Page 3 of Five
The fate we suffered brought us together, and what we do now keeps us close. We were kidnapped when we were kids and tortured by two sadistic scientists, who were trying to turn us into emotionless assassins. Officially,the military project was unsanctioned. Unofficially, the two bastards who funded it are rotting seven feet underground.
We were chosen primarily because of our psychotic traits—traits that disappeared with time in most of us—but also for our high IQs and, in my case, my blood. When our foster mothers, Meg and Linda—one a renown forensic psychiatrist and the other a secret agent—found us, we were already fucked up in one way or another. Our bodies might have healed, but after years of torture, our minds have found different ways to cope. And that’s the general reason behind the family side business. We kill rapists, killers, abusers—the untouchables. Where the law fails or justice turns a blind eye, we thrive.
We aren’t heroes or villains, bad guys or good guys. We are simply essential to restore a natural balance.
Each one of us has a different motive. Raph loves the sight of blood, Rague needs to feed the anger inside of him, Rami thinksit’s our destiny. Me? I kill to keep myself in check. Unaliving evil stops the fastidious itch rushing up and down my body. I find my balance again, my control.
And control is everything.
As a child, I felt helpless, a prey to my father, and then, those callous scientists who made me disappear in one of their cages. Never again.
My mother’s gentle, smiling face appears in front of my eyes. Every day, I see her light blonde hair and slate-gray eyes in my reflection. My daily reminder of my unalterable past.
Enough with the trip down memory lane, Bez grunts with annoyance.
I’m sending a text to the head of security, telling him to discreetly put a man on Bart, when my phone starts ringing. It’s Rami.
“What is it?” I answer.
“C-3PO, after the dirt I dug up on the handsy lawyer and his disturbingly immaculate sibling, I expected a more grateful reply!” Rami is the family hacker. He helps us find out if the donors are deserving of a painful death by our hands or not.
“Serena did most of it,” I taunt him. Serena is Rami’s infallible AI. She helps him with cyber research and whatever else we need to get our hands on the donors. She also cyclically checks our phone lines making them secure, so that we can talk freely about our side business.
“And who created Serena, eh?” His retort is cut off by a moan—the agonized kind—and then the sound of a fist hitting something hard. Repeatedly.
“Having fun?” I ask him. Bez enjoys the sounds of violence coming from the phone, and I do too. I wish I was there bestowing some of that pain with my knives. My skin turns itchy and I pull at the collar of my shirt trying to release some of the uncomfortable sensation.
“Immensely. I’m watching my grizzly of a boyfriend pound a fucker into the ground. My dick couldn’t be hard?—”
“Red!” I hear Hunter, the grizzly in question, calling him. “Bring that sweet ass here.”
“Cooooming!” he tells his boyfriend, then lowers his voice. “I’ll definitely do that later as well.”
“You wanted something?” My tone is flat, but I’m quickly getting more annoyed by him and the pile of cases on my mahogany desk.
I hear footsteps and a rustling sound, then Rami says, “You need to go check out Crimson, an exclusive sex club.”
“Prostitution?” I shift in my chair again, the itch wandering over my skin increases. Any kind of mistreatment of women is something I can't tolerate. It’s surely related to what happened to my mother.
Tonight, I have a donor to take care of, which will soothe the uneasy sensation finally.
“No. Drugs,” Rami replies, as I hear more grunts and Hunter’s gruff voice in the background.
“Phoenix related, I presume.” Phoenix is a criminal mastermind involved in drug trafficking, assassinations, and the abductions and deaths of innocent people. We have no idea who they are but they’ve become a person of interest since they got involvedin making live videos of teens being beaten to death. Ollie’s brother, Sully, almost lost his life because of it. After that, Phoenix rapidly climbed our shitheads list and took the first place. The elusive fucker is still out there playing a cat and mouse game with Rami. My brother is becoming obsessed with him. It’s good he found Hunter, who distracts him from time to time, or he’d be stuck in his research 24/7.
“Yes. Ten women and six men have been hospitalized all over Chicago in the last two weeks, exhibiting confusion, memory loss, and signs of sexual assault.”
My teeth grind, making a cracking sound. “Were they dosed with GHB?”
“The date-rape drug? At first, I thought that was the case, but I talked to Art?—”
Hunter cuts Rami off. “When did you meet Art?” His voice has taken on a low, dangerous register.
“You know how much I love that bear-y possessive side of yours, but I contact my informants from time to time. It’s part of what I do. With Art, I just talked on the phone, Hunter Bear.” I can’t see, but clearly hear the smirk in my brother’s voice.
A curse and then a kissing sound comes over the line. I’m about to hang up when Rami talks again, almost out of breath, “Art said that when dosed, the victims felt sharp, burning pain all over their bodies.”
“Pain?” Memories of excruciating agony try to find space inside my head, and the itch is too much to bear for a second.
