Page 75 of Psycho
A slick smile spread across Kohn’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, I fucking did.”
Lucas’s hand flicked upwards, and then Kohn gave a strangled wheeze as blood poured from between his legs. Lucas’s lip curled in disgust as he dropped what was left of Kohn’s manhood on the floor. The man was chalk white now, his life draining rapidly, but he was still conscious when Lucas said, “I enjoyed that, too, you demented fuck.”
August pulled Lucas back. He was coated in blood, and there was a near feral look to him. He gently took the knife from his hands and gave it to Asa. “Can you two handle that while I try to clean him up?”
“The showers in the old locker rooms work. I dropped the go bag from your trunk in there, too.”
August nodded, already pushing him towards the back of the building. Once they made it back there, he turned on the water, undressing a near catatonic Lucas and setting him beneath the scalding spray. He didn’t try to wash himself, just stood there staring at his feet, maybe watching Kohn’s blood circle the drain.
August called Calliope and relayed the information they’d gleaned from Kohn. “I need eyes on that red room. I’m almost positive Kohn was talking out of his ass, but just in case, make sure the clock hasn’t run down.”
There was a series of rapid-fire typing. “They’re still counting down, but Kohn wasn’t lying about them pushing up the timeline. They’re planning on opening the room tonight. We got three hours.”
“Can you get satellite images of the yard? I’m guessing this is where Kohn’s little band of Nazis hangs out. I imagine, on a show night, they’re all in attendance. Can you get somebody to recon the space so we can go in and clean house?”
“I’m on it.”
August grunted his approval. “Let me know how quick we can get in there and get her out.”
“Wait. How’s Lucas?”
August sighed. “I honestly don’t know.”
Lucas moved on autopilot. His training as a psychologist told him he was disassociating—avoiding a reality where he’d castrated a serial killer in a warehouse—but mostly he was just…processing how little he cared about what he’d done to Kohn. He should care about cutting off pieces of another human being, no matter how much that human deserved it.
But he just…he just didn’t.
He hadn’t relished the man’s pain as he’d imagined he would, but he hadn’t been disgusted by it either. It had been a means to an end. He had information they needed and Lucas had been determined to get it. He wanted his friend back. If something happened to her because of him, he didn’t know how he was going to move past it.
They were back at Thomas’s house, back in their Batcave. On the large screen was a satellite image of one of the largest junkyards Lucas had ever seen. He was doing his best to focus for Cricket, but his thoughts kept tunneling away until the room and everyone in it seemed light years away. August sat beside him, throwing worried glances in his direction every few minutes or so, as if gauging exactly how close to the edge Lucas was. He wanted to tell him he was fine, that there was nothing to worry about—because there wasn’t. But if that was true, why did Lucas have this slithery feeling in his stomach?
The screen came alive as Calliope’s voice filled the room. “I’m assuming we’re all here?”
Lucas looked around at the others. Everybody was there except the last brother, the one who lived on the other side of the country. Aiden? He was always suspiciously absent. There was a story there, but Lucas wasn’t sure he’d ever know it.
“Monk has eyes on the shop here,” Calliope noted. A thick red circle appeared around the building at the front of the compound. “He says there’s currently seven men visible, all of them sporting side arms and rather large knives strapped to their legs. He knows all this because the two large bay doors are open.”
Adam groaned. “That’s gonna complicate shit.”
“Who’s Monk?” Lucas asked nobody in particular.
August squeezed Lucas’s hand. “He’s who we call when we need to outsource surveillance. He’s a former black ops soldier, and he doesn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“How many other people know about you guys?” Lucas asked.
August shook his head. “He doesn’t know who bankrolls his jobs. He deals exclusively with Calliope and gets paid in cash. He doesn’t care who wants the info or why.”
“Oh,” was all the enthusiasm Lucas could muster for what was an otherwise smart move for Murder, Inc.
“Do we know for sure there’s only seven of them?” Avi asked.
“No,” Calliope said. “They periodically get up and head to the back, but the same people who go out are the same people who come in. But we can’t assume there’s nobody else back there who isn’t also equally armed.”
“So, they could be holding Cricket in the back of the building,” August said.
Lucas’s stomach curdled as he let his imagination run wild with what those men could be doing to her with every visit. “We need to go now.”
“Things don’t go well when we rush assignments,” Noah said from the chair beside him. “I know you’re worried about her, but they aren’t going to fuck with her off camera. These sick fucks pay a lot of money to watch. As long as the clock is still counting down, she’s okay.”
