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CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Logan
Iparked across the street from the mechanic shop just before closing and paused to make sure I couldn’t see any customers through the grimy front window. Then I strode across the street and pushed past the door, letting all the menace I could summon rise to the surface.
It wasn’t hard. These pricks had lied to us about having Madelyn’s car and then tried to hold her hostage—the one asshole had left herbleeding. My jaw clenched just remembering the smear of blood on her arm.
Last time I’d come here, I’d only talked to them, asking them about the trinket box. But we hadn’t turned up any other leads, and I was almost glad to have the excuse to beat some more answers out of them. I wasn’t giving them the chance to consider lying through their teeth this time.
We were getting to the bottom of this before Maddie faced anything worse than what these miserable lowlifes had already done to her.
One of the mechanics from before was just shutting down the computer at the reception desk. He glanced up at me with a startled expression before his eyes narrowed. “You—”
I didn’t give him the chance to complain about my arrival. I lunged around the desk, caught him by the front of his shirt, and heaved him toward the door to the mechanic bay.
He was at least ten years older than me, but I was bigger and stronger. My shove propelled him right into the door, which popped open on impact. As he staggered, I stormed after him. With another abrupt push, he was stumbling onto his ass in the bay.
There was only one other mechanic still on duty this late in the evening—the big guy who’d grabbed Madelyn. “Hey!” he shouted, rounding one of the two cars currently set up there, and hesitated for just a second when he saw who the intruder was.
I smiled at him with bared teeth, the image of his thick arms swinging around Madelyn flashing behind my eyes and provoking a fresh surge of rage. Oh, I was really looking forward to this now. I hadn’t really paid him back yet.
The first guy scrambled to his feet and took a swing at me. I smacked his fist to the side and clocked him in the chin. As he swayed and swore, grabbing his face, the second guy charged at me.
He was a little more of a challenge, with nearly as much muscle on him as I had. But he didn’t have a raging fury driving his attack. He managed to land a punch to the side of my chest, but then I was kneeing him in the gut and tossing him into the side of the nearest car.
He glanced off it and hurtled back toward me. The first guy darted at me at the same time.
I dodged out of the way and slammed my knuckles into the smaller guy’s throat. As he sputtered, I stomped my heel into his shin hard enough that the crack of breaking bone echoed off the bay’s high ceilings.
You couldn’t go easy on guys like these—the kind of guys who thought it was okay to beat up on an innocent woman. They needed to know just how much I meant business and just how little they’d get away with if they tried to pull anything over on me.
The guy fell with a strangled whimper. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. He fumbled in his pocket for a phone, but I kicked it out of his hand, snapping at least one finger in the process. The phone rattled across the floor to the other side of the room.
Now I had only one prick to deal with. A prick who was bearing down on me at this exact instant.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, kid?” the big guy snarled.
“Someone you’re going to regret ever having messed with,” I shot back, deflecting his swings with only a faint pain radiating through my blocking forearm.
He whipped his fist around fast enough to smack me in the side of the head. I reeled for a second, but I’d been hit worse. I bobbed and wove like I’d learned in my kickboxing sparring sessions and caught him with my knee a second time, ramming it into his side.
From the pained grunt that burst from the guy’s mouth, I’d cracked at least one of his ribs, as I’d intended. He clutched at his chest but hurled his other fist toward me. But he was off-balance now.
I swept my leg into his calf and knocked him off his feet. As he sprawled on the floor, I kicked him in the back of the head for good measure, hard enough to leave him groaning.
Touch my girl again, and you won’t have any breath left to groan with, you fucking jackass, I thought, biting back the words. A lingering ache spread through my skull from where he’d hit me, but it was already fading. I’d dealt it back ten times over.
“What the fuck do you want, man?” the smaller guy rasped from where he was still crouched on the cement floor, bent awkwardly over his broken leg. “You got your car back. We told you we didn’t take anything out of it.”
“Maybe I don’t believe you.” I aimed a light kick at his leg, just enough to send another spear of agony through the limb. “You really can’t remember a single thing about who brought it in? Even when I jog that memory of yours?” I turned to the bigger guy, who was starting to sit up, and brought my heel down on the ribs I’d kicked earlier. “I can keep jogging it as long as I need to,” I added as he slumped onto his back again with a hiss of pain.
“There’s nothing to remember,” the first guy mumbled in a panicked voice that sounded genuine enough. He was afraid I wouldn’t believe him, not constructing a story. I’d been through this kind of interrogation often enough to tell the difference. “It was just dropped off; none of us saw who left it. Fucking weird, but you can’t blame us for that.”
I snatched up a wrench off a nearby shelf of tools and flipped the heavy metal tool in my hand, glowering down at the guy who’d grabbed Maddie. Oh please, do give me an excuse to bash your nose in and fracture every bone in your body with this thing.
“What about you?” I demanded. “Did you notice anything?”
The guy’s bravado had finally vanished, a flicker of fear passing through his eyes. He still grimaced as he spat out, “I don’t know anything. You’re fucking crazy, kid.”
