Sasquatch
He fucking hated doing this with Devin, but he accepted she’d needed to. He knew Croon had taught her to shoot and fight, that helped, not a lot, but it was something.
That and by all the accounts he had of Thom, the fucker was a joke. One fifty if that and not the sharpest tool in the shed. He wasn’t a gun guy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. One thing he knew for sure, never underestimate your opponent.
As they entered, Thom was asleep on a recliner in the living room.
Convenient.
Sasquatch walked around it, and levered it up violently, but held Thom’s forehead back against the cheap upholstery, and placed his favorite knife at his throat.
Yes he had a favorite, who didn’t?
“Uh uh uh, asshole. Keep real still unless you wanna see what a larynx looks like.” He leaned down to his ear. “I can tell you from experience, they’re not pretty.”
The TV and rising sun cast enough light to see, but Squatch didn’t need his eyes to know that Thom’s gaze had settled on the figure in front of him.
“Hello, Thom.” Devin spoke as if she were greeting someone she vaguely remembered when she ran into them at the grocery store. She was the picture of calm with an undercurrent of fuck you and he’d be damned if it wasn’t turning him on.
“Miss me?”
Thom tensed under Squatch’s hand and he felt the blade nick the soft flesh.
“Not at all, you fat bitch.” Thom gritted out, and Squatch removed the blade from his throat and brought it up to make a cut at the corner of his mouth, leaving him no choice but to open and allow the tip inside.
“Talk to her like that again, and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out and make you swallow it.” Squatch didn’t growl or rage, just stated a fact calmly. Little did Thom know, his tongue was already forfeit.
Since he still needed his ability to speak for the time being, Squatch moved the knife back to his throat.
“Listen, I’m not here to have a battle of wits with a woefully under-armed person.”
Damn, she was cold as ice, and it was burning him alive. Squatch didn’t think she had it in her, Devin was always so warm with him. The ice in her gaze had him needing to end this fucker and get the old woman out, so he could fuck Devin into that cheap hotel mattress.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thom questioned.
The way her lip curled up in a sneer, but not just any sneer, a superior sneer, just made him love her more.
He’d been worried she was too good for him, too clean.
He had more blood on his hands than could be washed off in a lifetime, he’d not wanted that to taint Devin.
Wondered if she was too soft to handle his darker side, but he was realizing how wrong he was.
“Exactly.” That was it, her answer to the still-breathing dead man. One word that spoke volumes.
Thom made a sound of confusion, so Squatch leaned down to explain.
“Let me dumb it down for you. She called you stupid, but you were too fucking stupid to understand it. Then, she doubled down with her reply, and you’re still confused.” He lowered his voice even more. “It kinda proves her point.”
He stood back to his full height and tapped his cheek twice. “But cheer up, even complete morons like you can be useful.”
“Here.” Devin held out the papers she’d brought with her. “Sign these so I can take Ida somewhere safe, and then I’ll only let him maim you a little, if not…”
She left the threat hanging and damn if he wasn’t getting harder and harder with everything she said and did. He loved this side of her, what did that say about him?
Thom’s laugh pierced the air. A laugh that made the hair on the back of Squatch’s neck stand up. It was like he knew something they didn’t and Squatch didn’t like that shit at all.
Removing his free hand from the asshole, he reached behind him slowly and pulled out his suppressed handgun. With almost imperceptible movements, he allowed his arm with the gun to hang loosely, hiding it behind the recliner. The knife still firmly at his neck.
Squatch didn’t spare a glance to the window that overlooked the porch. He didn’t need to, he knew his brother would’ve noticed his movements and taken it for what it was, Squatch was on alert and Nitro would be ready.
“Ida?” His laugh increased. “She doesn’t need you coming in to save her. She’s r—”
He was interrupted by a frail-sounding voice.
“Devin? Oh, honey, is that you?” A light flared in the open room across the hall from them. It looked to be a dining room that had been transformed into a sick room. The right half of the bed was barely visible from his vantage point behind the recliner.
Fuck, he inwardly cursed. The woman was not in the room she’d been in according to Devin when she gave him the layout of the house.
He should’ve noticed her before, should’ve gotten eyes on her before waking the sleeping asshole, but he’d surprised them by being in the living room.
Squatch was kicking himself now. He prided himself on being observant and when it mattered most, when Devin was with him, he let something so obvious slip.
His unease from earlier just ramped up. Squatch didn’t like surprises. Surprises in his world meant bloodshed. All he could hope for now, was that it wasn’t Devin’s.
Devin spun immediately and went to the old woman who wasn’t as old as he’d assumed. Clasping her hand and apologizing for leaving her.
“What’s going on? Who is that man with my son?”
The woman’s words did nothing to soothe the growing concern in his chest, in fact, it had the opposite effect.
He hated it, fear wasn’t something he felt, ever.
Not since becoming Enforcer anyway. Even when he got shot, stabbed, was outnumbered, he never feared.
He just got into the zone and handled business, but with Devin in direct danger, fear was now a part of his emotional range.
Fear made for bad decisions, mistakes. It was a useless emotion, especially in the current situation. So, he tamped it down as best he could.
He would have the rest of his days to second-guess himself, now was not the time.
Devin was doting on the woman when the seemingly frail woman produced a knife from somewhere on the side of the bed he couldn’t view from his vantage point, and it was jammed to the side of Devin’s head. Right below her ear, a place he kissed and sucked on just hours earlier.
Thom started laughing again.
“Shut up, Thom. You’re not helping the situation,” the woman scolded her son.
Devin’s voice damn near broke him. It wasn’t just fear, but betrayal that laced her words.
“Ida, I don’t… we’re here to help you. Take you some place nice.”
“Some place nice? You mean some place where they control what I eat and drink. When I take a shit? No thanks. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the one who needs saving.
” The woman’s face took on a cruel twist. Squatch wished like hell he had a clear shot because he knew whatever was about to come out of her mouth would hurt Devin.
“Speaking of saving, how’s Jana doing? Still a drunken harlot?”
Squatch tapped the gun against his thigh once and nodded ever so subtly toward the hospital bed where the woman sat inclined. If Nitro was by the window he would see and understand.
“Shut up, you fucking cunt or I’ll slit his throa—”
The slight shake of Devin’s head stalled Squatch’s words and his hand. A fury replaced his very soul. That move had cost her, a small trickle of blood slipped down the creamy skin of her neck.
“You know my mother?” Devin spoke softly with confusion.
Squatch could do nothing but watch and wait for a clean shot.
“Know her? How do you think I ended up like this?”
Devin’s olive eyes couldn’t hide anything. The shock, hurt, and confusion were written clearly in their depths.
Before Devin could ask, which she clearly wanted to, Ida cackled. “Oh, dear, she’s always loved her drink more than anything. Especially you.” Devin didn’t speak still, but the realization was settling in for Squatch. Fuck, Devin ended up here because of her mother, he just knew it.
Ida was opening her mouth to continue speaking, and Squatch’s heart shattered for the woman he loved. She was not walking out of here the same as she’d walked in.
Before they left the hotel, she’d had an almost serene look on her face as she’d basically told him she’d made peace with the things her mother had done and the price she’d pay for them.
If he could’ve aerated the woman’s brains before she could say what Squatch was certain was coming, he would’ve.
Anything to shut her up and spare Devin, but he didn’t have a clean shot.
Nitro would come through the front door as soon as he felt he could safely do so, Squatch knew his brother wouldn’t jeopardize Devin.
So, he had no choice but to let Ida break another piece of his woman with another betrayal from her mother.
He made a silent vow to spend however long it took to mend what others had torn.
“She owed me. Not just for this but for sleeping with my husband and flaunting it. When my savings dried up, I sent Thom to her to collect a debt she could never fully pay back or pay with her life. You, my dear, were the payment she offered instead.”
The story Devin had told him about how they met and how he got back into her good graces made so much sense to him. It all fell into place.
Another D name for Devin crossed his mind, devastation. Standing there, knife at the side of her throat and blood still trickling down, the woman he loved was Devastated Devin.
A rage took over every fiber of his body. Jana, who was going to die clean out of respect for the fact that she’d given birth to Croon and Devin, was now going to go slow and messy.
He pushed the knife harder into Thom’s neck, eliciting a cry of pain. He needed the surprise to create an opening. Any window, no matter how small and he could thread the needle with a bullet.
“Put down the knife or you have three seconds to say goodbye to this sorry sack of shit… three… two—”
“Go ahead. He’s outlived his usefulness to me. He’s not even mine.”