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When he added nothing else, Ryder banged the gavel. “Then it’s unanimous. We start tonight at ten, so everybody get some rest. Hunter, if any of the locations are groupedtogether, I’d like to hit those first. Let’s show them what we think of them taking one of our own.”
I stood next to Ryder, astounded, as all the men started banging on the table and grunting. Wait. They thought of me as one of their own?
CHAPTER 27
STELLA
This location was different from any of the ones they’d kept me at. For starters, it was a damn strip mall. Women came here to get their nails done, their hair cut, or for a massage every day not knowing what was happening on the other side of the wall. I wasn’t sure whether I should be horrified or impressed.
Switch nodded to me before he shot the lock off the door connected to the hair salon and kicked it in. He twisted to the side as gunfire erupted, flattening himself against the wall onthe other side of the door jamb. Across from him, I mimicked his pose, waiting for his signal.
When there was a break in the gunfire, he pointed at me and then down, and I nodded, letting him know I’d go low while he went high. Crouching down, I fired through the doorway while Switch stood above me doing the same. We both stopped when the only gunfire we heard was coming from our side.
Switch pushed me behind him, and I gave him a disgruntled huff but let him go in first. Not because he was a man, or because I was pandering to his macho desire to protect me, but because he was the better shot. I wasn’t dumb enough to die for vanity’s sake.
He was humble about his abilities, to the point he was almost secretive about them, but he was just as talented as Gunner. They were merely opposite sides of the same coin. Both could shoot any gun you gave them and hit the bull’s-eye, but Gunner specialized more in long-range shooting whereas Switch was better with the up close and personal kill.
When I stepped from behind Switch, I stared down at a man I didn’t recognize in black fatigues. His body was slumped over on the floor, covered in blood, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. That sure as hell wasn’t me. Not that I hadn’t put a few holes in him. It looked like I’d hit him in the stomach and leg.
“Good riddance,” I said, spitting on his corpse. Every last one of these fuckers was going to get what was coming to them.
A woman sniffled behind me, and I turned around. Only it wasn’t a woman sitting in that cell, but a teenager. Jesus Christ.
“Were you hit?”
She blinked up at me from atop her cot, her knees drawn up to her chin. But she didn’t answer me.
“Are you okay?”
Her lithe frame shook so hard it rocked the cot. Shit. Maybe she was in shock or something. I dropped to my haunches beside the dead guard and started searching his pants pockets. I found two sets of keys, but one was clearly for a car.
When I approached her cell, she shrank in on herself, and I tried not to make a bunch of noise as I unlocked her cell.
“Here,” I said, tossing the keys to Switch. “Set the other girl free while I try to coax this one out.”
A ghost of a smile teased his lips before he turned and walked over to the only other cell in the room.
I left the door wide open and stepped inside. These cells were like the ones I was used to, steel bars, a cot, toilet, sink, and not much else. The floors here were concrete as well, the surface cold and hard beneath my butt as I sat down beside her cot.
My head rested on my knees with my hands loosely joined around the middle of my legs.
“My name’s Stella. What’s yours?”
She sniffed and buried her head in her knees as she whispered, “Bree.”
Her red hair fell in a heavy mass of curls at the middle of her back, spreading around her like a ring of fire.
“Well, Bree, these assholes had me locked up in a cell too.”
She raised her head, her piercing green eyes carefully watching me. “They did?”
“Yup.” I pointed to where Switch was handing the other girl his T-shirt to put on. Damn him and his musculartattooed self. Where was I? Oh, yeah. “He and the rest of The Devil’s Deviants rescued me. And you know what?”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“I’m going to kill them all, so they can never bother nice girls like you ever again.”
“Jesus Stel,” Switch muttered from outside of the bars, the other girl huddled at his side. “You’re going to give the poor girl nightmares.”
