The Token (#10): Shepard (6 page)

Thorn

Thorn stands, his hands automatically pegging his hips, and scowls at the crime scene.

He's only a consultant instead of a cop now, but the precinct lets Thorn know when there's been any crime involving French anything. Couple of dead French nationals on the ground gets a phone call to Thorn right away.

Letting him know when French shit goes down gives Juliette the peace of mind she deserves. He feels like putty in her hands. Right now she's more than his wife; Juliette's his baby mama.

And what a big one she is. Not that he'd be dumb enough to say. A smile curves his mouth at the memory of her swollen belly. The uniforms keep the crowd back from the slickly executed murder before him. His eyes trail over the shrouded corpses.

No witnesses.

He rolls his gaze toward the disgruntled crowd, but there’s enough blood on the ground to draw the curious. Yup. The fucking rubberneckers are here in typical numbers.

Fat flies drone above the bodies in the unseasonably warm heat of the early autumn weather. The Pacific Northwest is known for cool summers that heat up in the fall. Weird but true. 

“Yo, Thorn!”

He pivots, sees Detective Lance Tagger, and lifts his chin. “Tag.”

His former partner jogs to his side. “How's it hanging?”

Thorn grins, thinking of a thousand comebacks, but settles on, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Tag mimics, rolling his eyes. His expression bleeds to serious. “What do you make of this twofer?”

Thorn's attention swings back to the corpses. “French hit.”

Tag’s light-colored eyebrows rise. “Clearly. That's why we called you, Frenchie boy.”

Thorn doesn't flip Tag off, but the effort not to is ugly.

Tag smirks. “Know that irritates your ass.”

My lips twitch. “Yeah. Asshole.”

Tag rubs his hands together and barks out a laugh.

“So what do ya got?”

Thorn frowns. “One shot, silencer. And”—Thorn feels his face go tight—“one dude was beaten to death.”

“Hurts to do that,” Tag comments.

“Yup.” Most people think about the victim of a beating. But the beater's hands look like raw meat after a solid fight.

“Why would the perp do one guy nice and neat with a bow on top then do the sloppy-mojoppy on the big guy?”

“Sloppy-mojoppy?” Thorn snorts.

“Yeah.” Tag waves his hand toward the larger male on the ground. Six feet two—big guy—two fifty. Had a layer of fat, now decomposing—but it was over a good amount of muscle. The motive beats Thorn. “Puzzling as fuck.”

Tag chuckles, crossing his arms.

“Passion. He wasted GQ there.” Thorn hikes his chin in the direction of the elegantly appointed corpse, the French national. “Then he beats the big guy's head into the cement. Maybe the first was speed—needed to get it done. And the second pissed him off.”

Thorn shakes his head. “The two murders don't make sense. It's almost like they were committed by separate people.”

“Detective.”

Thorn and Tag turn toward the sound.

Tom Dietrich, the precinct's head of forensics, strides to their position. “Another DNA in the mix.” He holds up a golden strand of blond hair, tightly coiled, a spatter of blood bisecting its middle.

Thorn frowns, but his wheels are turning, hoping for an easy clue. Like that would ever fucking materialize. “Who?”

“Female, I'd guess.”

By a hair?

The corner of his mouth tweaks, guessing Thorn's unspoken question out of thin air. “I can tell.”

“Magic,” Tag says in a droll voice.

Tom shrugs. “I'll have more details back at the lab. Big rush on this one. After that big French kingpin got taken down last year, all French crime is on the fast track.”

Good.

Roi is gone. Thorn's French sperm donor-father has been wiped like a stain from this earth. But the French mob is alive and well.

But they're not going to be sniffing around Thorn's backyard. Thorn's got something that matters now—

Juliette. And his bun in her oven.

Something Thorn values. Thorn's got a slice of the American dream now, and he's not letting it go.

No one is ever going to threaten his family again.

Not this jagup who whacked the fancy pants that the flies are laying their maggots in.

Not the poor mofo that got his head pounded into the sidewalk.

And no other woman on Thorn's turf will be a cherry for one of those fuckers.

Never.

*

Juliette meets him at the door. Her bright green eyes are pinched with worry.

“Well?”

The weight of Thorn's piece is a pleasant metal dig underneath his arm, and he shifts his weight, settling it more comfortably as he looks at his wife of almost a year.

Thorn doesn't answer immediately but scans the front yard. The dimness of the corners gets a few seconds of additional perusal.

His large hand reaches out, covering Juliette's swollen belly.

“It's them.” His voice is quiet between them, full of meaning.

“Fuck,” she breathes. Tears fill her eyes, making them sparkle like jewels against the whites that gather red from her emotions.

His fingertips skate over the top of her stomach, and Juliette captures his hand. “Don't worry. They're not after you—or me. There's something else going on.”

“What?” Juliette’s face jerks up, and she closes the distance between them as their hands lace. “Is it Shepard?”

The question Thorn hadn't allowed himself to ask. “No.”

She tilts her head back. “You sure?”

Thorn promised himself never to lie to her. Ever. “No,” he admits in a low voice.

“
Mon Dieu
.”

Yes.
My God
is about right.

Thorn tugs his Juliette inside their small house. He paid top dollar for the place. It's the most modest house in the nicest neighborhood, a 1920s vintage.

Plastered archways bisect all the living spaces.

But Thorn doesn't let his gaze linger on architecture. He sets the security system the instant he steps inside and turns Juliette to him. “Baby”—he cups her small jaw in his much larger hand—“I need to ask you some stuff about Shepard.”

“You promised we'd never talk about him,” she says.

Thorn bows his head. “I don't want to know about your
marriage
.” He can't help biting out the last word.

Juliette flinches.

“I'm sorry. I just want to kill that fucker.” Thorn's hands fist.

“Shepard is not the sum of what he's done.”

Thorn's head whips to her, and Juliette's hands fall away from where they rested on his shoulders. “What the fuck does
that
mean?”

Juliette's lips flatten. “What it means, you big, jealous jerk, is Shepard was fucked up even worse than what he trained me to be. You ought to know something about that.”

“We're not talking about Thorn's past, Juliette.” Thorn blows out a harsh breath. “What?”

“He was raised in an orphanage. There were many men of ill repute who molded the boys to be future protégés of Roi.”

I bet.

“Shepard's parents were both killed in an auto accident when he was quite small, eight... or perhaps nine years old.”

Thorn's heart rate ticks faster. He fucking knows where this particular story is leading.

“He could not sleep. He could not find peace.”

“They rape him?” Thorn asks in a harsh growl.

Juliette nods. “That is the least of what Shepard has endured.”

Thorn steps back from his wife and folds his arms. “You feel sorry for him?”

Her inky brows lower. “
Non
.” She peers up at him through the black lace of her eyelashes, her emerald eyes shiny. “But I understand him.”

“He
hurt
you, Juliette.”

“No more than he hurt himself. I forgive him. Shepard set me free. He gave me liberty to marry the man I love and have his child.”

She reaches for Thorn's hand and places it back on the belly filled with their child.

“Would you know a Shepard kill if you saw it?” he asks harshly, before she melts his resolve.

“
Oui,
” she replies instantly, her gorgeous eyes brimming over.

Fuck
. Thorn hates feeling like an asshole. Only when he
is
an asshole. He pulls her against his chest and holds Juliette tight. “I need you to see something, baby.”

She cries her consent, dampening his shirt with her sadness.

Thorn hates that he's reopening old wounds.

For both of them.

*

“Bending the motherfucking rules, Thorn,” Tag says for the millionth time.

“I know, bro.”

“It won't be your ass they paddle, ya dick.”

Thorn smirks, clapping Tag on the back, and he staggers forward.

Juliette smiles. “He thinks of you highly.”

Tag scowls, slicing him with narrowed eyes. “Uh-huh. A real love relationship.”

Tag flashes his badge at the morgue attendant and signs them in.

Stainless-steel, medicinally white floors and walls greet them with vacant indifference. The astringent smells of keeping the dead in stasis assault their nostrils as they walk through the morgue.

They reach the mortuary chambers. Cold squares of unrelenting steel glare back like flat eyes of accusation.

Thorn's seen a ton of dead people. Never gets stale. He smiles at his inside joke.

The expression fades as he and Juliette draw nearer to the chambers of the French dead.

The morgue attendant blows a gigantic neon-green gum bubble, sucking it back into his mouth with a snap. “Here they are. Have fun, kids.”

Tag hooks his fingers in his belt and rolls his shoulders. When the attendant is out of sight, Tag opens the first chamber.

Big Guy looks worse for wear. His contusions before his death stand out like burst crimson orchids underneath his artificially pale skin.

Thorn hears Juliette’s throat click as she swallows. “Shepard is very deliberate in his abuse. Especially of males.”

Thorn doesn't ask why his abuse of males would be different than for females.

He gets it. Profoundly. Now it's his turn to swallow back his disgust. His memories.

“Rolling knuckle punches were his favorite.”

“Sounds pretty effective,” Tag says quietly, eyeballing the mess of the guy's skin.

Thorn moves his eyes over the pattern of bruising on the big French dude. Like petals of a flower dipped in blood.

“Very,” Juliette whispers. “It will not break bones but inflicts the highest degree of injury.” She shivers.

Thorn's face whips to hers. “Did he hurt you like this?”

Juliette doesn't return his stare, swiping at her eye. “Once.”

“Why?” Thorn growls.

Tag's uneasy gaze ping-pongs between them.

Finally, that impenetrable gaze meets his. “So that Roi would not.”

Thorn holds Juliette as she cries, and his eyes meet Tag's above her head.

Fucking Shepard is flexing his mob muscle.

I don't give any fucks that he “gave” Juliette her freedom with the divorce.
That supposedly he hoped that made up for her being his prize mule.

How about the innocence he fucked away from her? Or the hundred pounds of coke in her vagina that she accumulatively ran for him—or the fucking criminals she screwed into doing what Roi wanted?

Nah. Thorn could kill him and not lose sleep.

Not a minute.

“We're on it,” Tag says. 

What he means is Shepard just went to high priority.

Because he's taken another lamb. Thorn doesn't have to hear from Dietrich to know that the strand of blond hair didn't belong to these two in the coolers.

A dude like Shepard feels lonely without his flock. Figured it was just a matter of time before he went back to doing what he knew best.

Leading victims to slaughter.

Shepard

I am a fool.
I know this.

That introspective moment of clarity does not alter my course of action. Taking Marissa is symptomatic of what I'm forced to do.
La famille will
find me. They will still want their cherry. I am merely delaying the inevitable.

“Where are we going?”

I spare a glance at the exotic creature I've stolen. Her blond hair hides her well. I know without touching it, the strands would feel like kinked silk.

Marissa Augustine glares back at me.

I focus on the road once more. “I have made you angry.”

I turn back in time to see her scowl. “I'm just angry on principle.” She blows a loose strand of hair out of her face in a frustrated exhale. “Yesterday I was dragging ass because I was tired from my shift as a waitress. Then a classmate from college”—she whips the tendril of hair out of her eyes, narrowing that dark gray gaze at me—“turns out to be some mob dude. Sent to
take
me for the organization.”

I blink slowly—cannot argue her points. “True.”

“How did
you
happen to be there?” she asks.

My fingers grip the wheel tighter. “
La famille
has made a bid to romance me back into their fold.” My laugh is abrupt, tight.

Marissa snorts, facing forward in a huff and crossing her arms. “You were meeting them.”

I hold my breath. Let it out slowly. “
Oui
.”

“Why do they want me?”

The wheel squeaks under the strain of my grip, my eyes grainy from lack of rest. I-90 must be the most uneventful highway ever conceived.  Traveling through Idaho, Montana, a small corner of Wyoming, and finally our destination—South Dakota—will be a three-day drive.

But well worth it.
If
we can avoid immediate capture.

“What is your ethnicity?” I shoot back.

She laughs in disbelief. “What does my nationality have to do with anything?” Her eyebrow arches. “I'm American.”

“
Oui
, but where do your people hail from?”

“My grandma was African-American,” she replies slowly. “I don't know much more than that.”

I smirk. “Ah. So what is the charming American colloquialism about woodpiles?”

“That's not even funny.” She seethes.

I laugh. If Marissa only knew how little prejudice I do possess—that any I might have harbored has been expunged from my person most thoroughly—she would not be offended.

“
La famille
does not choose females who are any one ethnicity. They prefer a blended woman. One who has many different attributes. Beauty is key. But there are many unique male appetites which have to be considered.”

Marissa's hand smooths over her dark golden-blond hair. It springs up underneath her fingertips. Her face turns to look at me from under her eyelashes, but it's a hard stare—contemplative. “So because I look mixed, that's a plus.”

I ignore the disdain in her tone. “Apparently, as is your mastery of foreign language.”

“Not many people would see the color in me.”

Taking my eyes off the road, I scrutinize her. The hair is the dead giveaway, though the color is wrong.

Her body is beautifully fashioned, built for athletics, and though she has the look of delicacy of bone, harder genetics are at play. Ones that speak to a darker beauty. Her full lips pout above a defined jaw. A dark ring surrounds her smoke-colored irises. Skin like mocha kissed by bone dust showcases her lighter hair color to a
T
.

My perusal is only seconds but takes in much. I return my gaze to the interstate. “It is a subtle exoticism. But it is present.” I clear my throat, and my voice is rough, even to my own ears. “Our former king was partial to all women of color, though in his case, the darker the better.”

“Prejudiced bastard,” she says in a low voice.

I do not deny the sentiment. “Yes.” But Roi was so much more. “Amongst other things.”

“Where are we going?” she asks again.

“South Dakota.”

She flops her head back against the seat rest. “What? The Midwest. Gah.”

I chuckle. “Why is the center of America a bad thing?”

“No mountains, no water. How do people—how can they stand being landlocked?”

“There are mountains and water. You would do well to think in the same terms my mother used with me. Bloom where you are planted.”

She gives me a withering look. “Uh-huh.”

“You do not have family?” My eyebrow quirks.

“Nope.” Marissa looks away. “My parents died when I was thirteen.”

I say nothing at first. The parallels are a terrible reality between us. I do not examine them too closely.

After a minute of silence, I finally confess the similarity in a quiet voice. “My parents were taken when I was eight years old.”

Her face whips to mine. Shadows are deep voids cast by the highway lamps that strobe their false illumination inside the car.

One gray eye that is darkened to black from the dim interior blinks at me. “Taken?”

“Killed. I was placed in an orphanage.”

I watch her nervous swallow and glance back at the road.

“I'm sorry,” Marissa says. A handful of seconds slide by, and she asks the question no one ever has, in a voice like a thread. “Did the men come for you?”

The car swerves when buried panic awakens inside, taking me by complete surprise as the foreign emotion threatens to overwhelm me. “What did you just ask me?”

“You know what I asked.”

I do.
I don't want to answer. Instead, I ask her the same thing. “Did they come for you, Marissa Augustine?” I ask in a voice that barely manages to be heard over the purring roar of the Audi's engine. 

We stare at each other for a heartbeat's pause. I face the road.

“Yes.” Her voice is tight—hurt.

I jerk my face back, seeking her gaze. “Then you are no virgin.” I know this. Men who use children take the most tender morsel first.

Perfect recognition pierces us at the same moment. This young woman might be many things, but she is the same animal as I. From the same zoo of horrors.

Better hidden, but surfaced by
la famille
, all the same.

“Oh, I am, Shepard.” She enunciates my name sarcastically. “Technically.”

I shut my eyes, realize I'll crash the car, and they fly open, concentrating on the winding black ribbon of asphalt seeming to stretch endlessly in front of us.

In my peripheral vision, I watch Marissa resolutely straighten, facing forward once again. “Pedophiles are so much more careful now.” Her words fill the car like repressed agony.

I know the melody of her pain. Intimately.

Concentrating only on the road, I speed forward. The silence has weight, pulling us together like warm taffy, tearing our sameness away like unveiled gouges of flesh.

“Orphanage?” Marissa asks for clarification, flicking her finger at the wetness on her face.

“Yes,” I admit for the first time. “That is the least of why I do not return to their service. The orphanage where I came to find myself was no ordinary orphanage but one with the specific design to fashion Handlers for Roi.”

Marissa hides her shudder badly. After a few seconds, she asks softly, “Who is Roi?”

“Roi is dead.”

More silence. There is no radio, no cell phones. Nothing to distract the two of us but the misery standing between our words.

“Who is he?” she asks again.

“The abuser of many.”

“Okay, I can't stand the riddles anymore. Just speak. Talk to me like a normal guy.”

Normal.
“I am not a normal man.”

“Fuck this.” Marissa engages the door handle, and I reach out with my right hand. My training is so much a part of me that I don't even think about it kicking in, as the Americans say.

My fingers wrap her wrist, and my thumb slides to the central nerve that feeds her hand. I apply pressure.

Marissa screams.

I clench my teeth against the once-familiar sound.

I applied the lightest touch. And I am a master of touch, both violent and tender. Though the latter took me by surprise the first time I thought to employ it with my onetime wife, Juliette Marcel.

I slow the vehicle and toss the gear into park with my left hand at the floor shifter.

Marissa twists, chopping the wrist that holds her own. Pain spikes, radiating to my shoulder as she got the nerve exactly right, weakening my hold.

I seize her hair as she flings the passenger door open.

Marissa yelps, throwing her arms back, attempting to plug her thumbs into my eyes. I fling my head backward, and she comes with me, falling into my lap.

“Let me go, you pig!”

I sink my fingers deeper into her mane of hair. It's as soft as I knew it would be. I yank her head back. Our mouths line up like planets seeking the same orbit, and I wrap her throat with my free hand.

“Fucker!”

“Yes,” I hiss in low threat and agreement.

Her gray eyes meet mine. “I promise not to try to get away again.”

I bend my head over hers, my lips hovering over her own.

Marissa's pupils dilate, and her breaths come faster. Arousal. Fear.

Chemistry.

I'm trained to see it—know it.

“Then go,” I say in the barest whisper. Only the sound of the open door alarm chimes between us.

I release her, and she falls forward, catching herself on the dashboard.

Leaning back, I drape my throbbing wrist over the back of the seat. “However, my exotic flower, if they find you—and make no mistake, they will—they will torture my location from you.”

Marissa stumbles out of the car, gripping the window.

I watch her go. A game I excel at. Emotional manipulation.

We stare at each other. I note I happened to park sideways underneath a highway light. The harsh illumination backlights her, and I am reminded of an angel.

“I only know you're going to South Dakota.” Her tone is sullen.

I smile and know from experience it's not an amicable expression. “And that matters how?”

Her lower lip quivers, and she rolls the plump flesh into her teeth. “You fucker.”

“You have already mentioned that.”

Her hands drop from the door. “I'm going to take my chances.”

I incline my head, wishing I had not confessed my background. Even now, right in this moment, I don't know what I was thinking. Shepard does not confess, he exists.

Why does this woman make me want to live?

Just then a car rolls up, interrupting our standoff. I glance at the interior clock. Two o'clock in the morning. Good Samaritans normally do not spring up in the middle of the night.

I feign a casualness I don't feel, palming the switchblade into the back waistband where I always carry it. I exit the Audi just as four muscled men get out, three over six feet tall and one under five feet nine.

Short men are often faster. Instinctively, I place him as the highest threat.

I put one hand on top of the car and casually lean as though I have all the time in the world to chat on the side of the interstate in the middle of the night.

Marissa's eyes give an uncertain flick to mine. Everyone's positions are duly cataloged by my keen sense of self-preservation.

My size has always been a hindrance. A man of my stature must work twice as hard as one of average size to possess the same speed. It’s a cruel fact of nature but little known.

“What's going on here?” the tallest of the four directs at Marissa.

My eyes rove the group. My ear hears the accents. They are local. Yet dangerous.

Merde.
“Nothing. We were taking a break on our long journey. Stretching our legs.” I smile.

My lips stretch tautly across my face. If anyone present has anything that resembles intellect, they will see my expression for the warning it is.

“Looks like the lady isn't much enjoying the company.”

Or possibly not heed the warning.

My eyes are sandpaper inside their sockets. I am exhausted from what I have needed to accomplish in such a short time. However, now I must engage. I have been
more
tired. I have been beaten.

I will not break.

Marissa looks at me, perhaps for guidance. But fate will rule the moment, as it does all moments.

“Do you need different company?” The question is directed at Marissa, but a calculated smirk is sent my way.

Bores.

Mentally, I ready myself for what will come. “Run along now. Our break is coming to an end, and sadly, we are not feeling social.”