Page 67 of Coveted By Cupid

Jesus Christ! Cookie just tased our prisoner with a stun gun.

“What the fuck, Cookie! I need him alive for questioning.”

“Chill, Prez. The steel door is highly conductive, meaning when an electric current is applied it has less resistance than a human body and the charge is grounded.”

Oaks and I blink at the young prospect, not following a damn word he said. “Speak to us like we’re wet behind the ears,” Oaks suggests.

“He got a slight shock—not tased. It shuts him up for a while.”

“Oooh,” Oaks and I say in unison, realizing the guy is fine—for now.

“We knew that,” I say quickly, feeling stupid for not paying more attention in high school physics class.

“Totally knew that sciency stuff,” Oaks adds, playing along.

“Why don’t you go get Crypt and Ruger? They can bring our guest into the storage room,” I say, getting back on track.

“You want to move him across the hall?” Cookie asks, his brows pinching together.

“It’s the only area big enough that has a drain in the floor,” I explain.

Oaks grimaces, and the prospect’s brows shoot to his hairline when he catches on to what I’m saying. He gives me a quick nod before rushing up the stairs.

Less than ten minutes later, Crypt and Ruger wrestle our prisoner into the storage room and restrain his tied wrists to a hook on a pulley system hanging from the support beam on the high ceiling. The asshole shouts every insult in the book, his voice thick with a Slavic accent.

Cipher enters the storage area with two laptops. “You should be able to contact Atlas without communication issues—I’ve got the leaky feeder system running on this laptop. I’ll have my other on standby in case the Russian reveals anything we need to do a deep dive on.”

“Good work, Cipher. Get Atlas and his crew on the computer,” I say, circling the man who tried to abduct my woman. “I want to get this shit over with and get back home to my ole lady.”

“When are you going to introduce her to the crew, Prez?” Crypt asks, rolling out his tools of torture along the wood workbench, unfazed with what he’s about to do to the fucker hanging from the ceiling.

Oaks wrinkles his nose at the mixture of rusted tools and shiny medical equipment in Crypt’s arsenal, anticipating the gore. Ruger chuckles at his discomfort, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall to get comfortable for the show.

“When she decides she’s ready. For now, she rests. Psyche has been through a lot thanks to these assholes,” I answer Crypt before punching our prisoner in the kidney.

The prisoner cries out, his face pinched with pain.

Scalpel enters the storage room looking as angry as a hornet’s nest. “Crypt, you klepto! Give me my medical tools back.”

“Oh, good! You’re here,” Crypt says, unaware of how miffed Scalpel is with him raiding his medical bag. “Come and get some gloves on.”

Scalpel glowers at him. “You took my stuff on purpose, knowing I’d come down here after them, didn’t you?”

Crypt shrugs, unabashed. “Two hands are better than one. You can help me when we get to the flaying part of tonight’s activities.”

“Fuck, no! Please no flaying this time,” Oaks says, turning green. “That shit is gross.”

“Do you prefer the term skinning instead?” Crypt asks, his face composed as he snaps his gloves into place.

Oaks blanches. “No. No skinning.”

“Death by a thousand cuts?” Ruger offers as an alternative, taunting him further.

“No! I know that’s the same thing.”

We all laugh—well, minus Oaks and the prisoner. They look equally sick with our dark humor.

“Fuck all of you,” Oaks mutters, pouting as he takes a seat on a barrel in the far corner of the room. “Don’t ask me to take part. Last time I helped, the dude vomited all over my boots.”