“I love you,” Agnes told him.
I’m ready to kill for you.
One of the van’s back doors was hauled open.
A booming voice announced, “I want to see the bitch!” A voice belonging to Bayne Hendrix. “Let’s see if she begs before I finish carving her up and leaving her body for Cass to find…” His smiling visage appeared as he ducked his head into the back of the van.
But that smile froze when he saw the gun pointed dead center at his forehead.
“Hi, Bayne,” Cass told him. “Long time, no see. Also…Gonna need you to fucking apologize for calling my lady a bitch—and for kidnapping her.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bayne Hendrix gripped a knife in his right hand. He gaped at Cass. Bayne’s shoulders heaved in his battered jacket before he tried to back away.
Cass surged forward. He grabbed Bayne by the neck and hauled him close, with the gun against Bayne’s forehead. “You aren’t getting away. You ordered my lady to be kidnapped. You were ready to carve her up.” Cass remained in the van, with Bayne’s body now jerked half-way inside the vehicle.
There were shouts from behind Bayne. His men, coming to help him?
Agnes scuttled forward. Not like there was a ton of room to maneuver in the van, so she scuttled. “Your men have to stay the hell back!” she yelled. “Stay back!” Agnes ordered them. “Or we blow his brains out here and now!” She thought that sounded suitably intense.
She also thought that the words weren’t an idle threat. Cass was looking way too eager with that trigger finger of his.
And in response to her big, bad words…
Laughter.
A cold, mocking laughter that seemed to echo in the warehouse.
Cass swore. Low and viciously. She’d heard some pretty inventive cursing from him before, but this took things to a whole new level…
“Sonofafuckingghostwhorebastardwhowillbeburiedinthefuckinggroundwithhisspineinhisthroat…”
Well, okay, then.
A loud voice blasted, “Everyone, out!”
Agnes assumed the blasting voice belonged to the sonofa—well, the ghost bastard. Cass’s uncle?
Footsteps pounded as men seemingly rushed to obey that blasting voice.
Cass kept his gun pressed to Bayne’s forehead. “Gonna need you to follow my instructions,” Cass commanded him. “Gonna need you to drop the knife in your hand. Right the hell now.”
A knife that she knew Bayne had intended to use on her.
He dropped it. The knife clattered to the floor.
“Good,” Cass praised. “Now shove up the sleeves of your coat, would you? Nice and slowly.”
Bayne shoved up the left sleeve of his leather coat.
Tattoos. Knives. A skull. Thorns.
Bayne’s eyes drifted to Agnes as she pressed to Cass’s side. Her fingers were around the gun that she still concealed in the sling on her arm. “Looks like you got hurt, pretty lady,” he murmured.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
He winked at her. “We’ll see about that.”
