyway. “Friedrich contacted me. Asked me to look into a call he received from Boyd.”

  “Funny … he asked us to look into that very thing. Seems a bit redundant.”

  Poker face in place, I nod. “Perhaps he thought I’d catch him first.”

  “Catch him?” The dubious tone in Dominic’s voice plays on my nerves.

  I could pull my gun and take my chances on killing all of them where they stand, but that would leave far too many questions for Friedrich to inquire about. “Seems he took off with the girl.”

  “Now why would he do that when he was the one who contacted us?” The voice of the stranger has me lifting my gaze to where he stands next to Louis, arms crossed.

  It seems he doesn’t yet know who I am in this Collective to speak with that level of contempt in his voice. “He has a long-standing history of molesting young girls. Perhaps he found her too tempting.”

  “If you don’t mind, we’d just like to have a look for ourselves.” Dominic glances back toward the beefy guy and jerks his head.

  As he passes me on the way inside, the asshole knocks me in the shoulder and my muscles burn with the urge to clock the bastard in the skull.

  Louis stands off from Dominic, quiet as always, staring back at me, while my head spins with a few different scenarios on how this will all play out.

  The beefy asshole shooting me in the back.

  All three of them dragging me into the car.

  Makaio jumping out from the shadows, killing them all, and me having to explain the shit to Friedrich.

  Awkward silence hangs on the air between the three of us, while the stranger tromps through the cabin. When he appears again, his eyes are brimming with accusation. “There’s blood everywhere in there.”

  “Yes. There is. It appears Boyd had a bit of a confrontation with an investigator who was after him. I suspect he might be the reason the two fled.” I nod my head toward the shallow grave just outside of the floodlight. “You’ll find what’s left of him over there.”

  With jerky movements, the two older men twist around, and Louis hobbles over to the spot I pointed out, before he turns back to Dominic and nods.

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but why do you have blood on your shoulder then?” If I don’t end up killing the bastard behind me tonight, it’ll be a miracle. “Come to think of it, why’s his car still here if he fled so quickly?”

  I don’t bother to turn and face the asshole, and instead keep my eyes on Dominic. “Everyone on this island would recognize his car. Surely they’d take notice of a young girl after his many indiscretions, as well. Might’ve taken the investigator’s instead.”

  “No.” He moves closer into my personal space and my fingers twitch with the compulsion to draw my gun and take my chances. “I think you’re lying. I think you know exactly where the girl is. Boyd, too.”

  “Can’t say I give a fuck what you think.” Still keeping my back to him, I flex my fingers around the gun’s grip tucked inside my waistband. “And I’ll kindly ask that you back off before I teach you a lesson in boundaries.”

  “I’d like to see you try—”

  “Enough!” Tugging his cigar from his lips, Dominic glances over his shoulder toward Louis, and gives a silent nod that could mean any number of things, but I’m guessing it signals my death.

  The moment I catch sight of Louis pulling his gun from its holster, I take hold of my own weapon, and feel the tight grip of my shoulders. In one sweeping move, I pivot just enough to aim the gun at the ribcage of the man beside me.

  Before I can pull the trigger, the quiet pop of gunfire stops me short. The vacant, bewildered look on the beefy guy’s face seems a muted reaction for the hole in his skull that marks the bullet’s path. The grip of my shoulder falls away, followed by a hard thud, as he crumples to the ground beside me.

  I blow out a breath and nod, my muscles releasing their tight grip of my chest, and I shift my attention back to the two remaining Blacksuits. “Well, that was an interesting turn of events.”

  “To be frank, I don’t give a good goddamn why you were here or where the girl is. As far as I’m concerned, we never saw either of you.” Dominic’s eye squints as he shoves the cigar back between his lips and puffs it. “Isn’t that right, Louis?”

  “Never liked that bastard.” The foreign sound of Louis’s grumbled voice only intensifies the pulses of shock still beating through me. “Boyd either, for that matter.”

  The two older Blacksuits make their way back toward the car, and with one hand on the passenger door, Dominic twists to face me again. “I’ll send a cl
eaner to take care of the mess. Make sure you get that shoulder looked at, Lucian. Wounds fester when you ignore them.”

  Chapter 63

  Isadora

  I open my eyes to the dimly lit room, staring up at the ceiling where a bright ornate painting of Greek gods in battle casts a glow overhead. Lifting my head from the pillow, I frown at the unfamiliar surroundings, and scan the room until I find a shadowy figure sitting off in the corner, staring at me. Double-blinking, I struggle to focus through the fog of exhaustion clouding my head.

  “Where am I?”

  “My bedroom.” The unmistakable sound of Lucian’s voice hits like a tuning fork, and the relief I feel brings tears to my eyes. “Dr. Powell removed the bullet from your ankle. He gave you something for the pain. You’ve been out for a whole day.”

  Resistance keeps my arms from moving when I try to sit up, and I crane my neck to find black leather cuffs attached to my wrists.

  A gasp of panic escapes me, and I wriggle against them.

  “You kept trying to pull out your I.V. My bed was the only one equipped with restraints.”

  I don’t know why the thought of that pisses me off, but I sneer at him. “For your slaves?”

  “For you. I had them installed for you, that weekend I asked you to stay.”

  “To keep me imprisoned?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” There isn’t a trace of humor in his voice when he answers. He sits forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Aside from your ankle, how are you feeling?”

  The question makes me snort a laugh. How am I feeling? To know my father is a murdering bastard who killed my mother? One who probably had every intention of killing me, as well. “It’s a lot to process.”

  “It is. You could’ve died. One stray bullet. That’s all it’d have taken.”

  My thoughts quickly sober with the serious tone of his voice, and the gravity of the situation presses down on me again. “How did you find me?”

  “The bracelet. I gave it to the investigator.”

  “I should’ve never taken it off.” A dull ache throbs in both my ankle and my head, and I turn to the side, where a glass of water sits on the nightstand. “Is that for me?”