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Deke crossed to her, his lips thinning when he saw a tattoo of a familiar sigil. “You hate us so much you wear it on your skin, I see.”
Havana rubbed her hands, a sadistic gleefulness shimmering in her eyes. “We just love having fun with your kind.”
“I honestly can’t wait to get started,” Aspen told her, smiling.
“What faction do you belong to?” Tate demanded of him, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
Again, the human said nothing.
“It’s fine. We’ll have the info shortly.” Bailey pressed her mouth to his ear. “What I most want to know is why you targeted me.”
He swallowed. “Do whatever you want. I won’t tell you a fucking thing.”
Alex took another step forward. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. And I’m about to prove it.”
The wolverine unsheathed his long, curved claws. Claws he then used on the human—slicing his arms, delivering shallow stabs to his thighs, disfiguring the sigil on his nape, carving ‘I love shifters’ along his forehead.
Camden joined in at one point. No surprise. He was a sadistic shit.
The whole time, the two shifters peppered the human with questions and gave him every attempt to end the torture by simply cooperating. But though their captive was clearly in a lot of pain and his defiance was being steadily drowned out by fear, he told them nothing.
Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. He did answer some of their questions. But his responses were all lies—the deception was clear in his voice and body language.
Deke’s phone began to ring. Digging it out of his pocket, he saw River’s name on the screen. He exited the room and answered, “You got anything?”
“Yes,” replied River. “He’s not talking yet?”
“Not the way we’d like.”
An annoyed grunt. “His name is Austen Perry. He’s an extremist from one of the small, independent factions in these parts. They’re not powerful, organized, or in any way connected to any of the main factions. They mostly stage protests and commit random attacks on shifters. But it isn’t known to humans that Bailey is a shifter, so there has to be some other reason he targeted her.”
Deke narrowed his eyes. “Such as he was hired directly, or his faction was hired and he drew the short straw?”
“That would be my guess. I’m going to send you a photo of his ex-wife and two children. Not sure if he’ll care so much about his ex, but I doubt he’d be willing to risk his kids. He might speak up if he believes they’ll otherwise be hurt.”
“Appreciate it.” Deke ended the call. None of the pride would ever hurt innocents, particularly not children, but Austen wouldn’t know that.
Once he received the photo from River, Deke returned to the interrogation room. Austen was panting and sweating, his eyes glassy with pain and terror. Neither Deke nor his cat felt any sympathy for this person who had likely been involved in many attacks against shifters merely because they were “different.”
“He still not cooperating?” Deke asked no one in particular.
It was Luke who replied, “Not in the slightest. He still thinks he can bullshit us.” The Beta looked eager to pounce on the asshole.
Crossing to the human, Deke said, “You have a high pain tolerance threshold—I’ll give you that much. I’m curious … Does your ex stand up so well against pain? What about your daughters?” He held up his phone so Austen could see the photo on the screen.
Bone-deep fear bloomed in his eyes. “If you dare hurt—”
“We don’t actually want to hurt them, Austen,” said Deke. “We’re not like you. We don’t target people without reason.” He leaned forward. “So don’t give us a reason.”
Still standing behind Austen, Bailey dragged a sharp nail down the side of his face. “You’re going to die here tonight. But if you answer our questions, they’ll live; you’ll die knowing they’re safe. Don’t answer our questions … and all four of you will be executed.”
Austen squeezed his eyes tightly shut, his shoulders slumping in defeat. It was no shock that he didn’t accuse them of bluffing. In the view of the extremists, shifters were monsters with no conscience or limits.
While Deke didn’t feel good about threatening the man’s family, he’d make such a threat if it meant finding out where the true danger to Bailey was coming from. He needed to eliminate that danger yesterday.
Opening his eyes, Austen swallowed. “There was a guy.”
“What guy?” asked Deke.
“Just a guy. He came to one of our faction’s hangouts. A bar called Liberty. Made small talk. Asked how I’d feel about giving a shifter a scare.”
Bailey flicked his earlobe with her nail. “And what did you reply?”
Austen nervously licked his lips. “I said I’d do it for the right price.”
Camden poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek. “I’m sensing that it isn’t an unusual occurrence for you.”
