Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(32)

“Oh my God! We’re safe!” she cackles and starts to get back to her seat.

“Stay down!” I order gruffly.

“Why? We’re far enough away from Port—”

“Farrington, shut up and stay down. We have no idea who these men are,” I bark.

This is not some routine checkpoint.

Carefully, I pull the car over and stop. They wedge in behind me. I put in a fast call to Briggs. “Have D’Angelo make some calls, I have a gut feeling this isn’t going to go nice,” I say. I leave him our coordinates and hang up.

“You’re being paranoid,” she accuses.

“Unfortunately, we’re about to find out.”

In moments they descend like a swarm around the car, guns drawn.

“COME OUT OF THE CAR WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!” one of them bellows through a megaphone.

I look down at Farrington and realize there are too many things I need to tell her. That I should have told her.

That I want to tell her.

Before I can get out one word, the metal barrel of the officer’s pistol taps the glass by my head.

“Stay—” Before I can finish my instructions, she opens her car door and spills out onto the blacktop. “. . . where you are.”

If only she’d stayed in the car, she would have given me a few more seconds to think.

Fuck it. I unlock my door and put my hands on my head. The car door is yanked open, and I’m ripped out of the vehicle and forced over the hood.

“What do we have here?” The officer confiscates my firearm.

“I’m a United States recovery agent. Badge is in my right pocket.”

He laughs at me and pats me down roughly with about twenty other cronies standing watch, pistols drawn.

“You can see I’m wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, do you really think you’re going to find something else?”

His hand slides over my shorts, into the crack of my ass and under my balls.

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not your type.”

“I’d shut the f*ck up if I were you.”

“And I thank the good Lord I’m not you.”

“Funny, *,” he says condescendingly. “Do you know who that woman is right there?”

“Do you?”

He gives me a scornful glare. “You think you’re a f*cking big man recovery agent.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I laugh.

My arms are yanked behind me roughly, and I grit my teeth through the pain in my arm. I’m cuffed as I watch the same thing happen to Farrington.





“Chief wants a word,” Ballsy-boy, who searched me earlier, exclaims as he slides open the door to the holding cell that I’ve been incarcerated in for the last hour. He leads me down the hall to the police chief’s office.

The Mansfield chief of police greets me from behind his polished, ostentatious desk as Ballsy-boy wheels in my equipment bag on a delivery caddy.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Axton,” the chief tells me.

After taking a quick inventory of my belongings and detecting only the new burner phone I hadn’t used gone, I say, “I’m not going anywhere without Miss. Farrington.”

“She’s no longer your concern,” he informs me coolly. “We’ll take care of her from here.”

Ballsy-boy and Officer Douchebag, the guy who unofficially interrogated me, are standing behind their chief with smug grins plastered to their ugly faces.

“I need to verify the safety of—”

“You’re in no position to be making demands,” he interrupts me while he leans slowly back in his leather chair and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You’re tampering with a federal witness and obstructing justice—” I begin.

“We’ve already made arrangements with federal agents. Sergeants Oliver and Guthrie are highly qualified and will officially escort Ms. Farrington the rest of the way to Shreveport safely. So you see, your services are no longer required,” the chief of police—Warner is the name on his desk plate—states.

“These two aren’t competent enough to get laid in their own wet dreams,” I say.

Douchebag lunges a little at me, while Ballsy-boy puts an arm out to stop him.

“That’s enough from you, Mr. Axton,” their chief tells me in a threatening tone.

I press the knuckles of my clenched fists onto his desk and lean closer, putting myself right into his personal space and giving him an intimidating glare. “I haven’t even started.”

He stands to make his position known. “We don’t think very much of bounty hunters in this part of the country. All we see is another thug criminal with a gun.”

“Excellent.” I smile. I love threats. “But I’m not about to pin Farrington’s life on your word. I require proof.”

“I owe you nothing, Mr. Axton. Not even a phone call,” he drawls. “And I don’t ever want to see your face here again in DeSoto Parish.”

“I’m real glad you said that.” I nod. “Now I know how to proceed.”

“Officer Guthrie, escort our guest out.”

Douchebag Guthrie walks me to the front of the station and out the door.