Chapter 28 #2
I walked over to him. He had been one of my best. Too smart and cocky for his own good.
Too proud and confident, thinking he could run a business without me noticing, then run me out of town.
He had hidden the business under my nose for years and been close to taking me down, but he had underestimated me like my enemies always did.
“Where is she?” I placed my gun to his temple, but I knew he wouldn't tell me. He was too tough, no amount of torture would break him.
“She’ll be entertaining her new owner soon. I was going to sell her to a decent buyer, but that mouth of hers let me know she needs a man who can put her in her place, on her knees where she belongs. He’ll make sure that mouth is only good for one thing.”
My fist met snapping cartilage when I punched him right before the blunt end of my gun hit the side of his temple and sent him crumbling on the floor. I walked past the face tattoo, going to the one who had blatantly flirted with Ava. The pretty boy.
“Pack, you got that knife with you? The one with the good blade?”
Pretty boy blanched.
“Don’t tell him anything, Chad,” the other guy said.
“Chad?” I snickered. “You really are out of your element, aren’t you? One of Henley’s hires, because if you’d worked for me, your terror wouldn’t be so obvious.”
Pack’s knife was smooth in my hand, and I rubbed my finger along the blade, drawing blood at the tip and licking it.
“Hold him for me and someone shut that other one up.”
“Kill him?” Brinks asked.
I glanced over at him, seeing the lethal gleam in his eyes. As much as I’d teased him when we met, Mason Brinks had earned his place among the families with as much skill and brutality as my brother and I had.
“Nah, that would be too easy.”
He knocked the guy out within seconds. Pack had a firm hold on Chad, who was doing a terrible job fighting him.
“Raines, kick that crate over here, will you? I like a little leverage.”
He sent the crate toward me, and I stopped it with my foot.
Chad thrashed more, but Pack was a wall of solid muscle. There was no getting free of him. I grabbed Chad’s hand that still had the bandage on it from where I’d impaled it with my knife, spread his middle finger out and took it off with one swipe of the knife.
His scream was piercing as I evaluated the knife. “It always cuts so smooth,” I said to Pack, hearing Raines snicker.
Chad continued to scream, and I took his face in my hand, holding the bloody knife to his neck.
“You’re going to tell me where my girl is, and I’ll have your finger bagged on ice so you can get it reattached.
If you don’t, then I’ll continue to hack you up piece by piece, starting with your dick until you’re ready to talk. ”
“They shipped her out already,” he cried, too easily because he hadn’t been one of my guys, trained by Pack. This was one Henley had hired on his own.
I tightened my hold on his face. “When and where?”
“Right before you got here. I don’t know where.”
“The truck,” Greyson said from behind us. I looked over my shoulder at him. He looked like he’d just come from a board meeting, not a gunfight. “It passed us when we were on the road.”
I remembered the truck rumbling by us. “Damn it. We need to find out where it’s going and stop it.”
I stormed away from Chad.
“Wait, my finger. You said—”
“I know what I said, but there’s no sense in reattaching it if I’m just going to take it back off again.
You three touched my girl. I plan to take a part of you for every look and every touch.
” I stalked closer and stooped before him.
“And if any of you dared put your cock near her, I will cut it off inch by inch and feed it to you.”
An embarrassing whimper came from him, along with a puddle of piss. “You picked the wrong business, Chad,” I said as I walked away. “You should have stuck with modeling.”
Greyson was at the computer console on the other end of the room, Den over his shoulder.
“Fuck,” he muttered, “there’s an entire database on here of all their buyers.”
“Who doesn’t lock their computer and their files?” Raines asked, joining us. “Nice job with the finger. I would have taken the entire hand, but the finger move had finesse.”
I shook my head before responding to Greyson, “Novices who think they can run a business better than me.” I leaned over Greyson as screens and names swept by.
He stopped on a browser window, expanding it to reveal the name and dollar amount along with a delivery address.
To anyone else, it looked like a simple furniture purchase.
Only the ten million dollars wired as payment would have aroused suspicion.
“Ten million to get a piece of Cade Slaughter,” Raines muttered. “That’s impressive.”
“They’ll have stayed on back roads to avoid province police. If I take the highways, the destination is only two hours from here. I can catch them.” I tucked my gun in my waistband and turned to go when Greyson’s hand encompassed my shoulder.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
Den stepped behind him. “As am I.” His shirt was off, and he was wrapping a bandage around his stomach where blood ran from his side. “And I want a piece of the assholes who took her.”
I blinked. “You’re wounded.”
“So are you,” he returned. I rolled my shoulder in response, glad the bullet hadn’t hit anything important.
“We’ll stay here and clean up,” Brinks said, ending the debate.
I didn’t care to waste more time. I gave Mason a curt nod and stalked away with one thing on my mind: hunting down that truck and saving Ava.