Free Brain by Candace Blevins Page A

seeing the pics of them after ya’ll were done with them, and sad some of the men responsible saw jail time for it. Some of the members did really bad shit before joining the MC — bank robberies, home invasions, car theft — but it seems they straighten up once they join you? It doesn’t make sense!”
    “What else do you want to know?”
    I shook my head. “If there’s something specific you have in mind, perhaps you can give me a clue. Like I said, I can tell Brain how to get in, so you can read it for yourself.” I looked towards the back corner of the room and remembered my ordeal in the damned cage, with my jaw stretched open until it spasmed, and my arms behind my back so my shoulders hurt. I rubbed my jaw, and then wrapped my arms even tighter around my legs as I remembered how bad I’d hurt during the hours I waited for Brain to return — unable to move to relieve the strained muscles.
    Duke watched me, and then looked to Bash. “I rode your bike up. Why don’t you head on home.”
    He shook his head. “You’ll need help moving her.”
    I squeezed my legs tighter, remembered my humiliation in the cage, and put my head on my knees. I didn’t know if they could truly smell emotions, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.
    “I think the two of us can handle moving her. Head home, Bash.”
    I could feel Bash’s glare as he walked by me, but he went into the bedroom he’d been using, and came out with a duffel. He left without saying anything else.
    “Thank you,” I told Duke as Bash roared away.
    “Lotta my guys are gonna feel the same as him, and you’ll have two men on you for at least another week. I’ll put the word out they aren’t to treat you as he did, but if you’re down to one man and need to be left alone in a room for any reason, you’ll find yourself naked and in a cage, bound in some way so we’re sure you can’t get out. The dog crate can be escaped from, so he was right to restrict use of your arms. There was no call to put you in the exact position he did, but I’m not going to apologize for him. You’re responsible for his best friend getting hurt, almost killed.”
    Duke paused and looked at me, his eyes boring into me as he asked, “You ever killed anyone?”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Twelve
     
    Brain
     
     
    I’d been out of the shower long enough to hear a good part of the conversation, but at this question, I finally stepped into the room.
    “Yeah,” Grace said, her voice so low I might not have heard it without my werewolf hearing. I could smell the fury emanating from every pore of her body. She’d been pushed to do it, and was still pissed she’d had to, but wasn’t in the least bit sorry about it. Whatever situation he’d been in, she’d kill again if she were back in it and it was the only way out.
    “One of the Russians, would be my guess,” I said as I stepped into the room enough to get her attention. “We know you escaped, and the bounty on your head tripled.”
    She nodded and said, “He’d been one of the men who’d tortured me, and when I had an opportunity to go, the only way out was through him. I should’ve been happy to kill him, to make him hurt, but…” she shook her head and put her forehead back on her knees. “His death wasn’t satisfying. It didn’t take away any of my pain. It kept any more from happening, but if there’d been a way for me to get away without killing them, I would’ve.”
    Them . She’d killed more than one person to escape.
    “Why did you keep the Ice persona?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to create a new hacker identity, so you wouldn’t have to be constantly looking over your shoulder for them?”
    “Ice could charge ten times more than a new identity. Everyone but the Russians thought I was a man, and for some reason they never put the truth out, so there wasn’t too much danger except when I was actually online, or when I needed to surface long enough to be paid.” She