The Death Lords, Volumes 1-3: His Wild Desire, Her Secret Pleasure, Their Private Need by Ella Goode Page A

of trees, old oak trees with sturdy trunks. I stop the truck behind a hill of gravel. No one will be able to see us back here. Michigan hands me a pair of rubber gloves.
    “Extra large,” he says and jerks his head slightly toward the backseat. “Junkies have bad blood. Better be safe than sorry.”
    “Another tool of the trade?”
    “You pick up things here and there,” he says.
    I can see why Dad wanted me to bring Michigan. I pull on the gloves and Michigan hefts a Magnum 45 and points it at Ellerby’s head. “Don’t run off, boy,” he says. “I don’t feel like chasing you.”
    Ellerby’s hand falls away from the door.
    “Don’t scare him too bad,” I warn. “I don’t want to be cleaning piss off my floors.”
    “You need to carry plastic. Helps in the cleanup.”
    “Fuck you two,” Ellerby spits out but he doesn’t move.
    I hop out and grab my kit of supplies that I threw together. One spike, a length of rope, a sledgehammer and some zip ties. I stick the zip ties in my back pocket. Michigan is out, lighting up a cigarette.
    “Those things will kill you.”
    He blows out a stream of smoke. “You assume I’m trying to avoid that.”
    Okay then.
    I yank open the car door and Ellerby inches back, as if he thinks we’re going to leave him in the truck while Michigan smokes and I scratch my ass.
    “Don’t make this harder on yourself. Get out here.”
    “If you kill me, you’ll be going back to prison for a long time. It’s not self-defense now, is it?”
    “Who’s going to care if you’re gone?”
    “My ma and sister. Although I don’t have to fuck them to get them to care about me.”
    Thanks to Michigan’s early warning, I don’t dive into the backseat and pummel Ellerby as is my first inclination. But hearing his statements voiced out loud makes me furious. This is everything that is keeping me and Chels apart and I want to punish him for everyone else’s narrow-mindedness.
    I glance at Michigan but his face is closed down tighter than Fort Knox. If he disapproves, he wouldn’t say a word in front of someone who ain’t part of the club. After though? He might give me a piece of his mind and he might start treating Chels differently.
    “I’m not going to kill you, Ellerby. I promise you’ll be walking out of here on your own. We need to renegotiate the terms of your deal with Chels, is all.”
    He studies me and then capitulates because he’s killed all but one functioning brain cell. When he’s on his feet, I zip-tie his hands and then lead him into the blackness of the woods.
    “You think you’re going to scare me?” he scoffs. “I’ve watched children’s movies that are more frightening than you.”
    I say nothing and haul him about twelve feet deeper into the woods and throw him against the trunk of a thick tree. He struggles and yells at me the whole way, cursing my mother, my father and all our ancestors.
    “So, you sick fuck, you thought you could terrorize Chelsea and get away with it?”
    “I’m the sick fuck?” he screams at me. “I’m not the one boning my sister. You’re the fucking perversion.”
    “Who I sleep with isn’t any of your business. Who Chelsea sleeps with isn’t any of your business.” I bend down and take out the spike. “And I’m going to teach you that lesson tonight.”
    I jam the spike about seven feet off the ground into the tree trunk and then pick up the sledgehammer. He starts blubbering. “Fine, fine. I won’t say anything about you and Chelsea.”
    “And you’ll give the money back?”
    “Yes,” he cries. “Whatever you want.”
    The weight of the sledgehammer is satisfying in my hands. Real good. “You know why I killed that asshole outside Rowdy’s? It wasn’t just because he was a racist skinhead. Can’t kill everyone for that. It’s because he said something about Chels. No one gets to say things about Chels and go away unpunished. I’m not going to kill you, Ellerby, because you need to spread the word.