Page 119 of Well Aware

“You’re a liar.” He chuckled. “You don’t think that we’re aware of everything that happens to the people that we care about?”

I snorted. “Is that what you do? Care about your women?”

His grin was quick, there and gone so fast that it nearly gave me whiplash.

“It works for us,” he mused. “Now, tell me. Where is my wayward niece today?”

The rod gave, and I winced at the sound that it made when I twisted it.

Metal against metal.

Shit!

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you know that I was here, anyway?”

“I’m more than just a pretty face.” He started to unzip his pants.

The metal gave way just as he dropped his pants to the floor, exposing himself.

He reached for me, and I reacted on instinct, swinging the metal pipe at his head with a viciousness that I hoped would knock him out.

It didn’t.

Not on the first swing.

But on the fourth, as he was lying on the floor? That one did.

I knocked him out cold, his pants still wrapped around his ankles from where he was about to hurt me in a way that I couldn’t think about yet.

He hit the floor with a solid thud, his face smashing into the toilet when he hit.

I hurdled myself over him, picked up my phone, and dialed Beau.

He answered on the second ring. “You find something else you wanted?”

“Beau…”

Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed fully and waiting for Beau by the front door.

Beau came through the door like an avenging angel and saw the man tied to the toilet in the hallway seconds later.

He saw the man’s pants still around his ankles—because there was no way that I was getting close enough to them to pull them up—and all but flew toward him.

As he did, something green was knocked off the counter to my right, and I saw the pliers that I’d left in my coat pocket. The band spreading pliers that I’d held for Holly after she’d banded the goats to rid them of their balls in the future.

I’d accidentally come home with them that day, leaving them on the shelf next to the bathroom vanity.

The little green bands that’d been in the unsealed package scattered across the floor, and I saw the moment that Beau made note of them.

His grin was evil as he snatched the pliers and the first band he saw, one that happened to be on the tiled floor next to his feet.

I held my mouth closed as he stretched that band as far as he could go and…

Yep, he put that band around Cain’s brother’s balls and let go.

The scream that left his mouth was damn hilarious. He sounded like a wounded goat as he screamed.

Beau left him there after checking to make sure that he was secure, then walked to me and caught me around the shoulders, pulling me into his side.