Chapter 2
Josie
“You got a name?” the older guy asked, but I didn’t answer. On any other day, I might be inclined to talk to the handsome biker, but today, under these circumstances, there was no way in hell I was gonna talk. I couldn’t. There was too much at risk. No matter what happened, I had to keep my mouth shut and bide my time. I couldn’t show any sign of weakness or everything I’d been fighting for would come crashing down around me – or worse, they’d kill me.
He took a step closer and knelt in front of me, glaring in a way that made my skin crawl. I twisted and tugged against the restraints around my wrists, hoping that I might be able to slip my hands free, but it was pointless; they were on too tight. “Who do you work for? Why were you trying to hack into my club?”
I didn’t answer. I just sat there silently staring back at him, and it was clear from the expression on his face that it was just making him even angrier. He stood up, slowly walked behind me, and then I felt a blade rake against my skin. My hands were released, giving me a false sense of relief, but only momentarily. He reached out and grabbed my arm, jerking me up on my feet. He tugged me towards the center of the room, and panic started to set in when I noticed a chain hanging from the ceiling. I tried to break free, but there was no getting away from him. Just as I feared he would, he cuffed my hands to the chain, making it impossible to get free.
“Do you know where you are?” he asked as he motioned over to the guy with the long, black beard and coal-black eyes. “This is his room. Any idea what he uses it for?”
The looks of the man were enough to scare me, but my fear hit an all-time high when I started to look around the room. There was a metal gurney in the back, and strange machines and contraptions hanging on the walls. It took me several seconds to comprehend all the different things I was seeing, but when I noticed the assortment of knives and chemicals on the long counter, I quickly realized exactly what the room was used for. My stomach turned and bile rose to my throat as my imagination began to run wild. I couldn’t stop thinking of all the things he might do in this room—and what he might do to me.
“Now, I am going to ask you again. Who are you and what do you want with my club?” he snarled.
The answer was sitting there on the tip of my tongue, begging to be released, but I clamped my lips shut and remained silent. I had to hold it together. When I didn’t answer, his eyebrows furrowed and one of the veins in his neck started to bulge out, making me feel a slight sense of satisfaction that I was getting to him. I waited patiently for him to make his next move. The last of his restraint went flying out the window when he reached up and took a hold of my face. His fingers dug into my cheeks as he forced me to look at him.
“You think you can come after my club and get away with it? You’ve gotta be out of your fucking mind. No one fucks with my club. No one.” He released his hold on me and turned his attention to one of the guys in the back of the room. “Big, grab her laptop. See if you can find out what the hell she’s been up to.” Then, he looked back at me. “Don’t reckon you’re gonna give me the password for that damned thing?”
I knew their guy was good, probably one of the best I’d ever encountered. Knowing it would only be a matter of time before he’d hack into my computer, I had wiped it clean – at least as much as I could in the short amount of time I’d had. It would take him some time, but he’d find what he was looking for. I knew I could just give him the password, make it easier on myself, but I’d never been one to do things the easy way. Besides, I needed him distracted. The longer he was working on my computer, the less he’d be on his.
“Doesn’t matter. I can get in,” the big guy assured him as he reached for my laptop. When he picked it up, a brown liquid came trickling out of the side. He looked over to me with a questioning look, and I had to suppress my smile as I remembered that I’d poured my soda over it just as they’d broken into the apartment. He rolled his eyes, then gave it a hard shake, forcing more of the cola out of the keyboard as he started for the door. “You know where I’ll be.”
As soon as he was gone, the older man walked over to the two remaining men in the back of the room. The guy with the short, dark hair and green eyes never took his eyes off me as they discussed their next move. They talked for several minutes, and then without warning, they started to file out of the room. Just before the door closed behind them, the lights turned off, and a blanket of darkness fell over me. While I could no longer see what was hidden in the pitch-black, I knew what was there. I tried my best not to think about it. I tried to conjure up a story in my head or an old memory that could help me forget that I was hanging from a chain awaiting my demise, but every thought led back to him—the man with the long beard and dark, threatening eyes. I just had to hold on a bit longer, but each second seemed like an eternity as I hung there suspended in the darkness. It felt like I’d been there for hours when the room started to feel colder, much colder, to the point that the tips of my fingers and nose became numb. I don’t know how they’d done it, but they managed to drop the temperature dramatically, making me feel like a piece of meat hanging in a freezer. The cold air felt heavy against my skin as it stole the warmth from my body. My teeth started to chatter and the shivers set in, making it difficult to concentrate. I’d almost forgotten where I was until the lights flickered on and I caught sight of him standing in the door way.
“Gets pretty damn cold in here, doesn’t it? Place can drop forty degrees in less than half an hour.”
My heart started to beat wildly against my chest as he started walking towards me.
Paying no mind to the freezing temperature, he slowly removed his leather jacket and placed it on the back of a chair. As he approached me, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re no different than anybody else. Everybody’s got secrets.” His voice was low and full of warning as he spoke. “It’s my job to find out what those secrets are, and you should know… I’m good at my job.”
He took a black and white bandana from his back pocket and used it to cover my eyes, blindfolding me as he continued to talk. “How far this thing goes is up to you.” I felt the cold air bite against my stomach as he began to unbutton my shirt, stopping just below the edge of my bra so only my lower abdomen was exposed. “How much this hurts is up to you.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I was about to find out. Before I had a chance to brace myself, there was a crackling sound followed by a strong, painful tingling against my stomach. Every muscle in my body drew tense as an electric current flowed through me. It was like a thousand tiny pins and needles stabbed my fingers, toes, arms, and throughout my entire body. A sour taste filled my mouth, and the tightness in my chest made it difficult to breathe. I had no idea how long it lasted, but it felt like a lifetime. I was just about to pass out when the shock suddenly stopped and my body fell limp against the restraints.
“Hurts like a motherfucker, don’t it?” he mocked.
In that moment, doubts started to bombard my mind. There was no way I was getting out of this. There was no knight in shining armor coming to my rescue, and my reasons for keeping silent suddenly didn’t seem to matter. Either I told him what I was doing there, or he was going to kill me. End of story. I was still considering my next move when I felt the tingling sensation again. I clenched my jaw and held my breath, bracing myself for the next shock. This time, he held the current against my flesh longer, making the sensation much more intense and much harder to maintain consciousness. My body jolted and a fog fell over me, making me feel like one of those cartoons with stars and bright lights whirling above their head. Then, everything went black.
I don’t know how long I’d been out, but it must’ve been too long for Mr. Terror because he tossed a bucket of cold water over my head. “Shit!”
“Well, lookie there. She can speak.” I heard his boots squeak against the wet concrete as he walked back over to me. “Did you have a nice nap?”
“It was lovely. Thanks for asking, dickhole.”
He reached behind me and grabbed a hold of my hair. “You got anything you want to tell me?”
“Eat shit and die,” I grumbled.
“I’m gonna do you a favor and give you a heads-up here. Now that you are wet, this is gonna hurt a hell of a lot more.” He released his grip on my hair, then zapped me once again. Numbing pain shot through me, and my body convulsed with the shock. He was right; it hurt twice as much, and I passed out within the first few seconds.
When I finally regained consciousness, I was surprised to find that my blindfold had been removed. After a few seconds of letting my eyes adjust to the light, I looked up and found my assailant sitting on a stool smoking a cigarette. There was no sweat on his brow, his hair was still perfectly combed back, and his shirt wasn’t the least bit wrinkled. He seemed completely unaffected by the fact that he’d been torturing me for hours while I was falling apart. Every muscle in my body ached and burned, my clothes were sopping wet, I was freezing cold, and I could barely keep my eyes open.
It was then that I started thinking their computer guy was better than I thought. I thought I could handle whatever he dished out for a few hours, but I was wrong. My plan was falling apart, and there was no sense in trying to hold out any longer. It was just too much. When I finally gathered the strength to speak, I mumbled, “I know what you did.”
He took a tug off his cigarette and let the smoke billow around him as he glared at me. “Care to clarify that?”
“I know you killed her,” I spat.
“Who?”
“You know damn well who!” I wanted to punch him right in the face. The very idea that he would deny it repulsed me to no end. “I know you did it, and I know why! You were afraid she’d run her mouth… tell everyone about all the crazy shit you do here, so you killed her.”
“You’re stalling with this shit.”
“You sit there acting like you are all tough and strong, but you are just a damned coward. Too afraid to admit what you did.”
He took a step towards me, and I could feel the anger radiating from his body. “I don’t take accusations like that lightly.”
I should’ve taken that as a warning, but I let my anger deter my thinking. “I don’t know what the hell she was thinking. She knew what kind of men you were. She should’ve known you would’ve come after her, but she trusted you… all of you.”
“Enough of the bullshit. I’m tired of fucking around.”
He stood up and tossed his cigarette to the floor, then he took the long, metal rod in his hand and started walking towards me. I knew he was about to shock me again, so I shouted, “Wait! You can’t stop it without the code.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“If you kill me, you will never be able to stop it. You will lose everything.” I knew he’d never admit what they’d done to my sister and in the end, I knew they were going to do the same thing to me, but I had to give it one last shot.
“I don’t know shit about any fucking codes. You’re just rambling a bunch of nonsense now. I’m done listening to your bullshit.”
He was just about to hit me again when I heard a door open and a man shout, “Hold up, Stitch! Stop!”
Seconds later, he was behind me, releasing me from my restraints. Relief washed over me as my hands dropped to my side. I tried to take a step, but stumbled backwards. Just as I was about to hit the ground, I was lifted up into the air. Before I had a chance to resist, I was in his arms with my head resting comfortably on his shoulder. My mind was a blur. That’s the only excuse I have for my actions. There was no other way to explain why I would be nestled close to his chest, feeling the warmth of his body against mine, when I should’ve been running for the door. Dammit! I was not following the plan.
The man he’d just called Stitch started walking towards us with a shocked expression on his face. “Am I missing something here?”
“Her name is Josie Carmichael.”
“And?”
“She’s Tristen’s sister,” he explained as he took a blanket from one of the cabinets and covered me, making my escape plan even more difficult. I wanted to protest, to tell him to fuck off and let me down, but I couldn’t form the words. He continued to hold me protectively against his chest as he explained, “She’s been looking for her, and she thinks we had something to do with her disappearance. She was looking in…” Before he could finish his sentence, the power went out. “Damn. It just keeps coming.”
“What the fuck?” Stitch grumbled as he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit it.
“It’s a blackout. She did a number on us. Slipped a virus in through the back door and compromised our entire hard drive. I did everything I could to slow it down, but…”
“Wait a minute. She did all that and knocked out our power?”
“I reckon she did. I’ve got to see how much of our system was wiped. We need to see if we can get the generators going before Cotton gets here.”
As Stitch headed for the door, he said, “I’ll take care of it. You just keep an eye on her.”
Now that he was gone, I finally had my chance to get out of this place, to run, but unfortunately, I couldn’t move. I needed a few more seconds to gather my strength. I was thinking about my next move when Big whispered in the darkness, “I don’t guess you’re gonna tell me how you did all this or why?”
“I had my reasons.”
The lights flickered back on just as Stitch walked back into the room. “Well, I gotta say. I never saw that one coming.”
“That goes for both of us.”
Stitch shook his head as he walked back over to us. “So, let me get this straight. All that shit you were saying about us killing someone… that was about Tristen? You really think we fucking killed her, so you hacked into our club, got yourself tortured, and wiped out our computer systems and power? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
There was something in his voice that made me start to question everything, and a world of doubt crashed around me. Before I could answer, Big whispered, “You’ve got it all wrong, Josie. We’d never hurt Tristen.”
I looked up at him, saw the sincerity in his eyes, and for a moment, I actually believed him.