by Sophia Gray
Then, I turned my attention to my captor. He was sitting in front of me on a backward chair, arms crossed over the back. He had a magnetism to him, a confidence. I couldn’t deny it, even as he made my skin crawl. I could understand why people would follow him. His mane of wavy brown hair and piercing blue eyes created a striking effect. In fact, he would make a perfect subject. All angles and cragginess. And those startlingly blue eyes.
“Like what you see?” he asked with a snide laugh. I ignored him as the sound of a door opening distracted me. It was Onyx, carrying a bottle of water.
I wanted to spit on him, and would have if I had any saliva in my parched mouth. The filthy, stinking traitor. I could have killed him for what he’d done to Vince and me. Especially Vince. I knew this was all about him in the end.
I wondered how they expected me to drink when my hands were behind my back. “Please. Can you untie me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Where am I going to go? I have no idea where I am. Besides, my feet are still tied. I’m in a lot of pain right now. Please.”
He looked at me, thinking. I made it a point to look as pained as possible—it wasn’t difficult, as I was in legitimate agony.
“All right,” he said, nodding to Onyx. “Untie her wrists.”
I met Onyx’s eyes, but only for a moment. He averted them quickly. Ashamed of himself? He should have been. He had let Lance die. He had brought me to a stinking pit and tied me up.
He couldn’t look at me. That told me something about him. I didn’t believe he was heartless. I thought he might have gotten caught up, the way Lance was. Onyx was stronger than Lance. He could stomach betrayal. He just couldn’t stand to look me in the eye. Coward.
His hands were on my wrists, working at my restraints. I looked at Alexander, who was looking carefully at me. I held his gaze. It was important to show I wasn’t afraid of him. I was, of course. I was terrified. I didn’t want him to know it, though.
“Better?” he asked when the rope binding my wrists was released.
I flexed my arms slowly, wincing as the blood flowed through my aching joints and muscles. I could hardly lift my hand to take the water Onyx offered.
I took my time drinking, stalling to think things over. What could I do? What could I say? What was the end game? There had to be one. He hadn’t gone through the trouble of smuggling me there to chat. I had to stay strong. Would they try to torture me to give up information? It wasn’t as though I had any—frankly, anything I knew, Onyx was bound to know as well. I was useless in that respect.
I had to be bait. It seemed as though that was how Alexander operated. He lured and tricked. He was luring Vince to him, using me. My blood ran cold. I wouldn’t let him do it.
If he couldn’t use me, he would kill me. Then again, he could just as easily kill me after he did what he wanted to Vince. What did he have to gain by letting me go? He wasn’t the type to let witnesses go unscathed—hence, the effort to kidnap me before this.
I hoped Vince was smart enough to see through any offer Alexander made.
“Better?” he asked as I lowered the bottle. I nodded. “Good. Now that you’re a little more with it and I gave you time to think over your options, why don’t you tell me why I brought you here?”
I told myself not to show him how unnerving it was to have my thoughts read. “I don’t know.”
He grinned. “Sure you do. You’re a smart girl. Graduated from college with honors. Trying to get your own photography business started. I admire a—whaddya call it?—entrepreneurial spirit.” He snickered.
How did he know so much about me? Of course. If I’d had the strength, I would have slapped my forehead. He’d found my mom, hadn’t he? He’d done his homework.
I tilted my head innocently. “What’s that got to do with this? I must have missed the MC 101 course. Sorry.”
He sneered. “I heard you had a mouth on you.” He reached for me, and it took tremendous effort to keep from shrinking away as his fingers stroked my lips. My skin crawled, my breath came fast and shallow. If I hadn’t been afraid of whatever he might have been carrying, I would have sunk my teeth into his nasty fingers.
“Oh, yeah,” he breathed. “I’d like to see what else this mouth can do. Does Vince already know? He has to. I bet that mouth worked him over real good.”
I swallowed against the bile that rose in my throat.
He grinned, his blue eyes narrowing. Like he knew how I felt about him and didn’t care. Maybe he even liked it.
“Why else would he shoot at my guys to keep them from taking you today?” He shook his head, a look of mock disappointment on his face. “Honestly, and you might not believe this, I was willing to let go of him beating the hell outta one of my guys. I really was. I mean, Harrison took out one of his. And between you and me, he’s never been what you might call ‘right in the head.’ I would have let bygones be bygones. But then Baldoni had to go sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. Right into my business. If I wanted you, he should have let me have you. We don’t mess with each other’s business. That’s rule number one.”
“Do those rules apply when you turned two of a club’s members against their leader?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You really are mouthy. I’d hate for you to learn what happens to little girls with big mouths. We find things to stuff those big mouths with until they can’t talk anymore.”
My blood ran cold. I got the message.
“This was only business. All of it. Baldoni has to take everything personally. That’s why he’ll never be a leader, why his club deserves better than him.” So that was it. He wanted the club. Harrison wasn’t the only person not right in the head if he thought Vince would ever go for that.
He didn’t expect him to, I realized. He was going to kill Vince.
“Do you think the other club members would want you as their president? I mean, no offense or anything, but don’t they have a say in it?”
He sneered nastily. “No, they don’t. They’ll follow whoever they’re told to follow. Otherwise, they’d be the ones sitting at the head of the table. Lance and Onyx were the only two I could find with any vision.”
I wondered what Alexander promised them when he convinced them to take sides with him. What would be worth turning your back on your club?
I thought back to the game of cards I’d just played with them. They were a family—laughing, busting balls. It was the same way with everything they did. They had fun together. They had one another’s backs. What would be worth sacrificing that? Money? From the looks of the Wolves’ clubhouse, they weren’t swimming in it.
Alexander cut into my thoughts when he pulled out his phone. “It’s time to give your boyfriend a phone call.” I watched as he dialed, wondering if I could get a message to Vince. Just then, Onyx pressed a knife to my throat, making me gasp.
“Don’t say a word,” he muttered, taking a handful of my hair to pull my head back.
I whimpered. How could he do this to me, after pretending to at least tolerate me? What was wrong with him?
In my terror, I almost couldn’t make out Alexander’s words. He was taunting Vince—I could tell that much from his tone of voice.
“I’ve already touched her. I’ll do any damn thing I please,” he said. I closed my eyes, grimacing. I still felt his fingerprints on my mouth.
The pressure disappeared from my throat. “Say hi,” Onyx demanded, pointing to the phone in Alexander’s hand.
What should I say? It had to count for something. I couldn’t waste my chance. Onyx pulled my hair to get me to do as he said. I whimpered.
“Vince! Stay away!” I screamed. Then, Onyx’s hand was over my mouth, his fingers pressing into my cheek. I wondered dimly if I’d have a bruise there. I struggled against him, clawing at his arm with my free hands. I wanted to hurt him. I dug my nails into his hand, making him wince and loosen his grip. When he did, I bit him as hard as I could.
“You bitch!” he
screamed. Alexander was already off the phone. It was too late. I couldn’t get another message to Vince. I’d hurt Onyx, at least. He was gripping his wounded hand with a look of cold, hard hatred on his face.
“Tie her arms back up,” Alexander ordered. “I’m done trying to be nice to her if this is the way she repays me for it.”
I laughed. He sounded like this was a hotel I was staying in, not the hellhole he treated as a clubhouse. He was pathetic. I knew why he had to rely on deception to get what he wanted—he wouldn’t be any good at it any other way.
“Don’t be gentle,” he added, spitting on the floor in my general direction. “And close her mouth.”
I couldn’t help but cry out when Onyx tied the rope excruciatingly tight around my wrists. It was even worse than before. That was where my mouth got me. My arms screamed in pain, and a single tear trickled down my cheek.
I looked up at Onyx when he walked in front of me. He held up the strip of fabric that had been tied over my eyes earlier.
“Why?” I asked. “Please, I just want to know. Why did you do it?”
He looked taken aback. I wasn't snide or confrontational. I genuinely wanted to know. He would never get the chance to tell Vince why, that was for sure. I had the feeling Vince would kill him as soon as he looked at him by the time he found out what happened—if he didn’t already know. I remembered the holes he punched into the office walls after seeing the photos of Lance. What would he do when he found out Onyx was even worse?
“I needed the money.” He shrugged. “That was all. It wasn’t personal.”
“Alexander paid you for this?”
He shook his scarred head. “The drugs. Vince wanted out of drugs, but that means cutting off our revenue. A huge chunk of it. Lance and me, we were pissed about that. He wouldn’t listen when I told him it wasn’t a good idea to pull out. York wants the club, wants the business.”
“So you agreed to hand over the club in exchange for money.”
He nodded, then tied the cloth tight around my mouth, knotting it at the back of my head. He turned and left the room, throwing one more look my way before closing the door.
Another tear trickled down my cheek, then another. I would be dead by morning.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vince
“No fucking way you’re going,” Axel hissed. “I won’t let you. I’ll fucking tie you down if I have to.”
I shook my head. “I know you’re against it, but you don’t have a say in it.”
“Why the fuck not? This is club business, Vince. This isn’t all about you. What do you think York’s gonna try to do after he blows you away?”
I shrugged. I knew well what he would do, but I couldn’t think about it. All I could do was try to save Erica. No, not try. I had to do it, period.
“Listen,” he said, “I know you care about Erica. She’s a good girl. But think about us, too. You’re gonna leave us like that? He’s gonna come in here, try to take everything over. It’ll be fucking chaos, man. We need you right now. You’ve gotta step up and be a leader right now. Think about the big picture.”
“You try thinking about the big picture when you’re in my shoes,” I snapped, miserable. “When that happens, stand there and tell me how easy it is to do. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I know, I know. You’re all fucked up over this. But please, I’m serious. Think about it rationally for a minute. You go there, he blows you away. Because there’s no other way for it to end. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” I had thought of that already. I was willing to accept that.
“Where’s the guarantee that he’s gonna let her live?”
I froze for a minute. I hadn’t thought about that. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” I said.
“How? You’ll be dead.”
“Since when can’t I trust you?” I had assumed they would protect her. I guessed I was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time I misjudged a member of my club.
Axel’s massive body shook with intensity. “Think, Vince! He wants to take over the club, right? So she won’t be under the protection of the Fury Riders anymore because there won’t be any Fury Riders.”
I saw how right he was. York. That fucker. He’d thought the whole thing out way in advance, like a game of chess. Piece of shit probably couldn’t spell his own name, but he could think ten moves ahead.
“What do I do, then? Leave her there?” I pushed myself back from the desk in a violent shove and stood. “No fucking way, man. I can’t.”
Axel shrugged. “I’m sorry, Vince. That seems like the only option. If she were out of the picture, you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping her safe anymore.”
“You sick fuck. Get outta here. I don’t wanna see you.”
He stood. “You know I don’t really mean that. I like Erica, and I like her for you. I’m just trying to help you see this from all sides is all. Before you met her, you took on the responsibility of leading the club. We were your priority first. You’re talking about handing us over, just to save her. Fuck us, right?”
I sighed heavily, some of my anger melting. “You know I don’t see it that way. This is ripping me up inside.”
He nodded slowly. “I get it. I don’t know what I would do if I were you. I mean it. You’re my president. Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”
I turned away and heard the door open and close. When he was gone, I let myself collapse back into the chair.
It was an impossible decision. Give myself up, which meant giving my club up, or leave Erica there to die.
She would think I deserted her. I imagined her sitting there in that shithole, wondering why I wasn’t coming for her. Thinking she didn’t mean anything to me. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but there wouldn’t be any way for me to tell her that. If anything, York would tell her I didn’t care. He’d fuck with her head before he killed her. And he might do it slowly, after the pigs and degenerates he called a club did whatever they wanted to her.
My blood boiled. I pounded on the top of the desk with my fist, wishing it was York’s face.
The laptop was the only thing on the desk I hadn’t swept off with my arm, and I opened it in the hopes the memory card was still inside. It was, and the picture up on the screen was probably the last thing Erica saw before Onyx took her. There he was. He was still in the shadows, but he was there.
When had it happened? When did he decide to turn on me? How didn’t I see it? Lance was one thing, but Onyx? He was the closest friend I had in the world. How did I not see what was right in front of me?
Maybe York was right and I didn’t deserve to be president of the club. I was fucking blind to the obvious. I wanted Onyx to be my loyal second-in-command, and that’s who I told myself he was. So what if he was actually going behind my back and destroying the club? I didn’t wanna see it.
I still didn’t, even as I sat looking at the picture. I wanted to believe it was a mistake. There he was, though. Standing still, watching Harrison murder Lance. Someone who was supposed to be his brother. He let it happen and didn’t flinch.
I told myself to harden my heart against him. There was a good chance I would be seeing him at the clubhouse. York would make sure of it. He wanted to be sure I knew he won, right down to stealing my best friend’s loyalty.
I wondered for a minute if he would compromise. If I offered him the drug trade, he might take it and leave the rest alone. That was what he wanted. The prestige, the money. He was welcome to have it. I wouldn’t hand over my club, though. Axel was right. I had to think about them, too.
I walked out of the office. The lounge was empty, the door to the game room closed. I nodded grimly. They were having a meeting without me. It made sense. They would have plenty without me before long.
I went to the bar and poured myself a whiskey. I was proud of everything I did with the club, including the steps I took to get us out of drugs. I hoped York didn’t put them right back into it, but it was obvious that he
would. Drugs and the money from them—that was what he wanted.
That and the knowledge that he’d beaten me. That meant a lot to him, too. He was so pathetic, it made me sick.
How many times had I sat there with Onyx next to me? Even way back before I was president. When I first got hooked up with the club. We used to sit and watch the older guys and wish we could be as cool as they were.
I didn’t have anybody else in my life then. I had just lost my family, and I was looking for something. I never had time for friends at that age either—taking care of the kids, going to school, it ate up all of my time. After I had dropped out I was really lost. I couldn’t relate to people my age.
