Page 15

If the question was, “Would you choose a man or a bear?”, I would take the Rougarou over O’Connor and his cronies any day. At least that foe had more respect and dignity than this low-life motherfucker.

Slipping my hands into my pockets, I gently removed the knives from their secured location and gripped the hilts, lining the blades up with my wrists. The rapid pounding became solid, purposeful blows of something heavy.

I stared. Watched the door shiver. Any second now.

O’Connor may be here to get me, but I wasn’t about to succumb without a fight. He’d already hurt my dad, so if he came after me, I had no issues swinging first and asking questions later.

A sharp crack and the door splintered, then burst open. A man kicked away debris before others behind him poured through. My eyes widened as dark-uniformed men rushed into the restaurant.O’Connor’s Cronies. Here to collect the debt that my family owed.

“Colette LeBlanc.” O’Connor’s slimy voice followed them, snaking into the air as anger and determination boiled in my veins.

The ten men, who all wore black shirts and pants, formed a semicircle around me, blocking the entrance. I retreated half a step, only to be met by pressure against my back.

Game on.

With a grunt, I swung my right hand behind me. The sharpened blade sliced into whatever flesh it could find. A wail from sharp pain met my ears. I spun and slashed with my other knife. The blade squelched across the chest of the towering frame in front of me.

Warm, sticky, wine-red liquid coated both silver knives as I stabbed the man’s stomach for a third time.

“Stop her.” O’Connor’s voice met my ears.

I ripped the blade from this assailant’s flesh as he crumpled forward, and I sprinted around him.

Something solid slammed against the back of my head, and everything turned black.

The world spun as nausea crept up in my stomach. Something bit into my wrists, and my shoulders groaned from an ache, telling me that my hands were tied behind my back. Prying my eyes open, I was met with the restaurant still in perfect order, other than the table to my right no longer had two chairs stacked on top of it.

My ass was numb, and my feet tingled from the zip ties that cuffed my legs to the chair. In front of me sat the man I hated. The back of myskull pulsed with every beat of my heart, and I could imagine the giant welt forming from where I’d been hit.

I closed my eyes, attempting to cull the swaying of the room and swallow the nausea. “O’Connor,” I grumbled.

“So, you know who I am. How lovely since we’ve never officially had the pleasure,” he replied, and I cracked my eyes open. He ran slender fingers through his crisp and tidy acorn-brown hair. He looked just like I’d expected before searching for him on the internet. His hair was parted on the side, combed to perfection without a strand out of place. It was just long enough to prove that he wasn’t balding, but short enough to be professional. His pinstriped suit looked as expensive as I imagined, and the baby-blue eyes that looked back at me were hollow and empty of emotion.

I kept my mouth shut as he adjusted the matching navy pocket square and then crossed his legs. “The deadline was tonight. As I am very aware you know. And now you’ve gone and mucked up the situation even more. Why’d you have to stab Fred? He was just doing his job.”

“As was I,” I hissed.

He snickered and slid his hands into his pockets. “I know this is so cliché. My…methods.” Removing them, he clutched both of my knives and waved one around. “But why change something that works?”

“It clearly hasn’t been working, since we’re not selling.” I gritted my teeth, feeling like a dumbass because if that wasn’t a scripted line from some fucking movie, I wasn’t sure what was. But what else was I supposed to say?

He clicked his teeth and twisted the tiny blade between his fingers. “Except you will have to sell. See, I bought the loan company that your parents got their most recent loan from. And that loan is due. Tonight. In full. With interest.”

My stomach sank to my toes. There it was. The escalation I hadn’t thought of. I bit down on my bottom lip. I would never concede to this fool. A bruise or two here or there, I could handle. He could threaten me physically in any way, and I would be fine because he’d already done it. But selling to him would never happen.

“Now, where’s that attitude that you gave my men?” he asked and raised a brow.

“You can take your loan company and shove it up your ass,” I hissed.

And knuckles from the side crashed into my mouth. The jolt of pain split my face and vibrated across my skin as the taste of hot iron pooled in my mouth. I groaned and slid my tongue across my split lip. Rolling my neck, I faced O’Connor again and grinned wickedly. “Try again.”

“You know, these men haven’t had a day off in a while. Which means they’ve…” He rose from his chair and slid his eyes around at his men. “They’ve lacked the companionship of a woman. Maybe I’ll go fetch Azelie, and then—”

“NO!” I lunged forward. My wrists and ankles caught short against their binds. “No.Please.”

He spun on his heel to face me again. “But you don’t have the money to repay your debt. I know. I counted what’s in that register and broke open your very cheaply made safe that was laughably secure at best.”

“Use me. Take me. Not her. She’s not even fifteen yet.” I squirmed against my restraints. Desperation was not a good look, I knew that. But I wasn’t some trained spy in some shitty B-grade movie. I was simply trying to protect my family.