Page 84 of Her Intense Protector

“Stepped out for what?”

Ajax was still holding a choking Harry, but it was obvious he was scared of Mr. Anders. “He forgot the knife. He was getting it from the car.”

“This is not good, Ajax. Not good at all.” Anders shook his head. “I expect better from my people.”

Anders looked around the crowd. He pointed to one of the men who had been avidly watching the scene play out. “Murphy. We need help. Find out if anybody in the crowd has a knife, then come up here.”

Murphy stepped forward and turned to the crowd. A man who had to be three-hundred pounds, wearing only a leather vest and jeans, held up a huge Bowie knife. “Here,” he rumbled. “Use this. It might not be a meat cleaver but it’s sharp.” He grinned.

Meat cleaver?

“Excellent, Leslie, thank you for that,” Mr. Anders smiled.

“If you need help holding down Harry or the girl, I can do that too,” Leslie offered.

“Perhaps you can go find out what’s taking Lonnie so long?” Mr. Anders smiled.

Leslie frowned. “But I wanted to watch,” he whined.

“You’ll get to see us cut the girl. Won’t that be nice?”

Leslie smiled. “Yeah, that’ll be good.”

Samantha’s arm stopped hurting. So did her belly. Her whole body went numb with shock. She heard herself scream, but she looked around. Nobody heard her. That’s because her entire being was locked up tight. She couldn’t open her mouth. No sound had come out of her mouth.

Cut the girl.

Cut the girl.

Cut the girl.

She couldn’t even close her eyes, so she watched as Murphy helped Ajax belt Harry down onto the table. Then they tied one of his hands behind his back, and the other hand they stretched out so that it laid flat against the table and they tied it tight so it couldn’t move.

Ajax took the knife that Leslie had given up, and sliced through Harry’s jacket and shirt sleeve so that his arm was bare. Then he looked up at Mr. Anders.

“What’s the punishment? Fingers or hand?”

Samantha stared at Harry’s arm and hand. The hair on it was thick and gray. He was an old man. Why were they doing this to him? What were they going to do to her? Could she just pass out? Wouldn’t that be better than to watch this brutality?

“His hand,” Mr. Anders said in a pleasant voice. “By being so incompetent he basically stole from me, he loses a hand.”

Samantha realized her eyes could move. She looked up at Ajax’s face. Did she see a little bit of disgust at his job?

“I’ve got the butcher’s knife!” a familiar voice called out clearly from the back of the warehouse.

“That’s good, Mr. Anders. I was going to have a hard time sawing through bone with this knife.” Ajax smiled at his boss as he handed the Bowie knife back to Murphy.

“Bring it here, Lonnie.” Mr. Anders called out to the dark warehouse.

Samantha’s eyes moved to watch where the new knife was coming from.

Cut the girl.

Cut the girl.

Cut the girl.

“Step away from the table,” Kane McNamara said as he walked into the light, holding a gun. She heard glass break somewhere as Murphy dropped his knife, then she saw Ajax reach for his gun. Leo was behind Kane and he had a gun too.