It took about an hour to get down the mountain to the bright lights and pale skyscrapers of Vancouver, and then only a few minutes more to navigate the streets to the warehouse district where we parked in front of a seemingly abandoned storage unit.
“Behind me, do as I say,” Priest told me, stepping forward to take point.
This was his gig, the darkness and the night, the violence and the blade. Priest was the club’s enforcer not because of his size, though he was tall and packed with lean muscle similar to King, but because his mind was full of shadows and his soul haunted by demons who whispered to him loudly enough to drown out the guilt of the sins he’d committed for the club.
I nodded, boots clipping against the pavement as I followed the brothers into the echoing warehouse.
Two men stood in the center of the space, both big, wide across the chest, and cloaked in shadows that made them seem like living nightmares. But I felt no fear as I looked at them, only relief and gratitude because somehow, Wrath and Lysander had found him.
Him; the man who had ripped apart my world without so much as blinking.
Him; the man disguised by the wings and blue of justice who was secretly so much worse than the “bad” men he chased after.
Harold Danner sat in a chair with the seat taken out of it, his naked ass perched on an empty frame, hands bound from shoulders to wrists behind his back so tightly, his shoulders jutted out like stubs where wings once might have stood. There was a massive gag in his mouth, dirty fabric stuffed so far down his throat, I could see the swell of it in his bruised neck. He was dirty and a little bruised up but otherwise basically unharmed.
A thrill of dark delight warmed my belly at the knowledge that would soon change.
I came to a stop in front of him, close enough to see the hatred burning up his eyes, to see how far gone he was to the evilness that had corroded his soul.
“Where was he?” I asked, not recognizing the cold, hollow tone of my voice, like empty shell casings falling to the concrete.
“Met with a guy I know who does forged passports,” Sander said. “Wrath, the club, and me all put out feelers to our contacts, and this one pinged. Picked ’im up from a shitty hotel in East Hastings.”
An unfeeling laugh escaped me like acrid smoke as I addressed the murderer stuck in the chair. “You thought you could escape the wrath of The Fallen? Always thought you were better than us…Tonight, I guess, we’ll prove to you just how wrong you were.”
“Cress,” Sander started softly, drawing my gaze to find him helping Priest set up a table filled with implements of torture. “You sure about this?”
“This… this…” What did I call the being who murdered King in cold blood? There were no words horrible enough, scalding enough on my tongue as I fought to say them that represented the depths of his villainy. “This animal killed King, and in doing so, he killed me. He tried to kill the club for years. He deserves so much more than this, but at least I can make sure he suffers some of the agony he’s forced on us.”
Sander sighed, but Priest nodded, getting it because part of him was just as dead as parts of me.
“Need to find out where he kept his doctored documents and payouts,” Curtains said. “King, uh, King and some of us broke into his house, but he didn’t keep any’a that stuff layin’ around there. We need it if we want to get him put away from more than just murder.”
“We need it to prove he killed Riley Gibson,” I said. “I know.”
“You start,” Priest allowed, walking to me with a glimmer of metal in his hand. I swallowed at the sight of the blade-tipped brass knuckles he unfurled in his palm. “Get him warmed up for me.”
I stared at the weapon, flexing my fist, wondering if I could leash the anger and its toxic violence if I gave in to it for even a second.
“I want to kill him,” I admitted through my teeth, the burning desire to feel Staff Sergeant’s blood on my hands almost vampiric, as if I needed it to live, to sustain me.
Priest’s cold, strong hand took my own, and he carefully fitted the brass knuckles over my fingers. When he was done, he shocked me by palming the back of my head and bringing my forehead to his so all I could see were his dark and stormy blue eyes.
“Death is quick,” he murmured, and I noticed the slight accent that leaked through his words sometimes. “It’s bein’ left on earth to suffer for our sins that’s the real hell. We take our pound’a flesh now ’cause we need it. We deserve it. Penance for his sins against us. Balm to our fucked-up souls. We take it ruthless and savage to let the beast in us breathe.”