by Leah Ashton
Of course some head honcho bikie guy was called Knife. How ridiculous, how lame.
But this was real, and it sounded like this Knife guy held her fate in his hands – so of course she didn’t laugh. She didn’t grin, she didn’t do anything. Except meet the gaze of Todd the snitching bikie – just for a second.
It was too brief to read anything in his look, but somehow, it was reassuring. Still, despite all the evidence to the contrary, she felt she could trust this man. So, she would.
The house had three oiled jarrah steps leading up to the decked verandah, and Todd and the goons’ boots were loud and heavy on the timber. The front door was closed, and head goon used a little brass knocker – the type with a lion’s head with a ring through its nose – rather than rapping on the door itself. It was a bizarrely delicate, elegant way to announce their arrival, doubly bizarre given it seemed impossible the occupants of the house hadn’t noticed their arrival. They’d hardly traversed the distance from SUV to house silently, and surely head goon had already been to the house once, in those few minutes after they’d arrived?
A minute or two later – and it felt like the wait was deliberate – a woman opened the navy-blue painted door. Her makeup and outfit were immaculate and stylish. She was in heels and a tight cocktail style dress, and wore her long, sleek blonde hair loose. She didn’t greet head goon, or smile, or do anything even vaguely positive. Instead, she simply opened the door, and waved them through – no directions, not a word.
Head goon clearly knew the plan though, and he grabbed Todd by one of his bound forearms, and shoved him into the house. Another goon pushed Beth between the shoulders, and she staggered inside, her stupid impractical heels skidding on the polished floor boards for an instant before she righted herself.
She met immaculate woman’s gaze for a second. The other woman simply smirked at her – but maybe, maybe, Beth saw some sympathy in her gaze?
Although why she was searching for some humanity out here in this desert wasteland, she didn’t know. What was the point? She wasn’t going to find an ally in a bikie’s girlfriend. Or maybe she was a female bikie? Beth had no idea if that was even a thing.
They headed down a long hallway. On the walls were many framed photos, mostly of men in leather jackets with their motorbikes. All the men wore the same logo on their jackets, although she knew it wasn’t called that when it came to outlaw motorcycle gangs. It was something else – club colours? They were moving too swiftly for Beth to be able to read the name on the jackets, or to even properly see the symbols on it, but once they reached their destination, she didn’t have to wonder any more.
They’d reached a large room, decorated in a kind of modern country style with white fabric couches and a shaker-style kitchen at one end. In the middle of the room – looking out through large windows that viewed what looked to Beth like a world of nothingness – dirt and scrub and flatness, with maybe the slightest undulations in the far, far distance – stood a man. His back to them all.
He was tall, as tall as Todd, but bigger in width. Not with more muscle, as Beth knew Todd was all muscle, but bulk. He wasn’t fat, not exactly, just big. And on that big, broad back – was a leather biker jacket. And on that jacket, was embroidered two entwined, banded snakes. And beneath that, a single word: Notechi.
The man turned around.
“Todd,” the man said.
“Knife,” said Todd. “There’s clearly been a misunderstanding. Let’s sort this out, you know I—”
But Knife held out a hand, and Todd fell instantly silent. “No bullshit. I know what you’ve been doing.”
“Do you?” Todd said. “Because I have no idea. Could you fill me in so I at least know what I’m supposed to have done?”
Knife shook his head. “I’m not playing games. You’re very convincing, I give you that.”
“This isn’t an act,” Todd said. “I’m telling you the truth.”
Knife laughed out loud, and then – awkwardly – head goon and the rest all joined in.
“Bullshit,” Knife repeated. He pointed at one of the white couches. “Sit.”
Head goon pushed Todd towards the couch, but no one moved Beth anywhere. She stood uncomfortably just inside the room, flanked on either side by a bikie – one with long brown hair and a grey-flecked goatee, the other totally bald.
Knife’s gaze slid from Todd to the rest of the room, then stilled and held when he saw Beth.
“Who the fuck is she?” he said, still staring at her, but clearly directing the question at head goon.
Beth realised that head goon now held his gun in his hand, and the man tapped it against his thigh as he spoke.
“She was with Crawls,” he said.
Beth couldn’t look away from the gun as fear began to overtake any hope she’d been clinging to. It was not good that the man was holding a gun. It was not good at all.
“So you brought her with you?” Knife asked with a mix of fury and incredulity. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“We couldn’t leave her,” head goon explained. “She’d seen us—”
“I won’t tell anyone anything,” Beth said in a burst of words that bubbled up from nowhere. Or at least she tried to. The tape still covering her mouth turned it all to mumbles.
Knife strode up to her, and as he moved, Beth realised he had a gun tucked into the front waistband of his faded black jeans.
She stopped breathing as he came to a stop in front of her. For long moments, he just stared, as if he was assessing her. His gaze slid down to her feet, then slowly, slowly upwards over her creased, colourful skirt and her untucked black blouse. He would have been handsome, this Knife guy, with his thick mahogany hair, cool blue eyes and strong jaw, if he wasn’t so clearly bad. And not bad in a good way. This wasn’t a sexy bad, not like Todd who oozed danger, but not in a way that threatened her. Or at least, Beth desperately hoped her instincts were right and that was true. But with Knife, there was no question, no hoping anything – he was capital B Bad. All caps bad even: BAD.
He was absolutely a danger to Beth. He would hurt her, she knew it. He’d hurt her, and not blink an eyelid.
He reached out and ripped the tape off her mouth.
It stung like hell, and she remembered to breathe again as she gasped in pain.
“What you say?” Knife demanded.
“I won’t tell anyone anything,” Beth repeated, her voice scratchy and dry. “I won’t. It’ll be like this never happened, like it was all a dream or something. I promise.”
“Sweet thing,” Knife said, in an approximation of a charming tone. “How many times have you broken the law?”
Beth’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
“Just as I thought,” he continued, as if she’d spoken. “Zero times. So I can’t see any reason why’d you start now with failing to report a crime. And you’ve seen a few so far, I imagine – kidnapping, assault – and pretty soon, murder. So, sweet thing – you cool with that? Cool with walking away, never breathing a word after witnessing bits of your boyfriend’s brain fucking up my new furniture?”
She didn’t reply. How could she?
He’d just vocalised the reality of what was happening to her, and it was impossible. All of this was incomprehensible. Fear tightened her throat and made unshed tears sting her eyes.
His hand reached out, slipping a finger under the collar of her blouse and then sliding downwards, the glide of his knuckle grotesque against the swell of her breast. His voice was low and thick with faux seduction. “Cool with not reporting a rape, sweet thing?”
She stepped backwards, not caring about the goons or the gun or anything as she reacted instinctively. “Don’t touch me!” she yelled.
And over Knife’s shoulder, she saw a flurry of movement and then the sickening thud of fists against skin and bone.
Chapter Four
Damon was back on the couch again, now with a headache, thanks to a lucky blow from Gaff and a lot of
bruises courtesy of the enthusiastic fists of two of the prospects. It had undoubtably been a dumb move to go for Knife, but it wasn’t like he’d planned it. When Knife had touched Beth, he’d seen red. There was no other way to describe it. Nothing else had mattered – his supposed loyalty to the Notechi included. He’d been on his feet and ready to rip Knife’s head off, but no matter how strong he was, he was no match for five men on one – at least two of them armed – with his wrists still tied behind his back.
Gaff had gleefully held him still while he’d directed the prospects to punch him in the guts again and again, and it of course had hurt but nothing he couldn’t ignore. What he did know, was that if they’d wanted to hurt him – properly hurt him – they would’ve. But they didn’t want to – not yet.
But they would hurt him. He knew how this worked, how bikie gangs turned on those that turned on them.
And they would hurt Beth, too. He knew it, and she knew it as well.
She still stood with a thug beside her just inside the room. Her gaze was steady on him, pretty much constantly. She’d been looking at him the whole time the prospects had been hitting him, and as stupid as it sounded – it had kind of helped. Knowing she was watching, and knowing she gave a shit about what was happening to him.
But he’d felt her flinches as badly as he’d felt the blows to his stomach. It was killing him that she was in this room, that she knew – and he could see it in her eyes – knew that the threat of rape was very real. That the threat of much worse was very, very real.
Knife sat across from him. There was a glass coffee table between them, and on it lay a Glock, a hunting knife, and a hammer. They lay either side of a low, round glass vase filled with artificial peonies. Damon knew this, as he’d briefly dated a woman who liked to grow the real deal. It was such a dichotomy – the weapons he knew were intended for his torture and the Home Beautiful style décor. Adding to this, Knife’s girlfriend, Suz (Knife’s wife lived in the Notechi compound in the city), was busily cooking in the kitchen only metres away. Something sweet, based on the bags of sugar and flour on the granite bench.
Knife ran a finger up and down the handle of the hammer. It looked new, like he’d sent Suz out shopping at the Laverton hardware store just for this purpose.
“Won’t need this, will I?” Knife said. “Maybe Gaff wasn’t so fucking dumb bringing your bitch here.” He leant back on the sofa and crossed his arms across his steroid-pumped chest. “If you don’t talk, we’re taking turns with her and you’re watching. Got it?”
Damon’s gaze flicked to Beth, but she just stood there, her shoulders back, her gaze on his. She didn’t gasp, or cry, or do anything that she had every right to do.
It had been fucking magnificent the way she’d yelled at Knife, and he needed to get them out of this so he could tell her so. And she was being fucking magnificent now, refusing to react the way he knew Knife wanted her to.
The bald prospect beside her sidled closer, reaching a thick arm around her waist and yanking her up against his body, even as she tried to pull away. The thug’s hand moved, sliding up to paw at her breasts.
“Leave her alone!” Damon yelled.
Knife chuckled on the couch but murmured a command to Gaff, and a moment later Gaff handed his Glock to the prospect with the bad goatee. Another moment later and the bald goon was gone in a flurry of desperate apologies as he was dragged from the room by the goateed thug.
Knife looked back at Damon. “I always go first,” he explained.
Through a window, Damon watched the two thugs head across the barren land – goatee with the gun to the head of the other – and behind a corrugated iron outbuilding. Calmly, Gaff walked to a white painted sideboard and retrieved another firearm, which he checked was loaded before walking back to stand directly behind Damon.
It didn’t surprise him that Gaff had so easily located a fresh firearm, he could guarantee this place was riddled with guns and ammunition. In the distance, there was the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot, and in his peripheral vision, Beth flinched, as did the remaining of the prospects now standing beside her, regretting his shitty life choices, Damon suspected.
Damon looked at Knife. Even for Knife, this was next level brutality. It was also, clearly, a message for Damon: Tell us everything, or you’re ending up behind that shed, too.
Although, Damon knew he was behind that shed whatever he said, so the effort was wasted on him. Not that he was about to mourn the generic prospect who’d died. The only lives he was worried about right now were Beth’s and his own.
And one less Notechi to deal with could only be in his favour.
“Who you’ve been snitching too, Crawls?” Knife said, leaning forward on the couch again, his forearms rested on his knees, all faux relaxation.
A little vein beat near the man’s temple, and Damon stared at that as he answered.
“No one. Just as I told you. You’ve made a mistake.”
Whomp.
Damon had guessed the blow from Gaff was coming, but with the man behind him he could do little to deflect the blow to the side of his head.
“Still haven’t snitched, Knife,” he said.
He guessed right this time when the blow came, and turned his head slightly, taking the edge off so the blow wasn’t flush against his head. Still hurt like a bitch though.
“Still no,” he said.
The vein on Knife’s temple was pumping away madly. He didn’t know what Knife knew, but it couldn’t be much, given they still thought he was Todd, his totally false identity. But it wouldn’t matter if they knew his real name or about Elite SWAT, he still wasn’t saying a word.
Right now, all he could do was delay and hope like hell that someone would notice he was missing soon. But unfortunately, he wasn’t due to check in at E-SWAT until Monday, and it was Saturday morning. It was unlikely anyone would realise he’d gone missing until then. But when they did and if they tracked his phone – which he was hopeful Gaff wouldn’t have thought to chuck out a window somewhere in the 1,000 kilometre journey here – they’d be out here on the E-SWAT helicopter ASAP.
But that was at least forty-eight hours away, and honestly, he didn’t think they had that long.
Knife looked over at Beth.
“No,” Damon said. “Don’t touch her—”
Over in the kitchen, the sudden loud whirring of a stand mixer drew everyone’s attention.
“What the fuck, Suz?” Knife snapped.
Suz didn’t look up, she just stared at the stand mixer, and when it came to a stop, rather violently removed the bowl and plonked it down – hard – on the bench top.
Knife looked at Gaff and rolled his eyes – as if Suz had no reason to be pissed that her boyfriend was apparently about to assault another woman in front of her. Knife slowly levered himself up from the plush couch, then walked to the kitchen.
Everyone in the room watched Knife as he spoke to Suz, who seemingly ignored him as she tipped chocolate coloured dough onto the bench and began rolling it out flat. Damon couldn’t hear much of what Knife was saying, and he didn’t really care, so after checking that Beth remained unharmed – which she was – he tried to work out what to do next.
He tested the cable ties at his wrists, but they were as tight as ever. He still had his knife in his boot, and if he could get his hands free, he’d at least have a weapon. Or even if he had time alone, he could possibly contort himself enough to use the knife to remove the ties – maybe. But there was no chance he’d get any time alone. Even the dumbest of the prospects wouldn’t let him out of their sight, and if he asked to go to the bathroom, they’d just let him piss himself.
Right now, there was literally nothing he could do. But if he didn’t do something soon, Beth was going to be hurt. Badly.
His uselessness made him furious.
Being so helpless was utterly foreign. Damon Nyhuis didn’t sit back and let stuff happen – or let life happen, for that matter. Yet here he was, in a situation he w
as trained to deal with – and he could do nothing, because of a couple of pieces of immovable plastic – and Gaff’s Glock, probably still pointed at his skull right now.
Knife stomped back to the group. “I’m flying back to Perth,” he announced. “Taking Suz home, then I’ll be back tomorrow morning.” His gaze met Damon’s. “You still not going to tell me anything?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Damon said firmly.
Knife shook his head. “You’ll be talking soon.” He looked at Gaff over Damon’s head. “Keep him warm,” he said, gesturing at Damon. “But leave her.” He glanced at Beth. “I’ll be back for her.”
There was another thud in the kitchen as Suz smacked the dough she was kneading with a rolling pin, but she didn’t look up.
Knife sighed.
“Get them both out of here, I need to deal with this.”
He took a step towards the kitchen, then looked back over his shoulder at them all. “You still here?”
And with that, they were dismissed.
Beth sat beneath the shade of a pitiful, spindly little tree, watching the head goon (Gaff, she was sure she’d heard him be called) and the two remaining goons share a bag of potato chips and drink cartons of ice coffee. Todd had been left in the sun, and only she had been offered water – which she knew was only because they’d be handing her over to Knife and couldn’t have her dying of dehydration first. That prospect was horrifying, but right now the water still tasted amazing, and she ignored the obvious power trip the goon got from pouring water down her throat. For now, at least, she was safe from these men, unless they too wanted to end up dead.
Knife had quite clearly demonstrated his power over his men.
Beth didn’t exactly feel guilty for the goon’s death, but she was definitely part of it. If she hadn’t been here, he wouldn’t have been killed. Logically, she suspected that a man who had so clearly relished the prospect of raping her was no great loss to the world – but still, a man was dead. Because of her. Kind of.
