Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
“I want all three of them downstairs with the other one,” Cain snapped. “I’m done with this horseshit. No way this is a coincidence.”
“Explains how they knew where Cotton lived. And the attack at her apartment.” I wanted in this fight. Just like I wanted in the hunt for Judge Blakley when that fuckin Audi had nearly run Cotton down.
“Go on,” Cotton urged. “Go see what’s going on with my life since I’m not allowed.” She said it loud enough I had no doubt Cain was supposed to hear.
“Not sure where this sassy side of you is comin’ from, Cotton, but I like it.” I grinned down at her.
Cain raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Say that when it’s you she’s sassin’.” He pointed a finger at Cotton. “You still ain’t gettin’ in. My club. My rules.”
Cotton, the brat, stuck her tongue out at the president of Bones. Which got an unintentional laugh from Cain. “Send your woman to the common room. Angel and the girls are already there.”
“Ain’t goin’ without her.”
“Yes, you are.” Cotton raised an eyebrow. “You’re going with your president, and you’re gonna see that those fuckers are dealt with appropriately. Then you’re comin’ back to me for more of what we did in the woods. Get me?”
“On second thought, maybe we need to send that one to Salvation’s Bane.” Cain muttered his disgruntlement as he stomped out of the room. “She and Venus can gang up on the men there. Don’t need the women here gettin’ any ideas.”
I kissed Cotton. She kissed me back even harder, then shoved me out the door. “Get your ass movin’.”
“We’ll revisit this later,” I said, trying to look stern. Wouldn’t you know it, my lips twitched as I tried to hold back the grin.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Cotton had given my spirit something to hold onto when I stepped into that basement room. They had just lashed Butch and his crew to chairs and gagged them when I stepped in. Butch looked murderous. The other two looked scared as shit.
“Now. We’re gettin’ to the fuckin’ bottom of this,” Cain said. “Right fuckin’ now.”
Judge Blakley had yet to be gagged, but he didn’t look sufficiently terrified for me. In fact, the man just sneered. “Every single one of you assholes is going to jail,” he spat. “I’ll see to it personally.”
“Gonna have to be alive to do that,” Cain said casually when anyone could see he was anything but casual. “You tried to run down one of our women with your fuckin’ car.”
He shrugged. “Was an accident. And I didn’t hit her.”
“Only because Scout got to her in time. Besides. I find it a mite suspicious that you’d removed your license plate.”
Again, he shrugged. “New car. Temporary tag must have blown off.”
“Got an answer for everything, don’t you.” Cain was reaching the end of his patience. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna ungag the other three. The first one who sings gets to die quickly. The rest of you gonna last a few days.”
“I have no idea who those men are,” the judge scoffed. “And now that you’ve laid down your ultimatum, they’ll say anything to spare themselves.”
“True,” Cain said. “Unfortunately, I have just enough information to tell the truths from the lies. For every truth they tell pertaining to you, we cut off a finger or toe. For every lie, we cut off their fingers and toes.” Cain grinned at Blakley. “Simple enough.”
The judge scowled. “You’ll all pay for this!”
“Why do they always say that?” Bohannon shook his head.
Sword snorted. “Yeah, it’s either that or, ‘You’ll never get away with this.’”
So Cain proceeded to ask his questions. At first no one talked. Until Bohannon cut off Butch’s pinky toe. Not only did he scream like a girl, but he sang like a canary. The other two added more than even Butch and no one’d touched them.
Everything I’d suspected had been confirmed. Data had done some digging and found out Judge Blakley had called the employer the parole board had set her up with and gotten the owner to agree not to hire her in exchange for a bribe. That had come in a text near the beginning, which Cain let me see. Butch and his crew had been hired to harass Cotton. They’d started at the Boneyard when she’d first been hired. When they’d failed to get her to quit, they’d stepped it up. Which had been what had happened the night I’d intervened. The attack at her apartment had been in retaliation for the botched attempt to get her fired that night as much as frustration on Butch’s part.
Then things got real. Butch and his bunch had cut the fence to the Bones compound and siphoned the brake fluid from the car only Cotton used. It had been Butch who’d broken into our home and assaulted Cotton. Just like she’d remembered, he’d hit her, then moved her against the bathtub. When none of that had worked to either kill Cotton or run her off, Blakley had gotten frustrated and taken matters into his own hands. He didn’t do any better than his henchmen. Data had found the money trail. A series of cash withdrawals on Blakley’s part and lavish spending on shit that was traceable on Butch’s part.