Michelle
“What’s happening?” I asked. I knew why they’d put me in a room without windows, and it wasn’t just because they didn’t want anybody knowing I was there. It made it impossible for me to know what was happening outside. I had no concept of time. Gareth wanted to keep me thrown off so I would be as pliable as possible. He had to use me to get to Eric. He might even ask me to tell him secrets. No way I would, but he didn’t know how strong I was. He didn’t even have the balls to face me after that first meeting earlier in the day.
“Whaddya mean?” I had a new guard, too. This one was skinny, pale skinned and blond-haired. I thought he might even be an albino. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“I mean, what’s going on? With Eric. Is he coming or not? Have you heard? What are they planning to do if he shows up?”
Albino shrugged. “I don’t know. They don’t tell me anything.”
I nodded. Why would they? He was a kid. He probably wasn’t even a full member yet, the way Eric was at that age. Did he run around doing errands for them, they way Eric had with his club?
“What made you join this club? I mean, this specific club over any of the others?”
He looked at the floor, and I didn’t know if his silence meant he was ashamed or just thinking it over. He might never have thought about it, I realized.
I wasn’t wrong either. “Because my dad was in it years ago. Before he died.”
My heart went out to him, just a little bit. He was a kid without a father. “My dad died when I was young.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Heart attack.”
“Mine was in a gun fight with another club.”
I stifled my sigh. Of course, he was. That was how these people died. It was rarely natural causes, I was sure. “Sorry to hear that. So you’re here because he was?”
“Pretty much. I wanted to follow in his footsteps.” That was laughable to me, but I bit the side of my tongue to keep the laughter at bay. He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, but his father was murdered. Talk about life goals.
Was that who all these men were? People looking to find a little honor? This was their version of the Army, and the wars among them were seen as a natural part of that. I had never been so grateful for my normal, boring life.
Would it ever be normal and boring again, though? I didn’t think so. Not if I didn’t stop feeling the way I did about Eric.
Was I insane for still wanting the man who got me into this mess? It was likely. Before I met him, I had never been kidnapped. I was now on my second. Anyone with half a brain would run screaming. Not me. I guessed I didn’t have much sense.
I couldn’t imagine being without him anymore, and that was that. I was in love with him. The more I thought about it, as the hours droned on, the surer I was.
And he was going to come for me—I knew he would—and he might get himself killed for the effort. My heart ached at the thought, and I tried my best to push it away so I wouldn’t panic.
Just then, a new face was in the doorway. “Here.” He handed Albino a paper bag. Just the smell of the food inside was enough to make me drool. I hadn’t expected to feel hungry—I thought I’d be too upset to want food. Once I smelled it, it was all I could think about.
“Is there one in here for her?” Albino asked, jerking a thumb in my direction.
“No. Why would there be?” The other man walked away, and I could have wept with frustration and hunger. If it was time to eat, it was either lunch or dinner. I’d been there way too long for it only to be lunch. It had to be evening already. Were they planning to starve me until Eric got there? I’d only had a cup of coffee before they came for me.
Albino looked at me, and I saw embarrassment in his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said, his voice low.
“I’m so hungry,” I admitted. I didn’t want to look weak up until that point, but he was young enough and seemed impressionable enough that he might take pity on me.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t think I’m supposed to let you eat, though.” He looked down at the bag, and I knew without being told that he felt guilty. He didn’t want to eat in front of me.
“Please…just a bite? Or maybe a few fries? I smell fries.”
He looked around, but there was nobody else in the small, cramped room to tell him what to do.
“I never ate today,” I murmured. “I don’t know what time it is, but I know it’s gotta be late.”
He took a deep breath and another look around. “Okay, fine, but you have to be quiet.”
“I’ll be so quiet. Thank you.” He opened the bag and walked toward me.
“Can I please feed myself?” I wiggled in the chair. “I mean, that’s kinda weird. What, are you gonna put your fingers in my mouth?”
He frowned and looked back toward the door. I could have screamed in frustration. Make your own decisions, kid! And while you’re at it, find a new club, or a job, or something. Anything other than this.
“If Gareth finds out, he’ll kill me,” he said.
“He won’t find out,” I promised. “You can stand in front of me, so even if somebody walks past, they won’t know you untied me. Just a few fries. I swear that’s all I want. I’m starved.” I looked up at him, my eyes wide. I could use it when I needed to. It was like wearing a low-cut top to tend bar. I might not have gone through with seducing a customer, but a little flirting got me a better tip. Same thing with the wide eyes. Only I had never been in a life-or-death situation before this one. It had never meant more than it did when I looked up at the young, confused kid with the paper bag.
“Okay. Just stay quiet. Got it? I don’t wanna have to hurt you.”
I nodded, holding back a smirk. He was the only one of the club’s members I was sure I could take if push came to shove. It looked like he weighed even less than I did.
He looked out the door, turning his head both ways to be sure nobody was coming. I didn’t think we’d be disturbed—if the men were eating, they were eating. They weren’t walking around, bullshitting.
Then he came back to me and untied my hands. He couldn’t move fast enough as far as I was concerned. I was in genuine pain, my hands numb, my arms aching from the awkward angle. I immediately flexed my fingers, chafing my wrists, trying to rub some feeling back into my numb flesh. There were dark, angry circles below my hands. Deep impressions from the rope used to bind me. I wished I could tie up every single one of the jerks in that clubhouse, to see how they liked it.
The kid stood in front of me to shield me from the doorway. “If anybody comes, put your arms behind your back.”
“I will,” I promised, and he pulled the box of fries out of the bag. I took them greedily, taking a half dozen at once and shoving them into my mouth. I didn’t care how I looked. I was starving.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, throwing him a grateful look. In the meantime, I was rolling my feet in circles, flexing the muscles in my legs without him noticing. I didn’t want to cramp up when the time came.
“Can I have a few more?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. I don’t even like fries that much. I have a burger here. I’ll eat that.” Damn, he was a sweet kid. I hated that I was about to get him into trouble, but it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for them to hold me there.
“Thanks,” I whispered, eyes wide again. I could tell he liked me, which I used to my advantage. Poor kid.
I took a few more fries, then cut my eyes to the side, in the direction of the door. I gasped like we’d been caught. He turned his head. I used the opportunity to throw myself at him, catching him at belt-level. He stumbled and fell against the wall.
I took off. I had listened closely all day to the sounds of the building. The room I was in wasn’t far from a door. The back door. That was where I came in.
I ran for it, hearing him calling out behind me. I couldn’t afford to slow down. I didn’t know what I was running into, but I thought that if I moved fast enough, I could get away.
I was wrong. The room I ran into was some sort of office, where three people sat eating their burgers. One of them was Gareth.
I let out a moan of pure dismay. There was the door, on the opposite wall, but they were in my way. I doubled back, my feet moving before my brain even knew what I was doing. I turned and ran down the hall. Albino came staggering out of the room I’d just come from, reaching for me. I ducked under his arms purely on reflex and kept going. By this time, everybody was alerted to the fact that I was running.
“Get her!” I heard, and there were footsteps behind me and curses, and I was panicking, running headlong, wondering how the hell the hallway was so long.
Just when I thought I was about to hit the entrance, where the hallway opened onto a bigger room, one of the gang members jumped out at me from around a corner. The Viking. I screamed and tried to throw myself at him to knock him off balance as I had with the kid, but it was like hitting a brick wall. He didn’t so much as flinch, just wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug and held me still.
“Nice try,” he muttered, and I thought I might have heard admiration and even disappointment in his voice.
“Let me go,” I whimpered. “Please.”
“Can’t do it.” The rest of the gang muttered to themselves, cursing me. When the Viking turned me around to lead me back to my makeshift cell, I saw dozens of pairs of hate-filled eyes. Including those of the kid. I felt bad for tricking him, but only because the trick didn’t work. If I’d made my way out the door, I would never have thought about him again.
“Don’t put her in the room,” Gareth called out. “Take her to my office. I’ll stay with her until her hero shows up.”
Crap. Things had just gotten infinitely worse for me.
The Viking shoved me into a wooden chair, and I noticed that he wouldn’t look at me. I wished he would. I would spit in his eye if he did.
The Albino brought the ropes in, and there was no missing the way he tied me almost roughly. Gareth came in to watch. “Wrap the rope around her arms,” he said. “Pin them to her sides. Tie her torso to the chair.” He fixed me with a cold smile. “We don’t want her getting any more ideas about getting away, do we?”
My stomach turned just looking at him. Now we would get down to business, I thought. He wasn’t going to pretend to be nice anymore. I didn’t care either way. I was tired of playing games with him. I hated him, and I knew he hated me.
“So, I spend all day being nice to you, and this is the thanks I get?” he asked, shaking his head.
“You call tying a woman to a chair being nice?” I snorted. “I guess that’s why there aren’t any other women around here. I can’t imagine coming back for more after that kind of treatment.”
“No, women just aren’t worth the time,” he said. “We don’t have girls hanging around the clubhouse except to answer phones, on principle. They flirt with the guys when the guys should be focused on business.”
“Business. Is that what you call murder nowadays?”
He came to me so fast, I thought he would hit me. He didn’t. Instead, he clapped his hands down my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “Don’t act like your boyfriend isn’t just as guilty of murder as any of us. Or did he not tell you about the time he spent in prison?”
“I told you, he’s not my boyfriend,” I said, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. It was pointless—his hands were like iron.
“Whatever. Did he tell you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he said it was because you sent somebody after him. He killed defending his president, not to mention himself.”
Gareth’s long, greasy hair hung on either side of his face. I could smell it, and my nose wrinkled. I would have paid good money for him to back away from me. He laughed, showing me his bad teeth. He had a piece of his burger stuck between two of them. It was a struggle to keep down the fries I’d eaten.
“Yeah, he would tell it that way, wouldn’t he? He was the hero, saving his prez, saving his own life against Big Bad Gareth.” He finally let me go and stepped away, letting me breathe again. “He didn’t tell you why I sent somebody there for him, did he?”
“No, but I guessed it was because you’re insane.”
He shot me a warning look, and I closed my mouth. I sensed he was dangerously close to the edge, and didn’t need me poking at him to send him over it.
“If I’m insane, it’s because that fucker led an attack which ended up killing five of my men. Can you get that through your head?”
I swallowed hard over the lump forming in my throat. “How did it happen?”
“We found out about a shipment of drugs they were gonna transport, and I went in and took a piece.”
“You stole from his club, then.”
He snorted in derision. “You could call it that. I call it business.”
“What happened? I guess they didn’t let you get away with it.”
“No. Like I said, your knight took it personally and led a bunch of his guys against us. Five good men ended up dead because of him. And he thinks he’s so fucking heroic, the hypocrite.”
I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t see things his way, naturally—if he hadn’t stolen in the first place, none of that would have happened. But I couldn’t exactly defend Eric either, as much as I cared about him. I couldn’t justify murder. Even if it wasn’t him pulling the trigger, he was part of it. Seeing him in that light was sobering. Knowing deep down that he was up to no-good business and actually having the story told to me were two different things. It made me feel a little sick.
“So excuse me if I don’t think of Eric as the good guy you think he is.” Gareth stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at me.
I had to know something. “Did you think your would-be hitman was going to kill him? Or did you send him in there because you knew Eric would kill him?”
His face changed. I saw something that looked like grudging respect there. “Not a bad guess,” he admitted. “You’re smarter than I thought you were.” I took that as confirmation of what I’d suspected.
“So his life was expendable? And your other five men, they mattered. Is that how it goes?”
“Zack’s death was part of a bigger plan. That was a strategy. My other guys, that was something else. That was stupid fucking revenge.”
“Which you then turned around and took on Eric. Seven years of stupid fucking revenge.” I wasn’t going to let him go. I wouldn’t let him get away with his twisted logic, even if it meant he would hurt me.
He smirked, then leaned in close to me again. It took everything I had in me not to lean back.
“At first, I didn’t like thinking that I was gonna have to cut you to pieces in front of him when he finally gets here.” His smirk turned into a full-blown smile. “Now I’m looking forward to it.”