“Oh, wait. Hold on,” the old man said.

  “Yes?” My heart began to thump with anticipation.

  “About an hour ago, I looked out one of my windows and saw a guy skulking around the alley that runs around the side and back of the building. I assumed it was one of the security guards you’ve posted up here recently, but it just occurred to me that he was wearing something different to the rest of them.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “White. Dark blond hair. Tall.”

  “Anything else stick out about him?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Just a generic looking white guy.”

  “And there was definitely only one man?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  I met Beck in her office fifteen minutes later. My heartbeat felt sluggish, and my fingers were numb. All I could think about was Jolie, bleeding and terrified, tied up in a dark van somewhere. Used and abused. The more I thought about it, the more awful scenarios appeared in my mind, conjured up by the darkest parts of my brain.

  “Mason, calm down. Deep breaths,” Beck told me after I gave her a hurried run-down of the situation.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. Jolie’s fucking gone,” I growled.

  She held her palms up. “I know. But you can’t lose your shit now. She needs you to stay calm so we can find her.”

  I slumped into a chair and scrubbed my hands over my face. I knew she was right, but it was far easier said than done. “How the fuck are we supposed to find her?” I muttered.

  Beck took a seat across from me and pulled out a notepad from the desk drawer. “You said something about a tracking device?”

  I nodded. “I had one on her, but the guy who took her found it and destroyed it.”

  “What sort of tracker was it?” Beck asked, brows furrowing. “And why did you have it on her?”

  “It was a phone one,” I said evasively. “I put it on her so I’d always know where she was. To keep her safe.”

  “Right. And it’s definitely offline?”

  “Yes. I already checked.” I put my head in my hands and puffed out a deep, frustrated breath.

  “These guys are even better than I thought.” She shook her head and sighed. “You said they overpowered the security team you had stationed around the apartment building?”

  “Yeah. I guess they’ve had eight years to learn and practice all this shit, huh?” I said. Before she could respond, I held up my right hand. “Look, I can’t prove it was the cult, but I know it was them.”

  Beck’s lips tightened. “Don’t worry, I agree. I’m inclined to think they sent Tom Anderson to grab her, thinking it would be easy, but when that failed, they sent someone better. It might not even be one of their members. They hired some guys from the mafia to kill your family eight years ago, right?”

  Something twisted in my guts. “Yeah.”

  “So for all we know, they still have mafia connections here. They could’ve hired some guys to take Jolie for them. Professionals.”

  My heart sank. I hadn’t even considered that. If there was anyone out there as bad as the cult—or worse—it was the fucking mafia. “Christ…”

  “I can put some feelers out. See if we have anyone undercover who can find out if any mob-associated guys were hired to kidnap a girl recently. It might take a while, but it’s a start.”

  “What if it wasn’t the mafia, though?” I said. Something else had suddenly occurred to me. “Jolie told me that when I was beating Tom’s face into a pulp a few weeks ago, he said it didn’t matter if I killed him. He said the cult would just keep sending guys. So I’m pretty sure that’s what they did—sent another member.”

  Beck’s shoulders slumped. “Right. Well, I’ll put the feelers out to our mafia connections anyway. We need to explore every angle just in case.”

  As she made a note about it, I slammed my fist down on the other side of the desk. “I let this happen,” I said through gritted teeth. “I fucking let this happen.”

  Beck’s forehead wrinkled. “Mason, seriously, you need to calm—”

  I held up a hand, cutting her off. “No, listen. I left her for less than an hour. That was all it took for them to get her. I should’ve known they were that dedicated, but instead I got comfortable with the security team and thought it would be safe. How fucking stupid is that?” I shook my head, cheeks aflame with rage at myself. “I shouldn’t have let her go home alone, even for such a short amount of time. But I did.”

  Beck rolled her eyes. “Okay, you need to listen to me now. Whoever took Jolie knew what the hell he or she was doing. If they managed to sneak around and take down six big guys whose literal job is security and protection, then they probably would’ve gotten the drop on you too. You might love Jolie, but that doesn’t make you invincible. A tranq gun would affect you just as much as any of the other guys.”

  “This isn’t fucking Hollywood. Tranquilizers don’t kick in right away,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “They take several minutes. Sometimes even half an hour or more. So I could’ve fought the guy off somehow, even if I was all fucked up and weak from the dart.”

  She sighed at my stubborn attitude. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said, clasping her hands together on the desk. “But this line of thinking isn’t productive, is it? What’s the point in sitting here blaming yourself?”

  My face softened slightly. She was right. The longer I sat here berating myself, the further away Jolie got with her abductor. My guilt could eat me alive, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

  I took a deep breath. “You’re right,” I muttered. “I just don’t know what the fuck to do.”

  “I know. So let’s talk it through again. From the very start. What time did you first realize something was wrong?”

  I pulled out my cell and looked at the time stamps on Jolie’s texts. “At 5:49,” I said. “That was when she messaged me.”

  Beck nodded slightly. “Right. So she said she was in trouble?”

  “No. She texted me to say she’d figured out who the snitch was. It wasn’t Martha, by the way. I forgot to tell you that.”

  “You sure?” She raised her brows.

  “Positive. Anyway, Jolie messaged me saying she knew who it really was. My phone said she was typing more, and then it suddenly stopped. I tried calling after that, because it’s not like her to leave me in suspense, but her phone was off.”

  I handed my phone over, and Beck looked at the texts and frowned. “So she didn’t actually say who the snitch was?”

  I sighed. “Nope. She’s one of those people who texts in separate lines, instead of sending a whole paragraph at once.”

  She snorted. “Her and every other person under the age of thirty.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s probably good she types like that, because it meant I could tell she was in trouble right away. She wouldn’t say something as big as that and then decide to keep me dangling in suspense while she went and dusted the apartment or something.”

  “No, of course not.” She tilted her head to the side. “So you went home after that?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. The drive back probably took around twenty-five minutes. Maybe a little more. Traffic was fucking shit.”

  “So you got back somewhere around six-twenty,” Beck said, scribbling the time on a notepad.

  “Yes. I found the place ransacked. Shit smashed everywhere. Blood, too, but not a lot. It looked like Jolie cut her hand or arm on a broken glass.” I frowned. “There was a shoeprint too, in some of the blood. Only a partial one, but I’d say it was a man’s shoe, judging by the size. There was also a small kitchen knife on the counter. It had some blood on it. I think he used it to cut her, so there might be prints on it, unless he wiped it down.”

  “Uh-huh.” Beck kept her gaze on the notepad as she took down everything I said.

  “The neighbor also saw a tall blond guy lurking around the building about half an hour before Jolie was taken.” I hesitated and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know if any of this is helpful.”

  “It might be,” she said with an encouraging nod. “At this point, anything we can get is useful, no matter how small.”

  I grimaced. “I just wish I knew who Jolie was talking about in that text. The real rat. If we could find him or her, then we’d have a shot in hell at finding the cult, but we keep getting knocked back to square one.”

  “Too bad it wasn’t Martha, I guess.” Beck’s lips tightened again. “You have absolutely no idea who it could be?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hm. Okay.” Beck chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, tapping the tip of her pen against the paper. Then she looked up at me. “Remind me… why exactly did Jolie think it was Martha?”

  “Because Martha overheard us talking about our plan the day before the raid,” I said. “Jolie saw her out—”

  I stopped abruptly as several puzzle pieces slid around in my brain before falling into place with heavy clicks.

  “Mason?” Beck leaned forward, one eyebrow quizzically arched.

  “I know what Jolie figured out,” I said slowly, my pulse racing with excitement. “I know who it was.”

  7

  Mason

  The woman’s head lolled forward under the black hood I’d shoved on her earlier, and she mumbled something. Her voice was too soft for me to hear it under the fabric, but from the tone, it sounded like a threat. A far cry from the pleas she’d uttered just an hour ago when I first broke into her house and grabbed her right out of the shower.

  I ignored her absurd threats. She couldn’t do anything to me. Not when she was tied to a chair with thick ropes.

  I stood by the fireplace in her house, stoking the flames with a long iron poker. When they were finally bright and roaring, filling the dark room with a heartening orange glow, I left the end of the poker in the fire and stepped away.

  I stepped over to the chair and ripped the hood away. Then I pulled off my mask. “Hi, Lauren.”

  Her eyes widened as she caught sight of my face. “Mason?” She shook her head. “What’s happening? Why are you doing this to me?”

  I snorted and crouched to open the large black bag I’d brought into the house after I had her restrained on the chair. “I think you know why,” I said, spreading the contents of the bag on the floor.

  “No. I have no idea!” she said. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. “Please let me go!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “Look, if you want sex, I’ll do it,” she said, voice quavering. “Just untie me and get on with it. I won’t scream, I’ll do whatever you want, and I promise I’ll never tell anyone. I’ll never turn you in.”

  I knelt down in front of her, tilting her chin toward me with one hand. “I’d rather piss razor blades for a year than fuck you,” I hissed.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Then why are you here? I don’t have money.”

  “You think I need money?” Despite my dark mood, I chuckled, amazed at her stupidity. “No. I want information.”

  “Information?”

  “Yes. About the Path of the Covenant.”

  “I have nothing to tell you.”

  “I thought you might say that.” I stepped over to the fire and picked up the poker. The tip was red-hot.

  Lauren trembled on the chair. “What are you going to do with that?”

  I didn’t reply. Not yet. I went back to her and stuffed a rag in her mouth before forcing her to lift one of her legs off the ground. Then I pressed the sizzling end of the poker down on the sole of her foot. Her eyes began to water as her muffled screams echoed around me.

  I returned the poker to the fire to keep warm. “That’s just a little taste,” I said, turning back to Lauren. “It’s nothing compared to what you did back at New Eden. You’re the one who turned in most of those girls to the men for their supposed crimes, right?”

  She was barely able to choke out her next words. “That’s why you’re here?”

  I nodded. “I know what you did. Finally figured it out.”

  “It was years ago. It… it shouldn’t matter anymore,” she mumbled, averting her eyes.

  “Shouldn’t matter?” I shook my head. “Holy fuck, you’re deluded.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not what you think,” she said in a ragged mutter, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I know it matters. I just… I wish it didn’t. I hate living with all the memories. All the guilt. I’ve tried so hard to get past it, but I never can.”

  “How tragic,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. I cocked my head to the side. “Tell me about it.”

  “Which part?” she asked, eyes wide and fearful again.

  I gestured to the torture implements I’d spread out on the floor earlier. There was an assortment of knives, several ropes, a pair of pliers, a blowtorch, and a hammer.

  “Every part,” I said. “The more you tell me, the less I hurt you.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded shakily. “Okay.”

  “Start talking.”

  “I don’t know how to explain how it started. It was so long ago. But I guess I…” Lauren trailed off for a few seconds. “I didn’t know what to believe back at New Eden. When I was around the girls and heard them talk, it all seemed so hard and unfair. But when I was around the Prophet and the other men, everything they said seemed right too. I just agreed with whoever I happened to be around at the time. I could never make up my mind about anything.”

  I snorted. “That’s because you’re a sheep. You have no personality of your own, so you just meld to whatever or whomever is in the room with you. You were always like that.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess so,” she whispered.

  “So what happened the first time you snitched on one of the girls there?”

  Lauren swallowed hard. “They burned her.”

  “How did you feel about that? Good? Bad?”

  “Both.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I felt like I’d done the right thing by turning her in to the men. But then I saw the other girls’ reactions and started to feel guilty.”

  “Yet you kept doing it anyway.” I shook my head with disgust.

  “I told you, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “You’re right about the sheep thing. I wanted the girls to like me, so I acted like their friend, but I wanted the men to like me too. I wanted them to think of me as a good girl and treat me accordingly. I didn’t want to get punished, and I didn’t want to go to hell if they were right about everything. You don’t understand how hard it was for me to know what to do.”

  I scoffed. “Poor you. My heart bleeds.” I picked up the poker again and pressed the tip against her ribs. One hand held it steady as the other covered her mouth to stifle the agonized shrieks. “Imagine what those girls who were burned felt. It’d be just like this, only it would cover every inch of your body.”

  “I know,” Lauren whimpered as I finally pulled the poker away again.

  “You turned Elena in too, didn’t you?”

  She lowered her eyes to her lap and began to sob.

  “Answer me.” I raised my voice and brandished the poker again, holding it close to her face.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I turned her in.”

  “How could you? She was your friend.”

  “I know. I listened to her speak that night in the church, and I thought she might be right. But then I thought about it some more, and I was terrified of what would happen if she was wrong. So I went and told the Prophet.” She sniffed as a fresh set of tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I honestly didn’t think they’d kill her.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” I narrowed my eyes. “They punished or killed the other girls for lesser shit. You knew exactly what they’d do to Elena.”

  She shook her head wildly. “No! Seriously. I didn’t. I thought she might be possessed, so I begged the Prophet to help her. I begged him not to punish her for the things she’d said. He promised he wouldn’t. He promised he would help her.”

  “Yeah, he really helped her.” I sneered. “Helped her right into a noose.”

  Lauren nodded slowly, eyes focused on the fire behind me. “I know that now. But when I woke up the next morning and heard she was dead, I had no idea it was the men behind it. I believed them when they said it was suicide. It wasn’t until after the rescue several months later that I realized the truth.” She looked up at me. “Please, Mason. You have to believe me when I tell you how guilty I felt. How guilty I still feel every day. I was a different person back then. I wish I wasn’t, but I can’t change it. I can’t take it back.”

  “No shit. Tell me about what you did to Jolie,” I said stiffly. “Tell me what happened the day before the FBI raid.”

  She went silent for a minute. “Does she know?” she finally asked.

  “I think so.”

  She shook her head listlessly. “She’ll never forgive me.”

  “Stop with the fucking pity party and tell me what happened,” I snarled, picking up a skinning knife. “Or I’ll start using this.”

  “Okay, okay.” She gulped, face blanching at the sight of the knife. “I was carrying some washing through the shelter that morning. I heard you’d taken Jolie to the Penance Rooms for punishment, but when I walked past, I didn’t hear her screaming. All I heard was a really faint murmuring sound. I thought that was strange, and it made me curious. I went and put my ear right up to the door, and I heard the two of you talking.”

  “Jolie heard you.”

  “I know. She started freaking out about it. I could hear her. So when she stuck her head out to see, I acted like I was just walking past. Like I didn’t hear anything.”

  “But you did. You heard everything.”

  “Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Until today, it never even occurred to me to think of Lauren. I knew she’d gone past the Penance Rooms that day, because I remembered Jolie sticking her head out and spotting her, but it never registered with me as relevant before now. I honestly didn’t think she could ever do such a thing. Didn’t think she could commit such an act of treachery against her so-called friend. Not dumb, sweet, innocent little Lauren, the girl who always followed Jolie around like a lost lamb.

 

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