“I’ll come with you. With any luck, I’ll know who he is. Either way, I’ll help you get his name out of him and anything else he knows.”
“All right. There’s a good chance he’ll be pretty talkative.”
Tate frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Just a little feeling I have.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Crossing to the entrance of the rec center, Havana smiled at Corbin, hoping that he wouldn’t notice just how brittle that smile was. Sexual frustration plucked at her composure, and her body was still tingling in all sorts of places. More annoyingly, the source of said frustration was walking beside her with his bodyguards trailing behind him.
She’d considered fighting Tate on coming along, but he was right; he might be able to identify Hyman. The quicker she found out who this cougar was and what he wanted with her, the better she and her stressed-out devil would feel.
“Morning, Corbin,” Havana greeted.
“It really is a fine one, isn’t it?” Bailey smiled brightly. “Tate and his cats are here to meet our guest and help us work out what’s going on.”
Corbin tipped his chin at Tate. “Devereaux,” he greeted politely, having met him through their mutual contacts from the local homeless shelter for loners.
Tate gave him a nod. “Good seeing you again, Corbin.”
Once the grizzly had exchanged greetings with the others, Havana asked him, “Have you spoken to Hyman this morning?”
“Yes,” replied Corbin, pushing open the center’s front door. “His dignity was all over the basement floor, along with his vomit and shit and piss. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. I have a feeling he’ll be more cooperative today.”
Tate frowned. “Vomit, shit, and piss?”
“My venom causes diarrhea and puking and lots of other wonderful stuff,” Bailey explained as they all filed inside the building.
“Wait, you bit him?” Luke asked the mamba.
She nodded, sliding him an odd look—she often watched him warily, believing the Beta had a dark side. “We stripped him naked, tied him up, and then left him to suffer the effects of the venom all by his lonesome.”
“After spending hours sitting in his own waste and finally escaping the pain, it’s unlikely that he’s going to want to go through it all over again,” Aspen added.
Tate squinted. “And whose idea was it to go at him that way?”
“Havana’s,” Bailey told him.
Havana ignored the curious glance Tate cast her. This was another reason she hadn’t wanted him to come. He was bound to notice that she was no stranger to interrogating people, and he might wonder why. Well, he’d just have to wonder.
As they walked through the center, Corbin spoke to Havana, “Keeping him tied to the chair, I dragged him out of the puddle of waste and then washed both our guest and the floor with the portable hose, but it still reeks down there. Just thought I’d warn you.”
“No worries,” said Havana. “Thanks for cleaning him up. Couldn’t have been a fun job.”
“He whined like a bitch the whole time, like I was washing him with acid,” Corbin grumbled.
Havana led the way as they descended the basement steps. Sure enough, the scents of bile, ammonia, shit, and pure shame laced the air. It took everything she had not to balk. Her devil shook her head as if to shake off the potency of the smells.
Havana gave their captive a winning smile. Pale, tremoring, and clearly dehydrated, he was looking more than a little worse for wear. “Morning, Hyman. I heard you made quite a mess of yourself during the night.” She flapped her hand. “Don’t worry, there’s no need for you to go through all that again. Unless, of course, it’s what you want.”
Havana held up the bottle of water she’d brought with her, and he swallowed with an audible click of his tongue. She unscrewed the cap and removed it. “Tip your head back.” He did so, and she carefully poured some water down his throat. “You may have noticed the newbies. They’re from the Olympus Pride. The one coming toward you is Tate Devereaux, the Alpha, in case you don’t recognize him.”
Fear flickered in Hyman’s eyes.
Tate sidled up to her and glared down at the cougar. “I’m also Havana’s landlord, and I’m naturally pretty pissed that someone would target a female who’s under my protection. What’s your name?”
The cougar swallowed and then coughed. “Rupert Merchant,” he replied, his voice hoarse.
Havana smiled again. “It sure is a pleasure to meet you, Rupert.”
“I prefer Hyman—just sayin’,” Bailey interjected.
“I admit, it does have a certain ring to it.” Havana dragged over a stool and sat down in front of him. “Are you part of a cougar pride, Rupert?”
He gave a lethargic shake of the head. “Loner.”
“I see. Well, as you can imagine, I’m awfully curious as to why you shot me with tranqs last night. Maybe you could clear that up for me.”
He licked his lower lip and briefly averted his gaze.
“Or Bailey can bite you again. That’s always an option. Look, this can go one of two ways. You can answer our questions and then die. Or you can piss around, relive the experience you had last night, and then we’ll talk again once the venom has worn off. Either way, we’re not going to stop questioning you until we get our answers.” She paused. “Why did you come for me?”
He was silent for a long moment. “It … it was just a job.”
“A job?”
“I got a message on my cell. It had your name, address, car registration, and the address of where you work. I was to grab you and take you to the abandoned factory near the old lighthouse. Your car wasn’t parked outside your building, so I came here, noticed your car in the lot, and I waited.”
Unease pricked its way up Havana’s spine, and her devil froze. “Someone texted you my details? Who?”
“Don’t know. Never met the guy. He called me one day and said he’d heard good things about me from his associates; heard I’m a man who gets shit done and he’d like to have me on his payroll. I couldn’t trace his call, he made it through a spoofing site. He always contacts me that way.”
Tate folded his arms. “And what is it you do for him?”
Rupert hesitated. “It’s always the same—he sends me a person’s details and a location where I should take them. It’s never the same location, and he’s never the one waiting for me.”
“Who is?” asked Tate.
“There are only ever two guys—they’ve never told me their names. They barely even talk to me, but I know from their voices that neither of them is the guy who calls me. When I arrive, they transfer whoever I’ve brought from my van to theirs.”
And that would have been Havana’s fate, Tate thought, grinding his teeth. Her devil shifter DNA was the only thing that had saved her. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d have probably received a call at some point today to tell him that she was missing. The very idea made his cat lash out with his claws. “How do you contact this man who hired you?”