Unhinged(Necessary Evils #1)(67)

“None of your business.”

“Could it be that random string of letters and numbers I found rolled up in the pocket? The encryption key.”

Noah had thought to shock Gary again, but his physical response was troubling. He flushed an almost purple color, beads of sweat erupting on his forehead and upper lip. “You don’t get it, do you? You fucked everything.” He shook his head. “This whole thing”—he gestured around with the gun—“just got out of hand.”

“This whole thing?” Noah echoed. “You mean your pedophile ring? What’s the matter? No longer just an intimate gathering of depraved rapists? Too many people crash your party?”

Sweat was actively rolling down Gary’s face. Noah wondered if he might be on the verge of a heart attack. “It wasn’t like that. We cared about those boys. We tried to be gent—”

Noah slammed his fist down on the desk, startling Gary. “Don’t. Don’t you dare say you were…” Noah sucked in a breath through his nose, trying to pull himself together. Now wasn’t the time to piss Gary off. Noah needed to stay alive.

Besides, Gary had a date with Adam and his brothers. “I’ve got a hard drive and two boxes full of records that say otherwise. Did O’Hara teach you all of his tricks for abusing kids? Did he think of all of you as his proteges? Keep the tradition going?”

Gary wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his black button down shirt. “He taught us that our impulses were natural. Showed us books and…other things that proved we weren’t crazy or perverts. That it’s just evolutionary.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Do you really believe that shit? Really? Like, deep down, do you hear the things you’re saying and think it makes sense, or do you just use it as an excuse for all the suffering you’ve caused? These are little kids. Do you know how many lives you’ve ruined? If your intentions are so pure, why is it so many kids have ended up dead once you’re done with them?”

Gary sniffed as if the topic of dead children was somehow more distasteful than abusing them. “You’ll never understand. The outside world…polite society, they’ll never understand. We didn’t kill all of them. Just the troublemakers. The ones who swore they would talk no matter how many times we tried to persuade them otherwise. We didn’t want to do that, but there are too many power players in the mix now. It just keeps growing, and the higher up the food chain the members go, the more dangerous it becomes if we get caught. But you…you turned out fine.”

“Fine?” Noah snapped. “What you did to me was so traumatic I blocked it out entirely.”

Gary blinked sweat from his eyes. Noah couldn’t help but wonder if he was on something or if he was truly afraid of what might happen to him if he couldn’t get that encryption key back from Noah.

“You were our first,” he said. “Did you know that? Wayne and I were down in Mexico. He knew some people down that way who could…find us what we were looking for.”

Noah frowned, heartbeat hammering against his ribs. “So, somebody arranged for you to kidnap me?”

Gary scoffed, shaking his head. “No, that’s the thing. Your father saw you—”

“Stop calling him that,” Noah snapped, like it was he who had the gun, not Gary. “That man was never my father.”

“Fine, Wayne saw you and was instantly in love. You were so pretty. You were playing in the street with some older kids. And he just walked right up and held out his hand…and you took it. Just walked right off with him like it was fate.”

Noah’s vision began to go fuzzy at the edges. This time, it was him beginning to sweat. Was Gary rewriting history? Had Noah truly just walked away with Holt? How had nobody noticed?

“It wasn’t planned,” Gary continued wistfully, like he was enjoying his stroll down memory lane. “We honestly thought we’d get caught almost instantly. But…somehow, the stars aligned. A little cough syrup and a short ride in the trunk and we made it back to the States with you without any issues at all. Then you were ours. A child completely off the grid. Nobody knew you existed.”

Noah’s blood ran cold. He swallowed hard as his memories beat against the wall he’d built around them. He’d been the perfect victim. They could do whatever they wanted to him. And they had. “You’re monsters.”

Gary looked surprised by that response. “We spoiled you rotten. You never had to go to school. Wayne taught you himself. You got cake for breakfast and all the toys you could play with. All you had to do was ask for it, and we happily complied. Was the trade-off really that bad?”

Noah swallowed the bile climbing up his throat. “Yes. Killing me would have been kinder.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Gary chided.

Dramatic. He wasn’t dramatic enough. “So, why did you have to hurt the others if you had me? Your perfect victim?” Noah couldn’t hide the disgust in his voice.

Gary shrugged. “You got old. Well, for us. We had offers on you. Lots of them. You’ve always been beautiful. Those freckles alone would have made us a fortune, but then somebody murdered your father—Wayne—and everything went to shit. You were supposed to be mine. Wayne left you to me. Left it all to me. Even the rope I needed to hang all the others, so I could keep them in line. Mutually assured destruction is a powerful motivator.”