He grunted when she made contact, but didn’t slow down, so she assumed she wasn’t going to be punished for it. She tried to pay attention to what they were saying, but she was too disoriented. She couldn’t hear Cade—he must have walked out first—but the other two were behind her. Tex was giving Cockney shit for having let down his guard, and Cockney was grumbling about revenge.

She’d never been so scared in her life.

She tried to calm down, to regulate her breathing as they walked through the house. She couldn’t see much with her hair hanging down, only Big’s legs and the floor were visible to her. She heard the squeak of hinges, then they were going down another set of stairs, dimly lit and steep, and a faintly musty smell tickled her nose.

They were taking her to the basement.

“Over here,” Cade called, and she twisted her head to try to find him.

“Keep your fucking head down,” Cockney snarled, and rapped her on the back of the head hard enough to disorient her.

“Easy,” Cade snapped. “You gonna be able to do this without getting personal?”

“The bitch racked me in the nuts,” Cockney ground out, and she noted dimly that his accent was fading in and out. “It’s fucking personal.”

“Go back upstairs,” Cade told him. “You can keep watch.”

Olivia kept her head down, not wanting another hit, but she could see Cade’s bare feet through the curtain of her hair, standing nearly toe to toe with another pair of black combat boots at the foot of the stairs.

“I want my shot,” Cockney protested.

“You’re not going to get it,” Cade said in a voice like ice. “Go back upstairs, and keep fucking watch.”

“Fine,” Cockney muttered. “But if she doesn’t spill her guts, I get to kill her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cade muttered. There was the stomp of heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs, then the basement door slammed.

“That guy is all hat and no cattle,” Tex observed. “Where’d you find him?”

“It’s not important—we’ll deal with him later,” Cade said, and his feet reappeared in Olivia’s vision just as Big drew to a halt. “Put her on the bench.”

“You’re the boss,” Big grunted, and heaved her off his shoulder.

For a moment it felt as though she was flying through the air, and her hands scraped against Big’s shirt in an instinctive bid to stop herself. She managed to grab a fistful of fabric, and her forward motion pulled it free of his waistband. She caught a glimpse of tanned skin and dark ink before she lost her grip, then she was dropped on her butt so hard her teeth snapped together.

“She get you?” Cade wanted to know.