A Deal With the Reaper: A Dark MC and Serial Killer Romance (The Saints of Purgatory Book 1), page 10
Most of our clients are law-abiding citizens with good intentions, but once Lorry got a taste of how our help makes his job easier—and gives him an impressive closing rate—he became a regular, no matter the case or crime. He has a love-hate relationship with the law. Meaning he loves enforcing it but hates obeying it.
Our business may not exist without him, but I still don’t like the guy. These days, I’m rarely sure the suspects he wants us to frame are always guilty.
Still, he pays good money, and it’s extremely convenient having a cop in our pocket.
“Who is it this time?” James asks, a sneer pulling at his lips. He despises Lorry more than I do. “Some mom he’s convinced is lying about her kid’s volunteer work on college resumes?”
Kip chews on his bottom lip, eyes jumping between us. “A murderer.”
“When did he get promoted to homicide?” James asks.
“He hasn’t,” Kip answers. “He’s investigating on his own time.”
“Why?” I ask. The blood seems to run faster through my veins, and I’m not sure why.
“Because the department doesn’t think there’s a case, but he thinks it's a serial killer.” Kip’s words are steadily getting shakier, and his eyes have dropped from mine. “Three years ago, his cousin disappeared, and though everyone, the guy’s wife included, is positive he ran because of his insane gambling debts, Lorry is convinced he was murdered.”
“Three years ago, and he’s just now hiring us?” James asks.
My heart pumps louder than normal. Like the sound of a distant storm crawling closer.
“He just found the killer. At least, he thinks he found them.”
“Good for him. Why does he need us?” James asks.
He knows. So do I. But Kip seems to need a nudge to say it out loud.
“There’s no physical evidence linking the killer to the disappearances. Honestly, there’s hardly any circumstantial evidence. I’m not sure why he’s so confident about this theory. It seems thin. He brought it to me yesterday, and he doesn't know… I don’t think he realizes… I told him it was ridiculous, but he—”
“Kip!” I interrupt. The tips of my fingers are going numb, and my pulse has reached an alarming rate. “Get to the point.”
He sucks in a shaky breath and finally meets my eyes. The fear roiling in their depths makes my legs weak.
“He thinks the killer is June. He wants us to frame June Graves for murder.”
Chapter Fourteen
June
How any of these people have real jobs is beyond me. If they’re not riding, then they’re at the Iron Cage or here at the clubhouse, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, fucking, literally anything but actually working or sleeping. It didn’t take long to learn who to avoid and who is tolerable.
Like Luna. She’d fit in seamlessly with me and the girls. Theo and I were at the clubhouse for five minutes after his ride before I left his side to find her. She’s the only one I trust myself around right now after the disaster of this afternoon. My target, Keith Burrows, was surrounded by people all day, so I couldn’t follow through with the kill I started planning Thursday night. He’s the closest optional target on my list, meaning I didn’t have to travel far to get to his house. I was able to sneak inside and plant a camera, so my phone will alert me when he gets home, hopefully alone. Then I’ll have to find a way to ditch Theo for a few hours.
Burrows has been on my radar for a while but never a prime target. He’s an old pervert who used to work at a high school before someone discovered he had a secret camera in the girls’ locker room. Burrows was fired, and there was a lawsuit that went nowhere, though he’s yet to get another job at a high school. One of my old clients was a young man who went to the school and used to buy drugs from Burrows. Since then, I’ve kept him as an option. He might not have physically touched a girl that I know of, but he took advantage of his position.
“Watch, watch,” Luna whispers next to me, momentarily pulling my thoughts away from the soon-to-be-dead man. “He’s going to ask if she wants to try on his cut next,” she says, a giggle in her voice as we watch Raphael attempt to flirt with Lydia, Benny’s cousin, across the room.
Sure enough, barely thirty seconds pass before Raphael starts to take off his jacket, motioning for Lydia to put it on. She shakes her head, pushes his shoulder back, and walks away. Luna and I crack up, which Raphael must hear, because he turns and scowls at us.
“Oh no, busted,” Luna says with a grimace. “Come on!” She grabs my arm and pulls me down the hallway, passing Nico and his friends preparing lines of coke. Luna pulls me through a door, and I stumble in, laughing.
“How he ever got a woman to sleep with him is beyond me,” she says, locking the door behind us.
“He’s attractive,” I admit. “It’s when he opens his mouth that he loses all chance.”
“I pity those of you who are attracted to men. That should be proof enough that sexuality isn’t a choice.”
I snort and flop onto my back on the queen-sized bed. A brief worry that this bed belongs to a biker and is probably therefore disgusting enters my mind, but I ignore it. “Agreed. But also, it doesn’t make sense to me that anyone is fully gay or fully straight.”
Luna lies on her side, propping her head up with her hand. “So, you’re not?”
“Not what?”
“Fully straight?”
I turn to look at her, glancing briefly at her curved lips. “Who is?”
“Liars.”
My mouth feels dry as Luna’s eyes travel down my body. She reaches out to brush a strand of hair off my face, letting her touch linger.
“My apartment is above the garage,” she says. “No one would know we’re there.”
“You’d take me to your apartment knowing what I really am?”
“Fuck yes. I don’t know how anyone, girl or guy, can be this close to you and not want you.”
I shrug as best I can while lying down. “I doubt my friend Sadie does. She’s pretty damn straight. And she’s a big fan of men. Always has at least three in rotation.”
“And you let them all live?”
Luna’s tone is teasing, but the question still sends a crack through whatever tension was forming between us. I straighten my neck, looking at the ceiling. “One I didn’t.” The admission takes me off guard, but Luna seems perfectly at ease.
“What did he do to her?”
“How do you know he did something?”
“Because you don’t kill indiscriminately. You only off men who deserve it, right? Abusers, rapists, drug dealers.”
My forehead scrunches with a frown. “Am I that obvious?”
“I know a survivor when I see one, and I can tell when someone has a good heart. You’re both, so it makes sense that your… urges are directed at predators. It’s pretty Dexter of you. Very sexy.” Her words are like a physical touch, and my cheeks warm.
“He tried to rape Sadie,” I say, as if trying to cool my body’s reaction. “She managed to fight him off, but he still got far enough. He hurt her.”
“So you killed him?”
“He deserved it.”
“I agree.” A beat of silence, then Luna asks, “What did Theo do to deserve it?”
The question isn’t surprising, but I still wasn’t prepared. “You don’t know?”
“I know he’s not a hero, but he’d never hurt a woman. That I’m positive of.”
“Maybe you don’t know your leader as well as you thought.” My words are hard, and I expect her to get upset or walk away, but she just scoffs with a grin.
“There’s plenty I don’t know about Theo, but I would bet my life on this.”
Before I can think better of it, I ask, “What about Amber?”
“That’s what this is about?” For the first time, she sounds taken aback. “Amber betrayed him. She betrayed all of us. She was an addict and got in deep debt with the South Five. She tried selling Saints secrets to clear her debts.”
The information is so unexpected that my lungs take a moment to suck in a breath. I was beginning to suspect that Amber wasn’t as innocent as Jennifer made her out to be, but that still doesn’t justify hurting and killing her.
Although maybe he didn’t. Maybe the other gang did and Theo covered it up. I know I should ask, and I want to know, but before the question forms, my phone buzzes. I pull it free and see a notification that Keith Burrows has arrived home. I sit up, ignoring Luna’s question of where I’m going, and open the app.
He’s alone. Perfect.
“I have to go,” I say, heading for the door.
“Wait, why? We don’t have to talk about Theo or any other guy. Actually, I prefer that.”
“Another time.” I leave the bedroom, planning to sneak out the side door before someone can see me. But, just my luck, Benny notices and makes a beeline for me.
“June! I want to introduce you to my cousin, Lydia. She’s—”
“You know, I’d love to, but it’ll have to be another time. I need…” I scan the room for some excuse and find Theo by the back door, watching with his brows low and lips pressed in a thin line. “To talk to Theo,” I finish, shrugging out of Benny’s hold. Theo opens the door, and I follow him onto the back patio.
“What’s up?” he asks as soon as we’re outside. He crosses his arms with distinct annoyance.
“I’m not feeling great, so I’m going to walk back to the house.”
“You’re not going back without me.”
“You’re going to force me to stay?”
“You didn’t come on the ride today, so yes, you’re staying and spending time with the Saints. We’ll leave together in a couple of hours.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” he says, raising his voice in a mock tone. “What about the last few days makes you think I’d trust you enough to walk out of here by yourself?”
“Fuck you,” I spit, turning and storming back inside.
The interaction fanned the flames, and knowing that Burrows is home, probably perving over his videos of underage girls, does nothing to help. Recklessness roars in my ears, drowning out logic.
If I leave right now and Theo realizes I’m gone and doesn’t find me at the house, he may turn me in to the police.
I don’t know how much evidence he has against me, but anything is too much. I don’t want the cops to even know I exist.
No part of me cares, though. I don’t spare a thought for anyone else in the house, just head straight for the front door. Burrows’s house is close enough to walk, so I double-check the directions, check the cameras to see he’s in his bedroom, then drop my phone in the saddlebag of Theo’s motorcycle. A fever fills every inch of my body as I walk, the fire growing larger, wilder, and hotter than it’s felt in years.
The forty-minute trip to Burrows’s house warps time, somehow taking half a blink and several hours. While I walk, the blazing inferno launches me back into memories that threaten to melt the bones under my skin.
“Honey, it’s time to go,” my foster mom says.
Tears I failed to hold in slide down my cheeks. “I want to stay here with you and Papa.”
“I know, baby. But she’s your mom, and she misses you.”
I sob, shaking my head until a headache pounds my skull. “Don’t make me go!”
There’s a knock at the front door, and I know she’s here to take me away from my home. My family for the last five years. I barely remember her. She’s not my mom.
Soft arms wrap around me, and my foster mom’s rosy smell surrounds me. She holds me tight, her shoulders shaking along with mine. “You’re going to be okay, baby. Don’t cry now. This is a happy day. You’re going home.”
But I’m not. I’m leaving my home. And I’m not coming back.
After my mom married Calvin, we started feeling more like a family. It wasn’t perfect, and Mom still had bad days, but sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could pretend like life was normal. Then something always ruined it.
Calvin’s daughter, Imogen, is crying. I lean over the edge of the top bunk to see my stepsister. She’s sitting at the head of her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, tears streaming down her face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing, leave me alone!” she says, turning to face the wall.
“Talk to me, Emmy,” I say, swinging over the edge of the bed and dropping to the floor.
“Don’t call me Emmy!”
My eyes burn. I swallow a heavy lump in my throat, forcing the tears to stay at bay. Crying never got me anywhere, and it won’t help now.
Michael fought for time with me, but I wasn’t an idiot. I’d turned fourteen, and I knew my dad wasn’t there for me. He was there for Calvin’s money. He thought if he could be a part of my life, he could scam my mom and Calvin out of enough money to disappear forever. I almost wished he would.
I remember those days after my mom went to prison, before I went to the foster home. Dad hated me, especially when he was drunk. I tried to be as small and quiet as I could, but sometimes I was too loud, and he would lock me in a closet for an entire night or throw me across the room. Crying made him angrier. I was weak. A coward. Worthless.
I didn’t want to be that anymore.
A year later, that weak, cowardly side of me melted in the fire of anger, pain, grief, and injustice. I became someone who fought back. I would save the girls who couldn’t save themselves, like the girl I used to be.
Being a slave to the flames was worth it.
Burrows’s house is quiet and small, exactly where you’d expect a sad, lonely man to live. It’s easy to sneak through the back door, knife held tightly in my right hand. Each step is silent as I walk on the balls of my feet. He still seems to be in his bedroom, so I gather the camera in the main room first, then retrieve a rag from his kitchen.
Without my drugs, I had to improvise. Thankfully, Theo had bleach and rubbing alcohol under his kitchen sink, so I made a little homemade chloroform and have kept it in my back pocket, ready for this moment when I could douse it on the rag. With that ready, I start toward the bedroom.
Burrows is sitting in front of his computer, his pants discarded and porn playing at full volume. He’s so engrossed in tugging at his wrinkly old dick that he doesn’t hear me enter. By the time I have the rag pressed over his nose and mouth, it’s too late. He struggles for a few seconds before the fight drains away and he’s unconscious. His kiddy porn plays on a loop on his computer. Disgusted, I pick it up and slam it to the floor, satisfaction following the shattering of the screen. I then turn back to the old man who personally violated the privacy of dozens of teenage girls and sold drugs to the children in his care, and consider the quickest and most painful way to end his disgusting life.
I smile. The best place to start would be with the limp dick between those thin legs. I’ll take it away in pieces, dragging the pain out for several minutes.
He won’t wake up for at least ten minutes, if not longer. I use the time to duct tape him to his chair, then slap some over his mouth, an unfortunate necessity since we’re not in my sound-proof basement. Then I begin searching for his sick memories I’m sure he keeps so it’s the first thing the police find when they come looking for the rancid smell of his rotting corpse. I hate leaving bodies, but I can’t avoid it this time. I’m not worried, though. The cops won’t find any DNA or evidence of my existence in the house, and there’s no reason for them to consider me in the first place.
I’ve found five pictures by the time he’s stirring awake. Excitement flutters in my stomach as I make my way back to his bedroom.
“Welcome back, Mr. Burrows,” I say. He groans, eyes still not open. I flip the knife in my hand and kick the front of his chair where his legs are spread.
A wailing siren stops me before I reach him. The alarm grows closer by the second, and though there isn’t anything to suggest the cops are coming here, my body doesn’t care. I’m frozen in place, listening to the approaching siren as if it’s my own breath.
Then there’s a sound like a floor creaking under someone’s weight. Hair on end and heartbeat doubling in speed, I spin around, half-expecting to see a dozen cops waiting with their guns trained on me.
Instead, I see Theo Zervas, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised.
“You’ve got yourself in quite the pickle, little reaper.”
Chapter Fifteen
Theo
In a series of blinks, her expression turns from fear to shock to confusion to rage. Watching the transitions is slightly disorienting, and when she bares her teeth, I want to laugh. But time isn’t on our side. Those sirens are attached to cop cars heading straight to this house. If we’re here when they arrive, we’re both in deep shit. Especially with Lorry already on June’s tail.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Saving your sorry ass. Now let’s go. They’re seconds from surrounding this house.”
“You called the cops on me?” she asks, incredulity sharpening the edge of her voice.
“If I did, would I risk my own freedom to save you? We can argue later. Right now, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
Icy anxiety creeps through my limbs as I watch June look back at the slowly waking man, as if she’s contemplating whether killing him is worth the risk of being arrested. Thankfully, she decides against it and follows me outside. We leave through the back door, and the sirens are so loud they sound like they’re coming from inside my head. I run as fast as I can, June impressively keeping pace. Red, blue, and white lights fill my peripheral vision, and I know any second now, someone will see us fleeing the scene. My lungs burn as I push my muscles to the limit, and we turn around a fence corner just as the cops converge on the old man’s house.
