by Bethany-Kris
The crack of the leather snapping against her back turned Jordyn’s body to ice. The thin, spaghetti strap style top she wore did nothing to cushion the hit of the belt. Pain ricocheted from the middle of her back, up to her shoulders, and across her lower jaw. It seemed like every metal stud in the belt embedded into her skin. The worst pain came from the side of her face and Jordyn was sure it broke the flesh.
She hit the floor with her knees, holding up one arm to shield what she could of her head and face from a second hit.
The belt cracked down across her shoulder, arm and side the second time. The third, which came just as strong and swift as the first two, snapped along her bare thighs, just below where her cotton sleep shorts ended.
The agony was unbearable. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t time between swats to move and the belt slapped over her body in the same places repeatedly, breaking what skin it could touch, and bruising and swelling what was covered by clothes.
Once more, Jordyn felt the vomit rise, but there wasn’t any holding it back now. Tears fell as bile spilled.
She didn’t beg, though. Not for him to stop, or to ease up. Not to leave her alone, or get out of her apartment.
She didn’t even ask why he was doing it.
Jordyn had been waiting for this day for years.
All the while, Will continued his mostly unintelligible rant, shouting and muttering things Jordyn couldn’t understand. With one final hit from the belt landing on already tender and abused spots, she heard the item hit the floor.
Was that the end of it? Was that all he planned to do?
She didn’t trust herself to give even a sigh of relief.
“Turn on the stove,” she heard Will demand.
What did that mean? Jordyn choked on her words, tasting the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. Even with the pain, she rolled to her back. “No, don’t.”
“Turn it on, hold her down!”
Someone kicked the coffee table out of the way. Arms barricaded a fighting Jordyn down. And fight she did. Kicking, bucking, and tossing out fists. Anything she thought might help, but it didn’t.
Faintly, Jordyn could smell what she thought was the propane of her stove and heated metal. Panic seared through her insides.
“Don’t! Don’t you touch me!” she screamed.
“Cut it off,” Will ordered.
What?
The shirt Jordyn wore was ripped from her body. The ice-like sensation returned to her body with a vengeance, freezing her in place. Will’s frame was clouding her vision then, a grizzly sneer taking over his features. It only made him look more evil than everybody already knew he was.
Just to frighten her more, he held up a knife at least two inches in width. All at once, Jordyn now understood completely why he wanted her stove turned on and the smell from earlier. The metal blade glowed from having been sat in the propane flame, but it looked like it was starting to cool off.
That wouldn’t help, she knew. The smell of propane was still strong. Will would just keep heating the knife up over and over until he was done with his job.
“This tattoo does nothing for you, Jordyn. It means nothing to me. It doesn’t protect you, or keep you safe anymore. So you know what I’m going to do now?”
Oh, God. No.
Jordyn’s bottom lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them flow again. “Go to hell, Will.”
He smiled. “Shoulda just done this to your mother like I wanted to, you know. Held the bitch down and made her what she was supposed to be. She wouldn’t give it and I shoulda took it. Bitch gave it to everybody else, though. Just like you, a good for nothing whore.”
With that, the hot metal of the blade laid flat over Jordyn’s hip bone, directly on top of the tattoo of Gabe’s name.
If the pain from the beating was bad, this was indescribable. For the briefest moment, there was nothing, and then it scorched like acid was being poured on her flesh, with skin burning right off the goddamn bone. Out of instinct, her body reacted to the pain, trying to buck away from the knife and hands holding her down. Nothing helped. The scream Jordyn released was muffled by a folded up belt being shoved into her mouth.
It tasted disgusting like Will was. Dirty and sweaty. Old and used.
Jordyn wasn’t sure how much time passed before the knife was lifted, literally taking with it a strip of her burnt flesh, and without a break, a new one was passed. Again, she vomited, choking on the bile.
“Be thankful I don’t take the rest of them off, too, babe.”
The process was repeated over and over. With every burn, Gabe was gone.
Maybe it was her high threshold for pain, but Jordyn managed not to pass out.
Finally, the knives were dropped, too.
Will stood, nodding at the men who then let Jordyn go. She didn’t move, only stayed on the floor gasping for air with the taste of vomit in her mouth. There was absolutely nothing she could do.
“Club Property, Jordyn. That’s what you are now. I expect you to act like it,” Will stated uncaringly. The cruel glint in his gaze burned worse than the belt and the burn. “Clean yourself up. You’ve got one week and then I expect you back at the club on a fucking pole like you should be. Make sure to cover those bruises, too.”
No other words were spoken. None of the other men had stepped in to say a thing, either.
Jordyn barely heard her apartment door open before slamming closed.
Chapter Seven
“Jordyn Dawn Reese. Seven pounds, six ounces. Born in the early hours of the morning of September 2nd, 1992 to a sixteen-year-old Sandra Reese, nee Green, and an eighteen-year-old Roland Reese in Caribou, Maine. Sandra married Roland only a month before their daughter was born, with her parents’ consent, of course.”
Antony shuffled through another few papers, not bothering to spare his furious eldest son a glance as he continued. “Sandra, from records, quit school and never graduated, nor did she attempt to receive her high school equivalency later on in life. Roland, however, graduated shortly before his daughter was born and worked as a mechanic. During the first two years of the child’s life, doctor appointments were regular. She was, at the time, up to date on her shots. The child was reportedly healthy, happy, and on target for her age in regards to motor skills and development despite being born to teenage parents of a lower working class.”
Lucian looked up from his clenched fists resting on the family table. “Your point?”
“I’m not finished, yet, son,” Antony said quietly.
“Please, don’t let me stop you,” Lucian muttered, scoffing.
His brothers were there, both silent and stoic in their seats, as was his mother. When Antony called earlier while Lucian was attempting to get some paperwork done for one of his restaurants, he offered to meet his father for lunch and was denied. Antony asked Lucian to the house, and made it clear it wasn’t a request.
Now, he knew why.
“Mostly of Irish descent, but there’s a bit of German and Italian in there as well.”
Lucian rolled his eyes. “Is that what’s important, how much Italian she’s got in her history?”
“Not for you specifically, but it’s important to know, sì,” Antony replied calmly. “Sandra, again from records, was always causing some issue. Mostly school reports, things of that nature. She wasn’t involved in any extracurricular activities, unless you counted the company she kept. A wild teenager isn’t anything to be overly concerned about, but her parents’ lack of concern certainly was. She was failing in grades, miserably, reportedly involved in drugs, and was caught on school property engaging with boys. Be aware of the plural, Lucian. It was not one, but many.”
Antony sighed, closing the folder in front of him and sliding it down the table for his son to take if he wanted. “It’s all there,” he told Lucian. “Anything and everything I could find out about her. A little after she turned two, her mother left the state and moved to New York, wi
thout her husband. There wasn’t a divorce until Roland applied for one years later and was granted it when the papers couldn’t be delivered after years of trying.”
“And here?” Lucian dared to ask.
Sure, he could have just as easily opened the folder, but knowing his father like he did, Antony probably already had every bit of information memorized.
“Maybe Sandra came here with the intention of starting new, getting away from old habits. Clearly that didn’t work, because it wasn’t long before she was working in a club, dancing.”
“Stripping?” Cecelia asked quietly.
“Call it whatever you want,” Antony responded. “From there, it only gets murkier. I don’t think it’s hard to fill in the blanks, though. Sandra was involved with The Sons of Hell for over a decade. Allegedly, they believed her to be specifically involved with Will Vetta as one of his close female companions.”
Cecelia frowned, her motherly concern coming through strong. “Where’s the poor girl’s mother now?”
Antony didn’t look away from Lucian as he said, “Dead. She died of an apparent heroin overdose when Jordyn was thirteen. I should point out it was Jordyn who found her mother and called nine-one-one. Her mother did a damn good job of leaving her previous life behind, because authorities had a terrible time of working out just where this child came from. She was, for all purposes, an orphan. Instead, Ron Daney and his common-law wife took the girl in and became her legal guardians until she turned eighteen.
“Jordyn,” Antony continued, drawling out her name slowly, “… unlike her mother, did graduate, had little issues in school, and managed a grade point average well above the norm. Furthering her education would have been in her prospects, and probably an easy feat for her, had she been given the chance. She’s worked at that dive for a long while. She still has regular yearly appointments with a doctor.”
Lucian felt his agitation rise. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t okay for this girl’s life to be summed up and placed in a stupid folder for his father to pick through and analyze. It certainly wasn’t okay for his family to sit here and listen to it, either.
It should have been done privately, but Lucian knew exactly why his father hadn’t done it as so. Relationships affected the family as a whole. Their image, and so forth. It might have seemed petty, but for a family like theirs, it was incredibly important to know who they were letting in.
Problem was, no one had let Jordyn in.
That was exactly why Lucian had the issues he did with this show of his father’s.
He assumed he was being careful when he discreetly asked a few of his connections to look into Legs and Leather, their employees, and specifically, a worker named Jordyn. Considering Lucian didn’t have an age or last name to go on, what they would find for him was what he planned to go on from there in his own search.
Lucian should have known better. Nothing got past his father. No one asked questions without someone telling Antony, especially if it dealt with the man’s sons.
But that’s really all it was for Lucian. Just a curiosity. Something that needed fed, and it would go away. At least, that’s what he was trying to convince himself.
Antony tapped his fingers to the table, drawing in everyone’s attention again. “Things for Jordyn Reese are not as murky as they were for her mother. While in Ron’s home, she became romantically involved with his son Gabe. The young man, the same age as Jordyn, had been involved with the MC from his early teenage years. It was expected he would rank high and fast, just like his father did. From what I understood by their insiders, Gabe claimed a sixteen-year-old Jordyn as his by rite of the club’s passage with a tattoo of his name and the club’s underneath. And she accepted that, for whatever reason.
“That made her untouchable, essentially,” Antony explained. “Practically as good as being a married woman to a member in their world. Not for other men to use in any way. It gave her a great deal of leg room and respect. Something that was clearly lost when Gabe died a year ago, as she has barely managed to keep under Will Vetta’s radar since the young man’s death.”
Lucian swallowed the lump forming in his throat, forcing himself to speak. “I—”
“What did you want to know about this girl, son?” Antony interrupted coolly. “Her blood type? A positive. Her religion? She was baptized Roman Catholic, but the finishing rites were never performed, and she’s never even had a first communion.”
Antony stood abruptly, making everyone in the room jump but Lucian. “Everything is in that file. Her past, present, and likely future. I will protect you first, Lucian, because you are my son. I would do the same thing for any woman you took interest in just as I have done for this girl. Even if that means making you see what you won’t for whatever reason.”
“I don’t know what it is about her,” Lucian admitted in a breath. “She’s under my skin.”
“Well, get her out. You can’t go taking in strays because you feel she relates to your past somehow,” his father replied, rather cruelly.
Lucian flinched. “Is that what I am, a fucking stray?”
“No,” Cecelia gasped. “Dio, Lucian. Absolutely not. Antony, tell him that’s not what he is!”
“He knows he isn’t,” Antony told his wife. “I don’t need to tell him anything.”
“Yes, you do! Right now, Antony.”
“Tesoro …”
A look passed between Lucian’s parents, one he’d been privy to only a few times in his life. It usually meant his father had overstepped some private line only Cecelia and Antony were aware of. Lucian knew it was hard for Antony to balance between being the boys’ father, and being their boss. When Cecelia came into play, it became an even more delicate dance. She took no qualms about reminding her husband who was the leader when their front door closed to the outside world.
Like now.
It also served as a reminder for the brothers that a man may have the appearance of power, but a woman who was capable of drawing emotion from him could sway it any way she wanted.
“Antony,” Cecelia said lowly, coming to stand from her chair with her palm flat to the table. “Do not make me ask again.”
“It’s all right, Mamma,” Lucian said quietly.
“No, it isn’t,” Antony replied at the same level. “She’s right. I used the wrong words for the situation—terrible ones, frankly. I wouldn’t dream of putting you in the same sentence as that label, because you’re anything but to Cecelia and me. You never were, Topino.”
Antony wouldn’t outright apologize; it wasn’t in his character unless the remorse was directed to his wife and only in private, Lucian knew. But, calling his son by the endearing term he’d used when Lucian was a young boy was as good as one. Little mouse, it meant. Because Lucian had spent so much of those first few months in their home sneaking, hiding, and being as quiet as a mouse. Eventually he outgrew the petname—a long, long time ago.
Occasionally it still snuck out of his father’s mouth as a way of expressing his love without saying it. Lucian didn’t mind, and took it for what it was meant to be.
“What now?” Lucian asked.
Antony shrugged, pushing in his chair to the table. “Be very careful about your choices, son. There is a difference between wants and needs. Figure out which one is yours. This is not as simple as it seems, and I don’t want to think of you putting yourself in a situation where I can’t step in. But at some point, I can’t, anyway. You have to do it on your own. And I have given you every learned ability to do just that if you need to.
“She’s all there,” Antony repeated, waving at the forgotten file. “Please understand why I did this for you, son. I love you. But how she lives … Lucian, that’s all she’s ever known.”
Antony left the kitchen, Cecelia following fast on his heels.
For a long moment, Lucian said nothing, only breathed deeply and stared at the spot where his father disappeared.
“Didn’t know you were interested in someone,” Dante
said at the end of the table. “You could have told me. I don’t care who she is, you know.”
“It wasn’t like that. I’m twenty-seven, not sixteen. I didn’t know anything about her, but for the fact I couldn’t stop thinking about her. This isn’t even remotely the same as when we were younger, Dante.”
Gio cleared his throat, looking mighty awkward across from his older brother. “What are you going to do now?”
Lucian smirked, because really, what the fuck else could he do?
“If she’s all in that file like Dad said, he just gave me something.”
Dante seemed to pick up on Lucian’s innuendo right away. “And he likely knows he did it, too. That says something.”
“What’s that?” Gio asked.
“Her address.”
• • •
A day later, Lucian sat in his Lexus LFA, nervously rapping his fingers to the red leather steering wheel. The shoddy neighborhood and crappy apartment buildings surrounding his vehicle left little to be desired.
This wasn’t his first rodeo spending time in this kind of neighborhood.
What was he going to do, now? Knock on her door, apologize, and then what? Apologize for what, exactly?
What he even doing here?
Jordyn made it perfectly clear a week ago she wanted nothing to do with him.
Something inside wouldn’t die, though.
“You okay?” Dante asked from the passenger seat.
“I don’t know,” Lucian answered honestly. Gio laughed in the backseat, leaning forward to flick his cigarette butt out the window. “If you burn my seats, I’ll kill you.”
His car was his baby. It didn’t get driven nearly enough. Gio had a serious lack of respect for the beauty that was cars.
“Listen,” Dante said as he turned to face his brother. “This isn’t difficult. Figure out what you need here. That’s what Dad said, right? So, go see if she’s home. If she is, have a chat. It’ll either be abundantly clear there’s something there, or not.”
Lucian frowned. “And if she isn’t home?”
