Page 41 of Reclaim (Deadly Hearts 3)

ChapterTwenty-One

Ruby

No one says a word as we finally pull back into the parking lot at the pop-up auction. I shove open the door as soon as Adam stops the car and march over to the front door of the crappy warehouse with sinister goings-on inside that make my skin crawl. This shit needs to be shut down, beyond immediately.

“Wait!” David calls before I stride inside.

“Don’t,” I tell him, thinking he is about to stop me.

“No, listen. What do we do about…” He indicates the Hummer with his head.

Flicking my gaze over and then back to him, I sigh. We can’t really send her home with Adam. That is not what’s best for her. And she can’t come home with me either. Biting the inside of my lip, I look deep into David’s eyes, and he nods.

“Good call,” he murmurs and pulls his phone out, knowing exactly where my thoughts went.

I nod and turn back to the warehouse, with three of my men, and Adam at my back. Layton has stayed to watch over Tiff from a distance.

Bursting in, all guns blazing, figuratively speaking as I’m only armed with my two knives. I come face-to-face with fucking Viper again.

I snarl. “You!”

Whisking out my switchblade, I flick it open, but before I can stab him in the throat with it, he grabs my wrist.

Declan goes a little bit feral and clamps his hand down on Viper’s, thus entangling the three of us in a messy triangle in the doorway.

“Don’t do something stupid,” Viper snarls. “Ruby, we need to talk.”

I hiss. “No, you need to fucking burn, you fucking prick. There is no way you didn’t know about this! It’s your fucking operation, fucking cunt!”

“No,” he shouts over my abuse, but not in an irrational way. More calming and forceful. “Vinnie is a bastard that is about to get his own coming to him.”

“Already has,” I growl.

Viper raises his eyebrow at me but doesn’t comment. “He tried to arrange this deal behind my back, but we found out before it was too late. All the girls are on their way home.”

That stops me dead in my tracks. “Oh?” I ask, relaxing my tense arm slightly. He feels it and unclamps his hand from around my wrist, which in turn makes Declan loosen his hold. It’s all very tentative and teetering on the edge, but we seem to be coming to some sort of understanding.

I narrow my eyes. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, I don’t traffick in women, for sex or otherwise,” the heavily tattooed Viper states, almost haughtily.

The inappropriate bitch inside of me snickers madly at that, but outwardly, I try to keep a straight face. “No? You recall you said you were going to bid on me earlier.”

His face darkens into something akin to desire which does not go down well with Declan. He growls a warning, but Viper ignores him, at his peril.

“That was different,” he says. “It was more of a business arrangement than anything else.”

“Is that all?” I drawl, pissed off that he thinks he can buy me and therefore buy me out. Fucker needs to go up in flames like his pal, Vinnie.

“All beside the point,” Viper says. “Those women that Vinnie was trying to sell, are safe and on their way back home.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.” I fold my arms over my chest.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, holding his other hand up to show me he isn’t about to draw a weapon. He taps into it and then turns it to show me a map with several dots scattered across the North West of England. “These are my guys, taking them home.”

I sigh. It looks legit but I won’t know for sure until I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. “I’m going to need those addresses.”

Viper shrugs and emails me the location of all of his men. “They’ll update, as and when.”

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