Gabriel and Breah

Chapter 11: Gabriel

The day I'd met Breah, I'd been living neck deep in shit for five months. She was like a fresh breeze in my face on a hot, sticky summer day. Her goodness felt like relief, as though it could wash the stain of the ugliness I was living in away, at least until I had to go back to it. The only other good thing in my life was Garrett, and every night I'd cuddle him close, inhaling his sweetness, until he fell asleep in my arms. Some nights I slept in his room on the twin bed I'd set up in there; other nights I'd allow one of my men to sleep in there so I could get away from that house and Heather. 

What I knew about her made my skin crawl and escaping her presence and the need to pretend I didn't know she was evil was sometimes the only way I could maintain my sanity. When Butcher had told me we needed to discuss shit in his office, he hadn't been kidding. What he had told me was pure, unadulterated shit, all the way around.

"What I'm about to tell you," Butcher had looked at me seriously, "can't be told to anyone. Not even your VP. He can know just a small piece of this, but not the whole thing, and he's the only one who gets even a small piece of it. Not one single person outside of him can know anything. You get me? If you can't give me your word on your absolute secrecy, this conversation ends here. A shit load of lives depend on your discretion."

 "I give you my word," I'd told him. Breah wasn't even a blip on my radar when I'd made the promise. I wouldn't meet her for five more months.

"You ever hear of James Moreau?" Butcher asked.

"He any relation to Blake Moreau?"

"His brother. And the minute you killed Blake, that put a target right on your back and James was pointing the gun."

"Blake needed to die."

"No argument there. Seems you just got there before my club did. How is that?"

I kept my face impassive. The Lords of Misrule went after the worst sort of offenders. We had our daily businesses to keep us in money, and we used those funds to finance the hunting and disposal of the truly sick bastards who managed to avoid prison. Blake Moreau trafficked young girls. He'd been picked up four times, and each time, there either hadn't been enough evidence to convict him or the evidence had disappeared. After Blake walked away the fourth time to continue running his operation, the police chief, an old Marine buddy of mine, had asked me to step in and take care of the problem. Within three months, I'd put a bullet between Blake's eyes right after we'd dismantled his pipeline. One of my hackers was still trying to trace thirty of the girls -- the rest we'd found and rescued or the police had had to inform their families their daughters hadn't survived. Each time that was the outcome, I'd wanted to reanimate Blake just so I could kill him again.

Butcher smirked at me, knowing I wasn't going to give up my club's business. "James investigated his brother's death, got hold of three of my men, and one of them broke under torture and gave up your name to him. All three were delivered to me at the clubhouse in pieces."

"How did your club know I was responsible?" I asked him. He looked at me steadily, no more willing to give up his club's secrets than I was.

"That's why this can't go any further than you. My boys are now on a need-to-know basis. James couldn't have gotten your name if my men hadn't known it. They would have died, no doubt, but they would have died without being able to give James your name and it wouldn't now be in the hands of the wrong man."

"That was four years ago," I scoffed. "If he was going to make a move, he would have by now."

"He has made his move. He started putting his plans in motion as soon as he investigated you. James is in this for the long haul because it will hurt you that much more before he eventually kills you."