Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2)

by Jessica Gadziala

  But then my ankles were released.

  I still couldn't kick out because suddenly, his big body had curled over mine, trapping my lower body with his weight and grabbing my hands and yanking them down from the window, pinning them above my head on the door, crushed there by his weight.

  I tried twisting, bringing my knees up, bucking my weight upward.

  It was all completely and utterly useless. He was too big, too strong, too unmoveable.

  I collapsed back on a sob, turning my face to the side, not wanting to have a complete and utter breakdown right in his face, but doing so meant that my face buried into one of his massive arms, tears streaming down his forearm.

  "The fuck you doing, getting some action without us?" the driver asked, making me swallow back another sob, jerking back and looking up into his face, seeing nothing but a soul-deep kind of hatred there. But not for me, for the driver.

  "I'm trying to keep your bitch ass out of fucking jail is what I'm doing. I don't care how much my brother pays for a lawyer, no fucking way you'd get off on a second kidnapping and attempted rape charge, you fucking moron."

  "Your brother."

  The words came out when I had only meant to think them, making his gaze fly back to my face, looking a bit more guarded.

  His brother was Dom, Bry's boss.

  His brother was the one who was ordering people to beat, rob, possibly rape, and kidnap me.

  His brother.

  Any hope I had of him maybe having a heart, a conscience, a soft spot, of being a possibly reasonable person who I could convince to let me go disappeared.

  I felt all the tears dry up in a second.

  The rapid heartbeat, pressure in my chest, swirling thoughts, they all seemed to stop completely, leaving nothing but a bone-deep understanding of my fate.

  And crying wasn't going to help.

  Begging wasn't going to help.

  I needed to relax. I needed to think. I needed to pay attention for any small possible opportunity for escape.

  "You calm?" Albert asked, brows drawn together like he couldn't quite understand how I went from attack mode to hysterical mess to calm and collected so quickly. I nodded tightly at him, not quite trusting my voice to not give away every bit of defiance in me.

  I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

  I wasn't going to lay there and take whatever they gave to me.

  But I was going to be smart.

  I was going to bide my time and I was going to think of something and I was going to get myself the hell out of this ridiculous situation.

  And right that moment, years, a lifetime, generations of DNA coding seemed to get reversed. Because my instinct wasn't to simply panic and flee. My instinct wasn't necessarily flight.

  It was fight.

  I was going to fight.

  "Don't make me hold you down again," he added as he pushed back, releasing my wrists.

  I pulled my arms down from above my head, wincing at the sting, seeing bands of purple already forming from his hands.

  Seeing me looking down at them, he exhaled hard, drawing my attention. He didn't say the words. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to, but he didn't because he couldn't because it would make him look bad. But his finger moved down and touched one of the bruise bracelets forming and gave me a look that said it for me.

  Sorry.

  But sorry wasn't good enough.

  Sorry was weak and sad and empty when it didn't have an action behind it.

  So as I slowly sat back up, I pointedly looked away, and I didn't give him acceptance.

  It went against my normal nature and I almost felt bad about it. But the fact of the matter was, I couldn't be creating some kind of emotional bond with my kidnapper because I intended to do whatever the hell I needed to do to get away. If that meant crawling over his dead body to do it.

  I had spent way too much of my life hiding away, being scared, not experiencing things. And I had finally, finally started getting a life outside of that.

  I wasn't losing that.

  I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

  The car ride seemed to stretch on forever, long enough for a heavy feeling to settle in my stomach, something akin to dread, with nothing but my thoughts and some ear-aching, poorly recorded street corner rap to listen to.

  Sights passed, familiar, but hazy with how long since I had seen them.

  I could feel a cold sweat start all over every inch of skin as we crossed into a place I had only ever been once before and then only because they housed Jersey's biggest aquarium. I had gone with my uncle and we had parked close to the doors and got out of town before it got dark. Paranoid? Maybe. But then again, when a town had the kind of reputation that Camden did for crime, it was wise to not take any chances.

  We drove past an area that was busy, people milling in and out of stores, nothing the least bit threatening in sight. But the further we drove, the less people I saw, the more boarded-up, half-dilapidated buildings we passed. Graffiti with varying levels of artistic talent covered some of the empty buildings, some standing out more than others:

  Stop the hate.

  Raise Camden Up.

  Get rich or try sharing.

  I almost got a strange, warm feeling in my chest. For all of two minutes until I spotted the image of a woman taking up the whole side of a building, naked, cupping her breasts, a laser beam shooting out of her who-ha and that feeling slipped right the heck away.

  We drove down a narrow street- lined on one side by small, squat storefronts, most of which didn't seem to have any windows, and the other side a graffiti-covered retaining wall. I momentarily wondered what it was hiding behind it until we slowed suddenly and turned into an open gate and drove behind said retaining wall.

  And the dominant thought that broke through right then was- a chainlink fence was climbable, a retaining wall wasn't.

  Once the gate closed, I wasn't getting back out.

  Luckily, it didn't seem to be some high-functioning operation because no one was manning the gates and the two men I saw on the grounds were standing in a corner smoking. They didn't even look up when we pulled in.

  My heart went into my throat as the car stopped and the passenger went inside without even looking back. Albert got out of his side and moved around the hood to, I assume, come get me. But the guy in the driver was still there.

  The doors were unlocked.

  And, without even really being conscious of coming up with the idea, I wedged my arm between the door and driver's seat, grabbed the seat pull, and shoved my feet against the back of his seat. He crashed into the steering wheel with a curse as I flew to the other side of the backseat where Albert had been sitting, grabbed the handle, and jumped outside.

  I didn't look to see if I was being followed.

  I didn't let myself think that it was a shitty town and anything could happen to me out there too.

  I just ran.

  I tore through the gates and hit the street, my pulse slamming in my ears, so hard that I didn't hear the footsteps behind me.

  I had no warning before the hands grabbed my waist from behind just as I reached the end of the winding retaining wall- just a breath away from a chance of freedom.

  "Don't fight," a newly familiar voice said a newly familiar phrase. And, well, I wasn't exactly going to do what I was told, was I? I kicked up and tried to break free, clawing at the arms holding me. I sucked in a breath to scream only to have a hand clamp around my mouth. "Sweetheart, stop," he said, not even the slightest bit out of breath as I suddenly felt myself pulled backward.

  But the further he dragged me backward, the more I fought- scratching, clawing, biting, throwing my body weight as far as his tight hold would allow.

  I didn't even stop when I was pulled inside the gates and heard them slam behind me, as I was dragged up toward the building I hadn't even been aware of before- low and windowless, looking just as abandoned as many of the others we had passed on the way in. Bu
t judging by the small group of men standing in the doorway, it just looked empty for appearances sake, likely to keep the cops from snooping around.

  "You stupid fucking cunt," the driver hissed as we got closer, rubbing his chest that had to have been bruised from the collision with the steering wheel. "I can't fucking wait to make you pay for that. Show you what I had planned to do before your little boyfriend saved your ass last time. In fact, me and all the boys here would prolly like a..."

  "Shut the fuck up and get out of my goddamn way," Albert snapped, making a couple of the others chuckle. "You want me to tell Dom you're the reason we're standing out in broad mother fucking daylight with a prisoner when we should be inside and out of sight from prying eyes?"

  At that, the man actually paled and I felt my stomach clench so hard I doubled forward as much as Albert's hold would allow. If that scumbag paled at the mention of Dom's name, he must have been a whole new world of bad.

  And my fate was in his hands.

  Albert moved to push me forward and I couldn't, I just couldn't think of anything else to do but plant my feet. So that was what I did. Albert's arm on my stomach did a little squeeze, almost reassuring, before it tightened and lifted me up off my feet and carried me awkwardly toward the doorway, the men moving out of the way to allow us to pass.

  The inside was as dark as one would think from the outside. It didn't help that the walls were painted a gray so dark that it was almost black. The walls themselves were cinderblock, narrow, leading in a long hallway back that seemed to fork off in three different directions.

  I was vaguely aware of the shuffle of footsteps behind us as Albert took the hall to the right and halfway down moved into the doorway of a room. It was massive. In its former life, it might have been used as some kind of rec center or gym or conference hall. The walls were still cinderblock, dark, and windowless. But the ceiling had long strips of overhead fluorescent lighting that made me wince at the unnaturalness of it. Toward the left side of the room against the wall, as if confirming my suspicions about the space, was a small stage maybe only three feet off the ground.

  On that stage was three chairs.

  In the center chair was Dom.

  There was no mistaking him.

  He and Albert could have been twins.

  Everything about him seemed dark and cruel from his eyes to his all black jeans and tee to the scar down one side of his face. And he was sitting there like he was some freaking king holding court.

  "Well, finally," he said, his voice a little more nasal than his brother's, a trait I found almost amusing even given the situation. "Take the goddamn scenic route?"

  "The cunt got..." the driver started.

  "I was talking to my brother," Dom cut him off. "The stupid cunt did what, Al?" he asked and against Albert's hand, I could feel my lip curl up at that. You could tell a lot about a man with how freely they used the 'c-word'.

  Given the state of little bloody claw marks all up and down his arms and face, he wasn't exactly in a position to lie. "Put up a bit of a fight," Al said, doing the belly-squeeze thing again and everything in me wanted to turn around and hit him as hard as my admittedly much smaller frame would allow. How dare he try to reassure me, call me sweetheart when he was bringing me home like a rat to his owner?

  "I see that," Dom said, looking over his brother before his eyes moved to me. And they did an inspection- over my face, my chest, my stomach, my legs. Every inch of my body felt greasy and I had a strange, almost overwhelming urge to claw my skin off, like there were bugs under it, like they were squirming. "Oh, well," he said, giving me a smile. "How come you guys always leave out the best parts? She's a pretty little hellion, huh? Think she's got a pretty cunt to go with that pretty face?"

  Oh, God.

  I closed my eyes, trying to force myself to take a breath, trying to not get sick, while also simultaneously wishing there was a way to hold my breath until I died without survival instinct kicking in... or maybe choking on my own sick. Anything, literally anything other than living through his and his mens' hands on me.

  "Why don't you bring her a little closer, Al? I need to have a little chat with her. Albert lifted me up again, putting me back down on my feet with my toes actually touching the stage. "I think you can let her go now," Dom said, waving a dismissive hand toward the seat next to him, inviting his brother up. "She can't get anywhere with Ray standing guard, right Ray?" he asked and, despite myself, I turned my head ever so slightly to see the driver. Ray.

  "Right. She's not going anywhere until I get all up in that tight ass of hers."

  "They'll be a time for that later," Dom said, making my belly slosh around ominously. "First things first, we have another guest to wait for."

  There was really only one other person they could mean.

  Bry.

  Oh, God, Bry.

  I swallowed past the bile rising in my throat, knowing exactly what was in our future. Bry would show up and then we would take turns watching the other get tortured in various, God-awful ways.

  And in that moment, faced with my grim future, only one thought really came to mind.

  Ryan.

  Ryan and his perfect eyes, his kind smile, his reassuring words, his hands that could be both gentle and rough in delicious ways. Hands I would probably never get to feel again. Eyes that I would never look into. A smile that I wouldn't feel warmed by. Words I would never hear.

  All that was left for me was pain and fear and ugliness.

  And, despite myself, I wondered if he would even know what happened to me. He was a good man. He would figure out eventually that I was missing and not voluntarily and he would look for me. But would he ever find me? Would there be a body to be found? Would I just be pieces discarded all over?

  With tears yet again stinging at my eyes as I looked down at my feet, I wondered one last crazy thing: would he miss me? It was crazy because it was irrational. Maybe he would miss me in a small way, in a 'we had an interesting time' way. But things were so new. We had only gotten a couple days together. We had only had sex twice. To a man like him, that probably wasn't even a big deal. While to me, it was everything. He was everything.

  I guess it was lucky I got to have him for a bit though. It was less pathetic of a life story. Girl who grew up dragged around like luggage, easily dropped off when she wasn't needed or wanted, then built a decent life only to lose it all because of a mental illness and then be raped and brutally killed by drug dealers.

  At least there was a tiny little romance in there to cheer it up a bit.

  Before the tragic end.

  "So, you're the one who has been keeping an eye on my drugs for me for the past couple of years, huh? Ever dig into the stash?" he asked, making my head whip up.

  I didn't know what came over me, but I couldn't keep the words in. "I'm not some lowlife drug addict."

  "Oh, she speaks," Dom said, smiling wickedly. "Got that sweet kinda voice too. I like that. They scream better. Right, Al?" he asked, slapping a hand into his brother's arm.

  "Wouldn't know," Al answered, looking at me.

  "Yeah, this fuck. Such a goddamn choir boy."

  "I'm pretty sure not raping women doesn't make him a choir boy. Just a decent human being."

  Yeah, I couldn't keep that in either.

  I apparently got a bit mouthy when I was about to be tortured and killed.

  At least I wouldn't go out like a meek little mouse. I had spent enough of my life like that- scared of things that never happened, scared of stupid, invisible monsters. Faced with real-life ones, I wasn't going to cower and cry and let the fear win out.

  "Oh, spitfire. Like that too. I see you like to put up a fight," he said, motioning toward his brother who, now that I got a good look at him, did look like he'd been through the wringer. He had nasty, still bleeding cuts from my nails up and down his forearms and two more down his cheek. There was a semi-circle bruise on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger where I had bit him momenta
ry, but with every bit of force my jaw had.

  I had no real response to Dom's comment so I kept my mouth shut, focusing on trying to remember to breathe and keep swallowing back the bile I felt creeping up my throat with each passing second.

  There was a bit of a shuffle to the outside of the room and I felt myself tense as it moved closer. "Boss," someone called from outside the door. "He's here."

  No.

  No no no.

  Why the hell would he come?

  He had to have known it was a trap, that he couldn't save me.

  I knew he loved me, but what good would it do to come and simply watch bad things happen to me? And then get hurt and likely killed himself?

  "Send him in," Dom said and I could feel his eyes on my profile as I turned to face the door.

  There was more shuffling then, like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from, in walked Bry.

  His gaze didn't even drift around the room.

  His eyes found my face and stayed there as he approached, reaching down to grab my hand and holding it so tight that I was genuinely worried about the bones possibly breaking.

  "That's real sweet," Dom said, giving us a nasty sneer. "Ain't that sweet, Ray?" he asked.

  "Be even sweeter for him to watch me fuck his woman until she screams."

  There was a sound coming from Bry that I had never heard before. It came from deep in his chest and was a sort of rumbling, something akin to a growl. When he brought his buddy to my place, sometimes he could be a bit cooler and detached. Normally when he was around me, he was good and sweet and observant and funny. I had never really seen him truly angry.

  But make no mistake, at that comment, he was pissed. His entire body felt like it was vibrating with it.

  So when he spoke, he didn't mind his tone or the words he said either. "What the fuck do you want from us, Dom? You got your pills back. Don't think I don't know it was that fuck," he said, gesturing toward Ray, "and one of your other lackeys who did it either."

  "Smart," Dom said, nodding. "Got word that your practices were't the ones we agreed on. What I want with you," he said, lifting a brow, "is to make an example so everyone else knows not to fuck with the rules."