Page 69 of Ruined By a Devil

I turn my head to look at her without saying a word and she takes my silence as a no and continues making her case.

“I’m not sitting in this house alone while you handle the men who tried to take me,” She swings her legs out of bed, wincing slightly as her bruised ribs flex, but she stands straight. “You said it yourself yesterday. You’re not letting me out of your sight.”

I watch her for another three seconds. The stubborn line of her jaw hasn’t softened. And the funny part is that she’s right. Leaving her here, even with a full squad outside, feels like leaving my chest wide open and I do not intend to do that.

“I wasn’t going to say you can’t come,” I say, standing up. “You stubborn woman.”

“Oh…” She blushes, looking down at her feet.

“Get dressed. We leave in five.”

“Can I take a shower first?” Her eyes look pleading and I’m apparently weak for her, not that I’d ever admit that at loud.

“As long as you keep it under fifteen minutes,” I say. “You can use my bathroom, I’ll use the guest one.”

“Okay,” she nods.

Then, before she slips into the bathroom she turns around and adds. “And Mal?”

“Yeah?”

“It was better than I could ever have dreamed.” She slides into the bathroom, leaving me to smile like an idiot.

The Eden is dead quiet at seven in the morning.

The main floor of the club smells like stale alcohol, bleach, and cold air. The neon signs are turned off, leaving the long black bar in deep shadow. I keep my hand on the small of Jade’s back as we walk past the leather booths toward the heavy door behind the stage.

The air gets colder as we approach the interrogation room.

In front of the room, Levi is standing next to an open window, a lit cigarette between his fingers. He looks at Jade, his eyes dropping to the bruise on her cheek, then shoots me a silent look.

“He’s awake,” Levi says, blowing a stream of gray smoke into the hallway. “Ezekiel broke two of his fingers already but he hasn’t said much.”

“You should really quit that,” I point to his cigarette as I push the heavy door open and step inside.

The room is small, illuminated by a single bare bulb hanging from a black cord in the center of the ceiling.

In the middle of the floor, a man sits zip-tied to a chair. His jaw is swollen shut on the left side, blood dripping from his nose onto his torn shirt. The dark pickup truck he used to ram Jade’s escort car is probably sitting in a scrapper’s yard by now.

Ezekiel is leaning on the wall behind him, wiping a pocket knife clean on a rag. He looks up when we walk in. “You shouldn’t have brought her here, Malachi.”

“I’m not taking my eyes off her,” I say, stopping two feet from the chair. Jade stops right beside my right shoulder, her arms crossed over her leather jacket, her expression dead cold.

The man in the chair lifts his head. His right eye is swollen to a bloody slit, but when he sees Jade, a wet, ugly laugh escapes him.

“Look at that,” he says, spitting a glob of blood onto the concrete floor between my feet. “The little Moretti princess. Nolan said you were pretty.”

I move before he can finish the thought and grab the front of his collar with my left hand, lifting the entire chair off the floor, then slam it back down. Before he can catch his breath, I drive my heavy right fist straight into his broken jaw.

The chair scrapes loudly under the impact and the man gasps, his head snapping back, more blood spraying across his chest.

“You talk to me,” I continue, my voice low and controlled. “You don’t look at her. You don’t say her name.”

I step back, resting my hand on the back of his chair, leaning down until my mouth is inches from his bleeding ear. “How did you know the route?” I ask.

“Fuck you, Kavanagh.” The man coughs up blood.

I reach out, grab his broken middle finger, and twist it backward until the joint snaps cleanly through the skin, causing him to scream loudly.