Kim had been sprawled across a stained mattress in the back room of one of them, half-naked, barely conscious, the place reeking of sweat and shit and fuck-only-knew-what else.
Getting anything useful out of her had been worse.
Hell, half the fight had been keeping her conscious—one of the guys with a hand fisted in her hair, shouting at her to stay awake, promising worse when she wouldn’t, when her eyes kept drifting shut and her words kept running together.
But eventually she gave them another name this time—Jimmy—with a location attached.Back to Clifton they went.To a house buried off a long-dead logging road, the kind of place you only found if you already knew it was there.
Which was how Nash ended up standing in the middle of a cook shack, old floorboards rotten beneath his boots.The windows had been covered from the inside—no light, just heat—the air thick with ammonia and burned plastic.
Burn marks climbed one corner of the ceiling above a hot plate, a mountain of cold medicine boxes and stripped lithium casings piled nearby.Every surface looked sticky.The whole place felt one spark away from going up.
Nash stepped in close.
“Where’s Maya, Jimmy?”
“I don’t—”
Nash hit him.Jimmy’s head snapped sideways, a wet grunt spilling out of him as his knees buckled against Boone and Snake’s hold.
“Don’t do that,” Nash ground out.“Don’t waste my fuckin’ time.”
“I swear, man, I don’t—”
Nash hit him again.Harder this time, bone thudding under his knuckles.Jimmy sagged, choking, blood stringing from his lip as his head lolled.
“You know Maya,” Nash said, fisting a hand in his shirt and jerking him upright.“You know who she runs with.Who she buys from.”
“Yeah, I know her—but I ain’t seen her—”
Nash drove his fist into Jimmy’s jaw, cutting him off.
“Wait—” Jimmy choked out, sucking in ragged breaths, eyes darting, searching for something—anything—to give him a way out.“Rail yard—she’s always at the rail yard—”
“She ain’t there.Where else?Gimme a fuckin’ name, a place, somethin’.Who the fuck is bankrollin’ this pigsty—’cause it sure as shit ain’t you!”
Jimmy shook his head.“That’s all I got.I swear it!”
“You’re really tryin’ to tell me you ain’t usin’ more than you’re movin’?”
Jimmy started to protest, but Nash didn’t give him the chance.He shifted his aim—driving his fist into Jimmy’s ribs.Once.Twice—
There was a sharp give under his fist as bone snapped, and Jimmy folded with a broken sound, gasping for air as Boone and Snake lost their grip and he dropped hard to the floor.He curled in on himself, coughing and gagging.
The woman let out another shriek, crying harder now.“Jimmy—oh god—Jimmy—”
Rook stepped up beside Nash, already pulling a blade from his pocket.He flicked it open, spinning it once between his fingers.
“Want me to have a go?”
Nash shook out his hand, knuckles throbbing, split and slick with blood.He flexed his fingers, then dropped his hand to his side.
“Be my fuckin’ guest.Just don’t kill him—yet.”
Rook’s mouth tipped—not quite a smile.He jerked his chin at Snake.“Hold him down.”
"My fuckin' pleasure."
Outside, the screaming started almost immediately.
