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Romeo and I climbed out of the SUV at the curb in a nice fucking neighborhood. We rounded to the backseat where we both pulled backpacks out. Backpacks that had bottles of gasoline in them. The plan was to douse anything that could point to a connection between the sheriff and Romeo. Anything the sheriff might have kept as collateral and could be used against him.
Basically, destroy anything that could hurt him—or did hurt him.
I guess you could call it pyro-therapy.
The house was relatively new, on one of those streets where all the houses looked the same—or at least, pretty damn alike. They all had this tropical feel and were mostly different shades of terracotta or orange.
The neighborhood we were in had a little bit of grass out the front of each house, which seemed like a luxury, given a lot of the places we passed by had stones and maybe a couple of bushes or trees. This two-story house was homely, it was tidy, and it had a little character.
“You’d never guess what kind of hell was raised inside, right?” Romeo commented dryly as if reading my mind, the both of us just standing there staring up at the building.
Even not seeing the inside, and just knowing what John Visser was like, gave me this gross feeling in my stomach. Like I was about to walk in and find God knows fucking what. A body? Fucking maybe. This man was unpredictable, he was unstable, and a fucking sociopath. There was nothing we might find inside this house that could stun me.
I was prepared for anything.
And yet, I still hated the idea of going in there.
Hated the fact that my brother had to spend part of his life inside these walls with that fucking psycho.
“You ready?” I finally asked after taking a few moments to search for my balls.
I wanted to get this over with. Get Romeo the answers he needed and then get the hell out of this place and go down to surprise Meyah. Things were a little tense since she left. But the only difference now was we both knew what we had was forever, and that it didn’t matter where the hell in the world we were, we would make it work. We just needed to figure out how we were going to do that without me feeling like I was letting the club down, or letting my brother and sister down, and without her feeling like she had to give up college and her friends and the place she’d really found herself.
We were going to find a way.
Somehow.
But in the meantime, I was going to head down there for a week or so after Romeo and I had finished here.
Looking over at my brother, I tried to ignore the way his hand shook. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was scared or angry maybe? Or maybe just because he was ready for this part of his life to be over so he could get back to where he wanted to be—making his own choices, building his own empire.
Romeo was smart. He knew what he was doing here. This was his turf. But first, this place needed to come down.
“Come on,” I finally insisted, walking up the path to the front door. “You have a key?”
I heard him take a deep breath before his heavy steps came up after me, moving me to the side as he pulled the house key from his pocket and put it in the lock. As the door swung open, I was cautious, following my brother as he walked inside like he’d been here just yesterday while tossing the key onto the side table and continuing on through the entrance.
I looked around. There were photos on the wall. Some of Eliza with those same freckles, that same red hair. Some of an older woman—the red hair again, instantly making me assume it was Eliza’s mom.
“Wow, she’s pretty,” I commented, stopping at one in particular which showcased all three of them.
“Beth was apparently the complete opposite to John. Where he was stern and strict, Beth was sweet and understanding,” Romeo mused as he looked around, maybe trying to see if there was anything out of place or different.
“They say opposites attract.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, we’ll head upstairs, that’s where anything important was kept. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
I nodded, following as he took one step at a time, slowing the closer he got to the top. The lower level had been immaculately kept. It was a wide open plan, there were decorations, accents, pictures placed on the walls and mantel. And while you could tell it hadn’t been lived in for a little while—dust settled on surfaces and the stale, musty smell—it felt strangely homey and made for entertaining.
Which is why when I reached the top of the stairs, I almost lost my shit.
I sat down on the top stair and just… fuck.
Romeo walked down the hall like there was nothing out of the ordinary. Like there wasn’t fucking jail cell doors on the bedrooms, and as if there wasn’t some kind of god-awful stench which had me regretting saying I wouldn’t be surprised to find a dead body.
Romeo stopped at the end of the hallway, looking back at me. “Don’t look into the bedroom to your left,” he ordered before he disappeared around the corner, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to move at all. It was like being back in prison.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I yelled, waiting a few seconds before he appeared again, leaning against the wall and looking down at me. “You are fucking joking. You lived like this? Locked in like a fucking prisoner?”
