“What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing?” I bellowed, causing everyone to startle, everyone except Harper that is.
She met my gaze with a devious look in her eyes. “Sorry, big guy. You would’ve never agreed, and I needed this,” she said, punctuating “this” by driving the knife in her hand into the leg of the man strapped to the table.
Vance Vine released an ear-splitting scream that made my mouth water. At that moment, I was torn between wanting to carry Harper kicking and screaming from the room and kicking everyone out so we could work him over together. Regardless, her and her cronies had broken into the club’s basement yet again to interact with someone we were holding.
I scanned the room and was not at all surprised to see my sister standing quietly off to the side. What did shock me was seeing Annabelle and Shaker leaned against the wall opposite Reese.
“Brother?” Phoenix growled at Shaker.
He stepped forward and held his hands up in surrender. “They were going to do this come hell or high water. If I had ratted them out, they could have ended up down here without a brother present. I wasn’t going to—” Shaker stopped speaking when Phoenix’s phone as well as mine dinged at the same time. As we pulled out our phones, Shaker smiled smugly and finished his sentence, “—keep it from you.”
I looked down at the text telling me to get my ass to the basement immediately.
Phoenix pinned Shaker with a glare. “That text saved you from an ass-beating, but I’m by no means happy with you. Did you let them down here?”
He shook his head and pointed to Annabelle. “She had your keys. They were halfway down the stairs when I caught them.”
Phoenix stalked toward Annabelle. “You’re pregnant!”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Last time I checked, there are no restrictions on opening doors during pregnancy.”
“We’ll talk about this later.” Phoenix turned to face Reese. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Reese shrugged. “He hurt my soon to be sister-in-law and indirectly hurt my brother. I’m just here to watch.” She reached behind her and produced Duke’s .45. “Oh, and to shoot him if things went sideways.”
Phoenix cursed low and turned to me. “She’s your Old Lady. You want to let her carve him up, be my guest. Since I’m almost positive Duke will be barreling down those stairs any moment now, I’m taking Annabelle home. Clean up your mess, kids.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Duke yelled, coming to an abrupt halt at the sight of his knife-wielding sister and his gun-pointing Old Lady standing beside a man strapped to a metal table.
Phoenix guided Annabelle back upstairs, and I quickly caught Duke up to speed.
“Are you hens done with your clucking? I would like to get back to business,” Harper snarked, causing Reese and Shaker to snicker.
I exchanged glances with Duke, and he gave a curt nod, his silent agreement to see how this played out. With an exaggerated gesture, I said, “Carry on.”
I silently watched my woman taunt, tease, and torture Vance Vine like she was a pro. Not long after we gave her the go-ahead, I had to drop my ass into a chair to keep the room from seeing how hard she had my dick. It was sexy as hell to watch Harper face off with the last member of the family that had haunted her since she was 10 years old.
When she seemed to be satisfied, she looked directly at me and said, “Seems only fair to let you end him.” I cocked my head to the side, and she continued, “Valarie killed Vanessa. Duke killed Vince. Vivian killed herself. I killed Valarie. You kill Vance.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to have to kill him, but I didn’t share this side of myself with anyone other than my brothers. Reese caught a glimpse of it once, but only a glimpse. If I let Harper see me kill, would it change the way she felt about me?
Shaker picked up on my turmoil and stepped forward. “Do you think I could exact a little retribution first?”
Harper smiled brightly and handed the knife to Shaker. “By all means!” I wasn’t afraid to admit, Harper’s exuberance was downright scary.
Shaker proceeded to make a show of punching and slicing Vance before “accidentally” slipping and driving the knife too deep into Vance’s neck, effectively hitting one of the large vessels in his neck and killing him. I quickly mouthed “thank you” before anyone else could see.
He nodded in response and turned to face Harper. “Shit, Harper! I’m so sorry! I guess I got carried away.”
She shrugged. “No worries. What’s the protocol for clean-up?”
Who in the hell was this woman? “Uh,” I stammered, “we’ll take care of it, baby. There’s a shower at the end of the hall. Leave your clothes on the floor outside the door so that we can burn them. Reese, can you bring down a change of clothes for Harper?” She nodded and headed for the stairs. Harper turned and walked toward the shower.
Duke started to speak, but I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Let’s get this cleaned up. I want to be available in case she needs me when it finally sinks in.”
He nodded, and we made quick work of cleaning up our mess and disposing of what was left of the body. After trashing my own clothes and showering, I made my way upstairs, expecting to find Harper in bed in my room. I did not expect to see Harper, Reese, and Keegan posted up at the bar tossing back shots.
“What are you ladies doing now?” I asked from behind them.