CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nadya
“Who are you?” the man with short, dark blonde hair asked me for the twentieth time since I’d been here.
Getting to the club had been easy.
Getting inside and getting answers, not so much.
But then again, I couldn’t really blame them. It seemed that Savage had them on high alert and when I showed up with one of their own passed out and bleeding from a gunshot wound on his side, it seemed suspicious. Even if I was trying to save his life.
So, after they showed me to the basement at gunpoint, they put me in a tiny cell—with bars and all. They also had me comfortably handcuffed in the front, with real, metal cuffs. There was a bed and a toilet, much like the ones you would find in a jail cell.
Then they left me, with one of them sitting watch a few feet outside of my cage. A prospect with long hair on the top and the sides and back shaved, but there was still enough fuzz to run your fingers through. The top part was parted all the way to the one side and just barely long enough for him to tuck behind his ear, which he did like every ten minutes. Every time he did it the tattoo on his hand caught the light, but I was too far away to make out what it was. That was the only movement out of him, other than his eyes as they studied my every breath.
I had to admit, the set up was pretty impressive. The three solid walls of the cell were unpainted cinder blocks. The bars on the front were cemented in place at the top and bottom. That wasn’t to say I couldn’t get out if I wanted to because I still had my bracelet and to my surprise, a good amount of my weapons. It seemed Savage’s crew only managed to find my guns. And when I showed up here, they did a quick pat down and let it go thinking they found nothing. I had a good idea that if they knew who I was they would have been a little more thorough with their search.
At some point, they sent a guy down to look at the cuts on my side. I didn’t even try to make a move as he looked me over. I had a few deep, but superficial, scratches from the glass when I went out the window. There was also a huge gash in the mix, but luckily this guy, Frannie he said his name was, didn’t think it needed stitches. He slathered me down with triple antiseptic ointment after he cleaned them out, then bandaged me up. With a huge smile that was almost on the verge of being creepy as fuck because it was so wide and perfect, he left me.
But none of that mattered because I wasn’t going to try to escape. I didn’t want to run and I had no need or intention to hurt these people.
I had no idea how long I’d been down there, but it had been long enough that I was contemplating closing my eyes for a bit.
“Who are you?” the man repeated. His tone would suggest he simply wanted to know but his face told a different story. His brows were pinched tight, his eyes were narrowed at me, and his lips held a slight snarl. He was angry and frustrated. I found the contradiction of it all odd and very interesting, but I didn’t let it show.
This wasn’t the first time he’d come down here and tried to get me to talk. Every time I asked the same simple question back.
“Is Noah alive?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes back at the stranger.
I had no problem telling them what they wanted to know, but I knew that once I did, my minutes were numbered. I was a dead man walking—well, sitting at the moment. So my last wish was to simply know if Noah had made it. That all of this hadn’t been for nothing. Then I would tell them everything with no hesitation. But it didn’t seem like that was going to happen because every time I asked, my question not only went unanswered, it seemed it went unheard too.
“What happened to him?” he asked, no indication that he’d heard me although I knew he had.
My lips pinched tight as I sent him a look of great boredom.
In truth, I was worried and hurting on the inside. I needed the answers like I needed air to breathe. I felt like if I didn’t get them before I died then my soul would never be able to rest. Fucking poetic, right? That shit wasn’t like me but there I was, completely unsettled down to the bone.
“Who did this?” The man pressed on, tone still flat despite the frustrated breath he blew out when I didn’t answer.
“Is. He. Alive?” I punctuated every word as I pinned him with a hard stare.
“Hey, brother,” a built guy with long blonde hair that was pulled into a low man bun asked. His facial hair was trimmed close to his face and his chest and arms were huge. The guy obviously worked out. “How’s it going?” he asked the other one that had been trying to get me to talk.
“Fucking bitch,” short hair said then grunted before turning away from me. “You fuckin’ try.” He walked off, sneakered feet hitting the concrete floor harder than necessary.
“Hey, there, doll face,” man bun said like I hadn’t just heard their conversation. “You need anything? Some water?”
“No.” I brushed off his charm with ease. Whatever angle he was pulling wasn’t going to work with me. Though, I could see how it would on so many women.
“My name is Bocca,” he said and I snorted wondering what the fuck kind of name was that. “Don’t mind Axe. He and Tank grew up together and he’s taking it personally.”
Tank. That was the name that Savage had called Noah and I was smart enough to understand that it was his road name. But I wasn’t a brother, I wasn’t even a friend, so in my mind, I didn’t deserve to call him that.
“You gotta name?”
My eyes moved to him with slow precision. My legs slipped off the edge of the hard bed as I sat up. Leaning my arms on my knees, my gaze slowly raked up his body until it settled on his eyes. I held a dead expression on my face to let him know I wasn’t going to give him shit until I got what I wanted.
“Tell me that he’s alive and I will tell you whatever the fuck you want to know.” My eyes didn’t leave his as we stood there, locked in a tense silence.
He opened his mouth to say something but snapped it shut before any words came out. Then he held up a finger to me like he was telling me to wait a damn minute. Like I was really going anywhere. He walked off and I let out a long breath as I slumped back against the wall.
Not long after he’d left, he was back, with that Axe guy as he called him, and a man with a scar over his eyebrow. The man with the scar looked at least ten years older than me, the lines of his face hard as stone. None of them were wearing a cut and I had no doubt that was on purpose. This way I didn’t know their so-called names unless they told me themselves.
Another set of footsteps grew near and I craned my head to the side a bit so I could see who it was. An older guy with long hair and a short beard came to join the others. I didn’t know who any of these men were, so I wasn’t sure why I bothered looking at each of them.
“Tank’s breathing. He’s alive for now,” The older one with the scar said as he folded his arms over his chest and lifted his chin at me in a challenging way.
He’d put his cards on the table and now it was my turn. I understood that and I was going to keep my word. I just had to take a moment to let it sink in.
Noah was alive, but they didn’t tell me how bad off he was. The ‘for now’ hung there like an ominous shadow standing right behind me, just out of my line of sight. I was smart enough to know that he could have been bluffing. I had to take a chance and hope they were telling me the truth.
“My name is Nadya Kircher and I was hired by Savage to kill your men,” I said, keeping my face as neutral as possible. I didn’t want these people to know that my mind was a mess with worry and regret.
I expected them to pull their guns. I even expected them to shoot me right there on the spot. But to my surprise, they held back and waited for me to say more. So, I gave them what they wanted, telling them all that had gone on over the last few months right up until I’d gotten there, and they knew the rest.
But before any of them could say anything in response to my story someone yelled out.
“Loch!” Came from somewhere that I wasn’t able to see from my location. The older one with the scar snapped his head in that direction, and after a second all of them headed away from me, leaving me alone with only the watcher in the corner.