by Zoey Parker
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry with fear.
One more step, and I was at the window. I reached out a trembling hand and took hold of the string that would separate the sheer curtain that hung on the indoor side of the glass. The other hand gripped tighter on the iron poker.
The curtains parted inch by inch. Just a little bit more, and the silhouette would be exposed.
It slammed into the window. I stifled a shriek, clapping my hand to my mouth. It felt like my heart was beating in my throat as I let loose the breath I had sucked in.
I was an idiot. A squirrel was perched on the bird feeder, bouncing into the window as it stole seeds. It looked at me with its cheeks full and narrowed its eyes, as if to say, “What are you lookin’ at?”
Just a squirrel. Goddammit. I was too keyed up, too on edge for this. I sighed and stood up straight. I needed to relax. Luke had everything under control.
I set the poker down on the couch cushion. What had I come in here for? Oh right, the papers. I stepped over to the coffee table and scanned the debris scattered across it. Lying in between two empty whiskey bottles was a sheath of papers in a manila folder. It looked like the right stuff.
I grabbed it and tucked it under my arm. Damn, my neck still ached from that car ride. I could feel the knotted muscles as I tried to rub some relaxation into it. I walked down the hall, massaging at my neck and trying to breathe easier.
I needed just to drop off the papers like Luke had asked, then I could get back to my life. I thought about what the future might hold for me. Back to school? I’d thought for years about applying to a nursing program, maybe now was the time to do that. Nurses could work anywhere. It would be good to get away from this town, from this state, from this club. Luke wouldn’t like me being so far away, but I could make him understand. He cared about me, after all. Things would be okay, just as soon as all this drama was over.
I walked down the hallway to the front door and opened it. Something caught my eye as I stepped through and pulled it shut behind me. Something was wrong with the truck.
Why was the windshield shattered? Why did I see splatters of blood against the hood? Why were…
Holy shit. Splinter and Doc were slumped against the front of the car, chins rested against their chests. Both men were sticky with more blood than I had ever seen in my life. Their entire shirts were soaked in the crimson liquid. I saw it continue to ooze from the lacerations gleaming from their stomachs and wrists. It was a brutal hack job. The cuts were ragged and long, like someone had worked furiously to inflict deep and fatal pain.
I hardly had time to process what was happening before a hand clamped down over my mouth and a hood dropped over my head. I tried to scream. The papers were wrenched from my hand, and I felt more people seize my wrists and begin to bind them behind me. The last thing I heard before a chloroform rag was pressed against my mouth was a leering voice with a thick Hispanic accent.
“Shh, princesa,” said the man, stroking my chin with a gloved fingertip. “It will all be over soon.”
Then everything went black.
* * *
I woke up to a gentle tapping on the face.
“Blaze, let me sleep,” I murmured through lips that barely seemed to function. Why were they so thick and numb? “I’m too tired, just a couple more minutes,” I said, dazed. God, that horny bastard had an endless sex drive. I loved it, of course, but I needed to sleep just a little bit longer.
“Your novio isn’t here, mi flor,” came a voice that cut through the haze. A hood was ripped off my face. I tried to use my hands to cover my eyes against the blinding lights that shone directly at me, but I couldn’t move them. I felt rough rope binding my wrists behind my back.
My head was swimming and throbbing. It hurt so badly. A figure moved in front of the lights, blocking them and allowing me to squint through my scrunched eyelids. It took several long seconds for my pupils to adjust, but eventually everything came into focus.
The man in front of me was small and lithe. He had an athletic body, toned with muscle that was obvious even through the folds of his clothing. He wore black from head to toe—a black silk shirt tucked into black jeans, and ebony boots that ended in a vicious tip. Riding on the highest point of his shoe was a grinning metal wolf, ears tucked back and hair rising along its hackles. I saw more wolves stitched along the leather heels. They held dripping, bloody bodies in their teeth, and they all seemed to be laughing hysterically. The black-gloved hands he held folded in front of his belt were adorned with silver rings that each had the same face: a wolf, smiling, with teeth sharpened into fangs.
My gaze rose up to look the man in the face, although the beams of light that still glared around his head were painful to look at.
His smile was stretched as wide as the animals on his shoes. Impeccably white teeth gleamed between thin lips. His skin was dusky but perfectly clear. His eyebrows were exquisitely groomed, along with the black hair that he wore slicked straight black. It caught the light and reflected it. I saw the stud of a silver earring shining from his right earlobe.
“Ah, having some trouble seeing, sí?” he asked. He turned to speak to a man behind him. The voice that rose out of his throat was slick, oily, but oddly high-pitched. “Bring me a chair,” he commanded. I saw a blurry figure scurrying to follow the order. A metal folding chair clanked down behind the man in black.
He sat and crossed his legs like a woman, knee over knee. Everything about him was so clean. Not a speck of dust on his clothes, not a hair out of place.
Every motion was intentional, delicate, poised, like he was a gymnast or a dancer. But simmering on the edge of his movements was a tense, coiled energy that seemed liable to explode at any moment. The man was a ticking time bomb.
Once he sat down, I didn’t have to look straight in the light anymore, so I could see him better. His eyes looked back into mine. The irises were as midnight black as the rest of him, and huge, so that it looked like almost his whole eye was nothing but darkness, like staring into the mouth of a well.
“Mejor, I hope?” he asked me. He seemed genuinely concerned that I was uncomfortable. I tried to talk, but the gag shoved in my mouth made forming words impossible. “Lo siento,” he said. “Let me assist you.”
He leaned forward and reached two hands around the back of my head to unbuckle the gag and tug it gently from between my teeth.
I turned my head to the side and spit. My jaw was aching from the gag. I didn’t know how long I had been tied up, or even where I was. The room around me was lined with pipes that leaked droplets of water everywhere. It seemed like we were somewhere industrial and underground.
“Where am I?” I asked him. My own voice sounded strange in my ears—tinny and hoarse. The edges of my vision continued to look cloudy. I wondered if I had been drugged.
“No te preocupes, mi belleza,” he said through a smile. “Do not worry about where you are.” A droplet of water landed on the man’s pant leg. He frowned and brushed it off.
“Who are you?” I asked him, trying to fight through the haziness that still fogged over my brain.
“That is a better question,” he agreed, nodding his head with enthusiasm. This man was insane. Here I was, more or less hog-tied to a metal folding chair in some godforsaken underground factory , and this man was treating our dialogue like I was interviewing for some job.
He continued. “And the answer is muy simple. I am Lobo.”
My face fell.
This was Lobo. The few stories I’d heard about him, whether I had been eavesdropping on my brother’s meetings in the house or the rare times when he told me anything about club business, were full of hideous violence. Rumor had it that he was known for stringing up his victims on chains that hung from the ceiling and cutting them so that their blood poured down like a shower over him. By all accounts, he was unhinged, unstable, and utterly uncontrollable. Even the cartel council—a group of hardened criminal warlords who had seen the violence of
the drug game throughout their entire lives—tiptoed carefully around matters concerning Lobo.
Lobo’s eyes seemed to widen in glee as he drank in my reaction. I could tell that he loved it as fear stole across my face. I imagined him standing under the corpse of someone who had dared to defy him, reveling in their blood and laughing like a hyena.
“You know me, don’t you, princesa?” he asked. He leaned forward, full of eagerness. “You have heard of me?”
I hesitated before I nodded. This was the man my brother had chosen to do business with—a maniac.
He settled back into his chair. “Good,” he hummed, “that is good. I like to be known.”
I tried to struggle free from my bonds, rocking back and forth in my chair as I did so, but the knots had been cinched too tightly. There was no getting out.
“Tsk, tsk,” he tutted at me. “I am afraid I cannot allow you to do that. There are, how do I call this, matters we must discuss.” He raised one gloved hand and traced a path gently down my face from temple to chin. I shuddered and tried to pull away, but it only made him chuckle.
“You are muy hermosa, señora,” he whispered. “Such a shame what must happen to you.”
What must happen to me? I wanted so badly to scream, but I forced myself to breathe slowly in and out of my nostrils. I couldn’t show weakness in front of Lobo. Everything about him screamed predator, from the dagger-like tip of his nose to the way his foot wove restlessly through the air.
Lobo stood up abruptly and began to pace circles around me. He ran a hand through my hair as he walked behind, letting it slip between his fingertips.
“Señora, I have several preguntas for you,” he began. “Questions that are very important for you to answer.”
I knew better than that. Even though Luke had kept me away from club business my whole life, I was still the sister of an Inked Angel, and that meant I was tough. I wasn’t about to shriek everything I knew just because this sick fuck kidnapped me and tried to scare me into talking.
“I’m not telling you anything,” I said defiantly. I looked up at him as he walked back around in front. He squatted down in front of me with his elbows on his knees, looking up to study my face. I clenched my jaw and stared right back down at him. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me so easily.
“Oh, no. I thought you might say that,” he said. “I had hoped you would be much more cooperative than your brother.”
What was he saying? More cooperative than my brother? What had Lobo done?
He stood and waved a hand at a black sheet that lay draped over a low-hanging pipe. Something was concealed behind the curtain. At Lobo’s gesture, two of his goons ripped the sheet from where it hung. When I saw what lay behind, I almost began to cry.
Luke sat on his knees, hands tied behind his back just like mine. His head was down, but I could see his chest rising and falling. He breathed slow and heavy, like he was in tremendous pain. Even from this distance, I saw why: slices of his skin had been sheared clean off. His ear was dangling by a thread, with a thick shelf of dried blood molded to the side of his face. All down his arms and bare chest, open wounds wept sickly fluids.
“Luke!” I screamed. “Luke!” He raised his head to look at me, although the effort to do so appeared to be incredibly painful. His eyes tried to focus, but I could tell that he was almost completely out of it. He had clearly been through hours of intense torture at the hands of Lobo and his men.
Luke, what have you done? I wanted to scream. He had seemed so confident, so in control. I thought back to the night in the kitchen when I had overheard him laying out his whole plan. Back then, there was not a single ounce of concern in his whole body. All he had seen was success in front of him. He couldn’t possibly have accounted for this.
I saw so many things running through his face: exhaustion, pain, suffering. But most of all, he looked saddled down with the most profound sadness and regret I had ever seen in him. He looked broken. He looked defeated. He looked nothing like the proud brother who had hugged me and told me that nothing could go wrong.
I fought again at my restraints, but it was impossible to free myself. I was trapped here. No one knew where I was, no one could come rescue me.
“What the fuck did you do to him, you monster?” I yelled up to Lobo. He only laughed.
“Mi princesa, your brother thinks I am stupid. Do you think I am stupid, too?” he wondered. “No, I do not think you do. I think you must see now that I am very smart. Muy intelligente, no? Too smart to let a man like your brother betray me.”
Lobo strolled back over to his chair and sat down again. The thirty or so men ringed around the room stood silently, guns in their grasps, staring forward and saying nothing. They were all dressed the same as Lobo—all in black, with shiny leather gloves stretched over their hands.
“I do not like to be lied to, you see. It is not a nice or an honorable thing to do,” Lobo said to me. His eyes were locked on mine like I was his prey. I felt naked and vulnerable.
“And your brother,” he went on, “tried to lie to me.”
“No, he didn’t,” I protested. “Luke would never.”
Lobo leaped forward and grabbed my face harshly. He yanked my face inches away from his. I could feel his breath flowing in and out of his mouth in angry spurts, snorting like an enraged bull. “Yes!” he roared. “He did! He lied to me, and he took me for a fool! Lobo is no fool!”
Lobo threw me aside and stalked over to where Luke sat huddled on the ground. He reached out and snatched a knife from the belt of one of the men who stood guard over my brother. Moving behind Luke, he grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked him to his feet.
Luke stood unsteadily. His legs wavered under him, unable to hold his weight. I could see his eyes rolling. He wanted to fight, but there was just nothing left in him. Instead, a ghastly sputtering came from his throat—the last vestiges of resistance that he could muster.
Lobo touched the point of the knife to where Luke’s forehead met his hairline. “He is a liar!” Lobo barked to me. The transformation from the controlled, immaculate man to this spitfire demon was like night and day. Now, Lobo’s hair was mussed and his hands trembled with unleashed rage. I saw a bead of blood forming under the tip of the knife blade.
Lobo turned his mouth to Luke’s ear and hissed, “Admit you are a liar. Admit it now.”
Luke’s head was wrenched back, cutting off most of his air flow, so that the only thing he could emit was a guttural “Unnhh.” The sound was sickening.
“Admit it!” shrieked Lobo. He shook Luke like a rag doll, surprisingly strong for a man of his size. “Tell it to your precious sister’s face!” Luke could only moan.
With a vicious tug, Lobo pulled the knife across Luke’s forehead. Blood flowed down over my brother’s eyes like a crimson curtain as his scalp began to separate from the skin of his face. Lobo dropped his limp frame, and he collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Disgusted, Lobo threw the knife clattering to the floor. He clucked distastefully and held out his hand to one of his men. The henchman handed over a black rag, which Lobo used to wipe the grime from his gloves. He smoothed his hair back into place and breathed heavily, trying to resume control.
Once his breath had calmed, he opened his eyes and focused them back on me. My throat was horse from screaming and my wrists were raw and bleeding from my attempts to pull them free of the nylon rope. But I was just as trapped as I had been before.
He cooed to me as he came back over and sat down across from me once again. “Shh, shh,” he said, raising a finger to his lips. “Lo siento, I do not mean to frighten you. Violence is ugly to me. I do not like to use it unless I must.”
“You’re a bastard,” I spat at him. “You’re an animal.”
Lobo shook his head sadly. “A bastard, perhaps. An animal, most certainly.” He paused for a second, lips pursed, considering me. “Perhaps it would help if you knew where I came from. Let me tell you a story, señora.”
Lobo pointed one finger at where Luke lay curled and bleeding as he started to speak. “Look at him, princesa,” he said. “Once, I was like that. I was joven, young, perhaps twelve or thirteen. My father did it to me. He was what we call un borracho, a drunk. All day and all night, he was drinking, always, always. And he would get very angry when he drank. He used to hit my mother and me on the nights he was very drunk. And my father wore many rings, so that when he hit us…” I could feel Lobo shake his head as if the memory still pained him. “It hurt very badly.”
His breath was hot on my ear. “One night, my father came home, drunk and angry, as usual. He asked my mother for his dinner. But my father, you see, always used our money to buy his drinks. So we had no money to buy food, and without food, there was no dinner for him. This made him angry, too. He hit my mother.”
