We were loud then, when we woke up Evans, and Jared, as always, had been right—we needed a team for this. Ella rounded up the five women, who were more scared than anything else, and herded them into the bathroom, while Rais and Cooper secured the two other men in their respective bedrooms, standing guard in the hallway, watching and listening. I stalked over to Evans, yanked him out of bed, and threw his naked ass into the wall, Jared watching my back.
“What the fuck?” His scream was loud, scared and angry at the same time.
Jared gave me the thumbs-up that no one else was moving.
As Evans scrambled to sit up, I squatted down in front of him, looking, I was certain, more intimidating than usual, with the tac vest on and my rifle in hand, the butt resting on the floor and a death grip on the barrel as I stared him down. Behind me, Jared loomed, scarier than me, I was sure, what with his height and massive build.
“Who the fuck are you guys?” Evans rasped after a moment, swallowing hard.
I took a breath to calm myself so I wouldn’t hit him, and went with the script that we’d agreed on, that Owen had gone over with me on the plane. “We were hired by a certain interested party to retrieve video that you have of Nick Madison,” I explained. “As well as video taken of his father.”
“That little fuck thinks he can––”
Jared bent and grabbed hold of his throat so fast I was startled. The movement was like a snake striking, and something he hit in Evans’s neck, some pressure point, some nerve ending, made his face twist up and his hands contort and then freeze, like he was having a stroke. When Jared relaxed his grip, Evans slouched against the wall, panting.
Jared tapped me with his foot, giving me the go-ahead to continue.
“I didn’t say I worked for Nick Madison,” I told Walker, my tone low and cold, utterly devoid of emotion. “I told you I represented an interested party.”
“Yeah, sure.” Evans tried to catch his breath, eyes flicking up to Jared and then back to me. “Sorry.”
I stared at him until he squirmed under the intensity of my gaze.
“Please,” he begged me, “just tell me what the fuck you want.”
“I already told you,” I reminded him.
“How do you even––”
“You talk a lot,” I said softly. “You brag about your meal ticket, about never having to worry about money, and someone you know has been running their mouth.”
The man, who now resembled a scared rabbit, started to tremble.
“You tell everybody your business, and eventually someone’s going to listen,” I informed him, pulling a knife from my vest. “So now, as I stated earlier, I need the videos you took of Mr. Madison, as well as the ones you shot of his father.”
Evans opened his mouth.
“And I need all the copies, Mr. Evans,” I said implacably, my steely tone brooking no protest. “And I’m going to torture you to make sure I get everything.” I tilted my head and grinned, as if I were already thinking about all the ways I’d enjoy it. “My boss likes me to be…thorough.”
He shuddered hard.
I turned to Jared. “I need you to hold his leg while I cut the tendon.”
There was no question that I meant his Achilles, and Jared bent toward Evans without question, like he was more than ready to follow my order.
“No,” Evans cried out, his eyes filling with tears. “Please, no!”
“No?” Jared asked him, sinking down on one knee, taking my place like it was normal, staring at Evans, waiting, eyes flat, looking bored.
Jesus.
I had never in my life seen Jared Colter in his black-ops, wet-work guise. Nor had I ever seen him smile without a drop of feeling, and even though it wasn’t directed at me, I still felt a crawling fear in the pit of my stomach. It was surreal. One second he was my boss, and the next, it was like he slipped out of his skin and into someone else’s. I felt like if I said his name it’d be wrong, because I wasn’t looking at Jared Colter anymore.
I took an involuntary step back, and Walker Evans looked up at me, realized I was honestly freaked out, and snapped his head back to Jared.
“You don’t have to hurt me. I swear to God.”
Jared waited, still, eerily quiet, and it sent a chill up my spine that made me clutch the Heckler & Koch HK416 in my hands to remind me that this was real and I wasn’t in some fucked-up nightmare.
“I swear to God,” Evans whimpered. “I’ll give you everything and tell you whatever the fuck you wanna know.”
From the predatory look on my boss’s face, I thought Evans made a good choice.
I had an image in my mind of blackmailers. I thought they were smart. I thought there would be several copies of the videos in different places, stashed in different cities even, tucked away in safety-deposit boxes with instructions, like “if X happens, then take these immediate steps.” I assumed there would be contingency plans and was shocked to discover that there was just one breathtakingly stupid person behind this, with no backup plan whatsoever. Evans was a low-rent thug who had shot a video of the man he worked for, Sterling Madison, letting his hired hands teach his son a lesson about what happened to boys who had sex with other boys. His father’s last words, hurled at his son before he’d walked out the door and let grown men beat his child into unconsciousness, were, “Make sure to make him bleed.”