He obeys instantly, jerking both hands up like he’s trying to touch the ceiling, his pathetic half-mast slaps and then plasters awkwardly to his thigh. His gut sticks out under a stained shirt. His breath wheezes like a cheap accordion.
Perfect. Our target is a horny couch gremlin.
Berk and Ronan enter from the back hallway. Ronan snorts hard enough to choke. Berk’s face does this adorable twitch—equal parts horror and amusement—before she smiles with a sweetness that does not match the situation at all.
“Aww… how sad,” she coos.
And the bastard’s dick twitches again like it’s trying to reanimate.
That’s when Rowan moves.
He crosses the room in two steps and cracks the butt of his gun across Jory’s skull so fast the porn actress on the TV moans at the same time the man screams. Blood freckles his cheek, eyes watering.
“Don’t look at my girl like that,” Rowan growls. “Try it again and I’ll scoop those eyes out with your own spoon.”
Jory instantly stares at the floor like it suddenly became holy.
“Who the hell are you people?” he shouts—way too bold for a man whose pants are still around his ankles. “What do you want? Why are you—”
Another pistol-whip shuts him up mid-sentence.
“We ask,” Rowan says calmly. “You answer.”
Berk drifts past us, serene as a death angel, and drags a wooden dining chair from the corner. She places it in the center of the room, tapping the seat with one elegant finger, the gesture gentle but loaded with promise.
“Sit down,” she says.
We haul him upright. His pants fall further, whimpering through his teeth as we shove him into the chair and zip-tie his wrists behind his back, legs bound tight to the chair legs. Tape tears through the air and slaps across his mouth before he can spit another word.
The porn is still playing, a desperate moan echoing around the small living room like some twisted soundtrack.
Berk walks over and switches the TV off with a single downward flick of her finger.
Silence becomes a weapon.
She steps into the dim light, hands on her hips, head tilting as if she’s studying a strange bug she might dissect later.
His gaze tries to climb her legs again out of instinct—and Ronan steps forward with a low growl that sounds like violence wearing skin.
“Eyes down,” Ronan warns.
Jory obeys so quickly his neck nearly snaps.
Only when he’s shaking and breathing quick little rabbit breaths does Berk speak again, voice coated in honey and knives.
“Since we have your full attention,” she murmurs, leaning in just enough for her shadow to swallow him whole, “let’s begin.”
Jory doesn’t blink or breathe. Doesn’t dare twitch.
Good.
He should be scared.
Berk moves first.
Of course she does.
She glides up to Jory’s face, crouching until she’s eye-level with him. Even tied to a chair, bleeding and pale, the bastard can’t look away from her. She gives him a bright, sunny smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.