Page 62 of The Devil's Viking

The three men shoved her inside and that was when Briley started to feel frightened. She looked to the small cabinet on her left, where her spare gun was kept, and she lunged at it. Drake – or maybe the other one – stepped forward and smartly grabbed both of her arms, twisting them behind her back and up. It didn’t really hurt, but she didn’t have any defense except to kick at his shins, and so he simply turned his enormous upper body away, stepped back, and then he was out of reach.

She opened her mouth to scream, and the other one – or Drake – shoved her scarf between her lips, tied it tight behind her head.

“Arghhhhfff,” she spat at them. “Faaaaarrrkkkkooo.”

“OK, darlin’,” said one of the twins. “Loud and clear. You’re pissed. Let me just say that I don’t blame you in the slightest.”

“Me neither,” said the other one. “Not a nice way to start the day, is it?”

“Iiihhlllklyoon,” she muttered darkly.

“OK, enough.” The blond giant pushed her into a chair and tied her up with a rope that he’d brought. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, got it? After I’m done talking, if I think you can behave yourself, I’ll take that gag out of your mouth. If Idon’tthink you can control yourself, you’ll come for a ride with us back to our place of business, where you can scream until you’re blue in the face and nobody will hear you. You can answer all of my questions there.”

Briley froze then, staring up at their faces, her mind whirling. She had no idea what the hell was happening here, but it was clearly a set-up: Drake meeting her at the bar was no coincidence, and obviously she’d been followed back home. But why her?

Suddenly, she knew – she just absolutelyknew.

Gideon. That fuck Gideon sent these assholes to shut me up. I’ve become a liability, or I did something to upset him, or I’m being blamed for some cock-up somewhere. This is it. I’m toast.

She’d always known that this day would come; being under Gideon’s thumb and helping him was always going to end this way. The truth was, that she was glad.

Finally. I’m finally almost free.

“OK, so.” The giant sat across from her, his eyes the coldest that she’d ever seen. “We know that you’re helping Gideon. We know that you go to that fucked up cult compound every night, we assume to report, or get a new assignment, or to screw him. Maybe all three, we don’t actually care. What wedocare about is that two of Gideon’s asshole soldier-types snatched up Iris from our parking lot. We want her back. You’re going to help us.”

As soon as he’d said the name ‘Iris’, Briley had immediately stopped struggling and just stared at him in disbelief.Iris?Iris had been with these guys somewhere, and they wanted her back? Back from – Gideon? But Gideon had told her nothing about Iris at all, not since she’d informed him about the motorcycle club in Denver.

Motorcycle club… scary, tattooed, badass, criminal dickheads. Guys kind of like…

That’s when the penny dropped.

“You’re the Road Devils?” she said, but it came out garbled and incomprehensible. “You guys are in a motorcycle club?”

“It sounds like she’s trying to ask us something,” the one twin said to the blond. “And it’s not even abusive.”

“Fuck you,” she muttered again. “Stupid prick.”

“Thatdidn’t sound so nice,” the other twin said. “But maybe we can see if it’s possible to have a reasonable conversation?”

“You get one chance, Briley,” the blond said with terrifying menace. “You screw this up, it’s straight to our club for you. Got it?”

Frantically, she nodded; she was now pretty sure that they weren’t here to hurt her at all. This was a fact-finding mission, and she had information that they would find helpful. After all, they had a common enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe…

Maybe if I help them, they can help me.

“Here we go.” The blond removed the scarf, cocked his head at her. “You going to talk to us?”

“Yes,” she said and coughed a bit. “Iwantto talk to you.”

“You do, huh?”

“Yes.”

“OK, so.” He crossed his huge arms and glared at her, while the twins sat. “You can start by telling us just why the hell you help this sick fuck Gideon.”

“I don’t have a choice,” she said in a rush; this was the first time that she’d been able to talk aboutanyof this withanyoneand she was going to get what she could off her chest. “He’s – he’s blackmailing me. He’s got something on someone who means a lot to me, and he knows that I helped her, and if any of it came out, my friend would be in jail, and I’d be fired and jailed myself.”

Scary blond glanced at the twins. They nodded.

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