Noaz

Chapter 1

Noaz

I stare up at the warehouse for a minute. This really is a stupid place to do this since Van Doren Enterprises is stamped in four-foot letters across the top. If a murder took place here, the Van Doren family and company would come under scrutiny right away.

I suppose it’s a good thing we have cops in the family. And lawyers. And judicial people. We’ve really covered our bases.

Without looking around because that could be considered suspicious behavior, I let myself in the coded door. It slams with an echoing clang behind me and I’m plunged into darkness.

What will it take to convince the night watch to keep a fucking light on? Not the threat of their jobs or a pay raise. I’ve tried both. Perhaps I should just rig a light that never turns off.

With a frustrated huff, I use my phone’s flashlight and sweep it around the area. This door led me into a large room that houses a lot of old, permanent equipment from the days when the company built things. For the most part, this building is storage for the tech Voss runs. It remains cool throughout the year so we can keep the sensitive equipment running easily.

Those rooms are rather impressive, if I do say so myself. I have no idea what I’m looking at when I walk into one, but that’s neither here nor there, really. The building is legit. The business we house here is legit. What goes on in the bowels is no one’s business but mine.

The tapping of my heels echoes in the large, open space. It’s eerie and haunting. It’s the kind of place where you swear you see shadows moving and things falling with no outside forces. We’ve considered opening it up to paranormal investigation shows. Our security crew alone has enough stories to tell to fill a book.

Thankfully, the ghosts seem friendly enough. Thankfully, we haven’t lost too many security guards because of any apparent ghosts.

The thought makes me smile. I’m not truly sure if I believe in them. In my head, I’m saying here, ghosty, ghosty, ghosty in a somewhat mocking tone. But do I dare say those words out loud? No. Not a damned chance. I don’t want to be haunted.

Continuing to use my phone’s flashlight to guide my path, I make my way through the large space, with my footsteps echoing around me until I reach the door at the far end and I step into a hallway where there are lights on. To my right are the stairs.

With a glance down at my shoes as I turn off my cell phone flashlight, I decide I’m going to take the elevator. I’m all about keeping fit, but there are a lot of stairs to go down and I’m feeling impatient.

The elevator is at the end of the hall, the doors open and waiting. I always thought that was weird. I’d only ever seen elevator doors remain open on the main floor at swanky hotels. At a warehouse, it just feels… strange.

Using a key, I turn the dial until all the floors light up and press the button for the very bottom. The doors shut, and the elevator descends.

When it opens again, I’m let into another wide-open space. This time, it’s dimly lit and I’m not alone. There’s a man tied to a chair with a single lightbulb hanging right over his head. Honestly, this looks like a cheap B-rated movie. I’m sure the man thinks the same thing.

However, he’s not surrounded by people with rifles. It’s unnecessary. We both know he’s not going anywhere.

Turning the key again, I remove it from the hole, which locks the elevator in place. No interruptions. The man stares at me as I cross the room, my heels tap-tap-tapping as I do. I take off my jacket and carefully hang it over the side of a chair. Then I gather my hair, smoothing out as many of the bumps as I can, and secure it with an elastic.

“Hey, boss,” Lorissa greets when I finally reach the ring of light.

I give her a smile. “Who do we have here?”

I know who it is. We’ve been hunting him for a while now, and the fires of hell are waiting for him.

“Matteo Smith,” Lorissa says. “Leader of the Aryan Order.”

“Ah. Ironic to be leading a white supremacist group when you’re biracial, but I’m not judging you,” I comment. He’s glaring at me. The hatred with which he looks at me has me fighting a wide grin.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Matteo spits.

“But we already have,” Jeremy says from just out of the brightly lit circle around Matteo. He holds up a paper with what looks like an official looking precinct seal on it. “You see, you might have slipped through the hands of the law, but that’s when the law calls on us.”

Matteo stares at the paper. I can’t tell if he’s convinced it’s real or not. For the record, it’s not. But I also know the police have been hunting this guy for eons. He’s not going to be missed.

“I don’t care about the law,” Matteo says eventually. “My men—”

“Have already been taken care of,” Lorissa cuts him off. With the remote in her hand, she hits a button. All around the room, large television screens light up, showing the video feeds of different cell rooms. Most of which are showing bloody figures crumpled on the ground.

I’ll be honest—most of this was fabricated by Voss. The man is a genius at everything digital, so while maybe three of the thirty men are real and a part of this gang, most of them are fake and have a known member of Matteo’s men’s face pasted on the body that didn’t actually belong to him. You know, digitally.

Don’t ask me how he does it.

The true gravity of Matteo’s situation is starting to sink in. I can see fear begin to form in his eyes. “What do you want? Money? I have money!”

“Your list of transgressions is long, Matteo,” Jeremy says. “Murder, mutilation, torture, rape, trafficking—among those trafficked, 30% are white, which I think is a strange way to advocate for your white supremacy agenda, but maybe I just don’t understand your motives. Care to educate us?”

Matteo presses his lips together. I have a feeling that the ‘white supremacy’ model isn’t his true program. Which I understand to some extent. Hitler was vying to create the perfect Aryan race with some very narrow guidelines—guidelines he himself didn’t actually fit into.

Strange world we live in.

“How should we kill him?” I ask.

Matteo’s eyes get wide. I wait for him to argue or beg. Anything. But he’s silent as he stares at me in horror.

“Pressing,” the quiet voice of Tyra suggests from somewhere to my left. The entire room shifts to look for her.

Tyra is a petite woman standing at four-foot-eleven, who looks almost cherubic. And yet, she oversees some of the most brutal deaths—all from her own imaginings. I think she has a list of murders from the past that she wants to see in person before she dies.

“I’m sorry, what?” Lorissa asks, amused.

“In 1692, twenty people were murdered after being accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts—nineteen of which were hanged. But one was crushed to death by placing boulders on his chest until he died. It suffocates the person slowly.”

Her statement was matter-of-fact with little emotion. As if she were reporting on the weather or what we’re having for dinner. I stared at her for a minute and nodded.

“Okay, then. Death by pressing. Sounds as good as any other,” I say.

“I shudder to think what goes on in your mind, girl,” Jeremy mutters, shaking his head. “Especially when every single death you order becomes a rather fascinating case study.”

Lorissa chuckles. “Let’s see what we have for weights.”

“Slowly increasing the weight is the key. It took three days of gradual adding the boulders to kill seventy-year-old Giles Corey in 1692,” Tyra explains.

“Noted,” Lorissa and Jeremy say together.

This is a very typically common exchange of information. Tyra suggests something horrific, we all gape and nod in morbid fascination, then go about executing it. Pun intended, I suppose.

It isn’t long before Tyra has instructed others in the room to tie Matteo flat to the ground. He has a flat board across his chest and there’s already sixty pounds on him as he glares. Tyra further informs us that Giles was being tortured to death in an attempt to make him admit to witchcraft, but Giles continued to say ‘more weight.’

We look at Matteo, waiting for him to say anything. But he only continues to glare at us.

“We’ll continue hunting down the members of the Aryan Order,” Lorissa says as she stands next to me. We watch from a short distance away as Tyra oversees the pressing with a look of vague interest. “The east end group is trailing three of them now.”

I nod. “Good.” Picking up my jacket, I put it back over my shoulders. “Make sure you dispose of their bodies properly.”

“Of course,” Lorissa says. I can hear the rolling of her eyes in her voice. “You going home?”

I nod again. “Yeah. For a few days. Keep me posted.”

Lorissa inclines her head. “Of course.”

An audible crack splits the air, followed by Matteo yelling. I wince. Ew. Bones breaking. It’s one of my least favorite sounds.

On my way out, I pull the elastic out of my hair and let the long locks fall around my shoulders. Pity. I was looking forward to getting blood on my hands. As I stand in the elevator, I glance at my hands with my nails freshly done. On the other hand, I don’t have to fight to get the blood from under my nails now. That’s something.

Probably a good thing I oversee the deaths more than participate in them these days. I can’t be coming home to my family with blood under my nails. What would I tell my child?

I sigh. A child I’ll someday have. A family I’ll someday have. Eventually. Hopefully, before I’m old and gray and too frail to enjoy them.

One day.

***

“Have you finished with the Aryan Order?” Jalon asks.

I sit back in my seat with a yawn and shrug. “Matteo will be dead before too long.” I tilt my head. “Three days at most.”

“Why three days?” Arath asks.

“Tyra is a sick soul wrapped in innocently sweet decorative paper.”

He chuckles.

“We’ve dropped several at the precinct to deal with—low-level crimes. We’re meticulously sweeping the streets.”

Jalon gives a single nod. I’m looking at my brothers through the big screen on our plane while I fly from NYC to Flagstaff, Arizona, which is the closest airport to the Van Doren Estates. Would be nice if Jalon just built us a damn runway, but whatever.

Jalon is sitting at a table that looks suspiciously like a dining room table and not a conference room table.

In the box below him is Arath, who is definitely sitting in a conference room. It’s been emptied of his staff, which means it’s just him. He looks almost dwarfed in the space. One lone figure—dressed as if he’s going to some Fortune 500 business meeting in black on black—in a huge space. He’s so… sophisticated.

Beside Arath’s box is Kairo, our grumpy-ass brother. I’m not even talking cutesy grumpy. He’s just an ass. He’s in a knock off version of what Arath’s wearing. Brown suit with a white shirt, half unbuttoned. He’s scruffy, and I can almost visibly see the chip on his shoulder.

Above Kairo is Oxley, who looks rather blank-faced as he stares into the screen. Completely unimpressed. Unfazed. Uninterested. I know he’s listening because he’s always listening, but looking at him, you wouldn’t know it.

My box sits between Jalon and Kairo. I look almost out of place. With my long, styled hair and pristine makeup, I’m the brother that doesn’t belong. Something Kairo tried to drive home a lot when we were kids. At least, until Arath knocked out his front tooth. He’s since stopped commenting on my appearance.

“You’re leaving your crew,” Kairo says, obvious disapproval on his face. “During the middle of a cleanup.”

“I am. Work-life balance. It’s good for you. Besides, Lorissa can run my crew without me.”

Kairo snorts. “Crime is rampant in New York City.”

“You really want to point fingers, Kairo? Chicago is rated one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. to live in—with the highest number of homicides in 2018, a figure more than double New York’s, which has over three times the population. What are you even doing besides passing judgment on what I’m doing?”

Kairo narrows his eyes, his scowl turning into a snarl.

“How’s your job coming, Ara?” Jalon cuts in, redirecting the conversation.

Arath, who’s looking rather amused, shrugs. “Empire is being hunted.”

“You let your lover go?” Kairo asks.

“My lover wasn’t their target. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a wrongful target, which doesn’t actually matter to a criminal.”

“Do you need help?” Jalon asks.

“I’m not helping,” Kairo snaps. “You can just use your lover as bait.”

I roll my eyes. Arath is far too unfazed to do it, therefore, I do it for him.

“No; but we’re working on a plan to draw them out. If I were going to use anyone as bait, it would be you. That’s the only way I’ll ever let you into Philly,” Arath answers.

“Can I go?” Kairo asks. “This meeting is getting very one-sided.”

Jalon inclines his head and Kairo’s box disappears. “Oxley? How’s Anaheim?”

“More active since the Prosser murder and subsequent car bombing, but we’re expanding our ranks to lock down some of the more vulnerable neighborhoods,” Oxley reports.

Jalon nods. “Thorough examination, Ox.”

“Oxley,” he corrects. “Nora is as thorough as I am.”

“Very good. Report back with anything new.”

Oxley nods, and his box disconnects next.

“Kairo has a new dead animal up his ass,” I note.

Arath laughs, and Jalon chuckles, shaking his head.

“That man needs… something. I’m just not sure what,” Jalon says. “Just ignore him. You headed home?”

“Yes. For a few days. I can’t get the sound of snapping ribs out of my head.”

“Take care of yourself. That’s your first priority.”

“I know, Daddy Jalon.”

He gives me a smirk. It’s not my nickname for him, but I’m absolutely loving it. From the first time I heard Loren’s husband’s friends call him that, I was hooked. He will now and forever be Daddy Jalon. Not even sorry.

“Do you need help with Empire?” I ask Arath.

Arath shakes his head. “Not at the moment. I’ll let you know if I do.”

“Kay, cool. I’m going to enjoy this last hour of the flight.”

“You know we’re not up north, right?” Jalon asks. “We’re still just outside of Tucson.”

I sigh. “Why?” No, I don’t whine about it.

Jalon chuckles. “I don’t know. Loren is content here for now. I don’t think Oakley’s ready to leave his friends.”

“Sweet baby sociopathic nephew,” I muse. “Fine. Maybe I’ll be down. We’ll see how lonely it is up north.”

“See you in a few days, No.”

Arath chuckles as they both sign off. Jalon’s right. There’s no way I’m going to hang around the estate if I’m the only one there. That’s just boring. Maybe I can convince the pilot to change our route to Phoenix.