Disclaim (Deliver 3)

She’d been an innocent kid once, one of the reasons Van had captured her. Back then, he was a vicious son of a bitch. Still was. But the past four years had diluted some of his poisonous nature. Or maybe his wife had something to do with that.

Unfortunately, his wife had put a full stop on Camila’s plan to chop off Larry’s fingers.

“Amber?” she shouted toward the second-story loft, where the strange woman had vanished moments earlier.

Amber approached the railing upstairs, her brown hair cascading in curls around her model-perfect face.

How Van had been able to coerce a beauty pageant queen into marrying him was anyone’s guess. He’d kidnapped her, for fuck’s sake. Yanked her right out of her house and imprisoned her in this remote cabin, not to be sold, but to be used as his own personal sex slave.

The kicker was, he’d stopped his kidnapping and slave trading after that. Amber forgave him, and they fell in love or some shit. Their relationship smelled like an epic mindfuck, but on the surface, it seemed to be working for them.

Amber fingered her curls as if ensuring each one lay exactly right. Then she brushed the front of her sundress, erasing imaginary wrinkles.

Yeah, the woman had issues, and loving Van wasn’t the weirdest of them. She struggled with severe OCD and agoraphobia. When Van snatched her, she hadn’t been out of her house in two years.

Lowering a hand to the railing, Amber stepped down the spiral staircase, one toned leg crossing in front of the other like she was walking the runway in a fashion show. “Did you need me?”

Camila met her at the bottom step. “I’ll cover the garage floor with plastic. I promise I’ll keep the mess…not messy.”

“No. That’s—” Amber clutched her knuckles, popping each one systematically. “The blood will splatter. I’ll never get it off the concrete and—”

“Amber.” Van appeared at her side, gripping her fingers and stilling her favorite coping mechanism. “Crack your knuckles again, and I’ll tie you to the tree outside.”

“Right,” Amber said on a stiff inhale. “I’m good. We’re good.”

She stared at her husband for a long moment, each second stretching into something intimate and unspoken as her expression heated. Jesus, did she want him to tie her up? This was Van Quiso of all people, prince of sadism and non-consensual kink.

The four-inch scar that bisected his cheek was the first thing any terrified girl would notice. Followed by his obscenely oversized muscles, tousled brown hair, and the saw-blade angles of his face. There was no denying he was insanely attractive. Insane being the quintessential word here.

Amber pulled her attention away from him, shifting it across the room, eyes squinting. Hard.

Camila followed her gaze to the coffee table, returned to Amber, then back to the table. Van’s chewed toothpick lay alone on the dust-free surface. Knowing him, he probably left it there to fuck with her OCD.

“You guys,” Camila said, shaking her head, “are seriously whacked.”

Hands fisting on her hips, Amber straightened her spine. “Says the woman who wants to cut off body parts in my garage.”

Touché. Bringing Larry here had been a matter of convenience. The closest neighbor was miles away, and Van kept the property locked down like a fortress. As for his willingness to help her? Well, maybe that was his way of atoning for being a former human-trafficking asshole. Whatever helped him sleep at night.

“Fine. No blood.” Camila crossed the room and took in the heavily treed landscape beyond the wall of windows. “I need to increase the Krokodil injections.”

Created by mixing codeine with paint thinner, gasoline, and a few other nasty ingredients, the drug was more addictive than heroin. She didn’t cook it long enough to remove the toxic impurities, hoping that would speed up the side effects, such as gangrene and pneumonia. Eventually, blood vessels would burst, and the flesh around the injection point—where she deliberately missed the vein—would rot and fall off the bone in chunks.

“How do you avoid a lethal dose?” Van leaned against the windowed wall, gnawing on a toothpick.

“No idea.” She wasn’t a druggie, had never even smoked tobacco. “I’m going to check on him.”

Passing through the kitchen, she took in the polished appliances and spotless countertops. Exactly what one would expect in a house occupied by someone with OCD.

There was nothing lavish about the cabin. The fixtures, the furniture…it was all simple. Practical. Made her wonder what Van did with his wealth or if he’d even kept any money from his trafficking days.

She opened the door to the garage and found Liv and Tate bent over Larry’s nude body.

It was surreal seeing them here, willingly standing in the home Van shared with his wife. His domain.

Liv Reed was the first person he’d captured, his first slave, and the one he’d hurt the most. After he broke the rules and raped her, he got her pregnant and couldn’t sell her. Buyers wanted virgins. That had earned Van and Liv matching scars on their cheeks, courtesy of Mr. E.

Mr. E, now dead, had run the operation, raised their daughter, and controlled Van and Liv by threatening the little girl’s life.

It was impossible to look at Liv without feeling a torrential mix of nostalgia, pity, and gratitude. While Mr. E had forced Van and Liv to capture and train slaves—nine in total—Liv covertly and brilliantly killed the buyers each time she delivered a slave. She did that for years.

Tate looked up from the table, his dark blond brows pulling together as he scanned Camila from head to toe. He’d been the sixth one Van and Liv enslaved.

Imagining a strong-willed, masculine guy like Tate Vades being forced to suck Van’s cock… Camila knew it had irreparably damaged him. But he hid his demons beneath a disarming smile.

“Doing okay?” He met her gaze, a thousand more questions swirling in his crystal blue eyes.

“Muy bien.” She really wanted to know how he was holding up, but if she asked, he’d give her a similar bullshit answer. “You don’t have to be here, you know.”

When she told her team a few months ago that she’d asked Van for help with this phase of her plan, Tate had blown a gasket. But if Liv could trust Van—enough to let him be part of their daughter’s life—they could rely on him for this.

“Van doesn’t scare me.” Tate crossed his arms, the sleeves of his t-shirt straining across his biceps. “I’m not going anywhere, Camila.”

He hadn’t left her side since the day she rescued him. They lived together, worked together, his shadow always hovering like a protective brother. Except the way he watched her was more like a boyfriend. One who refused to have sex with her.

Maybe he kept her in the friend zone because of what they’d been through. Or maybe it was because of what she’d become.

“This is going to be unpleasant.” She approached the table where Larry lay motionless, his arms and legs bubbling with sores. She gave Tate a stern look, silently reminding him she was going to break another law. Murder another man. Throw away another body. “You can go before—”

“Stop.” He gripped her jaw and brought his mouth to her ear, his voice low. “I owe you my life, so just…shut the fuck up about it.”

“Fine.” She turned her head, breaking his hold.

As the first slave to be freed, she spent six years helping Liv extricate Tate and the others. That included disma

ntling Mr. E’s operation, killing the buyers, and using her connection with Matias to dispose of the bodies.

The freed slaves could’ve gone back to their lives if they’d had families or something to return to. They didn’t, instead joining Camila in her effort to take down a new trafficking ring—the one Larry worked for.

“He’s still not talking?” She prodded at the gangrenous, pus-filled flesh on Larry’s forearm.

“No.” Liv frowned, the scar on her cheek wrinkling. “I have to leave in a couple hours.”

“You have Livana this weekend?”

“Yes.” The tightness around Liv’s mouth relaxed, replaced with the warm glow of maternal love.

Van and Liv shared joint custody with Livana’s adoptive mother. It was a strange arrangement, one they fervently protected. Which meant they kept their involvement in Camila’s illegal activities to a minimum. Had it been Van’s weekend with Livana, he wouldn’t have permitted Camila and her team of ex-slave vigilantes anywhere near his house.

Larry flicked open his eyes and thrashed his head, his rotten flesh tearing beneath the cinch straps.

To think, addicts purposefully shot themselves up with this shit. Cheap ingredients, easy to make, and a killer high? Yeah, no thanks.

She touched the abscess on his arm, and a layer of skin the width of her hand slid free and splatted on Amber’s pristine garage floor. Her stomach revolted.

“Shit.” Tate rubbed the back of his neck. “Amber’s going to have a full-on seizure when she sees that.”

Not if they cleaned—

Holy fuck, was that a bone shining through the hole in Larry’s arm? Bile simmered in the back of her throat.

“What are you doing to me?” Larry groaned, his eyes clearing.

Good, he was lucid. She turned to grab a syringe, but Liv was already there, holding it out for her.

“This,” Camila said, positioning the needle an inch from Larry’s flaccid dick, “is Krokodil. It’s been eating you from the inside out. Given the dead flesh on your arms and legs, I bet your guts don’t feel very good right now.”

“You fucking bitch.” He shifted his hips, unable to distance himself from the syringe. “Get away from me. I need a fucking doctor.”