I let the man tie me down to the chair. I waited while he rummaged around on a workbench for tape and rope. I didn’t get up. I didn’t make for the door. I waited for my captor to return. I figured that since I wasn’t able to find any drugs, allowing myself to be captured and tied to a chair would give me the opportunity to gather more information from whoever was questioning me.

 

Part of why I didn’t run while he was getting ready to tie me up was because it wouldn’t have done any good. Where would I have gone? I couldn’t go back to Skull and tell him I was empty-handed because I’d been caught by Mason’s Angels. That wouldn’t have worked out very well for me.

 

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked as he wrapped the rope around my wrists and waist.

 

I almost missed the question as I watched him. He wasn’t rough with me. He didn’t wrap the rope too tightly around my wrists or my chest. He was almost tender in the way he strapped me into the chair. The way he knelt down in front of me seemed so trusting and submissive. I almost forgot I was really his prisoner. It felt more like some sort of roleplay.

 

“My name is Mason Crawley,” he said, looking up at me with his green eyes and hardened face.

 

I sighed. I should have known. He didn’t seem like the type who would have taken orders from anyone.

 

“I wanted to catch you myself,” he explained as he stood back up.

 

“Of course. I don’t blame you for that,” I told him. “I feel honored that the president of Storm’s Angels was waiting for me himself,” I admitted with a grin. The fact that he’d waited for me himself meant I’d gotten under his skin as a thief. Now, it had become my job to do so as a woman if I wanted to defeat his reputation and get out of here with any intel that would help Skull take him down.

 

“I must say, I’m impressed,” he added, beginning to pace around me. “I didn’t think anyone could have done what you did. But a woman? It never occurred to me that a woman, an attractive woman, could get away with stealing from Storm’s Angels. I almost want to applaud you, but you’ve cost me a lot of money and caused a lot of trouble for me.”

 

I knew I was in deep shit now. I could hear the tension in his voice. He was holding back his urge to beat me the way he’d beaten so many others. I wondered how long he could hold back. I knew the only thing keeping me safe in the short term was probably the same thing putting me in more danger in the long run—the fact that I was a woman. He didn’t want to rough me up because I was just a girl, but that probably meant there were other perils down the road if I didn’t do something.

 

“So, who would hire a female thief to steal from Storm’s Angels? The question of our thief’s identity has been plaguing me since the first time we noticed some of our product was missing. We couldn’t figure out who would be bold enough to send anyone to steal from us like that. But now? Now, I really don’t know who would be behind it.” He walked around me while he talked himself up to the question.

 

He put his hands on my tied wrists, pressing them hard against the metal arms of the chair. It wasn’t painful, but I winced anyway, giving him what he wanted to see. I could play along with the best of them.

 

“So, who sent you?” he asked me again.

 

I closed my mouth tightly and smiled at him. I wasn’t about to tell him so easily. He was going to have to work for that answer.

 

“No more smart-ass answers, huh?”

 

“Not at the moment,” I told him. I couldn’t help myself.

 

“I see. So, what? If I let go of your arms and stand up, maybe step away from you, you’ll start with the smart mouth again?” he asked, stepping away.

 

“No,” I said, shaking my head, taunting him. He didn’t know what to do with someone who wasn’t afraid of him, and I was loving it. He probably didn’t realize it, but he had given himself away with the tenderness he’d shown while tying me up.

 

“What’s it going to take, then?” he asked. “You obviously want something out of me in return for that information. What do you want? Do you want me to promise I’ll keep you safe from your boss when they learn that you were caught and that you gave them up? Sure, I can do that. I can help you get far away from them, where you won’t be able to bother either one of us anymore.”

 

I cocked an eyebrow. Was he really bargaining with me? I really must have gotten under this man’s skin for him to trade in his usual brutal methods for trying to talk information out of me. I decided to throw him a bone. I took a deep breath so I could keep a straight face.

 

“I don’t want immunity or protection,” I told him. “What I want to know is when you’re going to start torturing me for information. If you’re really Mason Crawley, known for beating the shit out of anyone who crosses your path, why haven’t you done the same to me? I’m waiting for the sting of your hand across my cheek, the taste of my own blood in my mouth from where you busted my lip. I’m waiting on cuts and bruises from where you try to force information out of me,” I taunted him.

 

I’d never thought of torture as something that might have been sexually gratifying, but as I listened to my own words, I started to get turned on by the possibility of such close physical contact with Mason. It wasn’t that I wanted him to hit me or beat me, but I craved his touch again.

 

“I won’t be torturing you,” he answered me. He stepped closer to me as a smile crept across his face, and he ran a hand gently along my cheek.

 

I turned my face and let his skin pass in front of my lips. I thought about nipping him with my teeth lightly, just enough to get his attention and let him know what kind of physical contact I did want from him.

 

“I can take it,” I told him, looking up at him, letting my voice grow heavy with desire.

 

“I’m sure you can. You seem to be able to handle yourself very well, Clara. I’m impressed you can run with the big boys out here like you do,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he were paying me a compliment or just being patronizing. I wanted to take it as a compliment.

 

It was definitely a boys’ club, this whole business of dealing with crime bosses. I hadn’t run into many women while I’d been working for Skull. Most of them had been on the sidelines, performing supporting roles instead of trying to make any progress of their own. I didn’t really mind the lack of women in my line of work. It made my job easier. There was no real competition, and I was able to slip under the radar because most of the other bosses didn’t expect to find a woman stealing from them.

 

As a woman, when I was “caught,” some of the guys even went so far as to assume I was just a decoy. Of course, until running into Mason for the first time, I’d only ever been caught when I allowed myself to be. Being legitimately caught and tied to a chair was new to me. I wasn’t quite sure how to handle myself, but I could see the desire in his eyes, and I knew I’d found my way out of trouble, my way into his bed, and my way into his confidence.

 

“There are other ways to get me to talk, you know,” I teased him, loading my words with a suggestive tone.

 

“How would that be?” he asked me, raising a playful eyebrow.

 

“I’m sure you know how to make a woman do anything you want, Mason Crawley,” I taunted him. Most men, even if they were smart enough to see that someone was stroking their ego, were dumb enough to fall for it.

 

“And I’m sure you know how to make men do the same,” he said to me, proving that he could see straight through me.

 

We were clearly at an impasse. We sat in silence, staring at each other, seeing who would break the silence first. My mind raced to find something else I could use to unnerve my captor. I still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced he wouldn’t give in to his instincts and torture me before it was all said and done. Torture would have been preferable to this gridlocked silence.

 

“You know, I could just let you go,” he said finally, breaking the silence first.

 

I wanted to laugh at him and taunt him, but I was also curious where this latest threat was going.

 

“So, if you don’t start talking,” he continued, “I think that’s what I’ll do. I’ll let you go and put the word out that you were captured. I’m sure it’ll get back to your boss just like the news I planted about moving my heroin to our HQ did. What do you think will happen then?” He knelt down in front of me again, this time with his face looking up into mine.

 

I didn’t respond. I knew what would happen. I knew Skull would find out before I could either get in touch with him or get out of town, and I knew he would have someone on the way to pick me up right away.

 

“Your boss will probably want to know how you got caught, why you allowed yourself to walk into a trap the way you did. Now, chances are, he didn’t know it was a trap. Chances are, he told you about the news that we were pulling everything back in because of how much you’d already stolen from our stashes. And he sent you to check it out. You were supposed to grab a little heroin and take it back to show him that the news was true. Then, you were going to be out of it. He was going to send some muscle to take it all, wasn’t he?”

 

I blinked. Skull had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Everything had gone according to Mason’s plan. It was like he was recounting my conversation with Skull. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d been working for the wrong man all along. Skull might have been a smooth talker, but he wasn’t nearly as cunning as Mason seemed to be.

 

“What I’m saying, Clara, is that it’s not your fault.” He patted my leg. “So, you tell me who sent you, and my guys go punish him for his stupidity. I get my right-hand man in there to put a little extra pain on him for sending someone so beautiful into harm’s way so recklessly, and we handle it. You’re good to go after that. You take your cut of whatever he’s got laying around, and hit the road. Start a new life, Clara. How does that sound?”

 

I narrowed my eyes. It sounded too good to be true, honestly. No one walked away from shit like this that easily. I opted for silence again, waiting to hear what else he had to say.

 

“Fair enough.” He nodded, patted my knee again, and stood up. “If you don’t talk, I’ll just let you go, and you can face him yourself, no drugs, no intel. I’m sure your boss will just be happy to have you back safe and sound, realizing how careless he’d been to send you right into the clutches of the most notorious, most feared men on these streets.”

 

He walked away while he was talking, but when he finished, he turned around and gave me a smile that sent chills up and down my spine. My blood turned to ice in my veins, and my stomach froze into a ball of solid ice. I was about to see the real Mason Crawley, the man I’d heard so many horror stories about. Play time was over.