You know, I’ve had to live in my fair share of shitty rooms, but the disgusting workshop they locked me in definitely takes the cake.

The air smelled like a lovely mix of ancient oil, dusty soot, and filthy ash. I could feel it filling my lungs, one patch of stagnant, stale dust in the air at a time.

At least the floor was comfortable.

I mean, why pack the room with something cold and unforgiving like lush, feathery carpeting when you could just leave the soothing and relaxing surface of freezing, oily concrete?

Unfortunately, all the tools and sharp edges had been plucked from the room that served as my jail cell. There was nothing with which to defend myself if anyone came.

What I was trapped in was essentially a metal box when it came to the ceiling and walls. A single dingy bulb cast the bare minimum amount of light, exposing the toilet in the corner and the pile of musty cloths that was to be my bed.

The Hilton, it was not.

A sharp knocking on the door jarred me from my thoughts. Lifting myself up from the ragged blankets, I stumbled over to the single exit, where a flap against the bottom opened.

“Eat,” Mark blurted out, pushing a small plate of greasy food through the door.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded to know. “Why am I being kept in this stupid goddamn room?”

“Quiet,” he insisted. “Just ride this out with us, babe, and we’ll bring you back home all safe and sound.”

“Ride what out?” I demanded.

I heard a chuckle through the door. “Oh, it’ll all be over soon… don’t you worry about that. And then we can put you where you rightfully belong.”

“And where is that?”

Mark’s voice sneered.

“With me, of course. Back on my bike… and back on my cock, too. I really missed you...”

I bit my tongue.

As much as I wanted to rip through that door and absolutely tear him a new one for putting me through this… I figured that it probably wasn’t smart.

Plus, minor detail:

I hadn’t figured out how to burst out through locked metal doors yet.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he chuckled. The lust was blatant on every goddamn syllable. “Think about that, Buttercup… think about that all night long. I know I will.”

With that, the moron shut the flap, basically ending our little chat. I heard his footsteps wander off, and I groaned with frustration.

Half an hour later while eating the slop he brought me, I could barely make out the sounds of a muffled argument coming from a small vent grate at the top of the wall. Things sounded like they were starting to get heated, and I felt driven to find out what was going on.

There wasn’t anything nearby to stand on, so I stepped onto my tiptoes and pressed my ear as close as I could get.

Mark’s voice trailed through the vent, barely loud enough for me to hear. “…What do you mean I can’t fuck her?”

An older man responded gruffly. “Exactly what I said, boy… the woman’s a liability. We keep her under lock and key until this is over.”

“But we had a deal!”

There was a second of scuffle. It sounded like someone punched or smacked the other upside the head.

“We still have a deal. All we have to do is wait until tomorrow night, and see where things fall…”

“She’s locked up like an animal!”

“And she’ll stay that way,” the older voice commanded. “When you’ve lived up to your half and the piece of shit spills blood on the fucking pavement, then you can have your piece of ass.”

“He’ll come,” Mark replied. “And I’ll kill him.”

The older voice let the silence dangle in the air for a moment.

“Yes,” the voice finally spoke. “And when his little club comes riding out to see his grave, they’ll pass right through our turf. We’ll gun them all down on the fucking highway. I’ll be the one who toppled the Devil’s Dragons once and for all.”

My toes started to give out, and I suddenly, reluctantly slipped down onto the soles of my feet.

Holy shit. They’re gonna kill Grizz.

And they weren’t stopping there…

There had to be a way to warn him… something that I could do to get the message out. I patted the small pockets of my jeans, but my phone and little wallet where nowhere to be found.

Great.

I’ve been assaulted, imprisoned, and robbed. All by some psycho ex-boyfriend who thinks he’s entitled to me, and the stupid motorcycle club he’s joined…

Thinking about this, I paused.

If Grizz knew where to find me, then that meant that he probably knew that he’d be walking into a trap.

I could only hope that he’d be smart enough to just let me go, or to keep from springing it.

But… did I want him to let me go?

Slipping down into the musty, raggedy blankets, I decided that I did. Just leave me here, I tried to send to him with my mind. I’d rather you alive and okay than dying on some suicide mission to save me.

Besides, I’d figured my way out of bullshit before. Maybe not, you know, being kidnapped and trapped in some metal box wherever they’d taken me…

But these were pretty small details.

Kinda.

But either way, things weren’t looking too good from where I was sitting…