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“She’s right about that, Jensen,” Aiden said, reluctantly picking sides. “We might see something that they’ve missed. Tina and Sienna are the two people that know him best and they’re both right here. Wouldn’t it be smart to use their knowledge to our advantage? Aren’t you sick and tired of playing catch up? Don’t you just want to end the whole thing and live without constantly looking over your shoulder?”
Sienna’s chest warmed at Aiden’s display of support. She knew it wasn’t easy for him to challenge his future boss in front of a larger group of people, but he was lucky that they weren’t strangers.
Jensen clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. His unhappiness was seeping through every pore of his body, but even he couldn’t deny Aiden’s reasoning. Tina lived with the Remingtons for years and had more interactions with Kyle than anyone else. Sienna was his top obsession and if there was any message left behind, it would be her that would see it.
“Fine,” Jensen said, his disagreement clearly carrying over in that one word.
Not wanting to give him a chance to change his mind, Aiden turned the car around at the next intersection and sped up to the abandoned warehouse. Xavier gave him the coordinates and in less than an hour, they arrived.
Despite knowing better, Sienna pushed past Jensen and half-climbed over him to get out of the car. She wanted to see where Kyle had been hiding and what or better said who, he’d left behind.
The old warehouse stood eerily at the edge of the forest, the roads leading to it in desperate need of maintenance that would never come. The many windows on the building were broken or completely missing the glass. The east wing had collapsed a long time ago, but the west side was still covered enough to provide temporary refuge. All in all, it looked more like a place that drug addicts would meet. In some way, Kyle was an addict as well, except his addiction came in a different form.
Three black unregistered vans were parked in the front, their passengers doing another sweep of the area. It was already established that Kyle wasn’t there, but there was no need to take unnecessary risks. The whole situation was horrible enough and no one wanted to get shot in the back while looking at the mutilated corpses of young women.
Sienna schooled her expression into a neutral mask, lifted her chin high and walked down the rocky road toward the entrance of the building. She avoided the looks of her dad’s private military, letting the Carrington heirs deal with them.
Jensen nodded at Aiden, who went to talk with the person in charge, while he didn’t separate from Sienna even an inch. In any other situation, she’d turn to him and ask him to give her some breathing space, but right now she preferred to be suffocated by his closeness and feel anything other than the gripping fear of the unknown horrific acts that she would encounter inside.
Jaxon stayed outside with Tina, and Xavier got distracted with the van’s technology. Sienna and Jensen were the only ones to enter the building. In a way, she was glad because at least no one would see her break down if she ended up losing control of herself.
The first thing that hit her was the strong smell of death. Despite the numerous open and broken windows, it was the scent that would never be washed away. It got into the building’s foundations and its walls, where it would stay until someone would take mercy on the building and demolish it.
Jensen handed her a tissue and she gratefully pressed it over her nose and mouth. It didn’t make much difference, but at least she could focus on Jensen’s cologne, which kept her from puking the contents of her stomach out.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jensen asked, touching her arm as if to keep her from moving forward until she confirmed with one hundred percent certainty. “We can still turn back and forget all about this.”
“I’ll never forget about this, nor do I want to,” Sienna told him with a firm albeit slightly shaking voice. “You shouldn’t either. This is what makes clear the difference between us and him. If we ever need a reminder of who the good guys are, here we have it. I want to see what he did. I need to know that we’re fighting to stop a monster and that the casualties in this war are for the greater good. Don’t you need a reminder every so often that you’re on the right side?”
Jensen’s eyes shone with understanding and his face softened as he nodded. He took Sienna’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers.
“Come on, let’s do this together,” he said and led the way.
A feeling of gratefulness washed over Sienna’s body. Jensen stepped up and did exactly what she needed him to do. If he’d kept on insisting she get out, she might’ve knelt down and followed him like a kicked puppy. Her resolve was strong, but her fear was stronger. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself to keep going, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it alone. In this world, people might be strong alone, but they were even stronger if they were together.
The room of death wasn’t far. Following their nose, Jensen led her down the hallway and through a set of old doors where the smell was the strongest. Before he opened it, he met Sienna’s eyes one more time and in that short look, she felt the exchange of courage and strength. She gave him a confident nod, hoping that what she was about to see wouldn’t be the source of her nightmares for weeks to come.
Sienna kept her mouth shut tight, consciously willing herself not to make a sound. The smell in the room was almost impossible to handle, but there was one thing a lot worse than that, and its image had already seared itself deep into her mind.
One woman wearing a wig and bright red lipstick was hanging from a chain on the ceiling. Her legs were pulled apart, tying her down with another set of chains. She was naked and her mouth open in a silent scream. Her eyes were an unreal green color and only when Sienna looked closer, she could see that she was wearing colored lenses.
“That’s sick,” she muttered. “He’s fucking mental.”
Jensen didn’t say anything, giving her the only comfort he could by squeezing her fingers tighter in a reassuring grip, letting her know that she wasn’t alone.
Sienna’s eyes traveled to the sofa where Kyle had left another victim in his wake. The scene was more or less the same; the woman was Sienna’s age, wearing contact lenses, but her hair was a similar shade to Sienna’s, which was probably why Kyle didn’t make her wear a wig. Her naked body was thrown over the sofa without a second thought, various bruises visible all over her torso and intimate area.
“Did he use a belt?” Sienna wondered out loud, her words muffled by the napkin she kept holding over her mouth.
“Among other things,” Jensen confirmed, his voice a whisper.
In the corner behind the sofa was the body of another woman. Her head was crumpled forward on her chest and Sienna couldn’t see her eyes. It was for the best because that woman seemed to have received worse injuries than the two before, which said a lot because they were all badly tortured before their deaths. In fact, as far as she could tell, they were tortured to death.
Sienna took a step deeper into the room and was about to go check the other side where more bodies were when Jensen tugged her hand, making her look at him. His eyes were a perfect mixture of anger and sadness. It was exactly what she felt as well. She was angry at Kyle for being such a disgusting monster who did those horrible things, but she was also terribly sad for the women who died with screams on their lips and fear in their eyes.
“I think that’s enough now, isn’t it?” he asked her, his tone pleading. She wasn’t the only one that these ghastly images had affected.
“Okay,” she agreed, having more than enough proof of how horrible Kyle was.
