Bounty Hunter (The Rover series Book 1)

by Amelia Shaw

  Bounty Hunter

  By Amelia Shaw

  Book 1 in ‘The Rover’ series.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BOUNTY HUNTER (THE ROVER SERIES BOOK 1)

  First edition. December 9, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Amelia Shaw.

  Written by Amelia Shaw.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  To Monica Corwin- for all her awesome work helping me make this story GREAT!

  And Christian Bentulan- my INCREDIBLE cover designer!

  Chapter One

  The Silver Wolf was not the kind of establishment you go to for a drink. It was the kind of hole you crawled in to die.

  That didn’t explain why my target had been sitting at the beat-up bar for the past three hours. I smoothed my features for the thousandth time as I sat in a booth peering at him. I needed my target to leave this hell hole so I could capture him properly. There were rules about who I could arrest, and where. And this guy wasn’t... officially on my docket. This was personal.

  Until then... I stared down at my cherry red nails. Throwing a few punches would screw up my fresh manicure. Rule number one of bounty hunting for bad ass females: never let the target fuck with your self-care.

  The stale beer I’d been nursing for an hour definitely wasn’t adding anything to the care column, though.

  My target shifted on his bar stool and I tensed, ready to bounce up and go after him. But he merely waved for another drink and I sank back with a sigh. Five beers in... At least he would be too sloshed to run away when the time came to grab him. His inky black hair flopped over his forehead and eyes. It looked like he needed a wash. His nails were as grime-crusted as The Silver Wolf’s linoleum.

  The asshole better not puke on me when I snatch him.

  The bartender, a heavy, bearded man, skirted my table and glared at me. It might have been time to order another beer or I risk being kicked out. Or drop a bigger tip. That might buy me some more surveillance time.

  I slapped a ten on the table and narrowed my eyes at him. He sauntered back behind the bar to leave me in peace.

  The door slammed open, and a posse of frat boys swarmed in. The scent of stale liquor and body spray assaulted me as they sidled up to the bar top. Damn, I thought guys had learned to stop wearing that shit years ago. Even my nose hairs burned from the smell.

  I watched my target from under the cover of my black hoodie, but even the lumpy sweatshirt didn’t stop a couple of the college dickheads from sliding toward my table. Being the only chick in the place, I should have seen it coming.

  “Not interested,” I said, pitching my voice low.

  I tucked my chin and tried to keep my face out of sight. At thirty years old, I was a little out of their age range, but my blonde hair might be enough for their needs. At least they would like to think so.

  One of the guys leaned over the tabletop, pressing into the grimy surface. “Aw, come on, baby, don’t play with me.”

  I rolled my eyes. Play with you? Oh... you’d know if I was playing with you.

  I risked a glance up at his face. He looked like a Pete, or maybe a Chip. A little boy who belonged on Daddy’s yacht with his unbuttoned polo and artfully torn jeans.

  I sighed. “Go away before you hurt yourself.”

  He chuckled and the sound sent a strange shiver along my skin. I would bet a hundred bucks this douchebag knew his way around a date rape drug. I clenched my fist to keep from launching it at his pretty face. The gorgeous ones always ended up being the worst.

  Well, that was the story of my dating life, at least.

  “Not interested,” I repeated.

  He reached over to flick back my hood. I ducked his grabby hands and smashed my beer bottle on the table. The bottle shattered loudly into a thousand pieces.

  I grabbed it by the neck and held the edge to his throat. “If you don’t back away very slowly, I’ll cut you into small enough pieces that even Daddy’s money won’t be able to find enough of you to bury.”

  A hint of fear flashed in his eyes. He had about a foot of height on me, but almost everyone did. At five-foot-two, there were few people I towered over.

  When they thought they could bully me because of being tiny, I always showed them they were wrong.

  I pointed to his back up dancers. “Go back to your dorm and hit the liquor store. This place isn’t your scene.”

  His friends circled around him and no one in the bar even flinched my way. No backup, not that I expected any in a shit hole like this. I was tempted to pull the twin knives out of my boot sheathes but I’d figured the boys would take off running the minute I brandished a broken bottle at one of them.

  Maybe they were already too drunk and too stupid to consider the danger I posed?

  Maybe they only saw a woman with a piece of glass in her hand. It would be their mistake if they did.

  “I’ll give you one more warning. All of you leave.” I pointed the broken brown glass at the one who’d started it all. “Or I start with you.”

  Someone stepped forward and flicked back my hood. The group seemed to relax as they caught sight of my soft eyeshadow, the gray green of my eyes, the pale pink lip balm I preferred when out on a job.

  Frida Kahlo once wrote, She’s not fragile like a flower. She’s fragile like a bomb. These idiots were about to figure out I wasn’t even a bomb. I was a damn grenade—power in a small portable package.

  I jabbed my weapon toward Pete, or Chip, or whatever his name was. The entire group jerked away from me. Cowards.

  It didn’t take them long to recover and crowd around me again. As they closed in, I glanced over to my target and he slipped out the back door.

  I threw down the glass, and the frat boys scattered back, hands to their face. While they were distracted, I bolted to the front door hoping to intercept him in the side alley.

  Nothing but cold biting wind and gravel out there.

  Damn.

  I spun on the ball of my foot and got back out as fast as I could. The man wasn’t at the mouth of the alley or down any of the side streets that I could see. I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and let my intuition guide me. I made a sharp right and took off running. I caught the edge of his black coat going around the corner and raced after it.

  “You are not getting away from me, you bastard,” I said, even though the bastard in question wouldn’t be able to hear it.

  I kicked up dirt as I rushed down the sidewalk, my hood flapping against my neck as I ran. No doubt anyone looking at me now would think I was a crazy person. And they might be right.

  “You will not lose him, Zoey,” I grumbled to myself, pushing my body to run faster despite the distinct burn already taking root in my lungs. The guys at the office always joked I needed to work out more. I hated to admit that they were right... but I hated running. I didn’t look like a pretty gazelle doing it, and it never didn’t suck. Runner’s high? Ha. Never fe
lt it in my life. And I’d chased down a lot of men who had tried to outrun me.

  My target sprinted down a side street. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was behind him, or if he just ran in general. The man hadn’t glanced back at me once.

  I shouted, “Stop! You prick!”

  Not that yelling at them ever made them do as I said.

  I made it to the corner and caught my hand on the brick edge of the adjacent building to swing me around it faster. He kept going in his ugly leather coat which hung two sizes too big for him. A string of profanity stuck in my mouth as I ran.

  I huffed and puffed around another corner and kept going. We’d gone five blocks and he showed no signs of stopping or any sign of knowing I was there.

  I kept going even when my thighs began to register their protests along with my wheezing respiratory system.

  I rounded another corner, and unease began to filter in behind the pain. Why would he run in the first place if he hadn’t known I was at the bar watching him? Or why all this chasing when he hadn’t even glanced back to see how close I was? Nor did his twists and turns along side streets seem anything but random. As if he wasn’t trying to get away from me.

  Then he was gone. Vanished like magic.

  “What the hell...”

  Something grabbed me by the hair and dragged me backward. Pain shot through the crown of my head. My feet left the ground for a second before I got my balance once more.

  What the fuck? It’s the dickhead from the bar. My target. How’d he get the jump on me?

  I glanced up under the dirty black fringe of his hair.

  “Oh, good, we stopped running,” I wheezed.

  I spun, letting my hair twist around his hand, and punched him hard in the chest. He released me in surprise while I clutched my hand to my breast. Punching people sucked as much as running.

  “What is your problem? First, you run me around the city and then you pull my hair. Most men have to buy me dinner before I allow them that privilege.” I tossed my hair back behind me so he didn’t get any more ideas about it.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Someone who has a few questions.”

  His lips curled into a grimace. “Questions? From a hunter? All of you guys are the same. Catch first, ask questions second.”

  I wasn’t about to tell him I didn’t actually have an official order to catch him. It would keep me out of trouble and him out of the chair back at the office if he made this easy for both of us.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, I had a few drinks at the bar, so I’m feeling generous with my time. So maybe questions first today.”

  He charged forward. I roundhouse kicked him in the ear.

  “Or maybe questions second if you want to keep coming at me.”

  He grumbled and stumbled to the side, shaking his head, finger in his ear. Maybe I popped something important? Good.

  “Look, I don’t want to run anymore, and I don’t think you want my size six boot in your face again, so maybe we work together on this?”

  He snorted. Why was it always so hard for men to admit when they were defeated? Like every guy I’d ever dated who dumped me for being stronger and faster and smarter than him.

  Not that many of my male targets went down easily.

  He studied me, no doubt eyeing my height and my shiny nails and coming to the same conclusion they all did. That I was weak.

  I moved before he could take off in the opposite direction. I grabbed the back of his collar and slammed him to the ground. He had some weight on me but not much.

  I stood over him and stared down into his grimy face. “You want to try that one more time.” I put both hands on my hips and glared up at him. “Okay, here’s how this is going to go. I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to give me an answer. If you don’t answer, I’m going to hit you very hard. If you do answer, then we just move on to the next question sans violence?”

  He coughed and sat up on the concrete, his fingers scraped and bleeding from his not-so-graceful landing.

  I started with the main question. “Do you work for the Black Mage?”

  His chin jerked up, and he met my eyes in a hard stare. “Why are you asking about the Black Mage?”

  I smacked him hard upside the head, on the same ear I’d kicked him in. “Do I need to go over the rules of this arrangement again? I ask the questions. You answer.”

  Leaves rustled against the trash cans near the building while I gave him a minute to think about my proposition. I needed him to get me to the Black Mage. He was the closest lead to the Black Mage I’d come to, in years.

  Although, what kind of mage would let me catch and interrogate him without even a glimpse of magic to fight back?

  I gave his shoulder a little pat. “Ready to answer the question or do I need to ask it again?”

  He shifted and I braced for an attack, but he just tucked his head and rolled over to push himself off the concrete.

  “The Black Mage,” I prompted.

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, hunter, but no one who works for the Black Mage is ever going to talk about it. You should know that by now if you are hunting individuals who work for him.”

  I reached out and he blocked my slap. I smiled and smacked the other side of his head with my other hand. He grunted and I chuckled; they always underestimated me.

  “Alright since you don’t grasp the rules of this game, I’m going to make it easy for you.”

  Before he could react, I wrapped an arm around his neck, using his torso and my small frame to spin behind him. He slumped against me. Blood chokes were always the quickest and most effective way to knock out a target if they let me close enough.

  I climbed off him. Ugh. I needed a shower from touching him. I whipped out a few zip ties and hog tied him on this belly. Then I fished my phone from my jacket and hit the speed dial.

  When the line clicked over, I said, “I need a pickup.”

  I checked the street signs, relayed my location, and hung up.

  Within minutes, a black truck with a covered cargo bed screeched to a halt. Simon, a hulking white man with a shaved head slid out of the driver’s seat, grabbed my target, and lugged him over to the truck.

  “Thanks, Simon,” I said, while I climbed into the passenger side of the truck. “The guy isn’t that heavy, but I just got my nails done.”

  I flashed my manicure at him when he climbed in. His only response was a low grunt before shifting into gear.

  Now I needed to figure out how to get this guy in the interrogation chair without the official order I ‘technically’ needed. The chief wasn’t one to skirt the rules, even if half the hunters in the field were exactly the type.

  “To the office,” I said.

  He grunted again.

  I nodded. “Exactly. Let’s hope the chief is out.”

  Chapter Two

  When we climbed out of the truck, Simon stood by the bed and I waited near the rear wheel just in case the captive pulled some magic out of his hat. Though, why he would wait until now, I couldn’t say.

  Simon usually did the heavy lifting moving the targets from the transport to the holding cells. To be fair, he usually got tipped big from all the hunters when the holiday season rolled around. We all appreciated his ability to withstand pretty much any abuse. And the fact he literally couldn’t force any of us into small talk.

  The guy was mute. No-one knew why.

  The office was set into the back of a warehouse, facing east toward the long dividing wall which separated the business area from the freeway. Lots of noise to drown out potential screaming. Lots of cinderblock to keep magic contained to a smaller radius. Lots of space...just in case. I’d always appreciated the efficiency of the building and the small functional office layout to one side of the giant room.

  After Simon successfully wrangled my catch into submission, he dragged him through the door into one of the holding cells. The rooms were fortified against escape from
more paranormal creatures than I even knew existed. At least that was what the mage in the brochure said when the chief opened office.

  The cells looked like giant plexiglass cubes that extended from floor to ceiling with a door the size of a small garage to one side. On any given day, these cells contained all manner of target from humans to creatures. Today was the first day in a long time a mage graced our lovely home. Now to figure out how to explain the mage’s presence to the chief when he returned.

  The target wouldn’t answer my questions. But here, in private, I could be different kinds of persuasive.

  Hawk, the chief’s second-in-command, stepped up and rubbed his hands together. I strategically placed myself in the middle of the walkway between him and the holding cells.

  He loomed over me, a menacing grin on his face, but I didn’t back down. The great beast of a man thought he could intimidate me, and he was yet to learn it would never work. I didn’t let men walk over me, even men whose biceps were as big as my face.

  He moved like he might go around me.

  I put my hands up between us. “Woah, there big guy, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Just give me two minutes with that bean pole and I’ll get him talking.”

  I shook my head with a glare. “No, I’m going to talk to him. Only me.”

  He crossed those bulging biceps over his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits. A classic move designed to make anyone feel inferior to him.

  “And where exactly is your call slip for this target? I’m pretty sure neither me, nor the chief, approved one, and I know that because neither of us would’ve approved you to go after a mage on your own.”

  Shit. I hadn’t worked out the exact explanation I was going to use yet.

  I turned away under the guise of checking on my target. I needed to think fast, or Hawk would roll right over me, and I couldn’t have that after spending the entire day in that hell hole bar.

  “You’re right, there was no slip on this guy. He’s a follow up from a case I had a couple weeks ago. I found him snooping around into our business and I wanted to bring him here and see what kind of interest we have for a solo mage.”