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Pressing my lips to Maddie’s forehead, I promise her, “Will you be okay with RJ, Thane, and Celeste? I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
After a long moment, she sniffles and lifts her head, giving me a nod.
When I start to walk away, she jerks on the open sides of my cut. “Be careful.”
“I will,” I assure her, showing her my own gun is always nearby inside my cut too.
It kills me to walk away and leave her even if I’ll only be a mile down the road, but since she found...whatever is at Greer’s bar, I owe it to the man to at least have his back when we go investigate.
The grumpy bartender doesn’t say anything as we both slap our helmets on but don’t bother fastening the chin straps for the short distance we’re going.
When we both kill the engines at the bar, hanging our helmets on the handlebars, he asks, “Do you think Maddie may have overreacted?”
“No. She doesn’t ever get emotional like this,” I assure him before considering it for a moment. “In fact, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry in the fifteen months that we’ve been married.”
“Damn. Okay then.”
Taking whatever threat there may be inside more seriously, Greer brandishes his own gun, flips off the safety, and pulls back the slide to put a bullet in the chamber while I do the same.
“Let’s go in through the back,” he suggests. I nod and follow him around the brick building where he takes out his keys from his jean pocket to turn the lock. He puts the keychain away so both hands are free again before he jerks the door open and slips inside. I’m right behind him, my eyes darting around the space to look for any threats.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters when his feet come to an abrupt stop. I can’t see what he’s referring to until I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
And there are no fucking words to describe the sight.
None.
Now I get why Maddie could only say the words “dead” and “eyes.”
The body of a large male is bent over her stack of new jars still in cases, the side of his head resting on them, his face toward the room, to us.
And there are nothing but bloody sockets where his eyes should be.
His mouth is the second thing I notice, still gaping wide open in a frozen scream of agony, as if he wasn’t dead when his eyeballs were removed.
“Who the fuck is this?” Greer asks.
“No clue. At least he doesn’t look like any of the Kings,” I remark. And he’s not wearing a leather cut. Instead, he has on a black cotton tee with a huge logo across the back that looksout of place, as if the shirt was put on him backwards. Taking a few steps closer, I hold my breath against the stench to read the design.
It’s the famous Las Vegas sign that nearly every person in the United States would recognize.
“This is some fucked up shit right here,” Greer mutters as he turns around and heads for the back door. “We’re gonna have to call the sheriff. I’ll wait for Remy to give the green light but...I don’t think any of the Kings are responsible. Whoever did this needs to be found and fast because they are one sick fuck.”
I follow him out the door, eager to get away from the scent of blood and rot.
Just as Greer puts his phone to his ear, I say, “Wait! Maddie can’t be a part of this. You’ll have to tell the police that you found him.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because she’s...on the run or some shit. I don’t know the details. She doesn’t ever talk about it, but Celeste was in the same position, right?”
“Fine,” Greer grits out, jaw ticking in annoyance. “I’ll leave her out of it, so she won’t have to give a statement.”
“Thank you,” I whisper in relief.
“Hey, man,” Greer says into the phone when Remy answers. “It’s bad. Worse than I imagined. You should get down here. I could take photos to send to you, but I don’t want this nasty shit on my phone.” He pauses as he listens to our president, then, “Yes, it’s that fucking bad. There’s a goddamn corpse in my kitchen, bleeding all over the damn place, no eyeballs in his head, just holes where they’re supposed to be! No, neither Jordan nor I could identify him. I think this is one for the cops to handle after you put out the notice and none of the Kings take responsibility. I just don’t see how it could be any of our guys, though. Why would they dump the body here inside my bar, mylocked bar, without telling me? It was locked, wasn’t it?” Greer directs that question to me.
“Maddie didn’t say, but I know she used her keys. I waited until she was inside before I rode off.”
