Tame Me (Broken Heroes 5)

“Who are—?” one of them starts, but Xander cuts him off.

“Shut the fuck up! We’re asking the questions here. You only speak if we speak to you. We aren’t here to have a nice fucking conversation.”

“How dare y—” Bang. A shot echoes through the room, followed by a loud cry from the man who just spoke. The man who’s now sporting a bullet hole in his kneecap.

“Did I not make myself clear?” Xander snarls, and I have to admit, even I’m kind of worried about this guy’s mental state. The guy starts to cry, legit fucking cry, and all the other men in the room take that shot as a warning: you talk out of turn you get shot.

“Him,” Hero announces with a monotone voice as he points to the head of the table at a man looking at us with shock and anger in his eyes. “That’s their father.”

I lift my eyes to the front of the table and it only takes me a moment to spot Sophie’s dad. I know who he is as soon as I see him, not only because I’ve seen him before, but because of the way he is staring at me as if he knows exactly who I am, and why I am here.

“Certainly we can discuss this as god fearing men?” The douchebag announces standing at the head of the table like he’s about to read a sermon or something. Obviously he’s never met men like us before.

Xander laughs, “I’m not god fearing. I know I’m going to hell, so I’ll have no fucking problem putting a bullet between your eyes. Now are you Joseph or do I need to kill a few more men to find out who is who?”

He holds up his hands palms first. “Yes, I’m Joseph, and there is no need for violence. We will not hurt you.”

I snort on his remark. What a fucking prick. An image of Sophie’s bruised and battered body fills my mind. Won’t hurt us. The urge to smash my fist into his face until he stops breathing is so overwhelming I damn near charge to the front of the room and grab him by the throat. I know I can’t hold on much longer.

“Maybe you won’t hurt us, but it doesn’t stop you from hurting helpless fucking women that can’t fight you,” I growl, taking a determined step forward.

“Soon, brother,” Ivan whispers beside me, placing his hand on my forearm as if that would stop me from lurching forward and throttling the son of a bitch.

I glance over at Hero who looks just as much on edge as I am. No one knows what Elyse and Sophie have been through quite like us. We’ve seen the fear, watched them struggle, and I’m sure Hero want’s Elyse to be as free of these monsters as much as I want Sophie to be.

“Since you are so open to cooperating with us, why don’t you tell us who exactly is trying to kidnap and sell Sophie?” All the men in the room look between each other, some of them look shocked while others seem ashamed that there sins have been exposed.

Joseph opens his mouth, and it looks like he’s about to start talking when Xander hold up his finger. “Before you say a word, I want to remind you of how important it is for you to not say anything besides the truth. If anything else comes out of your mouth, if you lie to me, or any of my men, you’ll wish for death to find you. Do you understand me?”

All the blood drains from his ugly face and I can see him trying to swallow down his fear from across the room. He looks so scared and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d start to piss himself.

“Look…” He sighs, “I’ll tell you everything I know…these men, Dante’s crew, they just want Sophie back.” He swallows, and I so badly want to crush his windpipe. “They’re not going to stop, she was promised to them and they want the money they can make off of selling her, or at the very least her back. That’s it. Just let them have her and everything can go back to normal.”

Anger spirals out of control inside of me. Normal. It can go back to normal if I just hand over Sophie…hand her over, give her to these vile monsters. I’m seething, boiling… something inside me snaps, and all I see is Sophie’s body on the floor covered in bruises. My sweet Sophie battered by this man in front of me. There is no one in this room who can stop me now. I shrug Ivan’s hand off like nothing. I hear nothing, and feel nothing in that moment. I’m across the room in a millisecond, my hands wrapped around his slimy neck.