Page 5 of The Reaper
“No. Tyler and Colton can take this piece of shit to the chapel and wait for us there. You can help me get her upstairs and settled into one of our rooms.” I wasn’t going to pass her off to just anyone. She was vulnerable, and it was our responsibility to see that she was safe now.
“We’re going to need to call Adam and let him know what’s going down,” Tyler added, and we all nodded in agreement.
“I’ll do that,” I said, as I bent down to lift the girl into my arms.
“We need to get someone to watch her, you know, in case something happens,” Will stated as he went to open the door for me.
“I’ll ask Faye to come off the main desk. But no one else can know about this. Not Gaz, or any of the other security staff. No one. We keep this between us.” I turned with the girl in my arms to face Colton, Tyler, and the sick fuck who was hanging his head and cursing under his breath behind me. “Make sure no one sees him. Take the back stairs down to the chapel and use the rear entrance.” I didn’t want anyone to see what was happening, and luckily, we had hidden corridors that ran around the periphery of this building. Ideal for taking care of situations like this.
Will and I headed out of the room first, and I shielded the girl in my arms from the guests who were wandering around. Will called Faye, who manned the front desk for our more hardcore rooms, and asked her to meet us in our living quarters. I kept my head down and strode towards the stairs, then took each step carefully, holding the girl protectively. We’d had shit happen at the club before. We’d had even more fucked-up stuff happen to us outside on the streets. But no one had ever hurt a girl under our roof. We took that shit personally.
When we got to the main landing, I headed to my room, and Will opened the door for me so I could walk straight through. I laid the girl on my bed and arranged her arms and legs so she wouldn’t get cramp. She’d wake up with enough pain and anguish, she didn’t need anything else added to that.
Once I knew she was settled and safe, I took my phone out and called Adam.
“What’s happened?” He answered on the first ring, already seemingly on edge.
“We just caught a guy in room three. He’d drugged a girl and was about to rape her––” I didn’t get chance to finish, Adam cut me off.
“Did he do it? Did he hurt her?” he hissed in desperation, and I could hear Liv in the background asking what the fuck was going on.
“No. We got there in time.”
Adam exhaled down the phone then cursed, “Where the fuck is he now?”
“Colton and Tyler are taking him to the chapel.”
“And the girl?”
“Me and Will brought her up to my room. She’s still out of it. Faye’s going to come and sit with her while we deal with him downstairs.”
Adam took a second to answer and then he stated, “We’re on our way. Tell Faye the girl drank too much. I don’t want her knowing any more than that. Once we get there, Olivia will take over. And Devon?”
“Yeah?” I asked, just as Faye came through the door and pulled a chair to sit beside the bed.
“Give him hell. Don’t wait for me to get there to do your job. You know what you’re doing, and I trust you.”
“No need to worry on that score,” I stated and hung up the phone.
I nodded at Will. I didn’t need to tell him what Adam had said, he knew him well enough to know the outcome. I turned to Faye and added, “She’s had too much to drink. I recognised her from Brinton Manor and thought we should bring her up here to sleep it off. If she wakes up, ring me. Any problems and I want to know. Adam and Liv are on their way, so when they get here, you can go home. Thanks for this, Faye.”
“It’s all part of the job,” Faye replied, giving the girl a pitiful stare before taking out her phone and tapping the screen like nothing was wrong.
“You don’t tell anyone about this, do you hear?” I said, but Faye didn’t look up from the screen. She just smiled and said, “I know how to do my job.” Then she mimed zipping her mouth shut with her finger and locking it with an imaginary key.
The girl was safe. Now, it was on to our next job. Making the low-life fucker pay for bringing this to our door.
ChapterTwo
DEVON
We entered the chapel, and the sound of the thumping bass from the music in the club became a distant thud as we closed the door behind us. The chapel was poorly lit, and the dust circling up from the floor––courtesy of the biting rough wind that blew through the cracks in the windows and decaying walls––made me cough and shudder. Despite the dim lighting, we could see the guy slumped in a chair in the far corner as Tyler and Colton stood over him. Tyler grimaced as he scrolled through the guy’s phone. Colton had both hands fixed on the arm of the chair that the guy sat in, and he was glaring right into his face, giving him the psychotic grin he reserved for scum like him.
This was the asylum chapel. My chapel.
It was the reason I’d wanted us to take over the lease of this building months ago. Something about the crumbling old walls held an eerie, ethereal magic within them. A beautiful decaying monument that represented goodness, holiness, deception in its purest form. When we viewed this place, I took one look at this chapel and the stained-glass windows casting a kaleidoscope of colour onto the worn flagstone floor, and the desire to turn everything on its head overtook me. I wanted to destroy it, but at the same time, I wanted to reinvent it, just like I’d done with myself all those years ago. I liked twisting and moulding things to suit my purpose. Taking control and creating my own narrative after years of silent subservience. I wanted this to be my church. The reaper’s den.
The crumbling stone walls were no longer adorned with crosses and religious symbolism. Instead, they held weapons that I’d collected from every corner of the globe. Weapons that I’d studied and practised using until I’d perfected my skills––skills that would rival any warrior. I had a collection of battle axes, stakes, and crossbows on one wall. Opposite that, I kept my swords, bats, sledgehammers, and my favourite of all, my katana sword. On the stone altar, I had scalpels, every brand of hunting knife you could think of, as well as meat cleavers and machetes. This was my church now, and these were my weapons of worship.
