Page 3 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

“Something you can’t defeat, so play nice or you’ll really piss me off,” I stated. “Now, drop your fucking gun.” Thankfully, the bruises I’d had on my skin from the two bullets I took were all gone, as was the pain.

“Do it,” Mr. Henley ordered and the guard obeyed.

“Good,” I said, then threw the gun I held, striking the guard on the right side of his forehead, knocking him out. Yeah, that was going to leave a mark.

I turned Mr. Henley around so he was facing me. He was grimacing in pain and breathing hard. Blood poured from his mouth where his tooth had once been. I was pretty proud of my handiwork.

“You are going to listen to me, you lowlife motherfucker. As you saw, I rendered your two guards useless in a matter of seconds. I also have no problem plucking every single one of your jagged ass teeth out of your mouth. Then I might start on your nails, seeing as I’m very skilled at breaking people with clever torture methods.

But I’d rather not go to that extent. You stole something that doesn’t belong to you and I’m here to take it back.

We can do this the hard way or the easy way.

Either way, I’m not leaving until my mission is complete. So, what’s it going to be?”

“Who are you?”

“Who I am doesn’t matter. All you need to concern yourself with is what I’m going to do to you if you piss me off. So, easy or hard?”

“If I give you access to my laptop, I’ll lose everything,” he argued. “I have a lot of money riding on this deal.”

“So the fuck what? It was never yours to gain from anyway. Do you think I give a shit about your sob story?”

“I’ll double what they are paying you if you leave now,” he offered.

Okay, that was a tempting offer. “How much?”

“Ten thousand.”

“More like fifty,” I said. Actually, we were getting twenty, but I was charging him an extra ten for the hassle.

“I don’t have that much on me right now, but—”

“Then we don’t have a deal,” I snapped.

He growled at me. “I will hunt you down and kill you slowly,” he threatened. Of course, I’d heard such threats before. I wasn’t impressed.

“I wonder how you’ll be able to tell anyone to hunt me down if I cut out your tongue, cut off your hands, gouge out your eyes, and rip off your ears. You know, you can survive without all of those appendages and parts. Wanna see?”

“NO!” he gasped as he shook with a mixture of fear and rage.

Where is it?”

He nodded toward the wall and I looked to see it was blank. “It’s there?”

“Secret panel. Dial nine, seven, three, eight on the phone without picking up the receiver, then hit the red ‘hold’ button,” the jerk said.

“This better not be some kind of a trap, because that would give me real trust issues and I’ve been hurt in the past,” I taunted.

“It’s not a trap, bitch. Just take it and leave me the fuck alone,” he growled.

“Good.” I slammed my head into his, knocking him out cold and breaking his nose in the process.

Win-win. I let him drop to the floor, then I stood up and walked to the phone.

I punched the code into the phone, then hit the red button.

The secret panel slid back, revealing a safe.

Shit. He hadn’t mentioned there was a safe behind the panel.

I examined it to see if maybe I could just rip the door off.

There was no handle and this was one of those new-fangled, high-tech ones that not only needed a code, but also an eye scan.

I turned, looking at Mr. Asshole, and sighed.

I reached into my thigh-high boot and pulled out my switch blade.

I leaned over him and used one hand to prop his left eye… oh shit, which eye did I need, left or right? Great, just great. I went into the bathroom, filling one of the glasses with water, then returned to him. I threw the ice cold water in his face and he woke up, sputtering and spitting in shock.

“Open the safe,” I demanded. I was starting to get extremely pissed that this job was making me work this damn hard.

“You’re robbing me, figure it out,” he snarled.

“Look, motherfucker, today can still be your lucky day. I’m trying to let you keep both of your eyes.

This damn thing needs to scan your eye. Now, I can cut them out of your skull or you can just do it yourself,” I said, giving him my ultimatum.

I swear, if my employer hadn’t been so adamant about the use of very little torture, I would have been done with this shit by now.

They made sure they tied my hands. I normally didn’t work for people who made this many demands on my services.

Whoever had hired me must have been some tree-loving, Buddhist hippies that thought even a blade of grass deserved respect.

“Come on, asshole. Open it,” I commanded.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbled, then rose off the bed, wincing in pain as he moved due to his broken rib.

He held his wrist close to his side, as the bones in his right hand were completely shattered.

He walked gingerly over to the safe and I stayed close, watching him punch in another series of numbers, then he leaned forward to let the eye scanner confirm his retinas—both of them.

When I heard the lock release, I sucker punched the son of a bitch, knocking him back into dreamland.

I might have given him a concussion with that one.

Oh well. I opened the safe and removed his laptop.

I turned it on, pulled the little flash drive from my boot, and slipped it into the slot.

Now, according to my employers, I didn’t have to do anything else beyond that point.

The flash drive would do all of the rest, I just had to wait.

I hoped it wouldn’t take too much longer.

I watched as the screen showed a series of numbers and files that looked like gibberish to me.

Nerd shit wasn’t my forte, it was Jordan’s.

Numbers and coding and syntax bullshit could literally give him a boner, I’d seen it happen.

Of course, that worked out for me because I fucked his brains out when it happened.

I loved fucking Jordan’s sexy, nerdy ass.

Okay, now there was a bar on the screen and it was at seventy percent.

I waited a few more minutes, not like I had a choice.

When it finally reached one-hundred percent, I snatched the little drive out of the slot and shoved it back into my boot.

I walked towards the door, stopping at one of the unconscious guards.

I was buck ass naked except for my boots.

I guess they wanted to fuck me while I was wearing them.

Hey, I get it. They were hot boots. I hated having to be a woman, but these were my favorite pair of footwear because they were so comfortable.

I removed one of their jackets and put it on to cover up my nakedness.

They were both taller and wider than I was as a man, so their clothes wouldn’t fit me, but a woman wearing a suit jacket and thigh-high boots would just look sexy to onlookers.

I left the hotel room and, when I got outside, I hailed a cab and had him drop me off a mile from my humble abode.

There were some lingering looks as I walked home.

I wasn’t surprised. I’d picked the body of some hot playboy model from fifteen years ago for my disguise.

Ah, finally, I was home. A gutted out, abandoned warehouse we could easily afford.

It wasn’t much, but it was ours… for now.