Page 45 of A Dirty Business
It was coming from a back room, on the other side of a seriously small door.
The screams started up, and that sound was no longer human.
I wanted to kick down that door, go in there and start showing my teeth, but I refrained. Every cell in my body was begging to fight, but I had to stop, I had to think. One second.
It started again, and I ceased thinking.
I reared back and kicked the door open, and then I froze in place because the animal screaming wasn’t an animal. I was taking an educated guess that that was my aunt’s abuser, but while he was tied to a post, with liquids seeping out of him, it was another person in the room who I recognized.
A large guy was standing over my aunt’s abuser, and there were two other people in the room.
I skipped over Ashton, my eyes finding and latching onto Tristian West, who was standing in the corner.
“What are you doing here?”
Tristian’s eyes flashed, hard, and he came at me.
I stepped back, jerking my arm up, my gun right at him.
He stopped but indicated behind me.
I didn’t move. Not at first.
God. What were they doing to him?
But then I lowered my gun, and Tristian reached over, touching my arm and guiding me back. I allowed it, or my body did because my body recognized his and it was having its own mind. I was seeing red; my body was heated.
He took me back to the room where the safe was.
He flipped on the lights.
He paid no attention to the room. His gaze was on me, pinning me down. “What are you doing here?”
My mouth fell down for a split second before I was pissed. “Are you kidding me?! That piece of shit in there is married to my aunt. What areyoudoing here? What are you doing to him?”
They were torturing that piece of shit. And I had walked in on it.
Now I was in this room, and I was putting my gun away? What the hell was I doing?
I started reaching for my phone.
I needed to call this in. It was out of my hands.
“No.” He plucked my phone away from me, pocketing it.
“Give it back.”
He glared. “No.”
I growled before pulling my gun right back out. “Give it back now.”
He eyed the gun, not fighting me, but he wasn’t doing what I ordered. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned close. “No.”
I growled again, this time more feral. “You are in so much shit that you won’t be able to comprehend it—now give me my phone back.”
He kept studying me, before a slow grin showed and a chuckle slid out. He moved back a step. “I don’t think so.” His eyebrows rose up, mocking me. “How are you going to explain yourself? You didn’t walk in through the back door or front door. I’d know. I got a guy up there. You broke in. NowI’mwondering whyyou’rehere whenmybusiness with your uncle is none ofyourbusiness.”
“He’s not my uncle. He’s a piece of shit that abused my aunt.”
