Page 51 of Brutal Queen

I look in the rearview mirror and catch Benny laughing. “You guys are such spoilsports.”

“Brat,” I say without thinking and surprise myself. I look sheepishly to my right at Nico, hoping I haven’t overstepped but I’m relieved when all I get is a raised eyebrow, a chuckle, and a little shake of his head.

When I pull up at the end of the road I notice a familiar car driving past us travelling away from campus. The black SUV would look like any other if it weren’t for the garish personalised plate. I’m sure whatever that string of nonsense is, it’s meant to be meaningful or clever in some way, but to me, itmerely announces how much of a prick he is and makes it easier to find him.

“What the fuck is that plate meant to mean anyway?” Benny asks from the back.

“It’s the letters for the fraternity and his rank. He must be the vice president,” Nico replies.

“Tell me you plan on peaking at twenty-one, without telling me you plan to peak at twenty-one,” I add.

“I like bitchy Sin. He’s amusing,” Benny says, patting me on the shoulder. “We going to follow this one?”

I glance across at Nico to get his input and he chimes in, “Might as well. The one in the back will be out for a while.”

We follow at a distance for about five minutes. He’s driving out of the city, which is about to make it a fuck-ton harder to follow him.

“You got any objection to damaging the pick-up a little?” Nico asks.

I shrug my shoulders in response because he’s probably right. Running him off the road and picking him up here is our best option, especially on this stretch of road. It’s rural enough that we can hide the car by simply pushing it off into the scrub to conceal it.

I nod and tell them to hold on, accelerating to catch up with our target. The car in front moves across till it’s close to the hard shoulder, assuming we’re an impatient road-rager wanting to overtake. I go with it, pretending to overtake for a moment before braking and turning into the rear driver’s side, clipping him hard enough to force an over-correction that sends the SUV careening off the side of the road.

As I roll our car to a stop behind the back of the SUV, Benny grips the seat a moment before he hauls himself forward. “Nicely done, old man,” he says, patting my arm and laughing.

As crashes go, this one’s pretty unimpressive. Our targetstacked it straight into a tree leaving the hood buried in the shrubs around the base of the trunk. There’s a pathetic plume of steam floating up from the front grill where he’s likely cracked the radiator. Piling out of the car, we approach the driver's side and the door flies open. The driver stumbles out, falling to his knees obviously disoriented and talking about exchanging insurance details.

It’s only when Nico places the barrel of the gun he’s drawn to the dickwad’s forehead that he stops rambling and looks up. The blood drains from his face the second he realises quite how much trouble he’s in, but it’s short-lived. Nico flips the gun in his hand and pistol whips him across his temple.

He drops like a stone and I’m left feeling pretty unsatisfied by how easy it’s been to pick him up. “I’ll load this one up, you check the car, and get any of his personal effects,” Nico instructs as he hoists the dead weight over his shoulder and marches back to our truck.

Benny pops his head round the car and starts waving at me to come see something. I hurry to follow him and come to a dead stop when I see what he’s looking at through the open rear door.

There’s a naked woman slumped across the back seat, her long blonde hair covering her face and cascading into the footwell.

“Holy fuck,” I say, grabbing my phone and dialling Stefano’s number while tapping my hand against my thigh impatiently. While it’s ringing, I instruct Benny to go and search the truck for a blanket or coat so we can cover her up before anyone sees her like this. Stefano answers on the third ring and I don’t give him the opportunity to speak before I start talking. “Where are you?”

I can see the girl’s chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, but she doesn’t look like she’s in good shape. A path ofbruises trails across her ribs and down to her hip, leading to dried streaks of blood that run down her thighs. I try to hold it together, horrified at the thought of what she’s been through. I’m going to beat that asshole to death with my bare hands and enjoy every second of it.

“At the northside warehouse with Luc. What do you need?” He’s direct and to the point. It’s why I called him.

“I’m sending you a location. We have a complication. It seems one of the frat cunts has been branching out on his own. We found a girl in the back of his car after we ran him off the road.” I reach out and brush her hair aside so I can take her pulse. She doesn’t stir, which is a relief as I don’t want to scare her, but if she’s this out of it, I’m worried that he’s drugged her too.

“She’s alive, but she needs medical help, preferably at the hospital. Only issue is, I need this prick’s vehicle to remain undiscovered for as long as possible so I can’t call for an ambulance and I can’t drop her off with two bodies in the back of the truck.”

“Send me your location. I’m leaving now,” he says before ringing off.

I drop him a pin before crouching low in the door and whispering in her ear, “You’re okay now. Help is coming.”

Her eyes remain closed, and her body shivers. Benny comes running up behind me, waving a hoodie at me. “The only thing I could find in the truck were some tarpaulins, and I didn’t think that it would help if she woke up covered in plastic sheeting.”

I nod, taking it and throwing it over her shoulders before shrugging out of my jacket and covering her legs gently with it.

“I’m going to enjoy working that prick over,” Benny grinds out.

“As long as I get a shot at him, knock yourself out,” Ideclare. “She’s out for the count. He must have drugged her. Did you check the rest of the car?”

“Yeah, nothing in the trunk and I took his phone,” Benny says, handing it over to me and I pocket it so I can see if it’s of any use to us later.

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