“If I was looking to stage a paranormal mystery I would.”
“What we’re here for is inside.”
“Okay, you go get it and I’ll wait in the car.”
“Rhiannon.”
I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not going. That house looks like it will cave in at any second.”
I eyed the two-level home wondering what he could possibly be keeping inside.
Or who…
That would explain the notorious creep van. And there was one person I would love to see suffering in every way imaginable. He hadn’t told me a single detail about Evie’s whereabouts since we left her hog-tied and ass naked on Santiago’s lawn.
“Am I going to have to--?”
“Nope, let’s go,” I chirped, suddenly agreeable. I scrambled out of the car and used my hip to shut the door, gathering my gown so it wouldn’t completely drag across the ground.
Judas was already waiting for me at the bottom of a poorly weeded walkway. He regarded me with a look I couldn’t decipher as I walked toward him.
“What is it?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
The vehement way he said that filled me with a deep sense of contentment. I smiled and shifted the tulle of my gown to one hand so I could slip my arm through his.
“You think people wonder where we went?” I asked as we made our way up the uneven path. He was careful to make sure I remained balanced in my heels.
“They know I was taking my beautiful new wife away so that I could have her all to myself. No one expected us to stay all night.”
“But we didn’t tell anyone bye.”
“Those people are eating good food, have access to an open bar of high-end alcohol, a DJ for the next four hours, and accommodations at a luxury hotel they can fuck in. They aren’t sad we left.”
Well, I couldn’t argue those points.
We reached the three stairs that led up to a rickety porch covered in old paint chips and warped wood. The faint sound of male laughter carried from somewhere inside the house. I shot Judas a sideways glance as he carefully guided me up the steps.
A screen door was hanging on for dear life by a single hinge, the white of it so dirty and worn it was now black. I let Judas be the one to twist the equally as depleted doorknob, more worried it would fall all way off than about getting my hands dirty.
“Jesus,” I screwed up my nose as a thick cloud of dust wafted through the air from the door being opened.
I was a little surprised to see a cheap round desk with multiple security monitors running, broadcasting different areas outside and inside the house. One man was watching them and another lingered in a doorway surrounded by drywall so cracked it resembled a spiderweb.
An assault rifle was leaning against the wall beside him. Aside from a tall lamp responsible for the glow I saw from outside, there wasn’t anything else in the room. The house was barren.
As Judas gently guided me toward the doorway, the man standing there quickly moved out of the way, barely making eye contact. The man watching the security feed didn’t look at me either.
That had Judas written all over it.
We entered a kitchen that looked like it had gone through the civil war and just barely survived. The back window was covered with a thick piece of plywood and the floor creaked with every step we took.
“Do I even want to know why you bought this place when you have a giant warehouse that probably serves the same purpose?”
“This is something of Saints’. I would never knowingly dispatch my men to fucking squalor. I paid them double for this.”
“Aw, you’re such a good crime daddy.”
“Hm. Call me that later when I’ve got your legs on my shoulders.”
“Never in a million years,” I replied with a short laugh.
Judas opened the door that led to the basement. A dank, damp and coppery smell floated up from below with a hint of I dared to say shit. Three bare bulbs sat crooked in fixtures on the wall, lighting the stairwell.
What sounded like a dying animal groaned and the same laughter I’d heard outside came again followed by some rapid-fire words in a language I didn’t understand.
Judas began to go down first. The stairs screamed in distress. I laughed at the thought of going through all of this just to die because of some collapsed wood.
“Watch your step,” he warned, holding onto me tightly as I followed him.
“If we fall, I’ll be sure to land on you.”
“I would have caught you, regardless,” he replied with an annoyed edge.
We reached the bottom of the steps and found ourselves in a square room containing nothing but a metal folding chair, sequestered from another room by a simple bedsheet tacked to either side of a doorway.