Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(84)
He stalked off and I watched him disappear through the woods on the way back to where his truck was parked. I wasn’t sure what I would do once I entered the compound, but I knew that if it was time for my brother to die, I would be the one to end him.
Jericho was a monster. He did horrible things to other people. But could you really blame a man for losing his mind when everybody he’d ever trusted had used him and hurt him so badly?
If nothing else, I could give my brother a compassionate ending, even if his beginning had been nothing short of a living nightmare.
ELIJAH
A full day.
It had been one full day that James or his men couldn’t seem to find one small woman and the brother that had taken her from the parish. How incompetent did you have to be to allow two people I’d intentionally kept stupid and unable to care for themselves slip through your damn grasp?
I would have gone out in search of them myself, but I didn’t want to cause confusion by my presence. At this point I wasn’t sure whether Jacob had anything to do with their disappearance, but I wouldn’t put it past him. A smile slithered over my lips as I remembered the pure pain that was written across his face on the day he believed he’d killed Eve. I wondered how long it had been since he returned to find out the woman he’d spent an entire week loving had actually been alive and in my bed.
The realization must have killed him – at least, that was, if he was involved in her abduction. It wasn’t like Jacob to sneak around. That was more my style than his. No, my brother was the type to march right up to the compound gates to make his demands known.
Sometimes I had to wonder about the way the universe worked, the odd coincidences that occur leaving many to believe there’s a holy figure upstairs - a giant puppet master deciding our fates and pulling our strings.
It hadn’t been very long between the time I thought about Jacob and the time Richard walked in, his gut protruding over his large belt buckle and a shit eating grin on his face. “We’ve got company.”
My head snapped up from where it had been angled down to study an errant scratch running over the surface of my desk. “What do you mean? Did the sheriff find Eve and Joshua?”
Shaking his head, Richard barked out a laugh. “No. But your twin brother is at the gates pretending to be you and asking to be let in. Shane came and grabbed me. He was confused because he thought you were inside with the rest of the family.”
Lips stretching into a feral grin, I practically growled out my response. “Well, now, it would be rude of us to keep my brother waiting. You run back there and let Shane know to open those gates and let Jacob inside. He wouldn’t happen to have my wife with him, would he?”
Shaking his head, Richard frowned. “No. Eve is nowhere in sight. If he has her, he’s got her stashed somewhere.”
“That’s just fine,” I drawled, “We’ll see what the bastard came here for and then give him no other choice but to give her up. He can’t keep her hidden forever. Not with the methods we have to make people talk. Run along, Richard and let him in. I’ll be waiting in the sanctuary.”
Richard lumbered out, the weighted pounding of his boot steps dying off as he walked farther away. When silence returned to the office, I leaned back in my chair and sighed. I’d never figured my brother to be a stupid man, but in this, he was practically signing his death warrant.
Wondering if he had Eve, I decided that there wasn’t any other way to find out than to ask him. And I knew exactly the place I wanted to question him, exactly the sight that would throw him off guard because even he had never been so evil.
Pushing out of my chair, I rounded the desk and was out the door on three long strides. I meandered my way through the halls of the compound, finally bursting through a door to enter the sanctuary, thankful that Jacob hadn’t yet been led inside. Taking a position by the altar, I leaned back against the wooden wall of the pulpit and clasped my hands together in front of my body. My eyes had just shifted up to look at the dying man on the cross, his hands practically ripped through for how long he’d been hanging, when I heard a commotion in the front hallway. One of the double doors swung open and Richard walked through dragging a pissed off looking Jacob behind him.
I knew the minute my brother saw the man hanging on the cross. His face lost all its color and he fell to his knees staring up at a symbol that for so many centuries had belonged to the faithful.
“What do you think of my sanctuary, brother? Is it everything you imagined and more? I fashioned it to look like our old parish back home with all the glittering golds and jewel encrusted treasures. Unlike the parish, however, my jewels aren’t real. But I have something they didn’t. I have the living embodiment of the dying Christ, a thief and a liar looking down on us like he didn’t deserve what happened to him.
Dumping Jacob in the center aisle, Richard stood back and looked to me for his next instruction. Knowing that this conversation was intended for brothers, I jut my chin in the direction of the doors and said, “You can go do whatever it is you need to do, Richard. I can handle my brother all by myself. Stay close, though. If I need something, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Inclining his head, Richard stalked off. I knew he wouldn’t go far and I assumed that was a good thing in case this conversation with my brother didn’t go as well as I hoped. Pushing off from the pulpit, I moved around the altar to step down into the center aisle and walk toward my brother.