Reign

by Jessica Gadziala

  “Oww,” I whined, sitting down on the edge of my bed, rubbing my leg. “Perfect end to my day,” I grumbled, feeling the wine lead me steadily toward self-pity.

  I crawled up to the top of my bed, sitting back on my heels for a second, staring out of the floor-to ceiling windows that surrounded me, taking in the view I far too often took for granted, before flinging myself forward into the soft pillows, slipping under the sheets, and having a pity party that ended in tear-covered pillows.

  I heard nothing.

  Whether that was from the wine or their abilities, I would never know.

  All I knew was that one moment I was fast asleep, the next someone was on top of me, a hand over my mouth as I opened it to scream. The weight of his body held my pelvis in place and I was momentarily too stunned to do anything with my hands.

  “Hurry the fuck up. V is waiting,” another voice said and my foggy eyes searched around in the dark, not able to find the source of the other voice and feeling the panic well up strong. A rolling in my belly. A heartbeat that felt like it was lodged in the back of my throat. A chill that sent goosebumps all over my body.

  The guy on top of me reached behind him into his pocket.

  Then I saw a needle.

  And I remembered I had arms. And while they may have felt weak and heavy from wine and sleep, I reached out, raking them across his face, pressing as hard against his eyes as my squeamish stomach would allow.

  “Fucking bitch,” he howled, leaning forward and stabbing the needle into the side of my neck.

  Things went slow and fuzzy for a second, but the last thing I got to see before I passed out was the claw marks I had scratched across his face.

  I woke up slowly. And the first thing that hit me was the cold. It was the kind of cold that settled into your bones, that made you feel like you would never be warm again. The second thing to hit me was the pain in my wrists. The third, the pounding in my head. The fourth, I was in a bed. A bed that wasn't my own. The fifth, the smell. Urine. It smelled like urine.

  Then I remembered. My apartment. The wine. Hitting my shin. Crying myself to sleep. Men in my room. The pressure of his weight on my hips. His hand on my mouth. His skin under my fingers. The stab in my neck.

  I flew upward, my shoulders screaming as I nearly yanked them out of their sockets before I realized they were bound to the headboard. I yelped, settling back down, twisting my head around to see the ropes holding me in place on a bed that smelled musty and old. The rope was tight, pulling at the delicate skin on my wrists. I rolled onto my side, pushing my wrists together, and looking around.

  I didn't have much (okay, any) experience with basements myself. Not real basements. The ones that weren't finished and made into dens or exercise rooms. But I'd seen movies. Mostly horror movies. The girls always ended up in the basement. With the thick cinderblock walls and the barred windows that were too high and too small to crawl out of anyway. It was always in the basements that they were brutalized in new and inventive ways. Because no one would hear their screams.

  I was in a basement.

  But I saved my breath.

  Because I knew I wouldn't be heard.

  I needed to focus.

  I needed to fight through my hangover and get my wits about me.

  There was nothing around except the bed and a staircase leading up. I could see that because the sun was shining through the barred windows. So it was morning, at least.

  I needed to get my wrists free. I needed to get my wrists free and take a chance at the door. If I was tied up, maybe there wasn't someone standing guard. I could try it. It was my only shot.

  I worked on the knots for hours, only accomplishing burns and making the ropes pull tighter.

  I fell back on the bed with a cry of desperation.

  Because when a woman is taken, there is only one reason.

  Ever.

  There is only one reason men take women.

  And I had seen the news reports. I had watched the documentaries.

  Human trafficking.

  The skin trade.

  I was going to be sold off and raped every day for the rest of my life. Or until I wasn't pretty anymore. And American women made for a pretty penny overseas. I would be popular. If I was too resistant, they would hook me on drugs so I was compliant.

  I needed to escape.

  And I tried. Hour upon hour. Day upon day. No one came. Not to let me go to the bathroom. Not to let me eat. Not to give one second of a break from the agony of not knowing.

  Three days.

  Three fucking days until I heard the door open. Until I heard footsteps on the stairs.

  Three days and my captors had the sick, twisted opportunity to also be my saviors.

  “Piss yourself yet?” a man asked, walking up. In another world, in another situation, he might have been attractive. Tall, muscular, a thin well proportioned face with bright blue eyes. But in my world. In my basement with my blood covering the pillow behind me, with my bladder so painful I was sure I had gotten a UTI, and my belly so hungry I felt sick, he was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.

  “Come on,” he said when I didn't answer. He stalked over to the bed, untying my hands. “Get up.” But I couldn't. I couldn't trust my legs. “Suit yourself,” he shrugged, reaching for the ropes and dragging me off the bed. A cry escaped my lips as the rope bit into my torn wrists. And I knew immediately that it was a mistake because he looked over his shoulder, smiling wickedly, then tugging me harder. Across the floor. Toward the stairs.

  I scrambled up onto my knees, crawling up the steps so I wouldn't be dragged. As soon as we were up the landing, though, I was being pulled again. And we weren't alone. Wherever I was, there were people everywhere. A lot of men. Standing around. Lounging around. Some with women on their laps, some with guns on their hips. Most of them looked over, their eyes blank, like girls getting dragged down the hall by ropes on their wrists was an everyday occurrence.

  I got the painful, gut-wrenching realization that it probably was.

  I was at the hands of real monsters.

  It also didn't escape my notice that wherever I was being held was not some compound or warehouse. It was a home. An actual home. A huge, lavish one, but a home nonetheless.

  We rounded a bend and I scrambled up to my knees to climb up the main staircase. Huge. It felt like I climbed forever. At the landing, I was yet again pulled. Down a long hall. All the way to the end. There were two doors, one to each side. I was thrown into the one on the left.

  “Five minutes,” the man snarled, shutting me into a, yes... thank god, a bathroom.

  Horrified with a time restriction, I counted in my head as I took care of myself. As I washed haphazardly in the sink. As I tried to clean out the cuts on my wrists.

  “Time's up, princess,” I was told, my ropes grabbed again. And I was pulled into the hall and pushed into the room to the right.

  A bedroom.

  Wrought iron head and foot boards, white dressers, a mirror on the wall from the foot of the bed.

  A mirror. Glass. I could use that.

  Until I couldn't.

  Because I was tied to the bed.

  “Fucking shame to waste this opportunity,” he said, shaking his head as he straddled my waist to tie me up. His hips shifted onto me and I could feel his hard-on through his jeans, pressing up against the juncture of my thighs. My hips jerked away from the sensation and he laughed. “Yeah, you want it too? Don't you slut? Don't worry. I'll have you,” he said, running his tongue across my neck. “I'll have you in every hole. I'll fuck you until you get hoarse from screaming. And then I'll fuck you some more,” he said, grinding his dick into my pelvis. “Just not yet,” he said, jumping off of me and ambling over to the door, shutting it and I heard a lock from the outside.

  I tugged frantically but, ultimately, uselessly at the ropes. Then I turned my head into the pillow and screamed.

  **

  “They didn't come to take me out of the room for
two more days,” I told Reign, looking away from him, over his shoulder, out the window into the backyard. Because, despite my mind screaming at me that it was stupid to, I felt embarrassed.

  “What happened after that? You met V?”

  I nodded. “Deke and Martin came for me two days later, dragged me out of bed. Gave me my five minutes. Then we went down to the basement. The bed was gone. There was just a chair and I wasn't even tied to it. Then V came down the stairs. In a suit. He had a gray suit on and a newspaper under his arm. He told me he was going to video call my father, let him see that I was alive and well and then he told me to try to convince my dad to agree to his deal.”

  “What deal?”

  Shit.

  I didn't want to share that part. It was risky. For everyone involved.

  “Summer,” Reign said, and my eyes snapped to him. “You need to be honest with me.”

  Right.

  Okay.

  “My dad is an importer,” I supplied, shrugging.

  “An importer?”

  “Yes. As in... shipping containers.”

  There was a pause, Reign looking at me with drawn-in brows. Then, not more than a few seconds later, the recognition hit. “Shipping containers?” he asked and I nodded. “For the girls? V wanted to import girls in your dad's containers.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then?” Reign prompted, looking at me.

  “And then I saw my dad on the video and... I don't know. I don't know what got into me. I freaked. I begged him not to take the deal. No matter what they did to me. I told him not to do it. Because those girls would suffer worse. I wasn't worth hundreds of them. I begged him, Reign,” I said, my voice thick with the memory.

  Reign nodded, his hand reaching out to stroke my hair. “I'm guessing that didn't go over well.”

  “I'd never been hit before,” I admitted. “Not once. Ever. Not even kids on a playground. No boyfriend raised a hand to me...”

  “Fuckin' better not have.”

  “So I just... I had no idea what I got myself into. And V was... pissed.”

  Reign's naturally hard face softened. “Talk to me,” he urged. “Shit can't stay bottled up. Tell me. I can take it.”

  And then I did, my words half-running together, tumbling over each other for a chance to leak out of my system. I had never been a gusher, but I was gushing. Bursting at the seams to tell someone my story. To tell someone how it felt to have a fist collide with my jaw, eye socket, nose. How boots to the belly, to the ribs, felt. What it was like to have handfuls of my hair torn from my scalp. To be left on a cold basement floor afterward, bleeding everywhere, too sore to more, too stunned to cry. How it felt to be dragged back up a few hours later by one of my attackers who seemed to take a sick pleasure in jostling me every which way, getting off on my gasps and yelps. So much so that I bit hard enough into my lip to break it open, trying to keep the noises inside.

  “Babe...” Reign's voice said, quietly. So quietly. His hand reached out, brushing over my cheek and it was then I realized I was crying. Not just crying, purging it all. For the first time. Before I could even react, Reign's arms went out, wrapping around my back, pulling me to his chest and holding me there.

  Holding me.

  Big, bad, scary biker dude with the guns and illicitly obtained money... was holding me.

  And I was sinking into it. Into him.

  My arms went around his back, holding on. My face was buried against his chest, warm, naked, smelling like soap and just... man. I took a shaky breath.

  “Fuckers gotta pay.”

  Surprised, I jerked in his arms, but he just squeezed me tighter.

  “What?”

  “Those bastards who hit and kicked and taunted you... the fucker who ordered it and watched it... they gotta pay.”

  “It's over,” I said, in the strange position of feeling like I needed to comfort him.

  “It will never be over. That's the problem. You'll live with this on your soul for the rest of your life. Wakin' up screaming 'cause you feel guilty. This will be a part of you now. And they need to fucking pay for that.”

  “Reign...”

  His body tightened, his arms releasing me enough to look down at me. “They're gonna pay, babe. You ain't gotta know nothing about it. But they're gonna pay.”

  “I can't ask you to...”

  “You're not asking me. Still doing it.”

  “He's dangerous.”

  “I'm fucking dangerous,” Reign said, a fierceness overtaking his features and I didn't doubt that was true.

  There was no reasoning with him.

  “You can't put your people in danger because of me.”

  “I ain't putting any of my men in danger. This is between me and V.”

  “Reign...”

  “Like when you say my name, babe,” he said, surprising me enough to shut my mouth. “Like it a whole lot which is why you're gonna step out of my arms and go plant your ass on my bed. And I'm gonna plant my ass on the couch.”

  “What?” I asked, feeling his fingers trace across my back in small shapes. And it felt good. Oh, my god did it feel good. Good enough that I almost asked why he wasn't going to bed with me. Almost.

  “Gonna take ya if you don't get away from me. Don't want to fuck up your head any more than it already is. So I'm gonna let you go and you're gonna go in the bedroom and I'm gonna stay out here.”

  Wait. What?

  He was going to take me?

  As in... to bed? As in... sleep with me? Because I wasn't entirely opposed to that idea. To feel a touch on my skin that didn't want to hurt me. To feel pleasure at a man's hands instead of pain. I wanted that.

  But also... fuck up my head any more than it already is?

  My head was not fucked up.

  In fact, I was pretty damn proud of how well I was holding myself together.

  His arms slipped off of me, then reached to grab my arms, pulling them from around his back and dropping them. “Go,” he said, nodding his chin toward the bedroom. When I didn't immediately step away, his brow quirked up. “Fucking go, Summer.”

  So I went.

  The whole way to the bedroom, my belly flip-flopping at the sound of my name on his lips. I closed the door, throwing myself down on the bed, putting a hand to my racing heart, trying to sort through things.

  Reign wanted to go to some sort of underground criminal war with V.

  He wouldn't listen to reason about it.

  And I had spilled my guts to him. And then I cried.

  I fucking... cried.

  I never cried in front of a man before. Not in my life. Never. Not once. And I cried in front of him. And then he wiped the tears and he...

  Held. Me.

  Then, of course, there was that other little matter.

  Reign wanted to have sex with me.

  And I was pretty sure I wanted to have sex with him too.

  Fuck.

  Ten

  Reign

  “You're fucking joking,” Cash said, the beer he had been bringing to his lips dropping down by his side.

  We were at the compound. Something I wasn't too happy about. But also something I couldn't get out of. Cash had been right, the guys would freak if I wasn't in church on a Friday night.

  So I was at the compound.

  The building itself was a low, windowless structure that had been a mechanic shop before the recession took it down. It was surrounded by tall, barbed wire fences all around. I bought it dirt cheap and used it to our best advantage, building off the back and creating rooms for as many of the men as possible off the back. The front had a garage door that lifted to reveal my baby. A hummer with military-grade weapons on the top. Someone wanted to fuck with us, they met my baby. So far, we'd only had to use her once. And we didn't even get a chance to use her. Once they saw her, they went scrambling with their tails between their legs.

  The compound had a flat roof which wa
s manned at all times. I didn't fuck around about security. We weren't exactly involved in legal activities and there was always some shit group trying to fuck with us, take what's ours. Steal our guns and try to run them themselves. Suffice it to say, I am not a fan of being stolen from. So I was always on the offense, but with a strong as fuck defense if I needed it.

  The waiting room and office that used to exist was ripped out and replaced with a bar, seating, and room for a pool table. A massive sound system and flatscreen was across from the seating area and metal was blasting loud as fuck from the speakers.

  The meeting was long over and the probates were called in. Things were in full swing. All the men were around, a sea of jeans, tees, and black leather cuts.

  The Henchmen cuts.

  My cuts.

  Before me, my father's cuts.

  “You're taking this over,” he told me when I was sixteen. “All this will be yours. The men will count on you. And you will reign. And Cash will be right there with you.”

  The old man had a lot of ideas.

  Not least of which was naming his sons.

  Reign and Cash.

  Power and money.

  The only things in life that were important.

  If our mother had squeezed another of us out before she died, he probably would have been named some shit like Loyalty or Comrad.

  Power. Money. Brotherhood.

  “You fuck her?” Cash asked, bringing me out of my memories.

  “No.”

  But Cash had a good eye. And he was the only person who really knew me. “Bull fucking shit.”

  “Kissed her. That's it.”

  That's it wasn't exactly the right way to put that.

  Because kissing her had felt like being in the sun. Like feeling the warm rays on your skin after being underground for your entire life.

  Lame, but that's what it was fucking like.