Chapter 360: No Forgiveness

Lucas stepped back inside the house and was met by the pile of bodies he had already dragged to the entrance.

Six men. Stacked close. Blood darkening the tile beneath them. The smell of it hung thick in the closed air.

He did not waste time.

He bent, gripped the first Saint by the front of his shirt and jacket, and hauled him up with one hand. The dead weight came off the floor with a heavy drag. With his other hand he caught the next man the same way. Both bodies lifted, boots scraping, heads lolling. Lucas adjusted his grip once, then turned and walked them toward the open front doors.

Behind him, soft footsteps followed.

Rechelle stayed close.

Her heart was still beating too hard. Every few steps her eyes flicked to the limp shapes hanging from Lucas’s hands, half-afraid one of them might twitch, might wake, might somehow finish what they had started. The fear was irrational. She knew that. It did not stop it from sitting cold in her chest. She only wanted to stay near Lucas ~ near the only solid thing left in the house that felt safe.

Lucas crossed the threshold and into the evening air.

He carried the two bodies the short distance to the van and dropped them without ceremony. They hit the ground with dull, heavy thuds, one after the other. Then he pulled the back doors open again.

That was when Rechelle saw him.

Aaron.

Still bound. Still in the van. Eyes wide in the dim interior light.

For a second he only stared at her, like his brain refused to accept that she was standing there alive. Then his gaze dropped to the two bodies Lucas had just thrown down in front of the open doors. Recognition and terror hit him at the same time.

His face collapsed.

"Please~"

The word broke out of him raw.

"Please... I’m sorry. Rechelle, please~"

He tried to push himself forward on his knees, wrists still tied behind him, body twisting awkwardly against the rope. His voice cracked into something closer to a sob.

"Forgive me. Please. I know you still... I know you still care. Please find a way. I’m begging you~"

Tears cut down his face. Whether they came from guilt or from pure fear of ending up like the men on the ground, it was impossible to tell. He kept trying to move toward her anyway ~ shuffling, almost rolling, the motion ugly and desperate.

"Rechelle... please..."

His voice had gone high and thin. The sound of it filled the quiet space between the van and the house.

Rechelle did not move.

She stood a few steps back from the open doors, staring at the man she had once trusted, now reduced to a crying shape on the floor of a van that smelled of blood and fear. Whatever softness might once have lived in her expression was gone. What remained was cold and hard and tired.

Hate sat openly in her eyes.

She did not answer him.

She only looked at Lucas, as if silently asking him to end it.

Lucas waited.

He watched Rechelle’s face while Aaron kept begging from the open back of the van. There was no softness there. No leftover affection for the man crying on the floor. Whatever history they had once shared was dead in her eyes.

That was all the confirmation Lucas needed.

He grabbed the first two bodies by their clothes and hauled them up again. With one hard motion he threw them into the van. The dead weight slammed in on top of Aaron, knocking him sideways against the panel. A choked sound left the bound man as the corpses pressed down on him.

"Please~ahh~please~"

He still did not stop crying. Even under the bodies he tried to twist forward, voice cracking, words tumbling over each other in pure panic.

Lucas went back for the next pair.

He dragged them across the short stretch of ground and flung them in harder than the first. One of the heavy boots caught Aaron full across the mouth on the way down. The impact was dull and ugly. Something small and hard skipped across the van floor ~ a tooth. Fresh blood welled up and ran from Aaron’s split lip down over his chin.

His face was a mess now.

Tears. Snot. Blood mixing together as he sobbed. His nose ran freely. His mouth was red and wet. The sounds coming out of him were no longer clean words, only broken pleading mixed with pain.

Lucas brought the last of the bodies.

He threw them in with the same controlled force. The van rocked slightly under the added weight. Inside, Aaron’s screaming rose higher as the pile of dead men settled over and around him.

Rechelle had already stepped farther back.

She stood several paces away from the open doors, arms tight across herself, eyes fixed on the van with open disgust. Aaron looked ruined and filthy under the bodies and the blood. Part of her was afraid that if she stood too close, he might somehow still reach for her ~ even tied, even broken.

Lucas slammed the back doors shut.

Aaron’s muffled screaming continued from inside.

Only then did Lucas turn.

Rechelle came straight to him before he could take another step toward the driver’s side. Her voice was quieter than usual, but steady enough.

"What’s your plan?"

"I’m going to take care of the bodies," Lucas said. "You don’t need to worry. I’ll be back soon."

The light was already fading. Evening had settled properly over the property, and the dark would only deepen from here. It was the right time to move what needed to be moved.

Rechelle opened her mouth, then closed it again. For a second she looked like she wanted to ask if she could come with him. The mansion behind her felt huge and empty and wrong. The trauma of the night was still sitting heavy in her chest. Staying alone inside those rooms felt harder than it should have.

Lucas saw it.

He lifted one hand and gently straightened a strand of her hair that had fallen across her face. The touch was simple. Steady.

"I’ll be back soon," he said again. "Don’t worry."

She nodded once, small and tight.

Then she walked to the main gate and pulled it open for him. Lucas climbed into the van, started the engine, and drove out through the opening. Rechelle stood in the gateway and watched the vehicle until its lights disappeared down the road and the sound of the engine faded into the night.

Only then did she close the gate.

She locked it.

But she did not go back inside the house.

The dark mansion waited behind her with its bloodstained floors and broken silence. She could not bring herself to step into it alone. So she stayed outside in the cool evening air, arms folded, eyes fixed on the road Lucas had taken ~ and waited for him to return.