MY SPINE STIFFENED when Blaze gestured to a dirt lane up ahead. “That’s the turn-off,” he said. “Another half a mile and we’ll reach the house.”
Julius took the turn with ease, and a white-walled building immediately came into view in the distance, expanding gradually as we zoomed toward it. I couldn’t see it perfectly yet, but I could already tell it was the house from the basement photograph.
And that wasn’t the only thing we could see. At least six cars were parked outside the building. I recognized Damien’s, Aunt Mabel and Uncle Henry’s, and my grandparents’. The other three might have belonged to other relatives I’d spent less time with.
“Looks like we have plenty of company,” Julius said, taking them in.
Talon handed one of the pistols we’d cleaned and loaded to Blaze and brandished another himself. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
Were all of those family members in on Garrison’s kidnapping? My stomach knotted as we reached the end of the lane.
How had they justified that crime to themselves? Saving me from bad influences? Did they know what the crew did but somehow didn’t realize that I was in the same line of work? Or did they just figure they could bring me over to the “right” side once they’d gotten rid of my men?
My jaw clenched. It didn’t matter what they wanted. They were sick, child-murdering psychopaths, and every kindness they’d ever offered me was tainted by that fact. I knew I wouldn’t feel at peace until every one of the Maliks who’d had a hand in the murders was six feet under themselves.
Talon was right about one thing: some people needed to be taken out of this world before they could do more damage. Who better than me to deliver that sentence?
Julius parked at the side of the lane a short distance from the official parking area where the other cars stood. So far there’d been no signs of movement. No one stirred in or around the vehicles. The house’s windows were dark. A small barn stood beyond it across about twenty feet of scruffy grass, its tall double doors shut and latched.
“Everyone ready?” Julius asked.
I slung a holster over my arm, tucked another gun into one at my hip, and wrapped my fingers around a third. We couldn’t go into this too prepared, as much as a small part of me, the part that’d craved a real family, still balked at the idea of firing the weapons at the people I’d thought of as that family. “I am.”
We got out onto the dusty earth, the guys similarly armed. The wind swept over us, carrying a dry scent that itched in my nose, like stale hay.
We’d only just walked past the cars, starting to cross the stretch of patchy grass between the parking area and the covered porch, when the front door swung open. The four of us halted, guns at the ready.
Nearly every person I’d met at that first reunion spilled onto the porch before my eyes. Aunts, uncles, and cousins, my grandfather, and of course, my father. The only people missing were Carter, Grandma Ruby, and my mother. Had my brother spilled the beans about my call, or had the rest of the family been waiting here already in case we figured out where they’d taken Garrison by some other means?
I stepped a little ahead of my men, my finger curled around the trigger of my gun. If any of the men and women before me were armed, I could blow them away before they so much as set their hand on their weapon.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
My father pushed to the front of the crowd, resting his hands on the porch railing. I couldn’t read his expression, it was so stern and yet haunted at the same time. His gaze slid from me to the men around me, and his forehead furrowed. Had he expected me to come alone? As if the crew wouldn’t stand by their lost member.
“Who the hell are these people?” he demanded.
As if he didn’t already know. “The closest thing to a family I actually have,” I said. “Now answer the question. Where is he?”
Damien’s attention jerked back to me. “Your brother? I told him and your mother to stay home after he told me you’d found out about this place. I don’t know what led you to it, but I promise you, I can explain.”
Fury seared through me so fast it burned away everything but my horror at everything else I’d discovered. “Explain what?” I spat. “Why you torture and murder little kids for your own enjoyment?”
If I’d still had any doubts about whether the Maliks were responsible, Damien’s flinch was enough to dismiss them. The rest of the family stirred around him with restless murmurs. Aunt Mabel made an uncomfortable grimace. Margaret’s eyes flashed as if she was eager to have this secret out in the open. Grandpa Bo shook his head as if he was disappointed in me.
“That’s a vast simplification of a complex and honored process,” the older man said.
“An honored process?” I said. “Are you kidding me? I’ve seen pictures. What you did to them is nothing but sick.”
Damien raised his chin. “It’s the opposite of sick. The Maliks have a divine mandate going back over a century to stop the spread of the criminal sickness through this country. We offer up the pain and lives of the tainted children to a higher power to prevent more pain and lives lost at the hands of those who’d turn to unlawfulness and sin.”
I stared at him. It took all my willpower to stop my jaw from gaping open. “You seriously think that some sort of god wants you to torment innocent kids as a way of stopping crime? You’re fucking insane.”
“Insanity is in the eye of the beholder,” Margaret muttered, as if that was helpful.
“We don’t enjoy the process,” Uncle Henry insisted, though from the look on Margaret’s face, that wasn’t true of everyone. “Only the outcome we’re working toward.”
My father nodded. “It has to be done for the good of everyone in this country. Sacrifices must be made to set the energies among us on the right course.”
Suddenly the supernatural-sounding books in the library made a lot more sense. Where had the generations of Maliks before them first gotten these crazy ideas? What had convinced them to keep acting on them?
It didn’t matter. The people in front of me had been carrying out their horrific legacy their whole lives. I could see from the flash of determination in my father’s eyes that they had no intention of stopping even with my discovery of it.
But I had to try anyway.
Bile had risen in the back of my throat. I swallowed it down and fixed him with my firmest stare. “You’re an educated man. Can’t you hear how ridiculous this sounds? How could killing children possibly have any impact on whether other random people commit more crimes?”
“You’ll understand,” Damien said. “I promise you, once we bring you into the rituals, you’ll see how it all connects. It is an honor, being chosen to carry out this divine calling—”
I couldn’t stand to listen to him anymore. I took another step forward, and Aunt Mabel flinched. “I’m never going to understand, and I’m sure as hell never going to be a part of this psychotic cult of yours. I’m going to ask you again. Where. Is. Garrison?”
My father’s brow furrowed, and I expected him to dodge the question again, continuing this stupid game of not knowing what I meant. But at the same moment, a clanging sound reverberated from the direction of the barn. My gaze shot straight to the other building.
From this angle, I couldn’t help noticing another, smaller structure tucked next to the barn. A big brick chimney with a wrought-iron belly… A furnace.
The nausea gripping my stomach expanded up through my chest. Ash. Calcium levels in the soil. Signs of bodily remains.
Just like that, I knew that furnace was where they burned the results of their “offerings.” That was why no murders had been reported—no bodies had ever been found.
And then the Maliks took a little of the ash and scattered it in their garden back home to fertilize their precious flowers of justice. My gut lurched, and I thought I might actually vomit.
But the sound had come from the barn itself. Was that where they’d locked Garrison away? What state had they left him in?
The urgency of my worry drowned out my queasiness. Turning away from the house, I set off toward the barn with the rest of the crew at my heels.
It seemed the Maliks didn’t like that. They all poured down the steps, hustling to get between us and the barn.
“You’ve gone far enough,” Grandpa Bo said in a growl.
My father’s gaze flicked over the men with me again. “We can’t have strangers poking around in our most private and sacred business. We can’t have them knowing what we do here.”
Margaret snickered. “You gave them a death sentence.”
Who did she think she was? I ignored her, glowering at Damien. This confrontation was going to end in death, but I wanted to make sure that Garrison’s life was no longer on the line before blood got spilled… if I could.
“You don’t want to start this fight,” I warned him.
A tremor ran through him, but then his expression set with determination. “There are only two options now that you’ve come this far, Rachel. Either you accept your role as part of the family—or we can’t let you leave here alive.”
“I think she’s already made her position perfectly clear,” Uncle Henry said with a flash of dark metal as his hand leapt up.
Julius saw it too. Before my uncle even took aim, the crew’s commander blasted him away, a clean shot through the center of his forehead. And then the scene erupted into total chaos worthy of the crew’s name.
The rest of the family charged us, whipping out guns and knives, from little paring blades to blocky cleavers. Most of them threw themselves at the men, aiming to close the distance before the crew could take any easy shots.
My father lunged at me.
Shots boomed and grunts and groans filled the air all around me. I didn’t have time to look and see who was responsible for which sounds. Damien snatched at my hair, and I had to dodge faster than I expected to escape his grasp—which sent me colliding with one of my uncles. I whirled around, and a boot slammed into my calves. My legs buckled.
I landed on my hands and knees and immediately rolled to the side. As I sprang back onto my feet, my father barreled into me, knocking me back to the ground.
When he loomed over me, there was a moment when I could have shot him. I still had a pistol clutched in my hand. But my damn heart stuttered, I hesitated for a split-second, and the next instant he was kicking the gun from my fingers.
He shoved me down with a knee on my abdomen and the muzzle of his own gun pressed to my forehead. My pulse lurched for a totally different reason. But it seemed Damien Malik wasn’t all that keen to kill the daughter he’d only just discovered was still alive.
“This could have been so different,” he said in a ragged voice. “I didn’t want it to come to this. If you’d given me time to ease you into it, to show you everything…”
As if there was anything he could have shown me that would have convinced me that killing kids out of a delusional sense of divine justice was a-okay. But I kept my mouth shut, knowing that one twitch of his finger would add me to his list of murders.
One of my knives was just inches from where my hand lay. If I could just get him distracted enough to give me the space to make a move—if I could get him to withdraw his gun just a tad…
“I don’t want to do this,” he went on. “It was a miracle to have you returned to us.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I dared to say, shifting my fingers a smidge to the left at the same time.
Damien gave no indication that he’d noticed. He leaned more weight onto my chest with his knee, the pressure turning my breath shallow and sending an ache through my previously-broken ribs. His hand trembled, but he kept the gun pressed right against my skin.
“We wanted you to join us, but we’ve been doing this for too long to let you destroy our legacy now,” he said. “Blood doesn’t matter if you can’t fulfill our calling.”
“I thought blood was everything to this family,” I said. “Is it so different with me just because I was gone for so long?”
“It has nothing to do with you being gone,” he shouted. “You’ve desecrated everything we stand for with your dismissive words and the violence you’ve brought here. If I have to kill my only daughter to keep our legacy alive, I will do it.”
He clearly meant it. I relaxed my body as well as I could to give me a wider range of motion, but I let my voice come out taut with hurt. “You kept me in the dark for so long. What was I supposed to think when I stumbled on the evidence? You have to know how it looks. To believe in some kind of higher power guiding all this… You never really gave me a chance to understand.”
His gun-hand shifted just slightly. “I’m trying to now,” he rasped. “If you’ll join us, if you’ll open yourself to the energies and the mysteries we celebrate and the mission we’re fulfilling, it’ll be even better than when you didn’t know. All you have to do is show you’ll give it a chance.”
I latched on to that opening with everything I had in me. “Of course. I didn’t see at first how devoted you all are. There must be something more to it.” Damien’s hand wavered while I spoke and then dipped to the side, away from my head. I kept talking, my words covering the faint rustle of my clothes as I slid out the knife. “I’ll do whatever I can to make up for the things I said, to show you—”
Relief spread across his face as my fingers tightened around the hilt, and in that moment, I didn’t feel the faintest trace of regret. I slammed the blade upward, raising my voice into a yell. “—to show you there’s no fucking way I’ll ever buy into that insanity!”
The knife dug into my father’s throat before I’d finished my defiant exclamation. I wasn’t sure he even heard all of it.
Blood gushed down over me from the artery I’d severed, and Damien sputtered, his body already going slack with the life rushing out of it. As his body sagged, I shoved him off me. He lolled on his back, his eyes hazing as even more blood pooled beneath him. Then he was totally still.
There was silence all around me. More bodies littered the ground—every member of the Malik family who’d joined this confrontation. Julius, Talon, and Blaze stood among them, breathing hard and with a few small scrapes here and there, but nothing concerning.
Of course not. My birth family hadn’t known how to fight a crew of highly trained hitmen. Their typical opponents had been literal children.
I stared down at my father’s corpse, the blood that’d soaked my shirt and hair cooling against my skin with the breeze. Somehow I wanted to feel at least a tiny stirring of guilt, a reminder that I was still human. But all I could think of was those pictures of the children, mutilated far beyond anything I’d done to him.
The only thing that mattered now was finding Garrison. Making sure they hadn’t given him the same treatment.
My gaze jerked toward the barn, where that sudden sound had come from. The building the family had tried to cut us off from.
I motioned to the crew, praying all the while that my instincts were leading me right. “Come on. Let’s get our man back.”
