Page 61 of Devil's Own: Roughneck

Dusty lets out a slow breath. “We run an underground shelter for women.”

Excuse me?

“Are you serious?” Gill asks. Dusty nods.

“We’re a stop. We give them shelter and medical treatment when necessary. That’s why Caity has been there.” She points to a dirt drive that, yeah, you’d absolutely miss it if you didn’t know to look for it.

Gill turns down the dirt drive and it gets darker and darker before we hit a light opening, through which I see a small cabin.

“Does the cabin belong to you and Reaper or to the club?” I ask Dusty.

“It’s the club’s, but technically, it belongs to Vlad.”

“Daniel bought a cabin?”

“He inherited it from his grandfather.”

Uh… Grandpa didn’t leave me a damn thing. “Oh,” is all I say. It shouldn’t because he’s been gone for years, but it hurts that the man didn’t think enough of me to leave it to the both of us. Yet another person who let me down.No, Gia. You’re more than your past. I am. It doesn’t matter. Daniel has put this cabin to good use. That’s what matters. That’s what I focus on for the moment because we have a job to do. I can’t believe we’ve pulled this off, or we’re about to pull this off.Peace, Gia. You and Rough, and peace…

That’s all I let myself think about as the SUV rolls to a stop behind us and each woman empties from our vehicles. The vile Death Bringer is awake and judging by his grunts, bitching about his predicament. But he's not saying much with the scarf balled in his mouth.

Just like at the strip club, all the women jump in to walk the hog-tied troglodyte inside the cabin. Dusty has a key on her keyring. Dusty has a key and I don’t.

No, not okay, Gee.I shake that thought away. I’m good. I’m okay with it.Peace.

I’m no weakling, but even with all of us dragging him, he’s got some heft to him and I know he must have some pretty nasty friction burns along his stomach and legs. Given the way we’ve heard how he treats women and that his brothers were responsible for shooting my man, I hope they get infected.

We drop him on the floor and he grunts in that sort ofknock the wind out of himway. The lot of us kneel on his back while we untie him. This way, he can’t move while trying to hurt us or get away.

“Don’t bother reaching for your weapon,” Elise tells him. “We searched you. There’s nothing left.”

And he grunts again. It’s pretty liberating to put a man like him in his place. He doesn’t go into the chair easily. Maryanne uses the skillet again. This time, she takes out his kneecap and he stumbles back because he can’t keep weight on it. Gill and Danni waste no time tying his hands behind the chair and his ankles to the feet of the chair. Both women know how to tie a tight knot, enough that I’d be intimidated if they weren’t my friends.

Liv unties the scarf around his mouth and pulls out the gag.

He coughs, then roars, “You fucking cunt.”

She slaps him across the face—open hand. The crack of skin against skin is as gross as it is satisfying to witness.

“Not how you talk to me,” she says as she moves back to allow our future interrogators, Danni and Gill, to take over.

“Why do you keep coming after us?” Danni asks.

“Fuck off, cunt,” he bites.

“Wrong answer,” Gill replies. Balling her fist, she cracks him right in the solar plexus. He doubles over with a loud, grunting groan. “Tell my friend here why your nasty gang keeps coming after her club.”

“Fuck. Off. Cunt.” He repeats himself, enunciating each word as a sentence of its own.

“Wrong answer,” Gill replies and she pulls a double, plowing her fist into his gut again, and when he’s bent forward, she gives him an uppercut to the jaw. She strikes him so hard that his head snaps backward and makes an uncomfortable pop of his neck joint.

“I… can… do… this all… day,” he sort of wheezes.

“Can you?” Gill asks, then she nods to Danni, who pulls her gun from her back, unlocks the safety, and aims at him to, I think, threaten him. But that’s not what happens.

“Artery?” she asks the room at large, and both Caity and Dusty step up to show her where the major artery runs. Danni nods once then pulls the trigger, a sound that makes me jump because I never expected it. The man howls in pain. Tears stream down his cheeks, soaking the coarse hair of his beard.

“How about now?” Danni asks. “Can you do this all day now?”

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