Beast raised his hands, but realizing he didn’t know what he wanted to do with them in the first place, he let them drop. “We had a connection. It was a good day. I’m so fucking stupid.”
Knight slapped Beast on the arm. “His loss. What’s going on with this?” he stepped closer to the desk and pointed to the notes and printouts Beast had gathered in several folders and boxes. Some of them were related to the history of the house, others to the mysterious occult sigil. The one on King’s—and Laurent’s—nape.
Beast massaged his eyes with his fingers, trying to change his focus. He wasn’t a crybaby, and he would not mourn the things he couldn’t have. He was a man of action.
“I’m positive the brand on Laurent is the same as the one on King, and the one we found under the floor,” he said looking at the photograph he and Knight had taken when they first made the discovery. It was years ago, back when Beast was still a promising young man with a dashing smile and clear skin. Back then, some of the floors in the basement had started to rot, and since the club was using those rooms for storage, it was his and Knight’s job to replace the old wood with something new.
But under the old planks they found smoothened stone—which must have been the original floor. They found dirt, and even a mouse skeleton, but in the middle of the room was something else altogether. Grooves have been meticulously carved into the stone to form the odd sign written into a double circle of two meters in diameter. And then someone took care to fill the dip in the floor with iron, leaving behind the disturbing sign that Beast’s learned by heart since.
Inside the circle was a sixteen-armed star adorned with curious letters on each of the sharp edges and filled with a tangle of signs that vaguely resembled a human skull. It was the same symbol King carried on his nape, and so Beast and Knight made the decision not to inform him of the find. It had all been very weird and pushed Beast to look for answers.
Forbidden books and treatises on the occult helped him and Knight decipher some of the elements on the sigil, but everything pointed to it being an infernal symbol. So what was it doing on King’s body? And how did King end up owning a former asylum? The place had been built incorporating an eighteenth century building that used to belong to a famous serial killer and had the very same symbol in the basement. Notably, said serial killer also reportedly had a devil’s mark on his nape. There was a connection, but Beast couldn’t grasp what it was.
He didn’t search for it exactly believing in magic—that would have been ridiculous—but his father was hiding something. Was he a member of a cult? Or was the symbol the sign of an alliance with some gang he didn’t want to tell anyone about to keep the money from that connection to himself?
Knight leaned over all the papers and photos laid out on the table. “And I’ve found nothing about a modern-day Laurent Mercier from La Rochelle. It’s kinda freaky actually, because how would he be able to fly under the radar like that? And what kind of connection could a guy like him have to King anyway? It’s like an itch I can’t scratch.”
Beast nodded, tracing the photographs of the symbol that was still hidden in the basement, underneath the new floor. “It’s the same sigil. I’m sure of it. He said someone was mistreating him, and he’s obviously afraid of being found by that person. Maybe he used to be imprisoned by... a group who uses this as their mark.”
“Must be a better kept secret than the Illuminati,” Knight said, pulling out a box of chewing gum to have one. “But if pretty boy’s been kept somewhere remote, and King has his fingers in it, he’d want to hide it at all cost. He knows no one in the club would stand for human trafficking.”
Beast scowled. “That’s disgusting. You think King would be dealing with this kind of shit behind our backs?” His father was no angel, but even Beast found it hard to believe that he would engage in that kind of business after establishing a motorcycle club that stood for freedom in all matters, including sex.
Knight wrapped his hands on his nape. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t accuse him of it, but I’m just throwing it out there. King was furious when he first noticed that symbol on Laurent, and then he’s all nice all of a sudden and wants you to take him shopping? But you know what really freaked me out? How that brand on Laurent’s nape was still hot, but he wasn’t in pain at all.”