The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

on Esty, but in the end, my team killed them all. Who told you about them? Who tipped you off?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” he said, eyeing Camden. “He’s in this very room right now.”

In the back of his mind, Leopold knew that Camden had screwed them. Was it because Yergha came on too strong? But Leopold had threatened him in the hotel room as well. Was it their tact, or was the disgraced congressman always going to turn?

That’s when Camden walked toward the television screen, his curiosity piqued. Atlas turned to it as well. But when Leopold saw the screen—when he saw what was on it—he was so shot through with horror, he felt faint, so close to passing out he took an unsteady step backward. Kiera caught him, took his arm, and stabilized him.

On the TV, Callie was not only strung up by her hands, she was also naked and beaten. Behind her was a half-naked man with a black leather mask and a chainsaw. Camden sucked in a deep, painful breath, then turned around and looked at Lumley with a tortured expression that was so vile and so cold it could frost all of hell’s furnaces.

Atlas was there a second later to hand Camden his tactical blade. Camden took the knife then rushed former secretary of state Russell Lumley with a mighty scream raging out of his mouth. He then went on a blood-soaked stabbing spree so ferocious and so violent that by the time Camden was done, most of Lumley’s blood was outside of his body.

When Camden was done, he stood up and staggered backward, his body so exhausted, so weary, the knife fell from his hand onto the floor and he had to grab the TV to keep from falling over. After seeing what he had done to the former secretary of state, he fell down and shook with a sob so deep and full of sorrow it almost tugged on Leopold’s heartstrings. Almost.

Atlas walked up to Camden, but instead of picking up his blade, or consoling the man, he dropped before the man and said, “I have a little girl, too. She’s been missing for well over half a decade now. I would kill to see her again, and in fact, I am killing to see her again. But you had three beautiful girls and a gorgeous wife and you just threw them away.”

Camden looked down, embarrassed.

Atlas grabbed the man’s face and jerked it up, making sure they were eye to eye. “Do you know who I am?” Atlas asked.

“You’re the cop who killed those three kids and got life in prison,” he said.

“Three life sentences actually,” Atlas said. “Do you know what my job is here?”

“To recover my daughters and leave a mess of carnage behind.”

“Yes,” Atlas hissed. “I specialize in breaking things and beating things to death.”

“I appreciate all that you’ve done, Mr. Hargrove.”

“How much did he pay you to kidnap your wife and children?” Atlas asked.

“Ten million. It wasn’t for the kids, though. Sydney and the girls were just meant to get you out of prison. He wanted you, Atlas. I know that now. He wanted Leopold’s junkyard dog, the one that cost him his trafficking lines and his satanic drugs. My girls…they were never…they were never supposed to get hurt.”

“This is Juárez we’re talking about,” Atlas said.

Camden seemed to have things he had to get off his chest, so Atlas let him speak. “You don’t understand how much I hate my job, but I can’t just quit. If my family was taken, the border issues would be exposed and I could finally retire from this god-awful shit life of politics. This asshole promised that I could do that with ten million in my account, minus what I paid Leopold.”

With these sad, tragic revelations there were dark shadows under his eyes and prolonged silence. Then he started to shake all over—his shoulders, his back, and his face. He sobbed because the weight of what he’d done, of what he sacrificed, had all been for nothing.

Atlas grabbed his face again, yanking it hard this time. Leopold knew Atlas well enough to know what made him tick. But to Camden, the former SWAT commander turned homicidal maniac probably looked like something coughed up from hell.

“You can’t believe a word any of these people say,” Atlas growled. “They’ll eat their own for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You are a perfect example of that, and do you know what?”

“What?” Camden asked through a squashed mouth.

“That makes me so fucking mad,” he roared. “You just gave them away like they were trading cards or markers.”

“I know,” he said.

Atlas closed the distance between them. With his face only inches from Camden’s face, Atlas screamed with all his might. Camden could do nothing but stay there and take it.

Then Atlas took a deep breath and said, “I’ve wanted to beat you to death since I found out what you did. But killing you would only ease your pain and that’s something I won’t take from you. I hope it eats you alive. And when it does, just know it’s eating at people like me, too. I couldn’t save Callie. Do you hear that? You took her from me, too. You took her away from all of us!”

Just then, the security guard entered the room. He had his gun out, but he didn’t look nervous.

“If you’re going to shoot me,” Atlas said over his shoulder, “just do it already.”

“The chambered round was not for you, sir. It was for the secretary should one of you decide that he needed to live.”

“You don’t think he should have lived?” Leopold asked, trying to be clear on the man’s intentions.

The security guard shook his head.