AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ONE
orion
Seventy-two fucking hours without sleep and a whole lot of dead assholes means I’ve missed the goddamned NYC marathon. There’s a bottle of rum in my apartment with my name on it, and I intend to put a deep and mortal dent on the contents.
It’s not a perfect replacement to the run, but it’ll do.
I climb the stairs to my apartment in Bushwick and slide the key into the lock, not pausing when I realize the door is open.
“Please tell me,” I say, not bothering to turn on the light as I drop my bag in the small foyer. “That I don’t have to kill you. I’m not in the fucking mood and I’m running on empty.”
A lamp in the living room clicks on, flooding the place with light. “I’d rather you didn’t kill me, too. Just so we’re on the same page.”
I shoot Smith—one name—a dark glare and grab the rum bottle sitting on the bookshelf. It’s Cuban with caramel overtones, and just the right rough around the edges to settle my tortured mind. I screw off the cap, take a long gulp, and throw myself on the sofa without offering Smith a drop.
Although judging by the glass in his hand, I see he’s already helped himself to the bottle of Tanqueray gin since I don’t have vodka.
“Your sister’s made Mercer slightly softer.”
I let out a snide laugh. “Ivy’s like that. Always has been. But I’m betting he’s still a deadly and cold motherfucker to everyone else.”
Running a hand over my thick beard, I take another swallow.
It needs a trim.
“Are you stopping by to gossip about the other Knights, Smith? Or are you beating the fuck around a big-ass bush?”
He doesn’t answer, just looks around with a sneer on his face. “You could live somewhere fucking nicer, Orion.”
I glance at the room. Sure, it’s basic, but what the fuck do I need with a goddamn mansion? Jaxson Gardner, the spoiled rich guy I used to be, is long dead.
This place serves me just fine. A Bushwick address in a three-apartment building on the edge of the industrial section, near the JMZ subway trains. I own the building. And it’s the perfect place to store the load of illegal hardware I use for my work.
Honestly, it’s borderline ostentatious. For me.
“If you came to talk to me about my décor choices as well as gossip, you can fuck right off.” I take another swallow of the rum. “But let’s face it. You didn’t waste a trip down here for that. So it must be a huge fucking bush.”
“Have you heard of the Collectors?” Smith gets up and goes to the window, watching a train speed past on the elevated track. “Nasty bunch. They make regular billionaires look middle class and think they’re above the law. They collect and consume the rare, the illegal. Art. Animals. People.”
“Are you offering me a job to destroy them? Extract someone? Take someone down? All three?”
He hands me an iPad that displays an open file. I flick my gaze over the contents and yeah, these people are fucking cretins with an operation that looks to run all over the fucking planet. They’ve taken animals, art, kids. And the shit they do with all of it…
Nefarious shit doesn’t usually impact me, but this?
It makes me shudder, it’s so goddamn disturbing.
I skim the rest about their sex trafficking operation.
Sex slave is too nice a term. Personal movies, party toys, and favors. Enforced body modifications like piercings and tattoos. Auctions of the same person for a Collector to use as they see fit.
The ones they take aren’t average. They take beauties, the rich, the talented. What they did to a virtuoso piano player?—
I put down the iPad.
Tonight, I’m not in the mood for real-life horror. It’s too close to what I just dealt with.
The Collectors…
