Lies and Illusions

by Avelyn Paige

  “Let’s get you up, big guy,” I mutter to him, slipping an arm under his un-injured shoulder, and helping him to his feet. His jaw clenches from the pain as he groans. I carry most of his weight, as we limp around to the other side of the car. I pop open the door, and help him slide in.

  “Fuck,” Ratchet growls, as he uses his injured leg to slide into the low car seat. “Should have driven the truck.”

  “You didn’t exactly know you were going to be shot.”

  He throws me a serious side eye, as I close the door and run around the front of the car. I climb into the driver’s seat, and get the fuck out of dodge, before the cops show up. Ratchet’s head dips back against the seat rest, and my eyes snap to him.

  “Stay awake, fucker,” I order him. “Do not go to sleep.”

  “Ain’t tired, shithead,” he grumbles.

  I throw a look over my shoulder at the oncoming traffic, before peeling out of the parking spot into traffic. A few cars honk their horns at me, but I don’t care. Ratchet’s bleeding all over the interior of the car is more important, than their road rage sensibilities. Some people just don’t know what a real emergency looks like.

  I hit the gas, jerking the car forward, and begin to change lanes like a mad man. The exit for the freeway north comes up far more quickly than I anticipated two lanes over, and I perform the standard merge with cutting off people not caring if it pisses them off. Some blue pick-up brakes in front of me, and I jerk the wheel narrowly missing his tailgate.

  Ratchet glares at me.

  “Fucker, this is Ricca’s car.”

  “Do you think she’ll care if it’s a little dinged up versus you bleeding out? Pretty sure she’d side with me,” I fire back at him, cutting off another line of cars and bolting onto the freeway.

  “I’m not dying.”

  “How do you know?” I declare, looking at blood covering his entire right leg.

  “I just know. Besides, you’re the fucking doctor,” he teases back.

  “Shut up, asshole. It’s all I could think of to get the bitch out of the picture.”

  He manages a laugh, but it quickly turns into a grunt of pain, as I hit a pothole. He shoots another look my way about the car, and I just smile back.

  I make good time, and pull into the parking lot of the clubhouse with a cloud of dust behind me. I drift to stop by the backdoor. I’m out of the car in a flash, ripping open Ratchet’s door, when the heavy hand of one of my brothers comes behind me.

  “I got him,” Thor insists, shoving me out of the way and thrusting his hands inside of the car. In a nearly flawless move, Ratchet is out and on his way into the clubhouse with Thor’s help and me hot on their heels. Doc waits on the other side of the door.

  “I’ll take it from here,” he urges, pointing Thor and Ratchet toward the living quarters of the clubhouse, where he has likely set-up up his gear. Ginny comes running from the direction of her room, and screams when she sees him.

  “Jude!” her small voice wails. “Oh my god.”

  “I’m alright, Ginny. Just a little banged up,” he says, trying to ease her fear.

  “You’ve been shot. You aren’t alright at all.”

  Ginny clings to his side, and I watch as they disappear. His ass better live through this. I already owed him enough as it is.

  I exhale the first real breath I had taken since I walked into that restaurant, and turn to find a fuming Raze standing behind me.

  “Prez, I−,” I stammer out, before he cuts me off.

  “Save it, until after we get Presley back. Church. Now.”

  I follow behind him, my head hung low from shame. This could have all been fucking avoided, if I hadn’t insisted on such a dramatic meeting place to tell Presley. She could have been here and safe, instead of with them. The thought of what she could be going through kills me inside. I know what men like that do to women who don’t cooperate. If she left with her life still intact, it would be a miracle. I just had to hope that the same fighting spirit to survive that ran in her brother’s veins was in hers too. Her death would mark the end of mine. I couldn’t live with that kind of guilt.

  The meeting room is full to the brim of my brothers. Each pair of eyes is on me as I enter. They know. They all know why this happened. It’s my fault. The blame for this rests solely on my shoulders.

  Raze stands in front of my brothers and addresses us all, but his eyes never leave mine.

  “Most of you know what’s going on, but I want to go over what we know. Presley was taken from outside a restaurant downtown. Ratchet was shot in the process of the snatch and grab. While I don’t have confirmation it was The Zezza’s, we all know that the possibility of this being someone else is slim to fucking none.”

  The crowd murmurs, throwing more glares at me. I stand strong. I have to be strong for her, even if it means that I’m fucking crumbling inside like an old broken building collapsing under the weight of its own bad decisions.

  “Effective immediately, I want all the club girls out. Take them anywhere, but here. That includes Mikayla,” Raze adds shifting his stare over to Thor, as he enters the room.

  “Already ahead of you, Prez,” he agrees.

  “The calls have been made. Oakland, Long Beach, and Orange County are already on the road.”

  The reinforcements coming are only a drop in the bucket to the numbers The Zezza’s have in their disposal. For the first time in our history, we were staring down the barrel of our enemies, out-gunned and out-manned. This fight would be an uphill battle, and every death would stain my soul with a dark smudge. The guilt of knowing that begins to eat away at me one big bite at a time.

  “What do we do in the meantime, Prez?” Tyson asks.

  “We try to find out where they are holding her, and then we wait. They made Ratchet as a threat, and his cut will lead them right here. They’ll make contact.”

  I led them to us like a butcher to the lamb for slaughter.

  And wait, we did. Two days pass without a word from them. While my brothers scoured the news, and our network of sources, I chained myself to my desk. Not eating. Not sleeping. Just working to find her. I had to find her. Nearly fifty hours straight of nothing but my computers, that were failing me for the first time. The glare from the lights on the screens begins to kill my eyes. I try to wipe away the pain and drown it with another Five Hour Energy shot, but it’s no use. My eyes blur, and I know that I’m pushing my body to the limit. I resolve to step away for just an hour, while my programs continue scanning for news through the dark web. It’s only a temporary break, and not me giving up, I convince myself. I wouldn’t do that, until my heart ceases to beat in my chest. My last breath would be lost still trying to find her, if it came down to it.

  I find my feet leading me to the room, where Ratchet lay recovering. The door is cracked, and I peer inside to see Ginny by his bedside. Her hand is tightly wrapped in his, as she sleeps with her head on his bed. I start to walk way, but Ratchet’s eyes lock onto mine. Caught. He nods his head, calling me inside.

  My steps are quiet as I enter the room, and I park my ass in the chair on the other side of his bed that Ginny’s not occupying.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask. Ratchet looks to his bandaged up shoulder and leg, then back up to me.

  “Like I was shot twice, genius,” he snidely comments. “I’m okay. Doc says I’ll be good in a few weeks. He was a shit shot. Missed every single artery.”

  I exhale a sigh of relief. Ratchet and I both knew he was lucky. Men like that are trained like professional hitmen. He should have been dead, but the commotion and exposure must have affected the shot. Under normal circumstances, I would be burying Ratchet, instead of talking to him right.

  “Any news about Presley?’ he asks with a low voice. He looks at Ginny, watching if she stirs at the mention of Presley, but she snores quietly at his side.

  “None. No chatter,” I sigh.

  My heart thuds like lead, as my mind thinks over what they could
be doing to her right now. She could even be dead, and everything we are doing to get her back would be for nothing. My body trembles, as the picture of her lying beaten, abused, and dead flashes in my mind. Her dead eyes looking right through me while her cold, blue lips whisper to me.

  This is your fault. You did this to me.

  “We’ll get her back,” he reassures me.

  “I wish I had your hope, Ratchet. Two days is a long time for them to not contact us,” I admit, under duress the thought that I had tried to shove out of mind after the first day.

  He shifts in the bed, taking care to not disturb Ginny, and allowing a groan of discomfort slip through.

  “Do you know how I know we’ll get her back?”

  “I’d sure love to know where you get your crystal ball answers.”

  “Because of her,” he nods his head back towards Ginny. I cock an eyebrow, confused.

  “If it were Ginny, I would be doing the exact same thing you are doing right now. Even if you don’t want to admit it, we’re realists, you and I. We see things for what they are.”

  He’s not wrong. I didn’t fill myself with false hopes like others might to get them through this. On paper, we were looking for a body not a person, but my heart told me otherwise. She was still out there. I know I would have felt her life being taken away, as crazy as it sounds. She was still out there waiting for us to find her. I know that now.

  “Presley is a pawn in their game. The Zezza’s want Ginny. They’ll use her to get to Ginny, and when they do, we’ll be ready.”

  Ready to fight. Ready to die. All for Presley and Ginny. It was like being on the final level of a game, waiting for the big boss to strike. It was coming, and I would be ready.

  Gio’s interrogation lasts for a few hours. He yells, screams, and threatens everyone I love, dangling them in front of me. But I don’t give in. My resolve to protect Ginny to the end stays strong. Even as his fist connects with my face then my stomach, I keep my resolve. Not getting what he wants, Gio leaves my room, leaving me in a painful silence of the tears that I hid from him. Tears would have meant he won, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Not one wet drop of emotional exhaustion and fear would fall for him.

  I will not give in. There’s too much at stake if I do.

  My mind shuts off the horrors happening on the outside, and I focus on happier times.

  I think of Ginny first. She is the spark that keeps me going. My life would be lost for hers. That much I knew. Despite how hard my brother would fight for me, I was willing to lose it for her. Ginny has so much life left to live, and she deserves to have a chance at it. Her childhood may have put her into this precarious and life-threatening series of events, but I could change that. Her life was so much more important than mine. I imagine her future. Her being so happy and peaceful. She will find love, and start a family. I cling to those imaginative dreams, until they too fade away.

  Voodoo soon follows. No matter how hard I want to push him away, his face slips back into my mind. His smile beaming down on me in a loving embrace settles my nerves, as I focus on his face, and not Gio’s. I should be furious at him, but as I feel my life slipping away by the minute, I find that I can’t. Like Ginny, he is a beacon of hope in such a hopeless situation. I know he’s out there looking for me with everything that he has. Just like my brother and the club. Yet Voodoo’s devotion to saving me would be much stronger than a familial bond. His drive was powered by love, and that trumps all. I just hope that if I somehow survive this that I get the chance to tell him that I forgive him.

  The foreign man who tied me up returns a short time later with a glass of water and a plate of food that resembles dog food. He shoves it on the floor in front of me, and shuts the door behind him. I peer down at the meal in front of me, and though my stomach retches at the thought of consuming, I can’t ignore the hunger pains. The only problem is that I’m still tied to this fucking chair.

  Ideas float in my mind like clouds in the sky, but there’s only one solution to this problem. Planting my feet firmly to the ground, I lift the chair and lean forward, letting my weight take me off balance. My body hits the cement floor with a thud, and pain floods my left side. It wasn’t the best idea, but it was all I had. I scoot to the best of my ability, until the glass of water and plate are directly in front of my face. I nudge the glass until it topples over, spilling the content in front of me. My tongue slips from my mouth as I lick the water like dog from the dirty floor. The wetness coats my throat, relieving the pain from days of thirst. I lick as much as I can, before turning to the food. The smell is enough to take away any chances of eating it. The glistening slime atop the brown lump of mush disgusts me. Even the thought of it makes my stomach turn the longer I look at it. The growls radiating from my stomach scream to eat it and take away the hunger pains, but I can’t. It will only come back up. It’s better to starve, than to taste the foulness presented in front of me.

  I slide and scoot myself away from it, until the legs of the chair hit the edge of the bed. I lay like that for hours, slipping in and out of sleep, until the door clangs open with a bang against the wall.

  “Well now,” Gio’s voice calls out. “Someone was thirsty.”

  His brown loafers step around the plate and toppled glass, stopping in front of me. I crane my neck up to look at him, as he smiles down at me.

  “You weren’t hungry, Presley?” he teases, before turning to the plate and then back to me. “And Alpo spent such a long time preparing that cuisine for you. You’re disrespecting my hospitality.”

  Dog food. The fucker was trying to serve me dog food. I’m so glad that I didn’t eat it now.

  “What do you want, Gio? I’m not going to tell you anything. I thought you’d have realized that by now. Starve me, beat me, or do what you want. It won’t change anything.”

  His hands grip the back of the chair and toss me upright like I was a weightless being. He was strong, but I had already figured that out by the velocity of the jabs he delivered to my stomach. He took no pity on me as woman. Gio is a heartless, soul-sucking monster, and is currently shoving his nose right in my face.

  “Such strength you have, my dear. It’s almost endearing. But the clear fact remains that you’re nothing to me. I have all the information I could ever want sitting back in my office. Bios on your family, your friends, your nieces and nephews who you think are safely tucked away in Arizona. We know everything about you.”

  “If you have everything you need on me, then why are you torturing me?”

  “For pleasure, of course,” he declares, smiling like one of V’s movie villains. He means what he says. If I had balls, he’d be holding them right now. But why if he has that information has he not charged the compound and taken what he wants? The realization hits me. He doesn’t know that Ginny is there. The only thing he knows is that I was there. That’s the piece he doesn’t have one hundred percent certainty on. He’s trying to appeal to my feminine weakness to try to get me to slip up. That will not be happening.

  Gio rotates quickly, heading back to the door. He abruptly stops.

  “On second thought. You might rather enjoy what I’m about to do. Ricliss!” he calls out. “Bring her along.”

  The hulking form of one of the guards bursts though the door. He pulls a small silver knife from his pocket, popping it right in front of my face. I flinch in terror. I can defend myself against mental attacks, but physical ones are a different story.

  Ricliss grins, as he uses the blade to cut the ropes binding feet, leaving the binds wrapped around my hands. Using the rope as a leash, he jerks me upright, and my legs falter underneath me. They tingle and burn, as feeling and blood return to my lower limbs. Ricliss doesn’t wait for me to get my bearings. His strength is over-powering. He practically drags me from the room and into the hallway, like a dog who refuses to walk.

  Plain gray colored walls line the corridor. I try to memorize each twist and turn that we take, but I lose count. We pass a
series of doors just like the one I came out of. Gio and his family have built a fortress with enough cells to hold more than twenty people just in this hallway alone. These were sick men who killed for pleasure and territories. Why it surprises me to find this kind of place in their possession is lost on me. Sick men often have twisted realities. These men were no different. Ricliss and Gio chatter like two teens at the mall as they walk. The language is still foreign to me. I should have paid more attention, during my language studies in school.

  Ricliss shoves me forward into an open doorway. I crash to the floor in a heap. My eyes peer up from the ground to find dozens of men staring back, including the old man who was in my cell the day I woke up. His face is unchanging, as Ricliss picks me up again, jerking me into a chair. He pulls a small roll of duct tape from his pocket. The knife he used to cut me free returns, he uses it to unbind my hands. I rub my wrists, trying to get the blood back into them, but he uses the duct tape to bind them to chair.

  “Stay there, and shut up,” Gio whispers into my ear. “If you don’t, I’ll gut you.”

  His threat hits home, and I comply.

  “Gentlemen, shall we?” the older man asks at the head of the table. Gio moves beside him, and presses a button on the table. The sound of a dial tone fills the room with the dialing of a phone number after it. It rings and rings, until a voice finally answers.

  “Hello,” the voice on the other side of the line answers.

  It’s Michael. This is what my purpose was for them.

  “Good afternoon, Michael,” Gio nearly sings. “You’re a hard man to find my friend.”

  “I take it this is Gio Zezza,” Mikey calmly growls.

  The men in the room look around, grinning at each other like they’ve won an award. Gio leans down closer to the speaker.

  “So, you know who I am, and I presume then that you know what I want. Yes?”

  “Yes,” he hisses. “You want the girl.”