THE MERCENARY
CARNAGE: FEbrUARY 2020 (AGE: 36)
“Blood//Water” by grandson
W e struck as Oklahoma was battening down the hatches for a blizzard. An arctic cold front had moved into the area four days prior, delivering subfreezing temperatures and making surveillance a bitch to pull off. The cold had settled into my muscles and joints, triggering old wounds that left me feeling much older than thirty-six. Every ounce of pain was worth it, though, because we finally had him.
Cobra.
Finding the biker had been easier than expected—almost too easy.
The possibility of a set-up weighed heavily on my mind. But one hundred sixty-eight hours of recon and another forty-eight spent running SDR—a surveillance detection route that would have smoked out even the most experienced units—turned up nothing.
Not once in the last nine days had Cobra given any indication he was aware we were on to him.
I’d accounted for everything.
Except her.
She lay sprawled across the king-sized bed, a sunny yellow sweatshirt bunched up over her hips, chest rising and falling with each deep breath. Pale pink sheets wound around her toned calves like snakes, as if she’d been thrashing in her sleep. One arm rested against her bare stomach. The other was twisted in the long silvery-blonde hair fanned across the pillow beneath her head.
I could easily make out her features, down to the sparkly purple nail polish on her fingers, thanks to the soft yellow glow cast by the nightlights scattered throughout the room. I’d counted at least seven of the damn things upon entering.
How the hell she managed to sleep with her room lit up like a goddamned runway was beyond me.
There was a dull thud downstairs, courtesy of Mike or Zane, but the woman didn’t move a muscle. She slept on, oblivious to the monster beside her bed and those lying in wait one floor below.
For over a week, I’d watched Cobra coming and going as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If she was being held against her will—I paused to check her wrists but found no abrasions or markings.
There was a crystal chandelier hanging over the bed and ornate throw pillows on a pink velvet loveseat in the corner of the room. If Cobra was holding this woman captive, it didn’t show. No, I’d bet my ass she’d handpicked each item in here, along with the farmhouse crap I’d passed downstairs.
But who the fuck was she? And where the fuck had she been hiding for the past nine days?
I crept toward the nightstand, searching for clues among a picture frame, water glass, and prescription bottles for Topamax and Metoclopramide . They weren’t medications I was familiar with, nor did I particularly care what they were prescribed for.
What I needed was an identity.
A lover?
If that was the case, then it seemed more likely she would have been in the main bedroom downstairs.
The toe of my boot connected with something solid, sending it into the nightstand with a sharp clink . Any illusions of her being a prisoner vanished as soon as I realized it was a weapon.
She mumbled something in her sleep, and I held my breath, waiting until she went still again before dropping into a crouch to retrieve it .
I turned the dainty revolver over in my hands, ignoring the protest in my stiff joints as I studied her face, trying to guess her age. Mid-twenties, maybe. Certainly much younger than Cobra, who had to be pushing sixty. Some type of sugar daddy arrangement, then. A place to live in exchange for fucking a man old enough to be her father. I let my gaze roam over her body again, deciding that even with the lavish house, Cobra had gotten the better end of the deal.
Unfortunately for her, she’d unknowingly signed her death warrant the day she moved in.
There was an alliance in place—one signed by every club in the nation. An attack on one was a declaration of war on all. If it got out that a Silent Phoenix officer had been on the Crows’ turf without going through the proper channels, the peace treaty that had held for the past three years wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on.
No witnesses.
The club had made that mistake once before, when our former Pres, Grey, stormed a strip joint in the Outlaws’ territory, wiping out their partners, Los Dictadores. Decades of fighting followed, along with a war that had damn near decimated every club before the syndicate reformed.
Cobra had been all too willing to let us take him without a fight—had wanted us to believe he was alone in the house. Perhaps we could use her as collateral to obtain what we needed from him. The thought of a former Serpent down on his knees, begging a rival club member for his fuck buddy’s life, brought a smile to my face.
I pocketed the bullets from her gun and was in the process of lowering it onto the nightstand when the picture inside the frame caught my attention.
In it, a much younger Cobra knelt beside a blonde-haired ballerina who couldn’t have been older than five or six. My smirk faded as I compared her to the woman in the bed. While the roundness in her cheeks was gone, the bone structure was the same.
She wasn’t some fuck buddy.
She was his daughter.
An uncontrollable shudder swept through my body as I worked to extinguish every source of light in the bedroom. As long as she didn’t see my face, she couldn’t identify me later .
What was I doing?
I couldn’t leave her alive.
There was a reason Bear, the club’s current Pres, had asked me to assist the two detectives. Mike and Zane were more than capable of retrieving Cobra and delivering him to Grey, but each had his own reason for coming. Reasons that would get them both killed if they let their emotions cloud their judgment. I was their handler—here to ensure everything went according to plan and nothing led back to the club.
Cobra had been a willing participant—a soldier—in the Sons’ war. But this woman was a civilian, a pawn in a game she didn’t even know she was playing. It went against what little humanness I still possessed to hold an innocent woman accountable for the sins of her father, but I was going to have a hell of a time convincing the two downstairs to see things my way.
After grumbling something unintelligible, she rolled over, putting her face inches from where I crouched, debating my next move.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have long to decide.
The sound of glass shattering downstairs sent her bolting upright in bed with a startled gasp.
A section of the downstairs hardwood squeaked out a protest, like the rubber sole of a shoe on a basketball court. Cobra’s subsequent groan of pain killed any chance of her chalking the whole thing up to a dream and going back to sleep.
She crouched at the foot of the bed, her breaths ragged. I expected a scream, or at the very least, a whimper once she realized I’d turned off all the lights. Instead, with a calmness that could only have come from extensive training, she slowly turned and drove her foot into the side of my head before scrambling toward the nightstand.
I launched myself at her with a low growl, my temple throbbing from the kick. The mattress dipped beneath my weight as I landed on her back and let the momentum carry us both over the edge to the carpet below.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs, and I didn’t waste a single second. I looped one arm over her shoulder and the other under her left armpit, getting her into a rear mount. With my legs hooked around hers, she was completely powerless .
“Nice try, Twinkletoes,” I murmured into her hair, fighting my body’s automatic response to the feel of her curvy ass grinding against the front of my jeans—a painful reminder of how long it had been since I’d had a woman beneath me.
Sensing she wasn’t going to escape, the woman went limp with defeat, and I relaxed my hold, planning to use the zip ties I’d packed for Cobra to bind her wrists. I was still working out the details of what to do from there, but I’d gotten out of worse jams with far less working in my favor.
She waited until I reached for the ties before pulling her lower leg back and rotating her hips until my knee was pinned beneath her tailbone. I moved to hook her again with my legs, but by then, she’d already planted the soles of her feet against the carpet and scraped her hips over, escaping the lower hold completely. The new position made it damn near impossible for me to put her in a chokehold. Seemed Twinkletoes had some martial arts experience.
We grappled for control until she managed to break the tension in my arms enough to roll toward me before wriggling out of my grasp completely.
Click.
Christ, she’d gotten the gun. She tried again, making a small noise of frustration upon realizing it wasn’t a misfire.
Click. Click.
I snagged the zip ties with a low chuckle, unaware of the revolver coming at my head until it was too late. The tiny weapon cracked across my cheekbone, sending a jolt of red-hot pain down into the roots of my teeth. I worked my jaw from side to side as it began to swell. While nothing felt broken, I would be sporting one hell of a bruise in the coming days.
I’d add it to my collection.
After deflecting the next attempt, I knocked the gun from her hands with a snarl. If she was trying to take me down, she was failing miserably. So far, she’d only succeeded in pissing me off.
I popped up, straining to find the little nightmare in the dark. The last thing I needed was her snagging another gun, namely one I hadn’t unloaded.
Instead, she’d decided to make a run for it, so focused on getting away from me that she missed the six-foot-seven obstacle looming in the open doorway. Her body collided with Zane’s, and the force of the impact sent her hurtling back toward the carpet with an agonized groan.
“Thought you might need a hand,” he drawled with a rare smile before jerking his chin to where the woman now lay writhing at our feet. “What do we have here?”
“A problem,” I snapped, making quick work of getting the hellcat onto her stomach and securing her wrists before retrieving my knife. Zane’s eyebrow ticked up, but he remained silent as I yanked the hem of the woman’s sweatshirt away from her body.
“No,” she panted, bucking her hips to try to throw me off-balance.
“Calm the fuck down, Rambo Barbie,” I growled, slicing off a thick strip of the material to secure around her eyes. “I don’t wanna hurt you?—”
“Fuck. You.”
I hauled her up by the collar of her sweatshirt and leaned down until my mouth was against the shell of her ear. “Sorry, Twinkletoes. You’re not my type. Now, shut your pretty mouth unless you want to be gagged next.”
Zane didn’t question the blindfold or ask why she was still breathing. Instead, he let out a low whistle and dutifully followed me downstairs. Unlike another detective, who never seemed to know when to shut the fuck up.
Or apparently, what in and out with no trace meant.
It was precisely why I was here. Sullivan may have been Grey’s son, but he lacked the man’s patience and control. As an old friend and fellow biker had often said, he ran into things with his dick hanging out.
That man was gone now—another casualty of Cobra’s war. Now it fell to Zane and me to keep the asshole in check.
“Somebody forgot to RSVP to our party,” Mike tsked as we entered the kitchen, narrowing his eyes at me. “What did Daddy say about doing our fucking jobs?”
Somewhere between Lubbock and Edmond, he’d gotten it in his head that he was in charge. One of these days, someone was going to put a bullet in his head to shut him up. At the rate he was going, that someone would be me.
I cracked my neck and stared him down until he wisely chose to move on to someone else. His daddy wasn’t the Pres anymore, and I had no problem giving him a hands-on reminder.
“Friend of yours, Cobra?”
A muscle twitched in the biker’s corded neck, but otherwise, his expression remained neutral. Bored, even. Nothing like the man I’d pictured in my head for years—one who had supposedly favored diamond cufflinks and custom suits. With his charcoal cotton robe and slippers, he looked like any other middle-aged man. Minus the bloody nose and handcuffs.
“Hooker,” he bit out, refusing to look at her. “Told the bitch she could leave once we were through. Thanks to you idiots interrupting, I’ll be forced to pay extra.”
Twinkletoes flinched at the term, confirming what we both recognized was a lie. Even if I hadn’t seen the truth, I never would have believed her to be a whore. Sex workers had a hardness about them—a steel barrier they built around themselves to cushion against the people who used their bodies. This woman grasped how to fight, but she was soft.
“Now, hold on here,” Mike said with a wide grin. “You’re telling me she’s a prostitute? Her . When did you pick her up?”
“A few hours ago. What do you want next—a location? Never pegged you for the desperate type,” Cobra muttered dryly. “It’s funny. Last I heard, you’d met the Reaper on a colleague’s front lawn, leaving behind a widow.”
“Yeah? Well, last I heard, you knew how to lie. We’ve had eyes on the place for days—seen no one but you.”
“It’s true,” she said, her body tensing against mine. A tremor worked its way down her spine, but she kept her voice steady. “He hired me for the month.”
I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. Someone had seen way too many movies.
“Right,” Mike drawled, dragging Cobra to the kitchen island. When the old man saw the combat knife, he began struggling to break free .
With a sigh, I pulled my sidearm and held it to the woman’s head. He settled instantly, and Mike undid the cuffs.
“Interesting ring,” he noted, holding Cobra’s hand up for inspection. The band winked under the pendant lights over the island—a diamond thirteen. “I feel like I’ve seen it before. Oh, that’s right. You branded someone with it—a woman who’s like a mother to me?—”
Twinkletoes sagged against me but wisely remained silent.
“Just marking my property,” Cobra interjected, forcing his lips into a cruel smirk.
Mike slapped Cobra’s palm against the granite and instructed Zane to hold him down. While tracing the outline of his hand with the tip of the blade, the detective whistled a tune that sounded eerily similar to the opening music from Disney’s Robin Hood .
I knew what was coming. Given the sweat beading on his brow, the biker did, too. Even the girl’s breaths had become short pants as she struggled to determine what was happening.
“Marking your property,” Mike mused to himself, still toying with the blade. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”
“You should leave the torture to your old man. It’s clear you’re out of your—” Cobra’s words cut off in a sharp hiss of pain as Mike brought the knife down, piercing the skin directly above the ring.
“Now, let’s try this again. Who’s the girl? Tell me nicely, and I’ll let you keep the finger.”
“A whore!” the biker spat. “She’s a fucking whore who has nothing to do with why you’re here! Now, be a good little boy and take me back to your daddy!”
The blade made an unholy screech as it scraped against the granite, and Cobra roared through clenched teeth, straining to break Zane’s hold before passing out from the pain.
Mike held the severed digit up like a trophy before dropping it and the ring onto the island. “And now, for my next trick?—”
He retrieved a lighter from his pocket and began whistling the creepy tune again, tapping the heel of his boot to the beat as he held the flame to the open wound. The scent of burning flesh reached my nostrils as Cobra briefly came to with a howl of pain.
Twinkletoes shifted like she was going to make a run for it before turning her head to vomit onto the hardwood floor with a low moan. I lowered the gun to grip her shoulders, holding her hair back as she retched.
“Breathe through your mouth,” I commanded in a low voice, trying to keep her together. She couldn’t lose her shit. Not now. Not when there was a look in Mike’s eyes I didn’t entirely trust.
Not once during the five-and-a-half-hour drive up or in the week following had he mentioned torture. I had survived war zones by always planning fifty steps ahead. Last-minute deviations got people killed.
“He’s out again,” Zane said, looking to me to make the call. “Let’s clean up and go. I’d like to be back before sunrise.”
I agreed. Mike hadn’t simply veered off-course with his little stunt, he’d created a fucking crime scene. He was too close—too fucking volatile to be trusted in this situation.
“Not yet,” he argued, snapping his fingers in front of the unconscious man’s face. “Cobra, pumpkin? You still with us?”
The old man blinked slowly before turning, not to look at the bloody stump where his middle finger had been, but to her.
“There you are, sunshine. Now, I hate to be a party pooper, but we’re gonna have to skip the rest of the magic show and cut right to opening the presents.”
I gave Mike a stiff smile, my jaw tightening in irritation as I reminded him, “We need to go. In and out, remember?”
“And we will, sweetie,” he crooned, guaranteeing himself a split lip before the night was over. “As soon as Cobra here answers my question.”
“I’ve told you already?—”
“Yep. Hooker. Got that. Thing is, most men aren’t willing to lose a finger for a whore. You know what? I’ve got an idea. Let’s try your method. Bring her here.”
“The hell?” Zane asked, his eyes bugging out of his head. “That’s not part of the plan?—”
“New plan,” Mike interjected.
I didn’t budge from my position, forcing him to come to me. She’d stopped vomiting but was now shaking violently in my arms. And she had every right to be. I knew what Cobra’s method was—hell, anyone who’d ridden long enough had heard the rumors of what the biker and his buddies had done to Grey’s Ol’ Lady, Celia.
Sullivan was many things, but a rapist was not one of them, making his statement all the more confusing.
He ran a finger down her cheek, and she jerked her head to the side, trying to escape his touch.
“The fuck are you doing?” I growled, taking a step back. I didn’t know this woman, but I wasn’t about to hand her over to a man who had clearly lost sight of the mission the moment he stepped inside.
“Getting answers,” Mike answered, his gaze suddenly cold. “The same way he did.”
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Cobra snarled, his face turning red.
“You’ll have to jog my memory, pumpkin. Is it beat, rape, brand—or brand, rape, and then beat? I just want to make sure I’m doing this right.”
“Please,” she whispered through chattering teeth, sounding as if she was on the verge of hyperventilating. “I’m nobody?—”
“Shhh…” Mike smashed his index finger against her lips, silencing her. “The grown-ups are talking, sweetie?—”
“You’ve got me, detective!” Cobra roared, bucking against Zane’s hold. “Let her go.”
I jerked my attention to the biker, wondering if he realized what he’d done. Blindfolded or not, Mike wouldn’t let her leave the room now that she knew he was a badge.
A small wooden sign that read thankful leaned against the white tile backsplash near the stove. A sign I knew she had chosen, along with the mason jar of fresh tulips and light green slipcovers on the kitchen chairs. The little things always seemed to stand out most—a pair of children’s shoes lying amidst rubble after a bombing or the half-full cup of black coffee still waiting on the table for a biker who had come home in a pine box.
I’d been fighting in wars since I was seventeen—both overseas and at home—and it never got easier seeing the stuff left behind. Something about the sign being in Cobra’s house—knowing she was responsible for it—spurred me to regain control of the situation.
“Enough,” I said, tucking her small frame to my side. “That’s enough. ”
“But—” Mike protested.
I straightened to my full height and snarled, “I swear to god, if the next word out of your mouth is sweetie or pumpkin , I will put a bullet in your fucking head and tell your family you fled the country to start a new life! You listen to me, you little shit. You’ve had your fun, and now it’s time to clean up the goddamn mess!”
Cobra stopped struggling against Zane and smirked. “Better listen to your boss?—”
“As for you,” I growled. “You’re going to shut the fuck up. You keep running your mouth, and there’s not a chance in hell she’s making it out of this alive. You get me?”
Mike pulled his sidearm with a chuckle. “Oh, she’s definitely not getting out of this alive.”
“Yeah? You gonna be the one to pull the trigger?”
Twinkletoes shrank back with a choked whimper, treading over the toes of my boots with her bare feet as if she could escape the impact of my words.
“Why not? Not like I haven’t done it before.” He pressed the barrel to her forehead and stared up at me with a manic expression. “That’s a nice shirt. Be a real shame to ruin it.”
We were playing a game of roulette, and I was no longer sure Mike would wait until I was out of the line of fire before pulling the trigger.
I glanced down at her and then over to Cobra. “You gonna tell him, or am I?”
The biker shook his head, proving he was identical to the Sons and their ilk—men who considered family members fair game if it got them closer to their enemies. Despite what he believed, giving up her identity would be the only thing that saved her.
“She’s his daughter,” I announced to the men in the room.
Mike lowered the gun in an instant before turning to Cobra for confirmation.
He nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on me. “She is. But whether that will help or hurt her remains to be seen.”
“I’ll do it,” she whispered to the room. “Whatever you want. Just let him go.”
Jesus .
The silence was broken only by the continuous ticking of a large wooden wall clock hanging in the eating nook.
I cleared my throat, and Mike looked up, fight gone and face ashen. “Time to clean up your mess. Do not leave a single trace of evidence. Think you can manage that… sweetie ?”
“Please,” Twinkletoes begged, her chest heaving with each ragged breath.
Mike blinked rapidly and stumbled back a step, his gaze suddenly unfocused.
Family was everything to him.
His twin girls would be turning three soon. Maybe he was picturing them in a similar situation, offering up their bodies in an attempt to save his sorry ass. Or perhaps he was remembering the time his now wife, Lauren, had met the business end of my M17 when she barged into the bar Leather now, he’d do anything we asked if he thought it would keep her safe.
The biker watched me carefully, probably wondering if I was the type to brutalize his daughter to get to him. I may have looked every part the beast, but I wasn’t taking an opportunity solely because it presented itself.
That was his game.
I nodded to Zane, still weighing the pros and cons of what I was about to do. “Once he’s done, we’ll go.”
“She’s—” Cobra pressed his lips together in a grimace as if whatever he was about to admit caused him pain. “She’s already seen one parent die already. Please don’t make her do it again.”
Fuck.
There would be no mother she could run to once he was gone. Eliminating the last remaining threat from the war meant leaving this woman an orphan.
“Daddy—no!” she cried, struggling to reach him. “I said I’d do it! Take me instead. Please!”
“Enough, Harper,” he growled. “Remember your training?—”
“Fuck the training—the protocols—all of it!” she roared before lowering her voice to a whisper, speaking only to me. “You have the wrong guy. My father, he’s retired. He hasn’t been in for almost three years. It’s not him. He’s not your guy. Whatever you think he did… it’s not him. Just—please—take me instead.”
Retired? What the hell was it she thought he did for a living? Bikers didn’t retire. They might step down when age took its toll, but every single one knew once they patched in, they were in for life.
In by blood. Out by blood.
Twinkletoes ground her ass against me as if I hadn’t recognized what she was offering when she begged me to take her. On any other man, the act may have worked. But I didn’t miss the mechanical way she moved. Hell, I could practically smell the terror seeping from her pores at the thought of handing herself over to be beaten and abused.
Still, she would do it to save him—a man who didn’t deserve an ounce of sympathy from anyone. Cobra had clearly let his daughter believe he was some secret agent or spy instead of a low-life who preyed on those who were weaker than him.
He’d been destined for a bullet since the day he came into this world.
I wasn’t aware I was still clenching her hair in my fist until she began squirming to free herself. With a sharp tug, I yanked her head back. “Shhh… no one’s going to hurt you. You have my word.”
Harper shook her head in denial, still struggling to break my grip as she vowed, “I won’t let you do this. I won’t?—”
“Take him,” I ordered Zane, meeting the hate in Cobra’s eyes with a cruel smirk. “If you so much as blink the wrong way, there’s no deal. I’ll tie a ribbon around her neck and deliver her to the Outlaws myself. After what your buddies did to their president, I imagine they’d love to get their hands on her.”
His face paled. I had him over a barrel, and he knew it. Silent Phoenix may have abided by a specific code, but that didn’t mean other clubs did. The Outlaws were one of many who had a bone to pick with Cobra. And if they couldn’t have him, they’d happily settle for his daughter.
He nodded in understanding. “If you’ll just give me a moment with her?—”
“Not part of the deal,” I coldly stated over the sounds of Harper’s incoherent pleas.
Mike’s head shot up from where he knelt, mopping up blood, face screwed up as if he’d bitten into something sour.
This was on him.
If he wanted to allow the man a moment alone with his daughter, then he should have kept his emotions out of it and stuck to the plan. As it was, we were already behind schedule, and I was completely and thoroughly pissed off.
“I am asking to hold my daughter one last time. Are you going to deny me this?” Cobra growled, making no attempt to hide the tears glimmering in his eyes.
Zane shook his head slowly as if he didn’t see the harm in what the man was asking and couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t granting the man’s last request.
Because I wasn’t a goddamned genie in a bottle, doling out wishes. Letting him speak to her came with too many variables. Mike was unpredictable enough and the primary reason we were in this FUBAR situation in the first place.
I couldn’t risk leaving one more thing to chance.
“What part of no did you not understand?” I asked, enunciating each word.
“No! Please,” Harper begged, failing to mask the rising panic in her voice. “Let me say goodbye!”
“You just did. Take him.”
“Harper!” Cobra jerked against the handcuffs as Zane snapped them back on, his muscles straining beneath his robe. “Wait—Harper! Please!”
With a tired sigh, I released her hair and looped my arm around her throat, resting the barrel of my gun against her skull where he could see. “Last chance, and then we do this my way.”
His feverish gaze moved to Mike, who turned away with a regretful shake of his head. Realizing no one was going to intervene on his behalf, Cobra released a long exhale, the fight draining from his body almost instantly.
“Harper,” he said in a voice choked with emotion. Tears ran freely down both cheeks. “I love you, my girl.”
It was almost enough to break even my resolve.
“Daddy?” she questioned, sensing the defeat in his tone. “Wait. No, not like this—I’m not ready!”
Mike ran a bleach-soaked towel over the counters and floors, removing the last traces of blood and vomit before chucking it into a full garbage bag. “Let’s go,” he muttered to Zane, refusing to look my way. They led Cobra out through the kitchen side door, all three of their faces etched in grief.
Good. At least the drive home would be peaceful. I’d finally have the quiet I’d craved since leaving Lubbock.
“Not like this!” Harper pleaded, straining against me. “Not like this—please! Daddy!”
“Shhh,” I breathed into her hair. “I’m putting the gun away now, okay?”
She quieted, her heart pounding furiously beneath my arm as I returned my sidearm to its holster. The door closed with a definitive click, and she brought her heel down on the toe of my boot, fighting me with everything she had.
“Let me go,” she rasped as I locked her head in the V of my arm, reaching my hand toward my opposite shoulder. “You didn’t let me tell him I loved him—I didn’t get to say goodbye!”
Nothing she said or did would change her father’s fate. He’d chosen death the moment he laid hands on Celia. Whether she bid the fucker farewell or not, the end result would ultimately be the same.
Still, I wasn’t willing to inflict more pain if I could help it. So, I let her claw my stomach with her bound hands and gritted my teeth when she drew back and kicked me in the shin.
“Believe me, it’s better this way, sweetheart,” I said, tucking my other arm behind her head. Knowing I was beyond redemption, I lowered my chin, breathing in the scent of her hair like a man starved of oxygen. She smelled like citrus and vanilla—a combination I found intoxicating .
By the time she realized I had her in a rear naked choke, I was already applying pressure, savoring the feel of her body going limp in my arms.