Clean Hack (The Tainted Saints Book 1) Page 4

  So, my fees were simple enough. One body cost ya a good amount. Two over twice as much. Three and you about nearly owed me your first born. After that, I started charging by the number of teeth I had to deal with. I didn’t like to do big jobs. Big jobs meant big headaches and a lot of back and forth. Big jobs meant messy, and not just in the way of more blood and guts to clean up. It was the fact that I’d have to find multiple places to put shit and in a limited amount of time. I wasn’t one for sloppy work. I never rushed a job. And that was why I was so good. Why a body I handled never resurfaced. Why their deaths never led anywhere. So I had the damn right to do my business the way I saw fit and one of those ways was making sure to keep those massacre job numbers low. They could call in someone else for all I cared. It wasn’t about the money. Not now anyway. I was so set I could have bought my own private island and sat my ass out on the beach sipping those fucking drinks with the fruit hanging off the side until the day I died from skin cancer. Hell, I could have afforded to hire someone to serve me those drinks twenty-four fucking seven.

  But that wasn’t the life I wanted. I liked the simple and enjoyed the quiet times between the chaos of driving here and there.

  I mostly dealt with people on the East Coast from the tip of Florida all the way up to the Canadian border. And as far over as Louisiana. The more west you went, the more sporadic my client list became. I tried to keep it to areas where one or more organizations that fell under my restrictions resided.

  The next job was always a waiting game. And there was no telling where the wind might take me. It made it hard to make any real plans, but then again, it wasn’t like I had people to make those plans with. I was mostly a loner. Hell, there wasn’t a mostly about it. It was just that once you step into this line of work, there wasn’t really room for friends. It wasn’t like I could tell people what I did. Not many would be alright with that. And that left one limited to the people that circulated in the underground world. Those were always a slippery slope. Finding the good in the bad and then trying to make friends…no, that was not something that was really done. The only time these people made friends outside of their groups was to get something or get somewhere. It was a smart move. You couldn’t have insiders all up in your business when you were trying to keep it on the down low.

  I didn’t feel sorry for myself that I didn’t have anyone in my life. In fact, most of my existence had been that way.

  As a kid, I was ‘too soft’ as my father would tell me. I ended up being that weird kid that sat alone at lunch. The one that took home stray puppies that I’d picked up running around in the back of alleyways and found them good homes. The one that nursed baby squirrels that had lost their mommas back to health and then did my best to set them free. When I was younger, my weekends were spent hanging out at the park, bringing the old senile Mrs. Gretta an extra loaf of bread that I’d manage to sneak from my house. We’d feed those weird, almost ugly pigeons together and she’d ramble on about how the sky was falling. She didn’t make fun of me for sitting there with her while all the other kids my age were playing on the other side of the park. And I wouldn’t tell her she was fucking nuts for thinking the world was going to end at any second.

  I was always soft spoken. I rarely got mad. I even cried from time to time. Though it usually took something big. Like the time that I saved three baby kittens and forgot to latch the barn door. I woke up to a mess of torn kitten parts because the wolves that inhabited the woods around the property had I guessed heard their cries.

  It was my fault. I should have done better.

  So I cried there on the dirt of the floor in the barn as I did my best to put all their pieces together, until I had something that resembled three different kittens. Then I wrapped each one in some old towels that were in the mudroom, thinking my parents would never miss them anyway. After the tears had stopped, I dug a hole big enough for the three of them and deep enough so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Then I gave them back to the earth and prayed that their little souls would be free to float to heaven. I was only eight at the time. I really didn’t know if there was a Heaven. Or Hell.

  Now I did, though. At least I was sure of the Hell part.

  Maybe that was where it had all started, back in that barn crying over those poor kittens.

  I couldn’t be sure.

  But I never had a problem with being ‘too soft’ or ‘a pussy boy’ because I believed that one day being me would lead me to great things.

  Couldn’t have been so far off on that one.

  I was good at my job, at least I had that to hold on to.

  And while I wasn’t as soft as I once had been, I wasn’t a complete hardened asshole like some of the men I knew. I didn’t cry now, but mostly because I hadn’t had anything to really cry over. I didn’t really have many emotions and I was silent more than not.

  So much for the quiet, I thought as my phone started buzzing in my pocket.

  There was only one person that actually rang through my phone. That one person was still a mystery. I had a good idea that it was a she. Just a hunch, really, because every time they called they used some kind of voice disguise, so I had no idea what they sounded like.

  “Yeah,” I answered the same as I always did. It wasn’t gruff or rude. I knew mystery person was going to rattle out an address or a direction in a semi-soft way.

  I’d started to refer to the magical person as my psychic. I didn’t really believe in things such as psychics, but it just sort of became a joke in my head that stuck. Not that the said person would know any of this. She—yeah, I was going to go with she because I was sure enough about it that I would have put money on it.

  Anyway, she wasn’t one for talking. There was that weird thing a few weeks ago where she let out some kind of strangled squeak when I tried to engage her. With the distortion, the noise came out a little creepy sounding, almost like a crow in the background of a horror movie. I actually found myself laughing in a vacant room after the line cut out.

  “Moon Hill,” she muttered and for some reason, I sensed a shakiness beneath the fake voice.

  That set my hairs on end. I couldn’t explain it and I didn’t want to try to. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. But I stopped myself because that would have been weird.

  We didn’t know each other.

  Though something in the back of my mind was screaming that she knew more about me than I did her.

  But that was ridiculous.

  Because I was a ghost.

  I existed when and where I wanted to.

  So there was no way that she knew shit about me.

  I snapped myself out of whatever weird thing I was feeling. I didn’t need friends, not really. And if I did, this person that wouldn’t even so much as let me hear their real voice was definitely not it.

  She didn’t need to say more than Moon Hill for me to understand where I was going and who I was dealing with. I was as close as one could be to the Steel Paragons MC for being an outsider. I’d been their go-to guy for clean up for more years than I wanted to admit.

  “Got it,” I said, my tone was bordering on irritated, though I couldn’t point out why.

  I went to hang up before she could, but my hand stayed frozen with my phone still plastered to my ear. Her breaths were faint and came out in small bursts. They seemed to magnify in my ear the longer the seconds ticked on. These calls were usually nothing. A word from me. A few from her. And then a couple more from me. That was it. But lately, I’d wanted to dig into this person. I’d wanted to maybe, know more…? I had no idea why. Just did. Sometimes it wasn’t about always having a reason for things.

  “You alright?” I asked before I even realized that I was speaking.

  “Uh,” her tone and false strong front faltered. Much like it had the last time we spoke. I was almost waiting for that weird squeak and the sound of dead air. But she surprised me by not hanging up right away. “The Dogs of Wrath have been taken out.”

  And then the line w
ent dead.

  Well, fuck a duck.

  I definitely did not expect something like that to come out of her. And I wondered not only how the hell she knew about the Dogs when I didn’t, but also why she seemed so rattled by it. Then again, I wasn’t exactly in the know. I wouldn’t have figured that out or even wondered about them until I hadn’t heard anything from them for a while. Who knew how long that could have been because it wasn’t like I really kept track of who called me last and when. I was a done and move on kind of guy. Then sit around and wait for the next one. I couldn’t even tell you which ones were my top clients. Maybe that was something I should have kept track of. But then again, I knew none of them would bring me into something that I wouldn’t want to be a part of. So in a sense, that was good enough for me.

  That one little slip told me a few things.

  One, she had eyes or ears in places she probably shouldn’t. Hell, maybe she had both. Maybe she was like some little super spy that kept tabs on crazy outlaws. I practically laughed at the thought. Not because that couldn’t have been real, but these people were pretty good at detecting such things. And she would’ve had to have had her hands in a lot of different cookie jars with the kind of information she came at me with. She knew most of the groups I worked with. And not to mention that she’d been at this for a couple of years now. I had an idea that she’d been doing…whatever the hell she was doing, longer than she’d been calling me.

  Two, she let her guard down for me for just a second. I honestly didn’t know what to do with that. Then I figured that there wasn’t really anything to do. It wasn’t like I could call her back and tell her that I was there for her to talk to. I couldn’t call her. I’d tried a good few times. The number she called me from always led me to different places. A movie theater. A Chinese restaurant. And even a porn shop one time. That one I did have a good laugh about. How she did it, I had no fucking clue. I tried to find some common thread between the businesses, but there wasn’t one. They were spread out all over the US. I didn’t have skills beyond a semi-decent Google search, so that was pretty much a dead end. She was smart. And clearly very good at…something.

  Which brought me to my third point, she had ways of doing things that normal people didn’t.

  But I didn’t have time to dive into any of those things at the moment. I had a place to get to and a body to take care of.

  It was going to be a long night. I probably wouldn’t see any kind of sleep for another two days. But I wasn’t complaining.

  When I got to Moon Hill, I was greeted by an exhausted and pissed off looking Loch, the Vice President for the club. And when I say pissed, I mean slightly more agitated than normal looking. The guy wasn’t really one to show emotions. But I could see it.

  In the basement, I found the reason why I’d been called in. As I looked the guy over, I wondered for only a second what he’d done to get himself chained up down here. I could tell that they’d drawn his death out a little while, both his shoulders were dislocated, the flesh from his wrists had started to tear away due to the fact that he was hanging from the ceiling by them. His face was…honestly, something that no longer resembled a face.

  I’d seen worse.

  Much worse.

  But being in this as long as I had, I could tell that this wasn’t just a club kill. This one was more personal. This guy fucked with the wrong person and he paid the price. Knowing these guys, he must have fucking deserved it.

  I got to work, tipping one of my five-gallon buckets of baking soda over and covering the floor before shaking out a fresh plastic tarp. Another layer of baking soda and it was time to really get to work.

  I didn’t think about much while I worked. I wasn’t exactly there but I wasn’t off in some blank place in my mind. I’d been doing this long enough that I didn’t really need to think about what I was doing. It was, in a way, easy work.

  Maybe it was time to find something more challenging.

  Perhaps even a little less dark and disturbing.

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Why would I even bother wasting energy thinking about it?

  Baking soda had so many uses. Also known as Sodium Bicarbonate. I wasn’t a baker, so I never used it for that. I also didn’t get heartburn, but I had read somewhere that it helped with that. You could also use it to clean mouth guards and retainers, probably even dentures, too. Just a little in some hot water, soak, and then rinse. Then your disgusting mouthpiece was ready to be used again. All those products people use on their hair and cheap shampoos, they tend to leave a greasy residue over a period of time. Little baking soda rinse clears that all away. Again, not something I really needed because while I did have a little bit of hair, I didn’t really care about things like that.

  It was also good for deodorizing shit too. I’d heard of people putting a box in the back of their refrigerator and freezer. I had no clue if it worked because I usually didn’t have much in mine to get smelly. Got a clogged drain? Pack it with some baking soda. Then boil a mixture of half water and half vinegar, and pour that puppy down the drain. With a little volcano magic, the drain would be like new again. Sort of. It worked for minor clogs and slow drains. That I had used before.

  But what it was really great for, was cleaning. Anything from kitchen counters to the soap scum on your tub.

  And then there was the cleaning up of blood. Did it take it away completely, well no, and that was why bleach was made. But it did absorb quite nicely, making the big messes a little easier to clean up. It also kept the blood from running everywhere and making an even bigger mess. Plus it helped to cut through the iron smell, though at this point it didn’t even register to me much anymore.

  Clearly, I wasn’t a very exciting person. Could you imagine me on a date? Yeah, don’t.

  With the body bagged up tightly, in many pieces mind you, it made it easier to move and disperse. Or in this case, feed to pigs because that was where this guy was headed. I knew a man not far from here with a pig farm and he loved it when his pigs were happy. He didn’t even ask what I brought them or cared what time I did it. Another two hours and I’d be back here getting paid. Then it was a long drive to one of my properties, whichever one I chose to head to. I wasn’t quite sure. But I would tell you this, I hated motels and hotels. I would always make sure I made it to my own bed, one of them, come hell or high water. I wasn’t a germaphobe, but those places were just absolutely filthy. They never knew how to use bleach properly. It wasn’t just the sheets either.

  -5-

  A Way In

  Lucy

  Things got crazy.

  Like insane.

  I somehow found the very thing I’d been looking for.

  For years I’d been searching for this man. And now he was a still image frozen on my screen staring back at me. Half of the members of the Dogs of Wrath MC dead at his feet, slaughtered by him and his men. More would fall after this image had been taken from time. I knew because I’d watched it all. Even the part where the President was later tied up and hauled off to no clue where.

  I was having trouble breathing, my chest feeling like there was a boulder sitting on it and my throat was clogged by one of those giant jawbreakers. My eyes refused to blink to the point that they were so dry I wondered if my lids would stay fused open. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t believe it. I was afraid that if I took my eyes from the image for even a fraction of a second then it wouldn’t be real. That the person in front of me would really turn out to be someone else.

  Then my mind went haywire.

  It couldn’t be him.

  Not after all these years.

  Just popping up out of nowhere and somehow coming into my world as if he wanted to be seen. But that couldn’t be, because he didn’t even know that I was watching. He couldn’t have. Hell, it wasn’t even like he knew I had been looking for him all these years.

  I kept his image up, moving it to the side and pulling up the recorded feed. I played it back. Just
like most of the places I watched, there was no sound. But over the years I’d gotten most amazing at reading lips.

  “This will be mine. Kill them all. Keep the President, he will make a point for me soon enough. An example, if you will.”

  He was moving in. Taking over. Making plans to control everything.

  What exactly everything was, I didn’t know yet. But I had a pretty good idea. Guns and drugs to start. There would only be one reason to take out that motorcycle club there and that reason would be to gain control of what they had. The docks there and the incoming supplies.

  I wasn’t surprised. And half figured that it wasn’t really my problem. Because it wasn’t. I’d only been trying to track him down to find Allison. I had no idea if he still had her or if she was even still alive. That killed me. But now I had my first lead in years. I felt like I’d always been one, or twenty, steps behind him. By the words he’d spoken, I figured I’d know just where to find him now. He wasn’t going to give up this spot now that he thought he had it. While I didn’t see him settling down at that club’s compound, I had a feeling he wouldn’t go far. He’d find his own space, stake his own ground. Make it known that he was there and that he was the king.

  It was time to make a call. This was beyond what my fingers could do. Once he found his place, he’d make sure that it was locked down tight. No cameras, no electronics, nothing that would let me see. And it wasn’t like I could go waltzing up to his clubhouse and demand entry. Like I could somehow go check it out in person. That thought almost made me snort out loud.

  “Ashburn Security,” the overly cheerful voice greeted me.

  “Trissy!” I called out excitedly, trying to hide how shaky I felt.