Cruelty

  The devil is in the details.

  At least, that’s what I, alternative clothing store owner and animal activist, Ella Devlin, have always believed.

  What should’ve been a simple B&E into the corrupt kill shelter to release all the animals, turns out to be not as simple as I imagined. Everything becomes a bit spotty.

  Not only do I now have a pregnant Dalmatian refusing to leave my side, but I’m also facing the wrath of the shelters owners, Nita and Robert Darling, who will stop at nothing to retrieve every last animal released.

  I can’t let that happen.

  I may have grown up with the label of the heartless bitch, since I’ve never had the best of attitudes and tended to avoid people like the plague. But no one has ever gotten to see the real me hiding beneath.

  With the help of my hot—yet womanizing—partner in crime, Theo, and my sinfully, sexy exes, Luca and Rollins, who run the animal sanctuary that’s aiding me, maybe I can succeed in stopping them. And in the process, show the world that just because the word Cruel is on my clothes, doesn’t mean it’s on my heart.

  *This is a Villainously Romantic WhyChoose Retelling with tons of laughs, lots of lust, and quite a few spots*

  Cruelty

  Copyright 2019 © K.B. Everly

  Edited by Missy Stewart

  Cover by Hell Yes Design Studio

  Formatted by Champagne Book Design

  All rights reserved.

  This book is protected under Copyright Laws. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  TITLE PAGE

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  COPYRIGHT

  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

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A PEEK AT IDENTITY: A VILLAINOUSLY ROMANTIC RETELLING

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  To everyone like me who loved the villains in the stories and movies

  they grew up with just as much as or more than the heroes.

  “No! Stop that! Bad dog! Omigod, please stop humping my leg!” I whisper shouted at the English bulldog currently using my leg for a quickie as I fed a hot dog to the next dog over.

  This was just one of the many things that tended to happen when you broke into one of the hundreds of local shelters. I figured it was just a tiny bit of karma for my deed. I mean, what I was doing was for the good of the animals, but it was still theft no matter how you looked at it. And although I was pretty sure there were no cameras, I still wore all black clothing, a black beanie with my hair tucked inside, and a black bandana to cover my face.

  This shelter had been on my radar for a while after a concerned friend told me of the living conditions. While outside kennels weren’t necessarily bad, these ones were barely skating above code violations. Most of the dogs were definitely underfed, and were shaking viciously in their cages from the crisp Fall air. No blankets, cheap wood and a tarp with holes covering the top of the enclosement, and only thin mats to rest on. I was livid.

  My partner in crime Theo quickly grabbed the hunk of beef around the middle and lugged him up into his arms with a grunt. “You’re not a bad dog, big fella,” Theo cooed to the dog. “It’s not your fault you gravitated toward the prettiest thing in here.”

  “Theo, stop messing around and get him on a lead,” I snapped at him through the black bandana covering my face.

  We didn’t have much time and Theo tended to not take everything as seriously as he should. It kind of came with the territory of being extremely good looking. He was convinced his pleasing aesthetics would get him further in life than dognapping and dog grooming.

  “Pft. You’re no fun,” Theo grumbled, dropping the dog carefully to his feet and strapping one of the many black leads around his neck.

  I turned back to the shaking dog in front of me, giving his little snout an assuring scratch through the cage before bringing up the bolt cutters to cut through the padlocks.

  The squealing of brakes alerted me to my other partner in crime’s arrival. My best friend Zoe backed the large white truck through the open wooden gate, coming to a stop. The truck we used to move the animals was a food truck before we got our hands on it. We completely renovated it to fit tons of kennels, some big, some small. The dog kennels were lined with soft, wool blankets and the cat ones had newspaper and smaller blankets we had cut specifically for them. We knew we’d need the space when we started these ventures, and a simple van wouldn’t do. Thankfully, even with the kennels, the truck was roomy enough we could move through the middle of it unhindered. It was the best investment we ever made.

  Zoe peeked her head out the open window. “Need some help, Ella?”

  “Please. We need to hurry.”

  Without hesitation, Zoe quickly hopped out, dressed much like me, and ran to help Theo and me. We continued going from cage to cage, feeding the poor animals to gain their trust before breaking them out.

  As we moved, I noticed that there were significantly less dogs than when I’d come here two days prior scoping out their facility to better prepare ourselves for tonight.

  “There’s only twenty of them here.” I double checked and, sure enough, some were missing. “There were twenty eight two days ago. There’s no way they were adopted. I mean, look at them.”

  Zoe shook her head. “You’re right. Even the nicest facilities don’t adopt out that many in such a short period of time.”

  My mind raced, trying to figure out what could’ve been done with them. I didn’t have time to investigate though. “Theo, I need you to pick the lock for the back door. We need to get the cats too.”

  “On it,” he replied, handing Zoe the leads to the three dogs he’d liberated and pulling out his set of lock picks.

  He never did tell me where or why he knew how to pick a lock so fast. Seemed like an odd skill for a dog groomer to have.

  He had only messed with it for a few seconds before, “Ah ha! Got it. Who’s the best?” He sent me a proud grin.

  “Nope. Not feeding your ego.” I pushed past him and shone my flashlight around the tiny room. The cats eyes flashed around me as I counted once again.

  Less cats tonight as well. Five were missing.

  “What are you people up to?” I asked quietly to the room.

  One by one, I grabbed the cats. Cats weren’t big fans of leads, and with the ground still being wet from the rain before, there was no way they wouldn’t freak out without being carried. It was tough, considering most of the cats didn’t like being held and tried to claw their way free, but I had to do it. Their conditions weren’t much better than the dogs’, even being inside. Some I could easily feel their bones. Others were missing patches of fur or had infections in their eyes.

  My heart w
as slowly dying inside with every trip I made back and forth. How could anyone be so fucking cruel? And the world had called me Cruel Ella? They didn’t know what that word truly meant until they witnessed things like this.

  Just as I loaded up the last cat into one of the smaller cages separated from the dogs in the back of the van, Theo stopped next to me with a black lab in tow. He was an older dog who seemed to be having issues walking, so Theo helped him into the truck and went to secure him in one of the longer cages so he could stretch out some.

  “That’s the last of them,” he said, looking at the truck full of dogs with sadness in his eyes. These moments were some of the few Theo actually showed his serious side.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty positive. I’ll get this all closed up if you want to take one last look just in case.”

  I nodded and ran back to the kennels. I peered into each one, making sure no one was left behind. Just as I turned to go back, sure we’d gotten them all, a small whimpering sound caught my attention behind me. I whipped around but saw nothing. Thankfully, the whimpering kept happening, so I moved farther down.

  There was an area hidden at the back by an even larger tarp, easily missed in the darkness out here. I lifted the tarp and came face to face with one of the prettiest dogs with a rather enlarged stomach. She was filthy and shaking, and obviously just as underfed as the others. Which didn’t bode well if she was pregnant.

  She was a Dalmatian with a heart shaped pink spot on the tip of her nose. She was lying on a tattered blanket, whimpering softly. I could only assume that this sweet, pregnant girl had a bigger purpose than the others here if she was separated. There was a good chance these people were waiting to see if she gave birth so they could sell her puppies.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” I soothed to her as I knelt down, slipping a hot dog through the kennel bars.

  She sniffed at it cautiously, eyeing me warily. I pleaded silently that she’d trust me. It was the only way I could get her out of here. Thankfully, she licked at the hot dog a few times, then gobbled it up in the blink of an eye. Seeing that I wasn’t a threat to her, she stood and moved to push her nose through the cage toward me.

  “I got you, pretty girl.” I stroked her slender face, then slowly took out my bolt cutters slung at my hip. When the lock was broken, the Dalmatian wasted no time in coming out, darting from the cage with a happy yipping sound. She immediately leaned against me, her tail wagging back and forth behind her.

  “Come on. Let’s get you warm.” I stood and began to walk, having a feeling she’d follow me to the van. Sure enough, she needed no prodding. She kept at my heel, occasionally looking up at me as she did. She knew we were here to bring her to a better place.

  “Well, who is this pretty girl?” Theo said when we came up to the back of the van.

  “She was separated from the others and hidden. We would’ve missed her had I not heard her.” I patted her head, earning a lick from her.

  “Glad you went back to check,” Theo replied, opening back up the truck’s doors.

  “Me too. I think she might be pregnant,” I said, rubbing the head of the Dalmatian leaning against my leg. “I’m not sure though. Her belly is pretty distended, so we need to get her looked at.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. With these conditions, it’s hard to say if they’re healthy if she is. Come on, sweet girl.” Theo knelt down and gently pulled the dog into his arms. He stood and cautiously stepped up inside and deposited her onto a blanket in one of the cages. She went without a fight, licking his arm as if saying thank you. He closed the cage and jumped back out so he could shut the doors.

  I walked to the passenger side of the truck and quickly climbed in, nodding my head to Zoe that we were good to go.

  “I’ll close up the gate and follow behind. Same place as always?” Theo asked as he stepped up to my open window.

  I nodded. “Be quick. We need to be gone with some miles between us and this place as fast as possible.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” he replied, giving me a goofy grin and a two finger salute before running back to close the gate.

  Whenever we did big breakouts like this, we usually brought them to a few different shelters a few cities over to avert suspicion. The owners who took them were perfectly fine with our ‘Don’t ask. Don’t tell’ policy. They were just as happy as us to take the animals away from bad living conditions.

  “Do you think Giselle or Tonya will have enough room for all of them?” Zoe asked as we pulled out from the alley connected to the shelter. “It’s a big batch and we already brought them another group just over a month ago.”

  I sighed. “I sure hope so. I know we should’ve waited, but after seeing all those animals being treated so badly, I knew we couldn’t. I don’t understand how they’ve gotten away with it. Inspectors check the shelters all the time.”

  Zoe pushed a hand through her multicolored braids. “Honestly, if these people are as wealthy as we believe they are, they could’ve bought any inspector’s silence.”

  “True. While the conditions were bad outside, the inside of the shelter had some pretty expensive equipment. But to sell the dogs, how could anyone see that and not report them?”

  “I don’t know. But something shady is happening there. Unfortunately, we might never know. It’s our job to save the animals, not bring down corrupt shelters.”

  She was right. We were just three people. We could break into facilities all we wanted to, but we were no match for taking these places down. We had tried once, of course. We’d taken pictures at a shelter in San Francisco about a year back and turned them into the authorities. Somehow though, when they went to investigate, everything was put in order. Our guess? Someone in the shelter had some police on the payroll. When the police had basically chastised us for the false report, we waited and went back a week later. Nothing had changed. That was the first time we ever broke into a shelter to relieve them of the animals.

  Of course, we don’t take them from everyone. There are plenty of great shelters that do their job well. We only hit the corrupt ones that treat the animals horribly. This place has been the worst though. It wouldn’t surprise me if these people had the same setup.

  Robert and Nita Darling—from what I researched—were well respected in their community and practically swimming in money. Why they even owned a shelter at all was beyond me when they were well off from their real estate business.

  “We’ll figure it out, Ell. We always do,” Zoe assured me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

  I could only hope she was right.

  The drive to Giselle and Tonya was a bit under an hour. Zoe and I were already exhausted seeing as it was was almost three in the morning. Saving animals illegally was undoubtedly a rough hobby. But we fueled ourselves on energy drinks and junk food as we drove, crossing our fingers we wouldn’t be turned away.

  Unfortunately, Giselle only had room for five of the dogs and a couple of the cats. The situation with Tonya was worse. While Giselle had a large open field that she fenced off to account for large capacities of animals, Tonya worked out of her home with fostering animals. Her home was large, but not large enough for the animals we had remaining.

  “I’m so sorry, Ella,” Tonya said, sadness in her eyes. “I haven’t been able to rehome some of the dogs from your last trip here in time to take more on.”

  I laid a hand on her arm and squeezed it gently. “You have nothing to apologize for, Tonya. You’ve been amazing taking in so many and we couldn’t be more thankful for your help. We’ll figure it out.”

  Zoe and I trudged back to the van, defeated. We still had fifteen dogs and eight cats to find a place for. Theo exited his car behind us and moved a hand through his unruly blond hair. Exhaustion was plain as day on his face.

  “No go, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. We have to find somewhere new. None of us have space for any of the animals and we can’t be caught with them.”

  His brow pinc
hed in worry. “You know that won’t be easy. We’ve gotten lucky to have Giselle and Tonya. I don’t think it’ll be that easy finding somewhere new that’ll ignore the fact we’re carrying so many animals. It’s suspicious.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Theo?” I snapped. I felt bad as soon as the words left my mouth. I was just tired and the worry was getting to me. It wasn’t his fault. “Look, I’m sorry. But what other choice do we have?”

  “I’ve got one!” Zoe suddenly said excitedly. We both turned to her.

  She lifted her phone to me, which displayed a picture of a ranch about an hour in the opposite direction from home that had been recently renovated to an animal rescue. I grabbed it and thumbed through the website. It showed that it had been opened by a pair of brothers and were actively seeking new animals to board in their kennels. The pictures showed a beautiful and large stable that had been converted into the kennel area. It was clean and looked to be fully stocked with food, blankets, beds, and plenty of other amenities any animal from a cat to a horse would need. It even had images of another area that had been turned into an on site clinic with two fully qualified vets working around the clock for all of the animals’ needs.

  “Wow. Seems almost too good to be true,” I said, hope blooming in my chest.

  “That’s not even the best part. Scroll down to the bottom,” Zoe instructed with a large grin on her face.

  I did as she said and came upon some fine print at the bottom.

  “We take any animal in any condition and will respect the privacy of anyone who so wishes to use our rescue,” I read. “So basically, if people just want to abandon their animals with them, they won’t judge the reasons behind them. They’ll just take them?”

  Zoe nodded emphatically. “It’s perfect. I’ll admit, it’s a bit scary dropping these babies off with people we don’t know, but what’s the harm in taking a look around before we do? We can drop by unannounced in a few days to make sure they’re what they say. If not, we do what we do best.”