by Naomi West
10
Piper
The closet was pitch black once Tank closed the door. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they refused. There simply wasn’t enough light for her to even see shadows, and not even a crack of light showed under the door. He must have turned off all the lights in the basement. Piper felt fear fill up her chest, squeezing her lungs. She tried to take deep breaths to calm herself, but the rope around her abdomen made it difficult.
“You must have picked the most uncomfortable fucking chair you own,” she muttered as she shifted her weight. The ropes around her made her feel claustrophobic, even though there was plenty of room in the closet. It wasn’t as though she was going to run out of air, and she could probably tip the chair completely over without hitting one of the walls. The space was big enough that Piper had originally thought it was a room, but there were no windows. It was a large storage closet. She wondered how many other people had been held captive here, and what had happened to them.
Piper hung her head and allowed the sob that had been building up in her throat to come out. Her conversation at dinner with Alexa couldn’t have been more prophetic. She couldn’t even hope that telling her friend about her story would help her get rescued. Nobody would notice she was missing until at least tomorrow morning, and she hadn’t mentioned any of the specific locations she had been visiting. It was doubtful that anyone knew which one of a hundred rundown warehouses the Chrome Kings owned, and then someone would need to follow the trail back to Tank’s house.
Briefly, she entertained the idea of wiggling the chair to the door and seeing if there was any way of getting through. But her mind and her body were exhausted, and she knew it wouldn’t do her any good. She would have to wait until Tank came back and look for a new chance at escape. In the meantime, Tank could do anything he wanted to her and she couldn’t stop him.
Her tears were hot as they splashed down onto her lap. They cooled quickly, making her shiver and reminding her of just how alone she was in the world.
11
Tank
Tank hadn’t slept well. He’d tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. His dreams were strong, vivid ones that woke him, but he couldn’t remember what they were when his eyes opened. The most he could recall were fleeting images of Piper escaping or his name in headlines. At one point, he entertained the idea of going down to the basement and taking out his frustrations on Piper. After all, there was no better sleep than what he got after a release. But something made him want to hold back a little longer. There would be a right time for it, he was sure.
When the morning sun told him that he no longer had to force himself into sleep, he got up and made a quick breakfast. The spying bitch didn’t deserve anything more than stale bread and maybe a little water, but he was frying eggs anyway. He made up a plate of them with a piece of toast and took it down to the basement, knowing he still had a little bit of time until Chain showed up to take over guard duty for the day.
Unlocking the door, he half-expected to find nothing but the old wooden dining chair and a few pieces of rope, Piper having figured out some way to escape during the night. But she was right where he had left her. The chair didn’t appear to have moved, and her ropes hadn’t loosened. He stared at her for a long moment, looking for some hint of foul play that he hadn’t noticed before. Piper stared at him with bleary eyes, flinching in the sudden light and looking pale. She looked as though her night had been just as rough as his.
“Did you have a nice sleep?” he asked sarcastically as he set the plate on the floor and stepped forward to untie her from the chair.
“Not exactly,” she moaned. “Are you letting me go?”
“Not exactly,” he retorted, “but you can’t exactly eat if your hands are tied behind your back, and I’m sure as fuck not feeding you with a spoon.” He unbound her feet as well. It would only be for a few minutes, and he was going to keep his eyes on her the entire time.
“Thank you.” She grabbed the plate and immediately began eating, not even asking if she could have a fork.
Once again, Tank thought about what a pain in the ass it was to have a hostage. He could have just shot in her in the warehouse. Nobody was around. If anyone had heard the shot in the distance, they wouldn’t have said anything. Gunfire wasn’t completely unusual, and as long as it wasn’t close to a residence, nobody would say a word. Then it would have been a short drive to dump her body in the river, maybe weighted down so that nobody would find it for a few weeks. Easy. Simple. And yet he had gone and complicated things for himself.
But as long as he had gone to the trouble, he was going to get something out of it. “Who have you told about my business?”
She glanced up at him, her eyes wild like a feral cat. “What do you mean?”
“You said you were working on a story about me,” Tank reminded her. “Who else was in on it? Other reporters? Your boss? The police?”
Piper stopped eating for a moment, her eyes unfocused as she looked down at her plate, as though she was seeing something else entirely. “Nobody,” she finally whispered.
“Why would I believe that?”
Her eyes were sharp when she glanced at him, but she immediately looked away gain. “I don’t know. I guess you don’t have any reason to. But I hadn’t told anyone about what I was doing. As far as my boss is concerned, I handed in my article about the new bookstore downtown and went home for the day.”
His eyes roved down her body, once again admiring the way her breasts strained under her shirt. She would make a terrible club girl. At the moment, she was submissive, but Tank wasn’t dumb enough to believe that would last. She was willful and defiant, the kind of woman who would argue until she was blue in the face just to prove she was right. And he wasn’t very interested in sharing her with the rest of the men. He wanted her with an animalistic urge that made his mouth water.
As though she could sense it, Piper looked up at him with those big, dark eyes that reminded him of a deer in the forest. Yes, that was it. She was like his prey, someone he wanted to hunt down and sink his teeth into.
“I know this is a bad situation,” she said as she licked her fingers clean, a gesture that was incredibly seductive. “But I really like to think we can handle it like adults. How long do you plan to keep me here?”
Her damn questions made him so angry that, for a moment, the emotion shoved away his physical desire for her. “Stop acting like you’re in control of the situation,” he growled. “You haven’t been ever since it started, and that’s not about to change. You’re my captive, and I’ll keep you here as long as I damn well please. And quit asking questions. It’s my turn for that.”
“All right.” She turned a neutral gaze to him, resigning herself to the situation. “Ask away.”
“Are you working for anyone besides the paper?” He hadn’t yet convinced himself that she was “just” a reporter. She might very well be one, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other associations she was hiding.
“Like who?” she countered.
“You tell me. You were the one who brought up the idea of infiltrating some other club to get information for me. How do I know that’s not exactly what you were doing when you broke into the warehouse?”
She looked down at the plate longingly, as though she was expecting more food to magically appear on it. “I don’t suppose you do know. But I’m telling you that I’m not. It’s just me.”
“That doesn’t seem very smart. Why wouldn’t you get everything possible out of this situation? Maybe sell the info to a rival club before you went running to your paper.” That was what he would have done, if he was a snitch like her. Tank picked up the plate and set it just outside the door. He wasn’t about to leave her here untied, not even long enough to run it back up to the kitchen.
The dullness in her eyes was probably due to a lack of sleep, but it made her look surprisingly defiant. “Next time, I’ll be sure to consult you first.”
He curled his fist, wanting so badly to slap her across the face like she deserved. “I don’t think you have any idea who you’re dealing with. You might have been spying on me for the last week, but you still have a hell of a lot to learn.”
“Then educate me,” she dared.
Damn it, this woman was going to be impossible.
12
Piper
Piper knew she was pushing him too much. There was nothing stopping Tank from killing her, and probably with his bare hands. He was a mountain of a man, and it would take nothing for him to wrap his fingers around her throat and make her pay for how much trouble she had caused him. He probably had connections, too, the kind of connections that would have really added to her story but which would also help him hide her body long past the time when the authorities stopped looking for her.
Pulling in a deep breath, Piper knew she had to drag this out as long as she could. The longer she stayed alive, the better her chances that someone—somehow—would figure out where she was and come to her rescue. Her first hope had to be that someone would care enough about her to notice she was missing and bother to do anything about it. Piper didn’t talk to many of the people at the office. Her relationship with her parents had been so strained over the last few years that she hardly talked to either one of them at all. They wouldn’t know anything was wrong unless the police happened to contact them.
“Please, Tank. I don’t want to do this anymore. Let’s just talk about it and figure out what we can do. There must be something I can do to make this right. We don’t live in medieval times, when people just killed those who wronged them.” At one point when she was much younger, she had highly romanticized those times. She knew now that being at a man’s mercy, as women always were back then, was not quite as she had fantasized.
The smirk on his face was a cruel one. “What makes you think you’re so special that you can provide me with anything I want? Or is that how you’ve been getting through life? You just do whatever the fuck you want, without consequences, knowing that you can bat your eyelashes and flick your hair and everyone will forget?”
She scowled at him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. “I don’t use my looks like that.”
“Sure, you don’t.”
“I don’t!”
“All right, then tell me what you can offer me, since you’re so determined to do it. Do you have a bunch of money in an overseas bank account somewhere?”
Piper pursed her lips. Her shitty job was just enough to pay the bills and allow her to tuck a little bit into savings each month, but it was nothing special. “No.”
“How about some precious possessions?”
He was teasing her now, and she knew it, but she had to keep playing his game. Just keep him talking. Keep him thinking. “I have a feeling you aren’t going to be interested in my Kia,” she quipped.
Tank nearly laughed at that one. “No, thanks. Anything else you’ve got? And don’t try to feed me that bullshit about spying on another club. I don’t want to be the one responsible when you’re found snooping in someone else’s warehouse.”
She had her body. That was the only thing she could think of, and the idea of sleeping with him terrified her. He wasn’t likely to be a gentleman. Still, he was incredibly sexy despite the fact that he was holding her captive. She couldn’t help but notice how he seemed to take up an entire room. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, having not been combed yet that morning, and it gave him a reckless look that suited his personality. The tattoos on his massive arms only added to it, and the way he watched her made Piper feel aware of every cell of her body. It was like he made her come alive with just a glance, a power that no man had ever held over her before.
“I’ll take your silence as a no.” Tank picked up the rope and gestured at the chair. “Let’s go.”
“Seriously? I meant it when I said you don’t have to tie me up. I swear I won’t leave. I’m not stupid, and I would much rather stay here willingly than be in this closet any longer.”
He raised one eyebrow, an expression that accentuated the shape of those dangerous, dark eyes. “Guess you should have thought about that a week ago.” He bent forward and began his work with the rope.
The proximity of his body to hers was something Piper knew she shouldn’t be paying so much attention to. He was her captor. He had imprisoned her. It was all completely wrong. And yet her skin tingled where he touched her, sending a shiver of warmth through her body. Piper turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see the flush of her cheeks.
But soon enough, he turned off the lights and left her locked in the closet once again.
There was nothing to do but think, and Piper was prepared when he came back several hours later with lunch. She thought she heard him talking to someone just before he came down the stairs—the silence made all the tiniest noises seem loud—but she couldn’t be sure.
He opened the door and went through the same routine as before. He set down the plate and untied her completely. For a moment, Piper wondered why he had so much trust in her. But she realized that it wasn’t trust at all. He just knew that she couldn’t possibly get past him, and so did she.
Lunch was a simple peanut butter sandwich, but it was like food from heaven considering Piper hadn’t known if her breakfast would be her last meal or not. He’d brought down a small bottle of water that he produced from his back pocket and tossed at her, a welcome addition.
“Have you thought any more about our arrangement?” she asked tentatively as she cracked open the water. Instinctively, she was looking for anything to use as a weapon, but even the full bottle would do nothing more than bounce off of him. If he was angry enough, Tank looked as though he would fight tooth and nail, even if he was bleeding profusely.
“I’ve been busy,” came his short reply.
She nodded. Piper couldn’t help but be desperately curious about just what “busy” meant for him. The past week had been completely invested in this man and discovering more about him, and for her it was natural to crave even more information. She couldn’t exactly ask, though. He’d made that quite clear.
When she had finished, she looked up at him with what she hoped was a very innocent gaze. “I need to use the restroom.”
Tank stood there, arms folded in front of his massive chest, the tattoos on his arms twitching as he stared at her. Hard. It was as though he could see right through her, and it made the underside of her skin shiver. “Fine. Come with me.”
He shooed her out of the closet and across the basement. Piper hadn’t gotten much of a good look at it on the way in here, considering she had been thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It was pretty nice for a basement, with a deep coffee color on the walls and the same neutral carpet that was in her prison cell. The most startling thing about it was that it was nearly empty. It would have made a great space for a man cave, with a big-screen television and a sectional, or a family room.
“Stop looking around like you’re going to buy the place and get going. Up the stairs.”
It was difficult to lift her feet high enough to get to each tread as she slowly ascended. Sitting tied up to that chair had stiffened all her joints, and though the staircase wasn’t any longer than any normal one, it seemed to stretch before her to infinity. She wondered if she would ever feel all right again, even if Tank decided to let her go.
When they reached the hallway on the first floor, Piper could see that although the biker had ignored the basement, he had not done the same thing with the rest of the house. Several prints and paintings of landscapes and artful motorcycles graced the walls, and through a doorway at the end of the hall she could see a lavish kitchen with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. It was no wonder the Chrome Kings needed to make covert deals at night to ensure their income. This was quite a lifestyle to keep up with.
“Here.” Tank practically shoved her through a doorway on the right. He stood in the doorway expectantly.
&n
bsp; She turned to face him, her fists on her hips. “You aren’t really going to just stand there, are you?”
He scowled, thinking about it, and finally stepped into the hall. “Fine. But I’ll be right outside. If you pull anything funny, I’ll know about it.”
Piper pressed her lips together and looked down at the white tile floor. “I, um, I might be a minute.”
The biker made a disgusted face and slammed the door.
She really did have to pee, and Piper knew she had better take advantage of that while she could. She examined the bathroom as she did so, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon, something that could easily be shoved in her pocket. The bathroom had been stocked sparsely, with only a few bottles of soap and shampoo. Not much of a weapon at all. The bathroom itself was very manly looking. Everything was black and white tile and stainless steel. Only one framed picture hung on the wall, and it was simply some abstract splatters of paint.
The one thing she did see that could be to her advantage was the window. Piper glanced at the door. She knew there was no doubt Tank had meant it when he’d said he was waiting right out in the hall. He hadn’t given her any chances to escape so far, nor had he listened to a word she’d said about cooperating. Well, if he wasn’t going to let her do things the easy way, then she wasn’t going to.
Piper turned on the sink, but she knew enough from the spying she had done as a child to know that the water made a different sound when it was falling straight into the sink versus when someone was moving their hands underneath it. Tank might not know the difference, but she didn’t want to assume anything about him. He had obviously been smart enough to make himself the president of a motorcycle club.
