Page 74 of Duke
“Okay. I’ll take Lily’s then.” I don’t know which will be harder to read, honestly. They’re both going to be interesting in different ways, I’m sure.
“Let’s hope Hunter’s is just damning,” Duke murmurs.
Lennon glances at us, then picks up the envelope and walks away without a word.
Fuck.
“Think she’ll look at them? Maybe she shouldn’t.” Mason follows her retreating figure with his eyes.
“It’s her call. But I can tell you, they’re bad. The stickiness she felt was mostly liquor. Maybe spit? There are several images where I could see the bottles around her, men’s hands. A couple of really disturbing close ups of tongues and fingers. I literally shudder to think of everything they did to her.”
“Fuck,” Duke bites out as a noise from the front of the house gets our attention. He juts his chin in that direction. “We’d better go. Sounds like she’s looking for that door.”
Mason and I take the journals with us, leaving nothing to chance.
“This is definitely where they had me.” Lennon’s voice sounds small from inside the room.
Damn, she figured it out fast. One of the bookcases is hanging open, acting as a doorway to another room.
My stomach roils as I step through into the other room. It’s an almost perfect replica of the room at the club, dark and dank with white pillar candles everywhere… and masks that line the walls. Dead center is what looks like some awful ceremonial table. There are metal rings attached that make me suspect they’ve tied women to it.
But can they get in and out of our home without our knowledge? That’s my biggest question. When I take a moment to look around, sure enough, there’s a trapdoor in the floor that opens when I pull up on the metal handle attached.
Not wanting Lennon to follow, I have the guys stay with her to check things out myself. I follow the tunnel for almost half a mile, all the way to another trapdoor. I climb a short ladder and push it open. I find myself in the middle of the fucking woods behind Bainbridge Hall. Motherfuckers. This house isn’t that old.Theyhad it built like this. They’ve had access this entire time.
THIRTY-EIGHT
MASON
Everyone has beenon edge for the last two days. We’ve tried to maintain a relaxed presence, both at home and on campus. We don’t want a damn thing messing up the plan to take these fuckers down once and for all.
I’ve been upstairs in the attic since I got home from classes earlier, needing some time alone to work out my frustrations on canvas and paper. Get my fingers a little charcoal dirty. I can’t help myself. I draw and draw, thinking about some of the shit I’d seen in Hunter’s journal. He’s an idiot to have left that somewhere we could get our hands on it. I chuckle to myself. Not that the prick knew we’d be drugging him, beating the hell out of him, and tying his ass up. That journal is going to come in handy when we turn it into the police, as is our mother’s.
Her journal is much as we expected, the entries spanning the time I was born all the way through her death, so over eight years in total. Sometimes she went months without so much as writing a word. Other days, there were pages and pages. It details her affair with Isaac, including when she discovered she was pregnant and the fact that she was terrified of what Murdock would do if he ever found out I wasn’t his. I can’t claim to understand the pregnancy math Bear told me she’d written about, but it sounds like I really am Isaac Hauser’s son.
The worst part? She was scared. My eyes crash shut. At the back of the journal, it becomes very clear—Lily had discovered what was happening at the club. She confronted him the day before she died. My head spins and my blood burns, setting me off-kilter and blackening my insides. I open my eyes and draw her again. There are dozens of images of my mother with that long, long hair and the same sad, worried face. And in every drawing, her hand is practically coming off the page, reaching out to me. For my help.
My vision goes hazy, and I drop the charcoal, crouching down onto my haunches, covering my face with my hands. He doesn’t deserve to be out of prison. And I’m going to make fucking sure I send him back so he can rot there. I heave out a breath. Hunter’s journals might hold the key—he was much wordier than our mother, and it’s obvious there are probably more journals. In the one I read, the majority of the entries had to do with which young things he and Derek had on tap for each poker night. Derek obviously had been teaching Hunter his ways in Murdock’s absence. Apparently once the OGs were done with these poor girls, sometimes Hunter would get a turn at their sloppy seconds, so long as the girls were still knocked out.
Anger bubbles up inside me, and I rise, snatching the broken charcoal off the floor, then stroke hard on the paper, heavy and bold. There’s something festering in my head—Duke and Bear haven’t said anything yet, so I don’t know if they’re thinking the same thing or not, but I need proof because I want all these motherfuckers rotting forever.
Somehow, I doubt when my mother encouraged Hunter to journal she meant for him to leave an accounting of the underaged girls he was looking forward to watching get fucked every Friday night, but that’s exactly what he’s done. But hey, not everyone gets brains in the gene lottery.
I need to find the rest of Hunter’s journals.
* * *
This house.I fucking hate coming back here. After graduation, I’d escaped to Bainbridge Hall, which seemed like paradise in comparison. This beautiful house—where I grew up and my mother died—was never a home to me.
There are lights on inside, which doesn’t mean much. I would assume Murdock is already at the club… and I highly doubt they want Hunter’s mangled face showing up, so I assume it’s him that’s here.
I don’t fucking care either way. I’d have killed him the other day if we’d been alone. I truly believe I would have. It was the idea that Lennon would be stuck with that image in her head the rest of her life that’d stopped me. And that was before we knew half the hell she’s been through.
I blow out a breath. I’d like something in our hands that is at least close to a confession. Just in case things don’t go as planned tonight. The trick is finding the rest of his damn journals with all his evildoings written neatly inside.
I walk around the back of the house to the patio door that never locked right a single time while I lived here. I glance at the spot where my mother had taken her last breath and force myself not to freak out. Because this is for her. And for all the girls and women who have been harmed by the Bastards. And for myself, too. Because I didn’t get the life I should have had.
I check the knob, twisting it carefully. The door opens without a creak. No one set the alarm. I creep silently into the house, passing the huge den where the TV blares loudly and deep snores come from the direction of the couch.
