Declan steps forward and holds out his hand. I grip it firmly. “Take care of them,” I tell him. We’ll never be best friends, but if I have to leave them in someone’s hands, other than my brother’s, I’d choose Declan.
“Always. Safe flight.”
I run my eyes over Maisy one more time, knowing I’ll see her soon, but still feeling like I’m leaving her forever. I lift my gaze to Ellie, and with a dip of my chin, I grab the handle of my bag, turn, and leave the house. Already, my chest feels hollow as I climb inside my rental car. I don’t look back at the house. If I do and find Maisy or Ellie looking out the window, I won’t be able to leave.
When I pull to the end of their street, I make a right, in the opposite direction that would lead me to the airport. Ellie believes my flight is in a couple of hours, when in actuality, it leaves in five. I have a pit stop to make before I can leave Kentucky.
The address JW sent me a week ago isn’t far from where we lived with Mae and Dale all those years ago, so I know just where to go. According to Patrick, JW’s friend from the academy, the janitor, Jon Benton, is home alone today. His uncle is at his office, trying his best to have the case against his nephew thrown out. Jon’s being monitored with an ankle bracelet and isn’t allowed to leave the house without his uncle and prior approval from the judge. These circumstances aren’t normally given to people who haven’t been convicted yet, but Jon’s uncle is a slick motherfucker. The judge wasn’t going to release him on bail until the uncle made the monitor suggestion.
It doesn’t take long before I’m driving down a tree-lined street. The houses are immense and each sits on at least a couple of acres. A block down from where Jon currently resides, I pull up behind a line of cars. There’s an open house sign in front of one of the houses, which works in my favor because it won’t be strange for my car to be sitting there.
Opening the glove box, I pull out a pair of black leather gloves and stuff them in my back pocket. I get out of the car and pocket my phone and keys before casually making my way down the street, keeping my eyes on my surroundings. A few minutes later, I’m at a long driveway with ivy-covered wrought iron fences on either side. After making sure the only neighbor in viewing range isn’t out in their yard, I walk down the driveway to the side of the house. Finding the panel I’m looking for, I slip on my gloves and disengage the alarm, a nifty trick Emo explained to me over the phone once he found out what security system the house had.
It doesn’t take much to pick the lock. Stepping through the door and into a mudroom, I quietly close it behind me. The house is quiet except for the ticking of a clock and the low hum of the fridge. I hit the garage first and find what I need. Slowly, I make my way through each room, my senses alert. The uncle is definitely loaded. Top of the line appliances, Italian leather furniture, chandeliers that probably cost more than a blue collar’s yearly salary, state of the art electronics, Persian rugs, artwork that looks like shit but probably costs more than a sports car.
After the bottom floor has been covered and there’s no sign of Jon, I approach the wide staircase. I don’t worry about creaking noises. Rich assholes like Quinn Fitzgerald would never have a squeaky staircase.
At the top of the stairs, I can either go left or right. I choose left because it looks like the master suite is in the opposite direction. The first room is an empty bedroom, the second a bathroom, the third a linen closet, the fourth another empty bedroom. The fifth room is where I hit pay dirt. There, naked as the day he was born, is a sleeping Jon.
My steps are silent as I walk to the window and close the curtains. Stopping by the edge of the bed, I sneer down at the nasty fuck. He’s only twenty-eight, but his hair is already thinning and receding. There’s dry crusted cum in the hairs on his paunchy stomach, and an adult magazine lies by his hip. It’s open to a woman on her spread knees, her back arched so her fake tits poke out. One hand cups her breast while the other lies flat on her trim stomach. I curl my lip in disgust when I see what was done to her face.
I flip to the next page and find a man sitting in an office chair. He has a naked woman straddling his lap, bent over so her arms are flat on the desk in front of her, her breasts hanging off the slab of wood. He looks pristine in a business suit, except for the hard prick he’s holding out of the zipper of his slacks.
My eyes flick to Jon when he lets out a loud snore. The hand that has remnants of old cum wipes across his nose.
Disgusting pig.
After his breathing settles again, I turn the page and encounter another fake setup, and then another. Each one is repulsive and spikes my anger more than the last. It’s not the activity of the image that has me slowly losing my control but the faces of the people. Jon has pasted cutouts of his own face over the male model faces and the female model faces now have cutouts of girls. School-age girls. Girls who I can plainly see have mental disabilities. The images aren’t from books or magazines either. They’re cell phone shots that were printed from a home printer.
I’d bet every acre of the oil-rich land in Malus that these girls would be found at the local school Jon worked at.
When I flip to the back of the magazine, a sheet of paper falls out. Bending over, I pick it up. My blood fills with acid as I look over the full printed picture. Jon’s standing naked from the waist down, straddling a pair of legs. The girl’s in a wheelchair, bent over at the waist, while Jon forces his sick dick in her mouth. Her eyes are open wide, fright in their depths. From the way her arms hang limply and her chest sags forward, there’s no mistaking she’s paralyzed. There’s not a damn thing she can do to stop the man from abusing her.
My hands shake as I roll up the magazine. My eyes land on Jon. It’s a fucking shame I can’t draw this out. He deserves so much more than a quick kill. I’m the least brutal of my brothers when it comes to killing sick motherfuckers like Jon, but this time I would have made an exception.
Gripping the rolled magazine, I slam it down against his balls. He jerks up, eyes wide open, screams, and grabs at his junk. He falls to his side, moaning, and curls into a ball. I hold my place, stuffing the magazine and picture in my back pocket, and wait for him to notice me. It doesn’t take long.
Seconds later, realizing something hit him, he rolls to his back, eyes immediately landing on me.
“Who in the hell are you?” he wheezes out, breathing heavily.
“Your worst fucking nightmare,” I growl.
Before he has a chance to even try to get up, I already have my hand around his throat. He’s a small guy. Shorter than I am, with some weight in the middle, but I handle him easily, even with the limited strength from my surgery.
His legs kick out, clipping me on one of my thighs, so I rear back and punch the fuck out of his junk to get him to stop before he can nail me in the stomach. I need to get him to calm down before my strength wanes. His breath whooshes out and he tries to double over. Latching my arm around his neck, I squeeze tight and drag him from the bed. He tries to pry my arm away, but his attempts are feeble. His balls are causing too much pain for him to put up much of a struggle.
I grab the rope I put on the end of the bed and drag him behind me out of the room and down the stairs.
“Wh-what are—”
I tighten my arm around his throat to shut him up.
I come to a stop in the foyer where I saw a beam earlier. With him still in my arms, I wrestle the noose I made in the garage around his neck. My side is beginning to hurt where my incision is, but I manage to throw the rope over the beam and keep a hold of Jon.
Once I have the other end of the rope, I let Jon go, take several steps back, and immediately pull on the slack. It tightens on his neck. He spins around to face me, his hands going to the rope around his neck, but I already have it too tight for him to take off.
“What in the fuck are you doing, man?” he sputters, desperately yanking on the rope.