Psycho by Onley James

Lucas headed up the stairs of his place on autopilot. He couldn’t think of anything except whatever it was Calliope had found that would somehow explain how the puzzle pieces fit together. Some small part of him was irritated that it took Calliope less than a day to figure out an answer he’d been searching for for months. August kept reminding him that Lucas had no help and limited resources, but it stung just the same. Those women could have been spared.

August was hot on his heels when he reached his door. He went to put his key in the lock when the door swung open an inch or two, like somebody had left without latching it all the way. Lucas frowned over his shoulder at August, who immediately stepped in front of him like a shield, pushing the door open all the way.

Lucas’s gaze swept the room, looking for anything out of place. Nothing appeared to have been touched. Could he have just left the door unlatched? No. Because somebody had disabled his alarm. How would they have done that? Called the alarm company and given their badge number, Lucas realized.

“Is there anything out of place? Something that wasn’t here when you left?”

Lucas shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t touch anything.”

“I’m sure he didn’t leave prints behind,” Lucas muttered.

“Kohn could have imprinted on anything in this apartment. Just don’t touch anything without mentally preparing yourself.”

Shit. Lucas hadn’t even thought of that. “He’s really not even the slightest bit concerned that I’m going to stop him. This is just a game to him. He’s fucking with me.”

“He’s a psychopath. A good one, if he managed to fool an FBI psych evaluation. None of this is on you. And, I promise, when we get him, you can be the one to kill him, as fast or slow as you like.”

Knowing August, that was probably a pretty large romantic gesture. Part of Lucas thought there was no way he could torture another human being, but another part of him thrilled at the idea of hearing Kohn scream. The things he’d done to those women? They deserved their revenge.

August did a quick sweep of the apartment while Lucas stood staring, fantasizing about watching those women rip Kohn apart. When August came back, he pulled Lucas against him briefly, then kissed his temple. “Go get dressed. Keep your guard up. Pack a bag. You’re not coming back here.”

Ever? Lucas found the prospect less daunting than he imagined. He dressed on autopilot, opting for his nicer jeans and loafers, a t-shirt, and a zip front cardigan. The nice thing about being a college professor was the bar was pretty low attire-wise. Last week, one of his students had attended his class in Rick & Morty pajama bottoms and a faded Van Halen t-shirt. Nobody really gave a shit, which was perfect considering Lucas’s current state of mind.

Once dressed, he threw a bunch of clothes into an overnight bag and met August in the living room. “I reprogrammed your alarm with a new code. Kohn will be dead before he catches up with it. Besides, he did what he set out to do. Let you know he could get to you whenever.”

Lucas swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling like he might choke on the rage coursing through him. August took his hand and led him out of the apartment, firmly shutting the door behind him.

Downstairs, Cricket was perched on the back counter, looking at her phone, her now fire engine red hair in two strange buns on either side of her head. She looked up when the bell over the door chimed, perking up when she saw them. “Hi, guys. Your usual?”

August added several more coffees to the order, presumably for his family. Lucas felt a slight shiver of trepidation at the idea of meeting even more of his family members. As she went to work, Lucas perused the pastries behind the glass.

“Enjoy it while you can,” Cricket said wistfully.

“What?” Lucas asked.

“This place is shutting down. We can’t compete with the Starbucks down the street. So…end of the month I’m out of a job.”

Lucas frowned at that, but August nodded. “Can you put a mix of the pastries in a box? We’ll take them to go. Also, call me and I’ll see about finding you a new job. With my family, there’s bound to be somebody looking to hire.”

Cricket’s eyes went wide. “Really? Thank you.”

August nodded, unbothered, but Lucas’s heart did a weird somersault in his chest. How was this man somehow the sweetest person he’d ever met without even trying? Was Lucas just so far gone that everything August did seemed perfect?

He turned around to gaze out the window, his gaze snagging on a lime green Toyota Supra parked a bit farther down the street. “August.” August snapped his head around at the alarm in Lucas’s tone. “Look.”

August followed Lucas’s gaze. “Cricket. How long has that car been parked there?”

Cricket paused what she was doing as if considering his question. “I’m not sure, but there’s been all kinds of tricked out cars parked on the street this week. I think maybe there’s going to be some kind of car show or something.”

Lucas turned on her. “Have any of the drivers come in here?”

Cricket froze. “I-I’m not sure. Hardly anybody comes in here anymore.”

Lucas kept pressing. “Anybody who looks like a skinhead? Somebody with some shady tattoos?”

She shook her head. “Definitely not. I would have noticed. Are they killers, too? I thought you guys were college professors? Are you, like, secret agents on the side or something? Am I in danger?”

Lucas wanted to assure her that she wasn’t but he had no idea what the fuck was going on. “They aren’t after you. They want me. If they come in here and ask about me, tell them anything they want to know.”

“What do you mean?” she asked in confusion.

“It probably won’t come to that. They’ll probably just keep spying on me from a distance. But if they want to know where I’m staying, tell them I’m staying with my boyfriend. Give them August’s name if you have to. Tell them you don’t know anything else. Text us when they leave. Do your best to stay where people can see you from the street.”

Cricket’s fair skin grew chalky. “Maybe I should just go home sick.”

“You could do that, too,” August agreed. “It might be safer.”

She glanced to where her phone sat on the counter. “Yeah, I’m going to call the owner.”

“Do you want us to wait with you?” Lucas asked.

Cricket shook her head, gaze nailed to the car down the street. “No. I’m fine. I’ll lock the door if the driver tries to come inside.”

August picked up the cup holders filled with coffees, so Lucas grabbed the pastry box. “Chances are, he’ll try to follow us when we leave.”

Cricket heaved a heavy breath. “No offense, but I fucking hope so.”

* * *

When they entered the Mulvaney secret lair, Lucas stopped short. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t all the people packed around the table. The usual suspects were there—August’s grumpy brother, Atticus, and his alcoholic brother, Archer. Adam was there, too, sitting with Noah on one side and two identical looking men on the other. Thomas was the only one standing.

August slid the pastries down the table and set the coffee between them. Lucas watched in surprise as they set upon the treats like sharks in a feeding frenzy, elbowing each other out of the way to snag what they wanted from the box. All but Atticus, who turned up his nose at the sugar, taking the black coffee and retreating as far from the melee as he could manage.

“I wanted that, dick,” one of the twins said as Adam snatched a donut from his fingers and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth.

“The’ you should be fasser,” Adam managed around the fried dough.

Noah rolled his eyes at the others, giving an apologetic look to Lucas before snagging a cheese danish from the corner of the box, breaking it into pieces to eat.

Archer took the lid off his coffee and dumped the amber liquid from his glass into the cup. There were twelve steps in that man’s future.

When they’d finally settled back into their chairs to eat, Lucas asked, “Um, can we get started? I’d really like to know what Calliope found.”

“This one’s kind of bossy,” the other twin said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

August glared at the two men. “Lucas, the rude one is Avi, the other is Asa. You know the rest of them. Is Calliope ready?”

Lucas gave a hard look from one to the other before dismissing them entirely, turning to Thomas. “Has she said what she found?”

Noah shook his head. “Not yet. We just got here ourselves.”

“Calliope, are you there?” Thomas asked.

“I’m here.” She still had a hard edge to her voice. “I wish I wasn’t but I am. Anybody with a conscience might want to skip the refreshments. This one’s grim.”

Noah looked longingly at his pastry before pushing it away. Lucas didn’t feel like eating anyway. None of the others seemed bothered by Calliope’s warning.

“What did you find?” Thomas asked as August and Lucas finally took their seats.

“A red room,” Calliope said in a rush.

“A what?” Lucas asked, relieved to see nobody else seemed to know what she was talking about.

A picture popped up on the screen before them. It took a minute for Lucas to truly understand what he was looking at. It was almost comically horrific, like a poster for some slasher film. There was a woman on a medieval rack, face contorted in agony, and a man in leather pants and a bag over his head wielding a curved blade. The entire picture had a red overlay and the words ‘five days’ blinked over it.

“This is a red room,” Calliope said, as if that somehow explained everything.

“We have eyes, Calliope,” Adam said, earning an elbow in the ribs from Noah. “What?” he stage-whispered.

“What’s a red room, Calliope?” Lucas asked patiently.

Once more, she made a whine, like she struggled to even get the words out. “A red room is pay per view darknet torture porn.”

A shock went through Lucas’s whole body. “What?”

Calliope took a deep breath and let it out, saying her next words slowly. “A red room is where people pay to watch and participate in the rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of unwilling participants,” she clarified, her voice shaking. “As you can imagine, these rooms only stay open for a specific amount of time, and they’re incredibly lucrative. Usually, they’re filmed overseas because it’s harder to track them down. But I think these are happening right here.”

“You’re telling me that these women are being kidnapped so that people can pay to…torture them?” Lucas said, suddenly grateful he’d heeded Calliope’s warning.

He’d imagined it would be bad, horrible even. He’d seen the bodies, had witnessed first hand the torture endured by these women, but knowing that it was not only for one sadistic bastard’s compulsion but…as entertainment? As profit? Lucas’s vision swam, his head spinning. He couldn’t breathe. Those girls… All of those girls were dead? How many people had watched? Participated? Committed atrocities from the fucking comfort of their own fucking homes?

Lucas could hear August talking to him, but he was too busy practicing dragging air into his lungs and blowing it back out. He was going to pass out. He needed his meds. Suddenly, hands were on his face, holding his head up, but it wasn’t August. It was Noah. “Lucas. Focus on my voice. I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“My pills. I have my pills in my pocket,” Lucas managed, his mouth suddenly a desert.

Noah reached for Lucas’s jean pocket, but August slapped his hand away. “I’ll do it.”

Lucas saw Noah raise his hands, as if to show he wasn’t touching Lucas, before his vision swam again. This time, it was from the sweat pouring into his eyes.

His heart hammered in his chest, and some part of him worried he was having an actual heart attack. He was going to be humiliated later, but, right now, he needed to focus on pulling himself together. This wasn’t helping anybody. He swallowed the pills August pressed between his lips.

Noah was in his face again. “You’re okay. Just practice breathing with me. In for five. Hold for five. Out for five. Again. You got this.”

The attack felt like it took forever, but it lasted probably less than ten minutes or so. He flushed when he noticed everybody looking at him. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

Noah nodded encouragingly. Thomas gave him a sympathetic smile. August had a death grip on his hand. The other’s just watched him carefully.

Archer pointed to Noah with the scone in his hand. “That’s alright, the little one puked the first time he sat in on a meeting.”

Noah shot up his middle finger. “Sorry, child sex trafficking makes me sick. Two weeks ago, you drank an entire case of cheap red wine, destroyed our bathroom, vomited everywhere, then passed out in it. The housekeeper almost called the cops because she thought she’d stumbled into a crime scene.”

Archer rolled his eyes. “She was being dramatic. She overreacted.”

“It looked like the hallway scene from The Shining,” Atticus added.

Avi snickered. “Yeah, I saw the pictures on TMZ. It was pretty fucking gnarly.”

“Is this an intervention, or can we kill some people?” Archer asked.

Lucas shook his head at their banter, wiping his hands over his face. “What do we do?”

“We kill him, obviously,” August said.

Asa picked up a pen and tapped it on his chin. “But who’s bankrolling this? Like, if this Kohn guy is just the executioner, they’ll find another one if we kill him, no?”

Thomas nodded. “Asa’s correct. Who’s bankrolling this operation, Calliope?”

“If I had to put my money on anybody, it would be the squeaky clean Russian,” August said.

“The Russian? Is that some kind of codename?” Atticus asked.

August briefly filled them in on what had happened at the truck stop and what Calliope had found about Devon Nicholls.

“So, we’re saying the Russian has ties to a group of street racing skinheads, who are torturing and killing women for money?” Noah said.

“It seems that way,” Calliope agreed. “I have to do more digging, but I’m guessing that’s the narrative.”

“Tell me we’re taking them all out,” Noah said.

“There’s no we,” Adam reminded. “You’re benched. I can’t focus when you’re there.”

“I’m going,” Lucas said, giving August a hard look. “Don’t even try to bench me. I passed training at Quantico. I can deal with Kohn. You promised.”

“We take Kohn first,” Thomas said. “Torture what info you can out of him. Find those girls. This room opens back up in five days. We need to make sure they don’t have time to go shopping for a new victim.”

“If he confirms the street gang is involved, we’ll go in and take them out, too. But we do this one step at a time.”

They all nodded.

Thomas looked at each of them, gaze sharp, tone borderline threatening. “This needs to be clean. We’re about to kidnap a Federal agent. We can’t afford any mistakes. In the meantime, I want everything you can find on these gangbangers. Where they hang out. How many there are. We have to be strategic. The last time we took out a large group of people, the investigation took a little too long to go cold. No repeats of last time.”

Lucas blinked at the implication. How often did they go in and eliminate multiple targets at one time? Were they truly talking about casually taking out an entire gang of Nazis?

When they were back in the car, Lucas finally asked, “Don’t you guys ever worry you’ll get caught?”

August frowned. “Worry? We don’t really worry about anything. We’re incapable. It would be inconvenient to get caught. Especially for me. Prisons are noisy, dirty, the lights too bright. My father would be the one who suffers and I won’t have that.”

“What do you mean?”

August briefly took his eyes off the road. “He has a reputation to uphold. He’s proud of our family name, our legacy. In a different world, he’d be proud of the invisible part of our lives, too. But we don’t live in that world. Calliope does a good job of manufacturing alibis, faking social media posts. But the truth is, the sheer absurdity of a man like my father using his own children to exact revenge on strangers is what keeps us safe. It’s too impossible to fathom.”

It was true. Lucas wouldn’t have believed it either if he hadn’t seen it. “Do you really think this will work? That we have a shot at kidnapping Kohn and forcing him to tell us where those missing girls are?”

When August looked over at Lucas again, a chill rolled over him. It was unnerving to see August without the mask. “He’ll talk. They always do. But you need to know that this can sometimes be a long and very bloody endeavor. I understand if you don’t want to subject yourself to it. I don’t mind doing this for you.”

The idea of August getting to be the one to make Kohn scream left Lucas feeling cheated in a way that should have concerned him more. “I don’t want you to do it for me. I want you to show me how to do it myself.”

This time, it was August who looked startled. “You want me to teach you how to torture somebody?”

He did. He really did.

“Yes, please.”