Realization drained some of the color from his face. “Holy shit.”
“Surprise.” Knox bared his fangs.
Travis bolted for his vehicle. Two steps and he ran right into Knox’s chest. Staggering on his heels, he pivoted and tried to make a run for the tavern.
Knox was in front of him again in a fraction of an instant. He grabbed the human’s throat in one hand. Travis sputtered under the hard grasp, fighting uselessly against the iron hold of Knox’s fingers. He flailed and struggled, wild fear in his eyes as Knox walked him backward into the shadows of the small parking lot.
With his hand clamped around the human’s neck, Knox’s gift jack-hammered to life, as powerful as a kick to the gut.
Thick and oily, rife with the stench of corruption, Travis Parrish’s sins poured through his senses. There were too many to sort or catalog. One after another, violence upon violence, and the sick enjoyment of the man who perpetrated them.
Shannon hadn’t been the first woman Travis had brutalized. Nor the last.
Prison had put a halt to his sadistic pleasures, but he was eager for the chance to start again. The young woman in the tavern would have found that out for herself if she’d gotten into his vehicle tonight.
And there was more.
Knox squeezed harder, unable to rein in his own violence when he read the truth about Shannon’s disappearance. Leni was right. Her sister hadn’t abandoned her child. She’d been ripped away from him, drugged, then dumped with some bad people Travis knew across the border in Quebec.
“Where is she now?” he growled into Travis’s terrified face. “While you were in prison serving your time, you arranged to have Shannon sent away. What happened to her?”
“I—I don’t know.” The words were choked, barely audible under the crush of Knox’s hold. “I swear, I don’t have any idea where she is!”
Knox believed him. He didn’t want to, but he knew Travis would have already spat out the answer if he had it to give.
“P-please,” he sputtered. “I can’t—can’t breathe.”
“You want mercy from me?”
“Yes!”
“Then beg for it.”
“Please,” Travis whined. “Please . . . let go. I’ll do anything! I’m begging you!”
Knox’s head echoed with a dozen similar cries for mercy. All of them gone ungranted by the sick son of a bitch flailing in his punishing grasp.
He leaned his face down toward Shannon’s assailant—her betrayer, who’d ruined her young life with drugs and abuse, then threw her away like garbage.
“No mercy for you,” he uttered, not a trace of emotion in his voice, nor in his eyes.
Increasing the pressure on Travis Parrish’s larynx, Knox watched with detached calmness as the man’s life evaporated, second by agonizing second.
CHAPTER 20
Leni came awake to the gentle warmth of Knox’s hand stroking her hair.
“Wake up, sweetheart.”
“Mmm, that feels nice.” She moaned in pleasure at his touch. Her heavy eyelids lifted as she slowly rolled over to find him seated on the edge of the bed. She blinked in the darkness of the quiet room. “What time is it? Why are you dressed?”
“I need you to get out of bed, Leni. Put some clothes on.” His voice was grave. His expression was even more so.
She sat up, cool air chilling her naked skin, though not as much as the grim solemnity of Knox’s entire demeanor. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to leave. Now.”
Confusion swam through her. The cobwebs of sleep fell away swiftly as she realized the urgency behind his steady voice. “What’s going on? Where’s Riley?”
