Page 112 of Insidious Heart
The autopsy table behind me, covered in some of my most favorite tools, the bigger ones that are too awkward to hang in my belt, like the ice pick and bone saw.
All in all, considering I whipped this up on the fly with The Butcher hogtied in my trunk, I’d say my setup would make Dexter Morgan proud. And it’d probably make several non-fiction serial killers jealous as fuck.
“The… The Harvester?” Beau stares at me, unblinking and breathing heavily. “You don’t… don’t look like no killer.”
With an exasperated sigh, I roll my eyes and let my arms dangle at my sides. “And you don’t look like the kind of asshat that would have been able to perform long enough to keep someone interested or knock up a woman, and frankly I’m shocked you aren’t firing blanks with all the damage you’ve done to your disgusting, lumpy body, but here we are.”
“You ain’t him. No way.”
“And how do you know that?” I ask as I lean against the table. “What makes you anexperton how murderers, serial or otherwise, should look?” He opens his mouth but before any kind of sound leaves those dry, split lips, I slam my hand down on the stainless steel and grin when Beau jumps. “Wrong!”
Smug and absolutely full of myself, I walk toward him again, swinging the cattle prod back and forth as I do. “You aren’t the expert here, Beau. Just because you’re a lying, abusive, dare I saysadisticbastard with more mental health problems than I can probably fathom, doesn’t mean you know what a killer looks like.” I zap his kneecap out of nowhere, lighter this time so I keep his attention. “You see one staring back at you in the mirror everyday and don’t think anything of it. You surround yourself with them, men who’ve killed without hesitation and because they derive some sick level of power from it like that asswipe, Joker.”
His brow furrows in confusion. “What you know about me or my club?”
“Plenty. Definitely enough to have happily taken care of youractuallypsychoticfunny manwhen I walked in on him attempting to rape your daughter.”
“Bullshit!” Beau spits the word like it tastes like shit. “Joker’s been MIA for weeks, he knew better than to fuck with me and—”
“Jesus,” I say with a laugh as I prod his other knee. “You have to be either the dumbest or the most ignorant man I’ve ever met. I’ll go with both since you knew for a fact that scarred fuck had it bad for your little girl and somehow still put him in charge of her more often than not.” My brow lifts. “What was up with that anyway? A scare tactic maybe? Something to keep Stevie in line by putting your most terrifying man on as her guard? Or were you just hoping he’d slip up and get rid of the thorn in your side for you?”
Realization hits as my words sink in and The Butcher blinks up at me. “You killed him. That’s why he’s been missing.”
“Very good.” Grinning my ass off, I grip the arms of the chair and lean down until Beau’s breath is fogging up my face shield. “I killed him, got my first taste of your daughter with his dead body laying a couple feet away, then cut him up right there in her bathroom. And I did it without thinking twice because Joker was trying to take Stevie away from me, too.” With an animalistic growl, I ram the prod into his groin. “But she’smineand no one isevergoing to take her away from me!”
Beau starts to vomit again, mostly bile since I haven’t been feeding him since he’s been here, but when I step out of the way so he doesn’t hurl on my bare feet, the bastard starts to chuckle.
“Maybe… maybe you’re The Harvester. And maybe you’re gonna kill me, too.”
“I am.”
He nods his head, his shoulders shaking as his laugh becomes a little hysterical. “But you ain’t gonna have Stevie. She don’t even belong to me anymore.”
The prod is at his temple faster than either of us can take our next breaths. “You have one second to elaborate on that or else I’m sending your unused brain cells a long overdue wake up call.”
“Jesus.” The bastard has enough smarts to look scared and start flapping his gums. “From the Cobra Cons. I sold her to him so he can put her up for auction. She ain’t much to look at, ugly as sin really, with those scars, but buyers won’t care. They only want a submissive bitch with a warm hole to stick their dicks in.”
Beauregard’s back arches and rips free from the chair as I use a little electroshock therapy on his grey matter, his shit-brown eyes rolling up into his head as he bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. His fingers stretch then claw at nothing, Beau’s body seizing and convulsing all while I watch the muscles in his face tense to the point of locking, but I don’t stop.
I don’t stop for another few seconds, not until this sick bastard pisses himself and starts to foam at the mouth.
“Motherfucker!” I yell as I spin away from him, launching the cattle prod across the trailer. “You piece of shit!” My hands land on the autopsy table and I flip it, my tools scattering across the floor, the stainless steel echoing off the wall as they collide. “Selling your own fucking daughter into sex trafficking?”
My god, I thought my parents were fucked up. They were, but they neverknowinglysent us away to be used and abused. My mother didn’t care enough to find out anything about where we were going so even she wasn’t as bad as this bastard.
And to do that toStevie,my baby dove? The sweetest, most compassionate and incredible woman on the planet? The idea of her being treated like property, of being bought and sold like some mass market product, on top of the reason behind it, makes my goddamn blood boil.
Stevie is mine, my fucking girl, but I don’t own her and there is no fucking way I’ll ever let anything like that happen. As long as I am fucking breathing, no one will ever hurt my sweet little dove.
Andno onewill ever try to take her away from me again.
With anger and rage coursing through my veins like poison, I snatch the ice pick off the floor and turn back to Beau, ready to end this fucker once and for all, but when I raise my arm over my head to do just that, someone bangs on the goddamn trailer door.
“What!” I bark as I throw it open, scowling in Little John’s face as he looks up at me.
“Jesus Christ, Tor.” His nose scrunches and he takes a step back. “What the fuck is that smell?”
“Burnt flesh and vomit. What do you want?”
