Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

“Holden claimed he was giving her what she wanted by bringing his friends, Beau Cabot and Arnold Harrison, in with them, and giving her orders. She freaked out when they were all over her. She began going crazy on them and when they tried to restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt herself, she pulled a knife from where one of the boys had it on his belt and slashed and stabbed at them repeatedly,” Code continued. “The doctor testified that she had defensive wounds all over her, severe bruises, that it looked as if they’d tried to tie her down, but she fought them off. She hadn’t been raped and she didn’t have sex with any of them, Holden included, because he’d been too eager to get his friends involved.”

“The jury didn’t believe him?” Alena asked.

“Holden’s doctor refuted the testimony saying the bruising was from the boys trying to restrain her when she went crazy from the drugs she’d been using that night,” Code said. “Her friends came forward and said she had never done drugs. Her teachers pointed out she was an honor student and well ahead of her grade. It became clear that Holden Sr. wanted her in prison, and he was going to get what he wanted.”

“Prison?” Master hit the top of the table with the flat of his palms. “Are you fucking kidding me? Not even the county jail? They’d send a kid to prison for defending herself?”

“They made her look like a sick freak who enticed these college boys and then tried to slash them to pieces,” Code said. “I think she’d still be there, but shortly after she was taken to prison, someone broke into her parents’ home and her little sister was gang-raped.”

Absinthe’s eyes closed. The rage in the room increased tenfold. He didn’t know if it was Savage or him or the combination, but it was lethal. He was lethal. This wasn’t something Scarlet was just going to come out and tell him any more than he was going to tell her how Demyan had died. The ugliness in the world never failed to shock him. He’d been born to that shit, yet he couldn’t seem to get over the shock of it.

“I wish I could say it all ended there, but it didn’t,” Code said, his voice heavy. “Priscilla, her little sister, hanged herself. Her parents came home, they’d been out for the night, and they found her. After cutting his daughter down, the father went into his bedroom, got a gun, shot his wife and then himself. The police found all three bodies together.”

Again, silence hung like a pall over the room. Absinthe wanted to leave the room, get on his Harley and go to her. She’d been alone, behind bars, unable to do anything but blame herself. He knew how that felt. He glanced across the room at Steele. Steele knew exactly what that felt like. Maybe they all did. They’d been helpless, children really, but that didn’t matter when it came to emotions.

“Fuck.” Savage spit the ugly vulgarity out for all of them.

“Apparently, an advocacy group took up for Scarlet. They believed her testimony and tried to get a retrial. Another lawyer, a female, began going over the transcripts and took up her case. Holden made a big mistake trying to essentially bribe her. She recorded him. The lawyer was able to get Scarlet out of prison. She had already served three years. Everyone wanted it to just go quietly away. The judge retired, which was lucky,” Code said. “I got into his bank accounts and found interesting documents between him and Holden’s attorney. The judge took his money. Scarlet’s defense attorney took his money. The doctor he hired to refute her doctor’s testimony took his money.”

“I’ll need their names,” Absinthe said. “And information.”

“We’ll need all information,” Czar corrected, giving him a look that clearly said to back the hell off.

Absinthe rubbed his chest over his pounding heart. How the hell did Savage live with this? He nodded to Czar. “At least they got her out of prison.”

“They did,” Code said. “Holden tried to stop it. He and his son and the two frat boys, Beau and Arnold. I’ve got a couple of pictures taken of Robert grinning at Scarlet. He looks like he’s taunting her. Now, he knows her family is dead. She was asked on the stand if she had any idea who might have broken into her house and savagely attacked her younger sister. She looked right at Holden Jr. and said, and I’m quoting, ‘How could I possibly know who would be that evil of a person?’ The photographs were actually taken by someone her new attorney had hired because she wanted to see what Holden’s son was acting like at all times.”

“How do you find these things out?” Keys asked.