Page 50 of Jensen

“Tell me, Della,” he says.

I swallow, trying to give him the pleading eyes that sometimes worked on Leland. But Jensen is ice cold.

I mumble, trying to get it out.

“Speak up,” he snaps.

I tilt my chin up. “Brothers Boyd.”

Nothing changes, but the entire room goes cold. He’s looking at me like an animal, and I’m trying to figure out if he’s going to eat me. But not in a nice way, not the way he looked at me in the bedroom. No, this is colder than the dead of winter. He could be a different man.

Abruptly, he pulls back. “Come here.”

He takes me by the wrist and leads me out of the kitchen, up the stairs. Panicking, I start rethinking my choice to tell him. I should have stuck to the plan and told him in Kentucky, where Brothers could protect me. Now, I’m being pulled into his bedroom, and he’s shutting the door.

“Clothes off,” he says.

“What?” I whisper, backing up.

He uncocks the revolver. “Strip and get up on the bed. The faster you go, the easier this’ll be.”

The bottom falls out of my stomach. I’m usually pretty brave, but I don’t like what he’s saying.

“Please don’t,” I whisper, dipping my head to hide my tears. “I’ll leave, tonight.”

“No, you’re not going anywhere.”

The tears are coming so fast, I can’t hide them. I sniff, wiping at my face. He mumbles something under his breath, pushing past me to the bedside table. The drawer opens, then shuts.

“Do you need me to count?” he says. “Get up on the bed. Now.”

Miserably, I drag the shirt off. I’m so damn scared, I don’t notice he’s got something in his hand. Leland liked doing this kind of thing, pushing me to a place where I wondered if he was capable of being intimately violent. I look up at him, my lower lip trembling uncontrollably.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Della,” he says quietly.

The bed dips as I crawl up it, sitting against the headboard. His mouth thins, jaw tight. Cold metal touches my wrist, and I whip my head around as he clips a pair of handcuffs around me and fastens them to the headboard.

He turns, taking up the gun, and circles to the end of the bed.

“Alright, baby,” he says grimly. “You better have a real fucking good story to tell me, or we got problems.”

I know we’ve got problems regardless of what I say, so I may as well unload the whole truth, start to finish.

“Brothers wanted me to bring you back to Kentucky,” I say. “I think he wants you to work with him again. He knew I was trying to get away from Leland, and he’s not friendly with the Caudills, so he offered to help. I’m sorry, but I’m so desperate, Jensen. I need help getting my boy back.”

My voice breaks. He doesn’t.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

“Brothers said you were one of the most talented men he’d ever worked with, that you had a reason to want to see the Caudills hurt, same as him,” I say. “He said if you can’t get Landis back, nobody can.”

His jaw works.

“Brothers Boyd is the devil’s assbackwards evil twin,” he says finally. “You shouldn’t be fucking around with him.”

That makes me pause. His words are a little funny. Under other circumstances, I might have laughed if he weren’t saying them so seriously. But there’s real venom in his voice.

“What’s he want from you?” Jensen asks.