Bounty Hunter (The Rover 1)

Hawk jerked his chin toward the holding cell. “Where did you pick this guy up? You both smell like shit.”

I had to give him something or he would stand in the hall and question me all day. “That was this jerk off’s fault. He tried to outrun me after hours of surveillance at The Silver Wolf. And once I finally caught up to him, he didn’t really feel like talking.”

“So you hit him?” Hawk asked with a grin beginning to lift the corners of his mouth.

I shrugged. “Maybe a couple of times. But definitely nowhere our union rep might catch a bruise. Obviously, we have to be”—I held up my hands to make the quote sign—“humane in our catches now. Ever since the Simpson case, I swear, they think every target who passes our threshold is going to get the beat down.”

He snorted and dropped his arms. “You’re telling me. I’m up to my ears in sensitivity paperwork and training I know none of you assholes are actually going to take.”

I snorted and gave him a little shrug. What could I say to that? He was right. It would be fun to watch him try to wrangle all the city’s hunters into one room and listen to the world’s most insensitive man tell us how to treat others.

Actually, that might be his selling point.

He jerked his chin toward the holding cell. “Your man is waking up. Call me if you need an assist. You know I’m good for the scare factor.”

I wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.

I spun and marched into the room as sleeping beauty began to stir. I quickly secured his zip tied hands to a metal loop in the floor and then went to the long table lining the wall opposite him. His belonging. There was a pocket watch, a pair of dirty gloves with holes in three fingers, and a wallet.

I opened the wallet and started to see what I could learn about my target. A tiny part of me wished it contained a photo of the Black Mage. A business card with his address and phone number on it. I wished one of these guys would make my life the tiniest bit easier for once.

He groaned out loud and sat up on the concrete floor, arms bent behind him, legs splayed out in front of him. “What did you do to me?”

I shrugged. “I told you if you didn’t answer my questions, I would hit you.”

“You didn’t hit me, you choked me out and kidnapped me.”

“Yeah, well, sue me.”

I squatted down in front of him, ensuring I kept enough distance between his feet and mine. “So, do you want to try this whole question and answer thing again? Except this time, I won’t hit you. I’ll just let you sit in here for an hour after each question and then we’ll see where we are tomorrow without a bathroom, food, or water.”

The glare in his eyes told me my plan was probably not going to work.

I twisted my legs in front of me and sat down on the cold concrete cross legged. With my head now below his line of sight, I had to look up at him. Hopefully, that would start to make him feel like he had the upper hand and would loosen his tongue.

“Okay, you know what, let’s start this thing over. I don’t actually want to hurt you. And I don’t want to starve you. So how about we work together on this? I’ll ask you some questions, you answer them, and if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable in the meantime, then I’ll do it.”

The look on his face didn’t change. He wasn’t buying it.

Sell it harder, Zoey.

“I don’t want you here. Hell, I don’t even know who you are.” I glanced down at his wallet still clutched in my hand and drew out his license. “Winston. You aren’t even on our radar. You just happen to have a connection to someone I want to find. Not to hurt him but to speak with him, ask him a few questions as well.”

The man lunged forward as far as his binds would let him. “You think the Black Mage is going to roll over and let you catch him like you caught me? You don’t know a thing about him.”

Yes. The opening I needed.

“So, you do work for the Black Mage then? Thank you for confirming that.”

His forehead knitted up and he leaned back again, as if trying to distance himself from what he’d just inadvertently revealed to me. “No, I didn’t say—”

“If you don’t work for him, or at the very least know him, you wouldn’t know what he would or wouldn’t do for a lowly hunter like me.”

He exhaled loudly through his nose and stared down at me. “And do you think if you bat your eyelashes at me, I’ll give you whatever you want?”

I laughed. “Obviously not. But it’s always a tactic I like to try before I start getting out the power tools.”

I enjoyed the play of fear that flickered over his features. He didn’t know me well enough to know I wouldn’t know a drill bit from a screwdriver. It tickled me to let him think I could actually torture him like that.