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I said nothing as I slid my gloves on, making sure the fingers lay flat against my knuckles. He’d chosen violence, and I was ready to unleash my fury. Meredith had shaken from fear and adrenaline as I had held in her on the floor in the banquet center, and I wanted him to feel ten times that.

“Brandon said she was a dead fish, and that’s saying something, considering he wasn’t too bright.”

I strolled right up to him and drove my fists into his stomach repeatedly.

He tried to escape me, but there wasn’t any room for him to move.

All he could do was suck his stomach in, trying to ease the pain.

I didn’t stop, and no one bothered to intervene.

His skin was red, and he tried to catch his breath as he wheezed.

“Is he going to die, Scrub?” I paused and took a step back from the man.

“Not yet. He’s still breathing.”

“How did you know they were there?” I waited for an answer from the soldier.

“Fuck you, and your dead bitch.” He spat on the floor, but it landed in a drain near him.

“Dude’s got a lot of wrong answers,” Pretty chimed in.

I was on autopilot, only seeing a few feet in front of me.

If I had been thinking straight, I might not have grabbed his nipple, but I wanted to inflict pain and lots of it.

Twisting the nub, I reveled in the soldier’s screams as they echoed off the walls of the Playroom.

“Can you rip off a nipple?” I asked Scrub.

“I didn’t go to med school for the club to be obsessed with balls and boobs. What have we become?” A chuckle bounced off the insulated walls. “Not sure, but I don’t think so.”

“Thanks, Scrub.” I strengthened my grip and twisted some more. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t rip it off, but his screams satisfied me for now. “How did you know they were there?” I asked the soldier.

“You need to teach your bitches not to be so predictable.”

I released his nipple and hit him in the mouth. Blood spurted between his lips, but it wasn’t enough for me. I hit him again. “I won’t ask again,” I said through gritted teeth. “How did you know they were there?”

“Fuck off.”

That wasn’t acceptable to me, and I reached down and twisted both nipples at the same time.

I lost track of time as the screams plugged some holes Meredith’s trauma had left.

The louder he shrieked, the happier I was, but I didn’t analyze the sick pleasure I was getting.

It wasn’t until I heard the other soldier make a noise that I stopped.

I had honestly forgotten he was still in the room, but now he was about to join the party.

“Are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

The enforcers had chained him to the wall and duct tapped his mouth, but he could still nod at my question. His eyes were wide with fear as he leaked piss down to the drain underneath him.

“Dude, you need to give up the soda,” Scrub commented dryly as the smell took over.

I stepped around the drain, not willing to get piss on my boots as I ripped the duct tape off of his mouth. “Start talking.”

Before he could say anything, the first soldier screamed at him in Spanish. None of us knew what was being said, but it was enough to scare the second soldier. Piss leaked down his leg into the drain again, and Berry duct-taped the first soldier’s mouth. All we heard was the muffled speech.

“I’ll tell you,” the man sobbed, tears running down his cheeks. “I’m a dead man walking.”

“You’ve got one shot at this. How did you know they were going to be there?” He wasn’t talking fast enough, so I clenched my fist. As I went to throw a punch, he flinched.

“Your women are collateral damage.”

My pulse pounded. The words slammed into my gut. “Keep talking.”

“Manny would let them go. They’re innocents, and everyone knows it, but Diego’s out for blood. You made a fool of him with that banker, and now he wants to make you an example. Manny can’t control Diego and worries about business across the border, so he’s turning a blind eye.”

“This isn’t good,” Pretty said, and if he didn’t shut the fuck up, I was going to kill him when this was all over.

“The banker’s wife. Her husband is dead, but even in death, you must still pay your debts. Diego will kill her and use her body to make the other women afraid to search for their babies.”

A growl vibrated against the walls of the Playroom. If I didn’t move this along, Sabre would rip this man apart.

“You said women,” I prompted.

He tried to take a deep breath, but it was shaky.

“The designer. Diego knows she’s on the property paperwork.

He had us tail her when she lived on her own, but it was obvious she wasn’t involved.

She was like a lost little puppy. You couldn’t kick her down any further, but she has to pay because Diego trusted that pencil-pushing weasel. ”

I couldn’t hold back my growl. Sabre and I were a lot alike.

“There’s one more. The woman that was supposed to have the baby for Manny but didn’t, and then had a baby anyway. She’s running on borrowed time, because she agreed to the deal and then didn’t make it happen.”

“What the fuck?” It slipped from my lips before I’d even had a conscious thought.

“Diego put bounties on their heads, but Manny told him no. It would cause a war that Manny would lose. He’s already dealt with a coup from the inside, and until he can rebuild, he’s not strong enough to take on El Sombra Roja.”

“Why would the bounties cause a war with El Sombra Roja?” Wreck asked, standing up straight from the wall. His hands clenched, and I braced for whatever the next shitty piece of information was going to be.

“No one knows why El Sombra Roja put out protection orders on the first two. If Diego ignores those and takes the women, it’s war. Manny will be obligated to take a side.” More piss leaked down the drain. Fear gripped the soldier.

“Dead or alive?” Wreck asked the man.

“Manny has been pressuring Diego to leave California and head back to Mexico. It’s not worth the trouble, but Diego won’t let it go.

He was supposed to call the bounties off, but he’s not listening.

Most of the soldiers were alright with returning.

We have families, and this life isn’t voluntary most of the time, but Diego dangled El Dorado in front of us.

It was the only reason most of us stayed. ”

“How did you know where the women were today? They didn’t make plans until this morning.” I had asked three times, but we were finally getting somewhere.

“You still allow your women to leave. There are enough soldiers, and your women don’t travel outside of a ten-mile radius.

Diego made a list of potential places they frequent, and each morning, he assigns a team to watch.

The banquet center is on the list, as well as all the medical places and your bar. Today, we got lucky.”

“The place sits on a hill, and there are trees lining the drive up. How did you know they were there? I didn’t see the SUV until I was almost on top of it.

” I had been the first brother to turn into the drive, and I would have known they were there from the road.

We needed to know if there was a plan outside of the surveillance.

“We saw them turn in. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known. The biker turned in with them, and that’s when we knew they only had one guard. It took us an hour to plan our attack. It was supposed to be an easy grab. The designer fought back, and when I found the mother, her guard overtook me.”

I turned towards Sabre. “Grace is the first woman with the baby. Meredith is the designer. Who’s the third?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but it’s not Aunt E.” He rubbed at his bottom lip, thinking. “We need to call an emergency church. If you’re done with them, just slit their throats.”

I took out my knife and thanked the soldier for telling us what we wanted to know.

He nodded his head and waited for his fate.

Popping open my knife, I let it puncture his skin before sliding it all the way in to the hilt.

Guiding the knife across his throat, I watched as blood spurted from the open wound all over my chest and down my pants, running from the soles of my boots into the drain.

He took a few gurgling breaths, and then his eyes rolled back into his head.

Within two minutes, it was done. The soldier was dead.

I’d come into the Playroom hot, but hearing Meredith had a bounty on her head had made my skin crawl. Stepping up to the first soldier, I shoved my knife into his heart and waited.

“Twig, Berry, grab Pint and prepare them for transport. They’re going back to Diego Lopez tonight. The rest of you, grab a cup of coffee. Emergency church is in a half hour.” Sabre stood from the table and walked out of the room with Pretty on his heels.

Standing at the sink in the Playroom, I washed off the blood, letting it drip onto floor and run towards the nearest drain. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell Meredith she was on lockdown until further notice.