Page 32 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

“I swear, I didn’t rob him. Jesus Christ, Nancy made the drop. Perhaps she stole the money. It wasn’t me! On my life, I swear it!” she pleaded.

I liked how she pushed Nancy under the bus. It would seem she didn’t deserve Nancy’s loyalty.

“Nancy swore with her last dying breath that she didn’t take the money.” I chuckled. “If you would have seen what I did to her before I killed her, you’d know she was telling the truth. So, that leaves you, Ms. Danvers,” I threatened.

“No! No, I swear, I’d never betray your boss. Maybe it was your guy who stole it,” she offered. “He’s the one who picked the money up.”

“Mr. Chance?” I supplied.

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

At this point, I found myself in the middle of a forked road.

I could just come clean and go all vigilante on her or I could continue to pretend to work for this mysterious boss.

Which path I took would depend on how I went about questioning her for more information.

I decided to keep up the ploy and continue with the line of interrogation I was on.

“Mr. Chance wasn’t the one who picked it up the last time. Do you know who did?” I asked. I wanted to see if she knew anyone else who could work for this boss I’d been hearing about.

She shook her head. “I only deal with Mr. Chance. That’s who they told me would be picking up the money. I swear. If it was someone else, don’t you know?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you. We don’t all know each other, but I’m dedicated to getting to the bottom of this,” I said, hoping I hadn’t blown my cover.

“I—I don’t know who Nancy gave t—the money to if it wasn’t Mm—mm—Mr. Chance,” she stammered.

I sighed. “I’ve got to tell you, Ms. Danvers, I don’t like having to deliver bad news to my boss.”

She started crying even harder now. I mean, really bawling. “I swear to god that I don’t know. I would never double cross your boss. Please, please don’t kill me. Let me talk to your boss, I’m sure I could explain myself.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll let you call him,” I said, hoping to make that very special connection.

“I—I don’t have his number,” she admitted, to my disappointment. “I was hoping you’d…you’d call him.”

Okay, this line of questioning just hit a motherfucking dead end.

Time to come clean. I walked over to her so she could see me more clearly.

“Cecily, I’m going to come clean right now.

I don’t work for this boss you mentioned, I’m working against him.

See, I don’t like what he’s doing with that Killing Game website. ”

She frowned in her confusion. “I—I don’t understand?”

“Then listen very carefully,” I said, enunciating every word carefully. “I want to know everything you know about who these people are and where I can find them.”

“I will tell you if you promise to let me go,” she bargained, as if that was in the cards.

“If what you tell me pans out, I’ll let you live,” I lied. I had no problem lying to a piece of shit like her. I wasn’t letting this bitch go, but I needed her to believe she had a chance of surviving this if she cooperated.

Cecily nodded. “I want to live, so I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

“That stands to be seen. Now, tell me what you know.”

“Is Nancy really dead?” she asked.

The question kind of threw me off because maybe she really did care about Nancy, even if it was only a little bit. Or maybe she was just trying to see how much of a threat I posed. Now that I thought about it, I bet it was the latter.

I nodded. “Oh, that bitch is dead. She wouldn’t play nice, so I sent her to her maker.” I decided to show her a picture of Nancy’s body still tied to her bed at home, all sliced up and bloody.

Cecily gasped in horror and started trembling in fear all over again. “How? I—I—She was with me this morning!”

“Ahhh, I see. That was actually me. I have the ability to transform into whomever I want to be. Man, woman, child… I’m not sure if I can do animals, though. Frankly, not sure I want to try. But that’s neither here nor there. Bottom line, I want answers,” I stated.

“You’re… you’re one of those Enhanced Humans,” Cecily said.

I nodded. “I am. Now, tell me what you know.”

“I just have a number where I can reach him when I have to send in a payment.” She gave me the number, which was local. That was nice.

“I’ll check this out right now.” I sent the number to Jordan with a text for him to look into it and see what he could gather.

Duh , he texted back.

Smart ass , I replied. As I sat and waited while Cecily continued to plead for her life, the fact that I wasn’t talking to her made her even more nervous and that was perfectly fine with me. About fifteen minutes passed before I received a text from Jordan.

It’s an active local number, all right. A burner, so no personal information could be gathered about the owner. The GPS was disabled, too. Maybe you can get her to call the number and set up a meeting with the guy, was Jordan’s message.

Thanks J , I texted back. All right, I needed to see where I could go with this. I walked over to her and stepped into light again. She looked up at me all sweaty and trembling, seeing as she was full of fear.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Cobra.” I said my name, wondering if it meant anything to her.

Sure, my antics weren’t front page news…

yet, but maybe she might have heard something about the new vigilante in town.

By the frown of confusion on her face, I guessed it was just wishful thinking on my part.

No matter. After tonight, she was going to know my name.

“Look, I’ve told you what you wanted,” she said. “Please let me go.”

I shook my head.

“You promised you’d let me live,” she reminded me.

“You haven’t given me anything revealing. You did give me a number, but so far, it’s useless to me unless I can meet the owner of said phone. So, are you willing to call him and set up a meeting?”

“You have to untie me before I do that,” she demanded.

I shook my head, then grabbed her by the chin.

“Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not somebody you can negotiate with.

I want what I want… I’m sure you can relate to that sentiment.

I want answers to my questions and if I don’t get them, I’m going to start cutting off body parts. Have I made myself clear?”

She cringed at the mentioning of losing body parts and I saw more tears flow from her eyes, but I was undeterred. “P—please—”

I squeezed her jaw and she cried out. “Am. I. Clear?”

“Yes! Ow, please, yes,” she cried.

Well, I’ll be putting her cooperation to the test.

“Who owns the Killing Game website?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. They’ve never shown their faces, okay?”

“How did you find out about the Killing Game?”

“I can’t tell you that—No, stop, please!” she screamed as I picked up a knife from the hood and grabbed her left hand. She was trying to ball it up into a fist, but I easily pried her hand open, exposing her fingers. “Please don’t do this!”

I decided to cut off her pinky so she’d know I wasn’t fucking around.

She screamed and thrashed on the hood of the car as I carved through her flesh and bone, severing her little digit.

Blood squirted from the open wound and I didn’t bother to tie a tourniquet around it.

Instead, I picked up her severed finger and held it up so she could see.

Her chest heaved as she looked on in horror.

I could see the pain in her eyes and knew she really didn’t want any more torture.

“That’s one finger, you have nine more, and let’s not forget about your perfectly pedicured toes,” I threatened. “Are you sure you want to keep pissing me off?”

“Please, if I tell you, he’ll kill me,” she whimpered.

“Well, you’re with me now… I think I’m the bigger threat you should be worried about, don’t you?

” Why did these people always seem more afraid of the guy whose secret they were keeping than me?

I was the person you needed to be afraid of.

Did they think I was bluffing? Or was it the fact that they felt they had a chance of surviving whatever I was going to do to them and then would have to answer to the person they betrayed?

Whatever the case, it annoyed the fuck out of me.

I leaned over her, tapping her nose with her dismembered pinky, and she flinched, her features morphing into a disgusted frown mixed with terror.

More tears poured down the side of her face and she looked truly horrified by her predicament.

Of course, I knew some of those tears were because she was in pain.

Her hand had to be throbbing where I’d cut her.

“Are you ready to tell me?” I asked as I continued to taunt her with her finger. She stared at me as if she were weighing her options. I sighed and tossed her pinky aside, then grabbed her hand again to cut off another finger.

“No! I’ll tell you. Please, don’t hurt me anymore. I’ll tell you,” she blurted out when she saw what I was about to do.

“So talk, bitch,” I demanded with a sneer.

“His… his name is Richard Tate,” she said.

Well, that was the second time I’d heard his name mentioned.

I wondered just how big of a player he was in all of this.

Was he the owner of this murder syndicate or just a major piece of this puzzle I was trying to solve?

One thing was certain, he was someone with more knowledge than Cecily and Walter, because he was the one who seemed to be bringing in the bored, rich, and influential.

Looked like I was about to make Richard Tate next on my target list.

“How long have you been a member of this website?”

“Not long, only a few months,” she said. “Please, I will leave the site and never go back if you let me live.”

“Getting back to what you can do for me. We’re going to call Mr. Chance and set up an appointment,” I demanded.

“What… what do you want me to say?” she asked.

“Tell him whatever you think you need to in order for him to meet with Nancy or you,” I said.