Red Handed by Jessa Wilder

The moment we arrived at Mount Summer, Nico jumped out of the back of the truck and strode around to pull me out of the cab. He steered me toward the Range Rover we’d arrived in. “Come on.”

“Let go of me, you fucking caveman.” I slapped his arm. “What’s going on?”

I whipped my head around, searching for Beck and Rush, and gasped. Beck was jumping out of the back of the truck, but he wasn’t alone. He was dragging a man I sort of recognized, bound and gagged with zip ties.

“Who is that?” I asked harshly.

“Emilio. You met him at my mother’s house. Beck found him among the Trilogy men and grabbed him for us.”

My eyes widened. “What, does he just carry zip ties?”

Nico’s smile was mean, reminding me a lot of Giovanna. “Yes.”

He swung open the passenger side door to the car and climbed in. I yelped as he tugged me onto his lap, wrapping one arm around my waist and pulled the door closed with the other.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shrieked as Rush got into the driver’s side and started the engine.

Nico just squeezed me tighter. “There’s nowhere else for you to sit. I’m not putting you in the back with that piece of shit and I don’t want to put him in the trunk where we can’t see him.”

I looked in the backseat where Beck was shoving the bound and gagged man into the seat behind us and climbing in after him. This entire night was a trip.

“Put me in the trunk,” I deadpanned, totally serious.

I needed some physical space. I’d always known I was a sick fuck for being turned on by guys with guns. I was not aware until this moment that I was apparently also into homicidal rage. I’d backed over at least twenty men with a truck, and then watched the guys take out another dozen with machine guns. That had to be a situational turn on, right? I couldn’t possibly be that fucked up.

“Don’t be fucking stupid.” Nico pulled me tighter against his chest, shifting into a more comfortable position. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry, Raegan. You might have these two pussy-whipped, but I’m not interested.”

Rush snorted a laugh, and my face grew warm. “If you say that enough times, I just might believe you.”

Nico didn’t reply, instead loosening his arm so I could relax slightly. At least I wasn't straddling him this time.

“Where are we going?” I asked as Rush drove out of the city limits and over the toll bridge.

I pushed up on Nico’s shoulder, craning my neck around to see the city lights disappearing out the rear window. He made a muffled sound in the back of his throat as I sat back down.

“Morningside,” Rush said, referring to a small nearby suburb.

“Why?” I raised an eyebrow.

Rush looked over at me. “We always clean up our messes there.”

In the back seat, Emilio was waking up. He whimpered through his gag and Beck punched him. “Shut up.”

Twenty minutes later we pulled up outside a huge white Victorian looking house on a pretty, tree-lined street. Even though it was well past 2:00AM, street lamps lit the whole place up. Only rich neighborhoods without crime had streetlamps. This neighborhood was pleasant—way too nice to be the kind of place where you stashed dead bodies. Or, in our case, turned people into dead bodies.

I raised an eyebrow at Rush. “I don’t get it.”

It was Nico who answered, though. He physically grabbed my chin and turned it toward the window, pointing at something outside. “Look.”

It was dark, and even by the light of the streetlamps. It took me a second to see what he was getting at. Finally, I saw it. A big white wooden sign outside the house read: Mahoney and Sons Funeral Home and Crematory. I shook off Nico’s hand and pushed open the car door, hopping out onto the sidewalk. Even the sidewalks here were paved evenly. Fuck. What kind of town was this?

Beck stepped out of the car as well, dragging the struggling traitor with him. “Come on, Little Thief, we don’t want to hang out on the street too long.”

“What is this place?”

“Exactly what it looks like. It’s a funeral home. Damn useful for getting rid of dead bodies, let me tell you.”

My mouth fell open. “Do you guys own this place?”

“No.” Rush came up behind me. “Mahoney is a loyal member of the crew. Leaves the back door open for us.”

The man whimpered again, and Beck elbowed him in the nose hard enough that blood dripped down his bruised face. I winced. That looked painful.

Our little group marched around the side of the funeral home and came up to a back door. Rush led the way inside, and I gasped. Where a normal house would have had a cellar, this house had a fully functioning morgue. A huge cremation machine took up two-thirds of the room, while metal gurneys lay empty against another wall. A large industrial sized freezer stood at the back, like the type you would see in a restaurant kitchen. I glanced around in awe, my eyes catching on a huge shelf of little urns, all meticulously labeled.

“What the hell is this?” I blurted out.

“Like we said, it’s a funeral home,” Rush replied. “How do you think bodies get disposed of normally?”

“Who were they?” I pointed out the shelves of cremated remains.

“Homeless and indigent dead. Mahoney handles unclaimed bodies on contract for the city.”

I swallowed thickly. “That's sad.”

“That’s life,” Nico said sharply. “At least Mahoney handles it with dignity. Practically every city in America has some private funeral home that takes care of unclaimed dead like this, there’s no public system in place for it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How many of those are because of you guys?”

He smiled darkly. “Surprisingly, not as many as you would think.”

I glanced back at Beck and Rush, who pinned the writhing man to the gurney. Realization seeped in. He was one of the guys from the party. The last person I’d lifted a phone from. The fucker had set me up for the kidnapping.

Rush bent the asshole’s arms back in an awkward angle and Beck zip tied him in place. I grimaced at the sound of his screams, and Beck’s eyes met mine with worry.

His jaw tensed and fist clenched at his side. “Is there any way I can convince you to wait in the car, Little Thief?”

“Not a chance.” I schooled my features. I wouldn’t give him a reason to wonder if I judged him.

He nodded his head, but his eyes lingered on mine, eyebrows pinched, still full of concern. My chest tightened, and I took a step toward him.

Nico stepped between us, barking at Beck. “Get a move on. We don’t want to be here all night.”

Beck took one last look at me and turned his back on me. His entire body went rigid, colder, more in control. He pulled out a black bag, placing it on a table within the captive’s sight.

Rush stepped into me, hand cupping the back of my neck, thumb grazing over the skin there. I shook him off, stepping forward, riveted by what Beck was doing. A dark door opened inside of me, and a thrill trembled through my body.

I wanted this man to pay. They’d fucking taken me, planned, God knows what. I wanted to hear him squeal as Beck punished him for everything he’d done.

Beck laid out his instruments, tidying them in a neat line. He grabbed one, turning toward the traitor strapped to the table, and I got a glimpse of his face. Gone was the playful Beck I’d grown closer to than I was ready to admit, replaced by an icy shell of a person. His eyes, black voids, lips tipped up in a sinister smile.

I took another step toward him, but Rush wrapped around me and pulled me back, whispering in my ear. “Not right now, he’s not the same person you know.”

I didn’t believe that for a second, but I didn’t attempt to move again.

Beck lifted his hand, and that’s when I noticed a blowtorch there. He lit it and the man strapped to the gurney eyes went wide, and he desperately pulled at his straps. His arms were twisted in a way that each time he moved, it looked like he was going to dislocate his own shoulders, effectively constraining his motion.

The blow torch was inches away from the man. Any type of badass gang armor vanished as he started screaming. “Help! Fucking somebody help!”

Beck chuckled. “Good luck with that,” and lowered the torch over his chest. Almost immediately, the stench of burning skin hit my nose. I lifted my shirt to cover it but didn’t look away.

Beck took his time, meticulous in drawing out the maximum pain. The captive’s eyes glossed over, and Beck lifted the torch from him. Placing some sort of vial beneath the guy’s nose. His eyes went wide, snapping back to attention. Beck’s normally beautiful hazel eyes were dark as night, and he smiled viscously down at Emilio. “We’re going to hunt down every single last one of you that tried to steal her from us.” His voice was edged, and a shiver ran down my spine. “And enjoy cutting you up and making you scream until all of you learn the lesson that you don’t fuck with the Gentlemen, and you definitely don’t fuck with what’s ours.”

“Please, I didn’t do it. They asked me to get her out of the building, that’s it. I didn’t know they were going to grab her.” Wrong fucking answer. The guy strapped to the gurney’s voice shook, and he looked at me. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, I swear I didn’t mean it.”

My lips tipped up. It was the first time Beck looked at me. Waiting to hear what I would say. My smile turned wicked, and I met Beck’s eyes. “Take your time…and make it hurt.”

Beck returned my smile, and the guy on the gurney screamed. Beck grabbed a thin blade, cutting a perfect 4x8 rectangle into the man’s chest. He reached back and grabbed a small, flat tool. He worked it beneath the skin, peeling it back in a perfect piece. Barely any blood came out as he carefully took off the top layer. I couldn’t look away from the man desperately trying to escape. Beck leered down at him, not a hint of empathy in his gaze.

“You want information?” The guy practically spewed out his next words. “The Hatter called me to his office. It’s on the corner of Park Street and Union Drive.” I looked toward Nico, who was already on the phone relaying the information to someone. When Beck didn’t say anything, the guy spoke faster. “All I’ve heard is they pit local gangs against each other in order to take new territory. Rumor is they bombed the hotel to make the Espositos attack Mount Summer.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me. It’s exactly what would’ve happened if we hadn’t already been talking to each other. Well they had been. They left me completely in the dark.

Beck made more cuts, but it became clear that was all the guy knew. He looked relieved when Beck finally killed him. Beck looked at me, eyes still cold as his gaze passed through me. Rush’s words drifted through my head. That he wasn’t the Beck I knew, but I couldn’t believe that. This was just another part of him. My heart ached at the thought of what created it.

The floor was soaked in blood, a mess that was bound to take hours to clean. I spotted a mop and bucket nearby and reached for them. Rush grasped my hand. “We’ve already called in the clean-up crew.”

My fingers entwined with his, following him to the door, but I stopped the second I realized Beck wasn’t coming with us. My chest tightened at the thought of leaving him like this. Alone with his demons, only to snap out of it with no one there.

Rush stepped into me, lips grazing my ear. “He needs time, he’ll follow once the clean-up crew gets here.”

I didn’t want to leave him, didn’t want him to think for a second that this changed anything. He was still the Beck I knew, I just see the whole him now, and I wasn’t afraid.

Nico barked from the doorway. “Let’s fucking go.”

My attention snapped from Beck, anger raised to the surface, tired of Nico giving me yet another order.

I went to say something, but Rush tugged on my hand and kissed the top of my head. “Not here.”

He lifted me into the Rover’s back seat and kept me on his lap, tracing soft circles on the side of my exposed hip. I let my body relax into him.

They’d shared this with me. It would give my father leverage against them to be able to expose where they got rid of their kills, but I couldn’t wrap my head around telling him. The lines were blurred, and the hate that had driven me faded.

I was no longer sure how I was going to work against them.