Auctioned Mates Revenge
Chapter 21

I couldn't believe it, but his words felt so true they hurt. I shuddered, "How?"

"She was killed," he sighed. "There's no... sign of how or who was responsible... The body was found in the sewer on the outskirts of town about two months ago."

My heart clenched in grief and I felt myself stumble and lean into the wall. Hadn't I said that being a prostitute was dangerous? We were marketed as soft, beautiful playthings to be bought and sold, not cared for or protected. How had she ended up in a sewer on the edge of town? She was a prostitute of Club Heaven when we parted. They didn't have anything like Seven Days of Heaven when I left.

Had they picked it up after hearing how popular it was at Larry's? Had the person who bought her simply paid the insurance cost and planned to kill her because he could?

There were johns like that. I had seen so many women end up dead in their hands.

I almost laughed. Matt thought me going to Larry's in the middle of the day was dangerous when Zoe had ended up dead nearly two months ago.

I suppose he was right. Those two men could have used and killed me when they were done before dumping me in a river and no one would know.

My eyes burned as I thought of Zoe.

It wasn't fair. Zoe had been such a nice young woman with a future just like I had before the massacre. She and I talked in secret while we were at Midnight, clinging to what little sanity we could manage and encouraging each other.

How had she died? Had she been killed because she was a loose end or because she was just a disposable whore for Club Heaven? Had they killed her for a fresh corpse for some of the needs of their more disgusting clients?

Was it really her, or did all dead whores look alike to them?

I'd never know anything other than she was gone.

I should have fought to get her to come with me. I should have tried to replace her sooner somehow.

"She's not registered in any official way, so the police had a hard time identifying the body beyond her working name." Matt sighed, "I'm sorry, Renda..."

I shuddered. There had been a young girl who had died in the dungeons with Dan. Instead of burying her corpse, some of the guards had taken turned warming her thighs and f*****g the corpse until her body had started to smell and decompose.

It had been horrific to see and know that if I had died there, they would have likely done the same thing to me. I remembered threatening to kill myself when I arrived at Midnight, but looking back, I had said it out of panic and desperation.

I would have never killed myself knowing the fate that awaited my corpse.

Zoe had remained more hopeful for our eventual rescue longer than I had. She still believed we'd be saved somehow even when we were sold to Midnight. She was a sweet girl. She should have just died in the massacre if this was her fate. At least she would have been spared all the pain of surviving her parents, Dan, Midnight, and however she ended up dead.
I couldn't believe it, but his words felt so true they hurt.

She didn't deserve this.

And what was I going to do now? I looked up at Matt at a loss. Maybe I had my doubts about his connection to my pack's destruction, but no matter what the truth was, he had benefited from it. Warhammer had always been powerful, but with the wealth of Fluorite's mines, the recipes, and the little niche industry that we had thrived in, they had climbed to the top of the pack rankings across the world.

His success, his wealth, and everything he owned now had been made possible because of all the bodies of all the packs before and after us they had destroyed.

Zoe was just another corpse paving the road to Warhammer's success. How could Alyssa see anything other than our parents' swinging bodies when she looked at Matt? He was handsome. He treated me well, but I couldn't forget everything that had happened. "I... want to be alone now."

He hesitated but nodded and stepped aside, letting me walk past him and up to my room.

I washed off my makeup, showered, and climbed into bed with my phone.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had to focus. Zoe was just another person I had to avenge.

I opened my phone and browsed the web looking for Calvin Wilson and the Skyfall pack. There wasn't much at first, a few news mentions, but soon, I found Skyfall's national registration that included the names, resumes, and faces of the governing members of every registered pack in the United States.

His photo looked at me. It felt like he was mocking me in his nice suit looking so alive among the other governing members of the Skyfall pack.

His resume said he had gone to school in Canada and established the Skyfall pack in a small territory on the border. Calvin Wilson graduated from Skyfall College as a law graduate.

But there was no law school in Skyfall before a few years ago according to the web archives, and Calvin Wilson looked like Jay down to the faint scar just above his eyebrow.

I clenched my jaw, furious at the betrayal.

I created a new email address as Renda and created a Facebook account. As soon as it was set up, I searched for Andrew Wilson. I was surprised to replace that his profile was public and full of his personal information, pictures, and posts dating back a little under three years.

The bastard.

I sent a friend request and within a few minutes, he accepted it and sent me a message.

Hey Renda, I tried to add you on the way home, but there are too many Renda's on Facebook. Glad you found me!

I sneered at the message and replied, Lol. Lots of Andrew Wilsons too, but I'm good at replaceing people, and I deleted my profile a while back. I just made a new one.

Much better than me anyway! We didn't get to talk much at the party. We should get together for coffee sometime.

I grinned. He was making this so easy for me.

We should! There's a brunch place in the Main District of Warhammer's capital. Let's make plans for there?

Sounds good. I'll check my schedule in the morning.

You've been to a couple of these parties at Matt's, so you know him well, right? Is he always like that? Seemed like kind of a mood-killer.

LOL. Not really, but I go to school with Dalton and he knows the ins and outs of Matt's circle.

Who was Dalton? I took note of the name to go looking for him online. Any connection to the Warhammer pack needed to be explored if I could manage it.

What'd you study?

Business. You?

I winced. I could make something up, but it would be too easy to verify that I was lying. I hadn't even finished high school!

I haven't decided, so I'm taking a gap year. Maybe you could give me some advice?

LOL. That sounds like a boring date. Maybe a few dates in we'll talk about the future.

I glared at the message. The only future he would have if I had any say in it was ending up in a grave after a lot of torture. He and his father deserved the most painful death possible. The thought of his death made me smile a little as I typed my response. Well, I don't know about multiple dates... Maybe after you've proven yourself as more than adequate.

I'm up for it any time.

I'll hold you to that. I'm heading to the gym early tomorrow, but let's talk tomorrow.

GN, beautiful. Sweet dreams.

I set my phone aside and lay beneath the blankets, turning over the past three years and all the information I'd found online about Skyfall and the Wilsons.

Jay was definitely involved with the downfall of Fluorite. But why? What had he gotten out of it that was so worth it? It hadn't been long enough for him to actually get a legal degree. There was nothing on what Skyfall made its money doing online, but my stomach churned with the thought that he had simply taken all the jewels he could from Fluorite or started a botanical farm up there with the seeds from Fluorite.

Maybe Ben had just paid him enough.

I needed more time and more information to figure it out or at least a direct link to Jay in some way. Andrew would have to do.

I took a deep breath and let myself fall asleep, promising to plan my next course of action in the morning.