LITMIR.BIZ

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Clint’s hurried stride. When they stepped onto the porch, he looked down at his fallen buddy, still out cold. “What did you do to him?”

      “Nothing he won’t recover from.” Clint went halfway down the steps, then paused. It was unusual, but curiosity got the better of him. “Tell me why Asa is such a champion of women.”

      Trent grunted. “It’s not a secret. His mother was killed trying to fight off three men who beat and raped his sister.”

      Clint went still in surprise. “His sister?”

      “She was in her early teens when it happened, and now she’s all the family he has left.”

      Chapter Two

      A bead of sweat took a slow path down his throat and into the neckline of his dark T-shirt. Pushed by a hot, insubstantial breeze, a weed brushed his cheek.

      Clint never moved.

      Through the shifting shadows of the pulled blinds, he could detect activity in the small cabin. The low drone of voices filtered out the screen door, but Clint couldn’t make out any of the slurred conversation.

      Next to him, Red stirred. In little more than a breath of sound, he said, “Fuck, I hate waiting.”

      Wary of a trap, Clint wanted the entire area checked. Mojo chose that moment to slip silently into the grass beside them. He’d done a surveillance of the cabin, the surrounding grounds, and probably gotten a good peek in the back window. Mojo could be invisible and eerily silent when he chose.

      “All’s clear.”

      Something tightened inside Clint. “She’s in there?”

      “Alive but pissed off and real scared.” Mojo’s obsidian eyes narrowed. “Four men. They’ve got her tied up.”

      Clint silently worked his jaw, fighting for his famed icy control. The entire situation was bizarre. How was it Asa knew exactly where in northern Kentucky to find the men, yet they didn’t appear to expect an interruption? He didn’t doubt Asa’s power, but this was just a bit too pat for Clint. Had Robert deliberately fed the info to Asa, to embroil him in a trap, so Clint would kill him? And why would Robert want Asa dead?

      Somehow, both he and Julie Rose were pawns. But for what purpose?

      Clint’s rage grew, clawing to be freed, making his stomach pitch with the violent need to act. “They’re armed?”

      Mojo nodded with evil delight. “And on their way out.”

      Given that a small bonfire lit the clearing in front of the cabin, Clint wasn’t surprised that they would venture outside. The hunting cabin was deep in the hills, mostly surrounded by thick woods. Obviously, the kidnappers felt confident in their seclusion.

      He’d have found them eventually, Clint thought, but Asa’s tip had proved invaluable. And a bit too fucking convenient.

      So far, nothing added up, and that made him more cautious than anything else could have.

      He’d work it out as they went along. The drive had cost them an hour and a half, with another half hour crawling through the woods. It was a little after ten at night. They’d had Julie for almost sixteen hours.

      But now Clint had them.

      The cabin door opened and two men stumbled out under the glare of a yellow bug light. One wore jeans and an unbuttoned shirt; the other was shirtless, showing off a variety of tattoos on his skinny chest. They looked youngish and drunk and stupid. They looked cruel.

      Raucous laughter echoed around the small clearing, disturbed only by a feminine voice, shrill with fear and anger, as two other men dragged Julie Rose outside.

      She wasn’t crying.

      No, sir. Julie Rose was too busy complaining to cry.

      Her torn nightgown hung off her right shoulder nearly to her waist, exposing one small pale breast. She struggled against hard hands and deliberate roughness until she was shoved, landing on her right hip in the barren area in front of the house. With her hands tied behind her back, she had no way to brace herself. She fell flat, but quickly struggled into a sitting position.

      The glow of the bonfire reflected on her bruised, dirty face—and in her furious eyes. She was frightened, she had to be, but she hid it beneath bravado.

      “I think we should finish stripping her,” one of the men said.

      Julie’s bare feet pedaled against the uneven ground as she tried to move farther away.

      The men laughed some more, and the one who’d spoken went onto his haunches in front of her. He caught her bare ankle, immobilizing her.

      “Not too much longer, bitch. I’ll be making that call in just a few minutes. They’ll send the money for you in the morning.” He stroked her leg, up to her knee, higher. “After that, who cares what I do with you, huh?” He laughed. “You getting anxious?”

      Her chest heaved; her lips quivered.

      She spit on him.

      Clint was on his feet in an instant, striding through the tall grass and into the clearing before Mojo’s or Red’s hissed curses could register. The four men, standing in a cluster, turned to look at him with various expressions of astonishment, confusion, and horror. They were slow to react, and Clint realized they were not only young and foolish, but more than a little drunk, too. Idiots.

      One of the young fools reached behind his back.

      “You.” Clint stabbed him with a fast lethal look while keeping his long, ground-eating pace to Julie. “Touch that weapon and I’ll break your leg.”

      The guy blanched—and promptly dropped his hands.

      Clint didn’t think of anything other than his need to get between Julie and the most immediate threat. But without giving it conscious thought, he knew that Mojo and Red would back him up. If any guns were drawn, theirs would fire first.

      The man who’d been abusing Julie snorted in disdain at the interference. He took a step forward, saying, “Just who the hell do you think you—”

      Reflexes on automatic, driven by a blinding rage, Clint pivoted to the side and kicked out hard and fast. The force of his boot heel caught the man on the chin with satisfying impact. He sprawled flat with a raw groan that dwindled into blackness. He didn’t move.

      That galvanized another man into action. He leapt forward. Clint stepped to the side and, like clockwork, kicked out a knee, following with a punch to the throat. The obscene sounds of breaking bone and cartilage and the accompanying gurgle of pain split the night, sending nocturnal creatures to scurry through the leaves.

      Clint glanced at Julie’s white face, saw she was frozen in shock, and headed toward the two remaining men. Eyes wide, they started to back up, and Clint curled his mouth into the semblance of a smile. “I don’t think so.”

      A gun was finally drawn, but not in time to be fired. Clint grabbed the man’s wrist and, with a sharp movement, twisted up and back.

      “I think you broke my arm,” the man yelped.

      Clint said, “No,” and twisted once more. “Now it’s broke.”

      Still holding him, Clint pulled him forward and into a solid punch to the stomach. Without breath, the painful shouts ended real quick.

      Robert Burns had said not to bring anyone in. Clint couldn’t see committing random murder, and that’s what it’d be if he started breaking heads now. But in an effort to protect Julie Rose and her apparently already tattered reputation, he wouldn’t turn them over to the law either.

      That didn’t mean he’d let them go. He had a plan, one that would give retribution without involving Julie Rose. For now…Clint, fed up and ready to end it, turned to the fourth man. He threw a punch at the man’s nose and another at his ribs and finally one to his kidneys.

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