Page 36 of Deadly Oath

I’ve taken one man down with my fists tonight, and I can manage another.

I stay close to the wall of the house as I move towards the source of the sound, trying to remain as quiet as possible. There’s that shifting sound in the leaves again, and as I angle myself towards the small copse of trees where I hid that night that I looked in on Sabrina, I see a dark shape moving towards her back window.

Shit. I have the element of surprise, at least, and that makes all the difference. I dart forward, lunging towards the shape, my hand twisting in the back of a collared jacket at the same moment that I slap my hand over the mouth of what I now see is a black-garbed man. Stubble scrapes over my palm, and I tighten my hold, pulling him away from the window.

He tries to shout, flailing in my grip like a hooked fish, but I don’t let go. I drag him backwards, towards the copse of trees, my fingers digging into his cheek as he tries to bite me.

“I don’t have the fucking patience for this tonight,” I snarl, bringing my knee up sharply into his back. He cries out again, bowing backward from the pain, and I wrap my arm around his throat, squeezing hard until I feel him slump.

Easy enough. With a heave, I sling him over my shoulder, hauling him to my truck and hoping that none of the noise woke Sabrina.

I don’t want her to know about this. Not right now, anyway. If she knows I actually found someone, that FBI agent who’s in charge of her might come sniffing around sooner rather than later. The last thing I want is him to dig deeper into the business of this town. Intomybusiness.

When none of the lights in the house flick on, I drive straight back to the station. I carry the man—who I handcuffed before I chucked him in the back—through the dark lobby and back to the cells, unlocking one and depositing him inside. And then I wait, sitting across from him until he comes to.

It takes nearly a half hour before he starts to wake. He blinks blearily, looking up at the fluorescent lights as if they’re hurting his eyes, and then at me.

“Shit!” He sits up sharply, looking around as he winces, like the quick movement hurt his head. “Where the fuck?—”

“You’re in a cell,” I tell him smoothly. “You poked around the wrong house, and now you’re going to tell me what you were doing there.”

“I’m not going to tell you shit,” he spits out, sneering at me. “Not a chance in hell?—”

I’m out of patience. I was out of it when I walked out of Sabrina’s house earlier. I got what I wanted tonight, and now I want to go home and sleep in my own fucking bed.

In a quick flash of movement, I press a taser against the man’s calf. The electricity crackles, and he shrieks, almost falling off of the bench I deposited him on in his urgency to get away from the pain.

“I’ll keep moving higher,” I tell him calmly. “The next one is around the knee. Then, the thigh. I’m sure you can imagine where we’ll go from there.”

“This is fuckin’ police brutality!” he cries out, writhing away from me as best as he can with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

I chuckle, standing up as I deposit the taser back onto the bench I’m on, grabbing one of two pairs of additional sets of handcuffs. The man tries to scramble away from me, but he’s still dizzy, and he tips sideways as I grab one ankle and cuff it to one end of the bench. When I go for the other, he tries to kick me, but I grab it deftly, twisting his foot down until he screams in pain.

“I’ll fuckin’---”

“What?” I look up at him curiously. “What, exactly, will you do? Other than start answering my questions, to save yourself some pain.”

“I could fuckin’ sue?—”

“How do you even know I’m in law enforcement?” I grin, taking a step back to survey my work. The man is leaning back against the wall now, panting, his hands cuffed behind his back, and his anklescuffed to opposite ends of the bench. His mobility is severely limited, which is exactly what I want right now. “Unless you’ve been watching me, too.”

“We’re in a police station. In a fuckin’ cell.” The man spits at me, and I dodge it. “I’m no idiot.”

“No? Well, we’ll see about that.” I reach for the taser again, squatting between his spread legs. “Let’s start with your name.”

“None of your fuckin?—”

His epithet is cut off as I apply the taser to his opposite calf, the crackle drowned out by his sudden scream. He doesn’t appear to take pain well, which is for the best. It means I’ll be in bed sooner rather than later.

“It seems like you are an idiot,” I tell him, looking up at his clenched jaw and teary eyes. “This doesn’t have to be miserable. If you tell me what I want to know, beginning with your name and ending with why you’ve been skulking outside of Sabrina Miller’s house, I don’t have to keep hurting you. And trust me when I say that as much as I’m enjoying this little outlet, I’d rather be home and in my bed right now.”

The man’s lips thin. “It’s not worth it,” he hisses. “I can’t say. He’ll make it worse for me than you could, if I do?—”

This time, I hit his knee with the taser, and he shrieks. “I very much doubt that,” I tell him calmly. “But I’ll give you some time to come around to the idea. Who ishe, anyway?”

The man shakes his head. I touch the taser to his other knee, and he cries out, spit bubbling at the corner of his mouth.

“Next is the thighs,” I warn him. “And then?—”

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