Page 89 of Stone: The Precursor

I stare down at the lifeless body of the woman whose room I visited days ago. The only woman I’ve had sex with in the past three years is now dead, murdered. They dumped her body in the backyard of the club, near the exit. It wasn’t a mistake. It was done to let us know how easily they could get inside and bypass our guards. The men who commonly patrol were called away when a disturbance occurred on the other side of our property. Fucking diversion.

I didn’t recognize her at first. Her normal brown hair was covered with a long black wig. My focus is on her eyes now.

“Racist bastards,” Riggs growls.

Onyx looks at me, and I avert my eyes. It’s there, in his expression. What I won’t say. The corners of Denise’s eyes have been stretched back and narrowed with the use of scotch tape to create slits. They are mocking Asian features.

My eyes focus on the midnight color of her wig. It’s the same shade as Camryn’s. If you didn’t look closely, she could be Camryn’s twin.Her dead twin.I grip my fists harder as I read the words “Gook whore,” written on a piece of masking tape covering her mouth. I want to rip every single one of them apart,limb by limb. They are playing a disgusting, racist game, using Denise as a stand-in.

“She looks like?—”

“Don’t say it!” I snarl, looking at Riggs whose face shows just as much frustration, just as much rage, as mine.

“I have to. You won’t say it. The resemblance is too much to ignore, Stone. They could be watching the shop. They might already know about her. “Have you been seen with her?”

Onyx questions are like bullets, embedding themselves deep in my flesh, making me shake. Somehow it feels purposeful. Targeted. That they know about Camryn. They may even have seen her with me. Fuck right, now they may have their men trained on her, and I can’t protect her the way I need to to keep her safe. If they hurt her, I’ll…I leave the words unsaid because to say them will mean what I don’t want it to mean. That if something happens to Camryn, it will be because of me.

Will you pose for me?

Her bold question flows through my mind for the hundredth time. I can still smell the honeysuckle on her soft skin. The way her pupils dilated at my touch. The sharp inhale when I sucked her hair in my mouth, every detail seared in my brain. I wanted to pose for her. Watch her watching me, creating art in my image. My cock was hard as granite when I walked out of her gallery. It took everything in me not to stay, not to sit and have her eyes roam over my body.

Christ.

I refocus, refusing to let thoughts of Camryn in my head right now. I need to concentrate on the situation at hand, rather than the notion that Los Mestizos have their eyes and ears on Camryn.

Denise’s neck has been cut, right down to the bone. Her nipples have also been removed, exposing the bright tissue underneath. A motorcycle handlebar is still inserted in hervagina. An empty beer bottle is lodged in her rectum. The wordMongrelis carved in her belly.

I peel back the tape over her mouth and use my flashlight to nudge open her blue lips, and look inside.Pools of cum are in her open mouth.

They also removed her tongue.From the looks of the amount of dried blood trailing out the side of her mouth,it was before death. Her ears are cut as well. The message is not lost on me.See no evil, Hear no evil, and Speak no evil.

More cum is in her empty eye sockets. They removed both her eyes. I’ve done the same thing to the men I hunt. The irony doesn’t escape me. Her body looks like the ones in my forest. I was doing it to them as a form of retribution, and now they are laughing in my face, mimicking my torture.

I close my eyes, rage bubbling inside me as the dark memories that will forever haunt me bombard me. It’s what they did to Ivory. The same desecration of her body. The same post mortem pose, legs splayed open, objects inserted inside her, and I feel their mockery of me.

“They stood over her and ejaculated on her,” Onyx spits in disgust.“Probably more than one.”

If we lived in a world where calling the police would make a difference, then the amount of DNA would be enormous; however, collecting any form of DNA is useless. The person or persons responsible for this would be challenging to locate. The Mestizos live underground, like rats in a sewer. DNA means nothing right now. Our revenge is the only justice that will be delivered.

Despite Denise’s choices to be a sweetbutt, to engage sexually with the men in our club, and to engage in sex with me, it was her choice. She had joined the Legion Lords for her own reasons. This assault wasn’t her choice. Her death was forced on her. She didn’t deserve to have her neck slit and her eyes gouged out. Thecavernous openings feel like an accusation, an indictment that I’m to blame. “Does she have a family?” I bark.She never shared her backstory with me, and frankly, I didn’t ask. We fucked and talked a few times, but nothing deeper than pleasantries. I liked it that way, and she didn’t seem to mind. Whoever did this made her suffer, and it makes me sick.

“No clue. As long as I’ve known her she’s kept to herself. Really only doing the books and being with…”

With me, Riggs wants to say, and the guilt is compounded. Fuck.

“I asked around, and some of the other women seem to think she was from Cali,” Riggs continues.

Riggs helps Onyx unroll the tarp near her body. Flies have started to buzz around. In less than 12 hours, every open, bloody orifice of her body will be covered in voracious maggots.

I look at the wounds, using my knowledge to visually dissect her injuries. They used a serrated knife. The scalloped edges shredded the tissue. It was used to cause the most damage to her body, and the bleeding would have been profuse. She essentially bled out. I close my eyes, thinking about her, the last time I saw her crouched on the floor, staying out of danger. She probably died screaming for help.

Onyx appears next to me, bending so he mirrors my position. “She needs to be buried. She deserves that at least.”

Chapter 46

“Thanks for letting me crash.”

“Thanks for letting me cry snot on your shoulder.”