by Jackson Kane
Dread knotted up my insides as a wave of nausea rolled over me. My God... I was going to be killed in a building that actually made coffins. “Please, Miles! Please don’t do this!”
“Shut up!” Lump shoved me forward when I slowed to a stop.
“Easy,” Miles mildly scolded him then stepped in front before approaching the man who opened the doors for us. There was something off about Miles, the way he succumbed immediately to the Wild Boys’ ploy almost like he knew something was going to happen but didn’t care to stop it. There was also a regretful look in his eyes when he assumed control of the club after Tex was killed. When he ordered me to be taken, I could tell it wasn’t because he wanted to but because he felt that he had to. Miles had the demeanor of a man going through the motions, a man with little left to lose, if anything at all. Robbie had told me that Miles had been ousted from the president’s position by Tex after some deal went bad, and that ever since then, he’d been in the club mostly out of habit.
“Take her purse and get her in the office. I’ll let Slick know she’s here,” the tall biker who met Miles ordered. “I’ll have my guys watch her.”
A chill ran up my spine at the mention of my father. There was something else as well. I couldn’t immediately place it, but the man’s voice sounded disturbingly familiar. It was on the tip of my brain like a distant childhood memory. But he turned away for more privacy during his phone call before I could get a better look at his face. I immediately recognized the Steel Veins cut and colors. His leather vest said “Rock Springs, WY.” I assumed that’s where we were, not that I’d ever heard of the town before.
Something about this towering biker made my skin twitch and my stomach turn.
Despite my reluctance, one of the Veins ripped my purse away before I could sneak my phone out. The fat biker roughly spun me around and frisked me so thoroughly, it would have made a TSA agent blush. His hand clamped over my denim-covered pussy and demanded, “What else you got on you, bitch?”
“I’ll take her,” Miles impatiently interjected, stepping between us then, shoving the man backward. He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the well-lit office. “C’mon, Maya.”
“Please, Miles! I have money. Just let me go!” I pleaded once again. I didn’t have nearly enough money to get out of this mess, but the thought of what my father or his goons had in store for me was terrifying enough to promise just about anything.
“It’s not about money, not anymore.” He opened the door for me.
It was a small, one-desk room with a large window that overlooked the assembly line, an office best suited for a shift foreman.
“Then why do this? You aren’t a bad man, Miles. My Uncle Robbie told me you were one of the few good guys left, one of the very few he trusted.”
“I didn’t want any of this. If Junk hadn’t killed Tex for what he did, then I would’ve. Skids....” He sighed. “Robbie was my friend. He was a good man, and it hurts like hell that he’s gone.”
“How can you claim that? You’re delivering his niece to the man who ordered him killed!”
“This is bigger than us now, Maya. The Steel Veins have threatened our families, and they have the reach and influence to make good on that promise. I had no choice. Slick told me that you wouldn’t be hurt. He promised me.”
“If a snake could talk, it’d say the same thing to the mouse,” I mused sardonically.
“I’m sorry.” His shoulders slumped as if in defeat, and he retreated from me, quietly closing the door behind him.
I couldn’t be mad at Miles. He wasn’t evil. He was just scared and at the end of his rope. When he weighed my life against those of his friends and family... who the hell was I in the great scheme of things? Just another unfortunate girl in a rough world.
I thought about Hendrix again and some of my regrets. Part of me was upset that he talked me into staying, but even now, I realized that he was right. I had to stay, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself otherwise. I just wished I had had a little more time with him because I wanted to see what kind of man he really was. Now I wished I could’ve gotten over myself and let what was going to happen on that rooftop last night actually happen. My heart fluttered slightly at the thought of that, of him shirtless and nibbling at my thighs….
No! I couldn’t let myself be distracted, not now. I searched around the office and quietly opened the desk’s drawers. Unfortunately, they were empty of anything I could use, and there was no landline. The Veins weren’t stupid. They put me in here for a reason. Taking hostages, extortion, blackmail, murder... these were the types of things the Veins excelled at.
“Argh!” I ran my hands over my face. Think, dammit! No one was coming for me. If I had any hope of surviving, then I had to figure something out myself. I slammed my palms on the desk in frustration and heard the light rattle of a keyboard drawer with a loose, metal slide. I frantically twisted and pried a screw out of the side of one track, but the eagerness of my actions alerted the keen hearing of the Steel Veins who was posted outside. He loudly rapped the glass with his knuckles, which jostled me backward into the office chair. He didn’t know what I was doing, but whatever it was, he wanted me to stop.
I demurely clasped my hands on my lap and sat obediently until he turned his back on me again.
Now my progress was quiet and subtle yet brutally slow. The sharp points of the crosshead screws tore into the free edges of my fingernails to the point that I had to bite the urge to cry out when one of my nails split to the quick on a metal burr. I wiped my hand on my legs every few minutes, but my bloodied fingers kept slipping off the screw heads.
One screw dropped onto the carpeting, which meant that there was only one left, and it was the loose one. I was so close.... It was already halfway out. If I could just get one of the tracks free.
The office door opened stealthily. “Maya Merritt!” the same oily voice from earlier cooed with a touch of perversion. Startled, I shot up and was horror-struck at the biker casually slouching against the doorsill. “You remember me, little girl? You’re not so little anymore now.”
“No…!” I didn’t think any words actually escaped my lips, but if they did, they were barely audible. Blood drained from my face, a cold sweat beaded my brow, and my body went as rigid as petrified wood. I was staring at a ghost.... or maybe my own personal demon.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me after we had been so close? I am cut to the heart!” The lips of the St. Louis Steel Veins biker I knew as Ricky-Tick parted into a yellowed shark’s grin. His jaundice-eyed gaze was one of famished malice as he regarded me like I was floating chum in bloodied water. His awkwardly long face and intense stare ripped repressed, ages-old scars wide open from the deep recesses of my brain.
I staggered against the back wall like I was hit by a truck. I found myself unconsciously putting as much distance between us as possible, but the entirety of the planet wouldn’t have been enough. This man shaped my life almost as much as my own father, but I had been told that he was dead years ago. I was assured that he was very, very dead!
“Take off, Boot. Let me know when Slick gets here. I’m going keep his daughter company.” He waved off the biker who had been guarding me then locked the door behind him. “Don’t want our girl getting lonely, you know.”
“It’s not possible....” I grabbed the nearest thing within reach—the cheap office chair—and rolled it between us.
“No?” He cocked his head curiously, extending his neck to peer down at me. He stood gauntly at well over six feet, if not more, and the stretching motion made his already too long face appear even more unnerving. His arms and legs were stick-thin, making them look exaggeratedly long and gangly. Before me was a skeleton of a man with a shock of gnarled black hair and bulging, delirious eyes. “What did your dad say he did with me, baby girl?”
I swallowed repeatedly, but the Sahara in my throat refused to ease. “Dead” was the only word I could croak.
&nb
sp; “Ow! That’s a bit harsh! I was... I am his best soldier. No, he couldn’t lose me. I caught an ass whoopin’ and a relocation, but nothing that dramatic and permanent,” Ricky-Tick mocked me.
He circled the desk and ripped the chair away from me. The ancient, metal desktop rattled with a series of menacing raps as he casually tapped it with one of his rings while slowly stalking after me. I knew he was toying with me, trying to intimidate me, but I was beginning to think it was working. He only halted to stay out of reach, perhaps sensing the beginnings of a fight-or-flight reaction from which things might not end well for both sides.
“Y’know, part of that night was your fault too. The way you were dressed....” He gazed down and absently drew invisible designs with his fingertip onto the top of the desk. I had no words to protest with, not that it mattered as nothing I had said deterred him that night either.
He lunged and caught my shoulders before dragging me, screaming, over to the desk. I kicked and flailed, but he was deceptively strong despite the myth I was told about tall guys and their awkwardly higher center of gravity that interfered with their leverage. Before I knew it, he had pinned my back onto the desktop and straddled me. I shouted, at least I thought I did, but it was like one of those dreams where you scream and scream but nothing comes out.
“When Slick told me to expect you, I won’t lie, I was nervous. Excited but also a little worried.” With a free hand, he brushed away the hair plastered to his sweaty brow. “Ten years was a lifetime ago, and I like my lil’ darlings to be a little more... inexperienced. I was worried that you might have outgrown me.”
He leaned in, the tip of his perspiration-moist nose grazed my cheek. He breathed me in and shuddered in unrepressed ecstasy. “But here you are, and you haven’t aged a day. You are still my good, little girl....”
Then, with the flat of his tongue, he licked the side of my face from jaw to hairline. I gagged, the oppressively rank smell of his saliva on my skin bringing water to my eyes. “You even taste the same. Sweet and delicious. Oh, I have missed you, my little, metal angel.”
He sat on my stomach and planted both his knees over my arms, neatly preventing me from clobbering him. His bony hands now free, he rubbed his cock through his pants, his bulge obviously hardening. He let out a repressed moan that sounded like it hurt him as much as excited him then switched to undoing the button on my jeans.
I couldn’t relive this again. I just couldn’t. I closed my eyes and began to cry. I wished I was dead. Between waves of panic, I thought I imagined the office door reverberating from an aggressive fist pounding, the kind that guaranteed a cop on the opposite side.
Was Hendrix here to save me?
The thought was so absurd that something like a sardonic snigger rippled up from the depths of my sorrow. Paralyzed by my terror, I couldn’t scream or call for help, but I could still laugh insanely. The body did weird things when under tremendous stress.
There was that pounding again. Then the door exploded inward from a heavy kick.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ricky-Tick erupted in outrage then was punched right off me.
It wasn’t Hendrix. Instead, it was Miles, his face flushed red with anger.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” The C.E president’s flaming eyes glanced over at me before kicking Ricky-Tick in the abdomen. The gaunt man quickly rolled over then stunned us both by deftly leaping to his feet, only to be cut short when Miles’s gun clicked and was shoved into thin flesh that padded his forehead.
“This was sanctioned!” the crazed Steel Vein barked defiantly. “You’d better stop before you do something unforgivable by our MC!”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, scumbag!” Miles refused to be intimidated by this threat.
“Wait!” Ricky-Tick put one hand up and fished for his phone with the other. He browsed through his text messages then handed the phone to Miles. “Check the number! It’s Slick’s personal cell. This has been sanctioned!”
The C.E. president stubbornly snatched the phone away from him and read the crystalline screen. I could see in his growing disgust that Ricky-Tick had been right. My father had arranged this tête-à-tête and knew exactly what the outcome would be. Miles tossed the phone and slowly lowered his gun. “His very own daughter.... You both make me sick.”
“Her father loves her and wants her to know my love. This is my reward for following his orders and for being a good soldier.”
“He promised me that she wouldn’t be hurt. That was the only reason I agreed to this,” Miles growled hatefully at the man, and for a moment, I dared to hope.
“Maya betrayed him!” Ricky-Tick retorted, appearing wounded by Miles’s words. “She needs to be taught a valuable lesson, one of blood and tears.”
Miles still refused to budge.
Please, Miles, don’t leave me with him!
“Leave us. He’ll be here soon enough, and if that lesson isn’t delivered by then... well, he said he’ll have to teach her another, harder one.” Ricky-Tick glared at him, a dark promise glinting in his eyes. “He’ll have to teach the Coffin Eaters a similar lesson as well.”
Miles started to crack, and with it went what little hope I had left. “Fine,” Miles muttered as he put away his gun.
“Good,” Ricky-Tick agreed as he reached for his phone on the floor.
Miles’s eyes flashed with vengeful malice, and he stomped Ricky-Tick’s hand against the cover glass of his cell phone. The tall man yelped like a struck dog, and I heard at least two finger bones gruesomely snap. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“Whoops!” Miles ground the heel of his boot into the man’s digits, producing another loud crack followed by Ricky-Tick’s whimpering, muffled scream. “Must’ve slipped. Hope you’re a lefty.”
Miles’s bitterness melted into anguish when he beheld me. I could see that he so desperately wanted to help. By allowing this to happen, Miles was pissing on the memory of his friend, Robbie, but the Steel Vein’s threat still won out in his mind. As plain as it was that Miles hated doing it, he blinked, his jaw set tightly, and finally abandoned me to my fate.
Ricky-Tick wouldn’t be denied. That whimsical cruelty in his eyes and features had been replaced with a grim, sexual determination. I scuttled out of the corner and tried to make a break for it, but he grabbed me. Twisting me around, he headbutted me, knocking me onto my ass.
“Nuh-uh-uh! The fun’s just startin’!” he squealed between labored, painful grunts because of his shattered hand.
Dazed from the headbutt, I clumsily crab-walked backward in a general direction away from the psycho biker. I didn’t think my nose was broken, but I could feel my warm blood coating my lips.
“Red looks good on you.” The sick fuck smiled, wiggling his broken fingers at himself. I didn’t know if he was high on PCP, but the pain didn’t slow him at all. One moment later, he was sprawled on top of me, yanking my pants down and jerking me toward him.
When he got my jeans and panties down to my ankles, I spiked both knees up and cracked him right beneath the chin. His head snapped back, and his grip loosened enough for me to tear my legs away from him. I grabbed the corner of the desk and the keyboard tray to pull myself to my feet, but I only got about halfway up before Ricky-Tick recovered and tackled me back down. I snagged the keyboard tray with me, the particle board breaking into large chunks, as I hit the filthy carpeting with a dull thud.
“I like this new fire in you, Maya. It’s hotter when I have to work for it.” He snorted with carnal excitement, now tightly straddled on top of my thighs.
I squirmed and flailed under the much heavier man until he cocked me right on the chin. My head snapped to the side, and I was immediately knocked out. I woke up a moment later and saw that he had his dark, bent cock out of his pants.
“You were always mine,” he hissed into my ear while stroking his erect penis. He then plunged his hand through my pubic hair and fingered around for my pussy. “There’s nowhere to run to now.�
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I groped for whatever I could through the daze of his punch until my fingers touched something long and metallic. The fleeting hope spiked my adrenalin enough to cut through the haze and act upon it. I watched his eyes bulge when I slashed him across the neck with the edge of the twisted, metal drawer track. His erect cock bobbed uselessly as he jerked backward away from me.
I spit out a fleshy wad of clotted blood from his punch, kicked one pant leg completely off to give myself some mobility, and threw myself on top of him in a cowgirl position.
“Who said I was running, you sick, sadistic motherfucker?” As dizzy and disoriented as I was, my words and my nerve returned to me in full force.
This man was the embodiment of all my sexual fears. He was why all the boys I’d ever dated had been weak and submissive. He was what kept me from enjoying a glorious night with Hendrix, a man I’d grown to really like. I couldn’t explain the feeling that blossomed inside of me. It was beyond hate. It was cold, exacting vengeance. Every atom in my body needed to watch this monster suffer for what he’d stolen from me.
The spurting blood from his neck wound spattered across my hand and arm as I rode him like a mechanical bull as he squirmed beneath me this time. I took the metal track in both my hands then repeatedly stabbed him in the crotch and groin, which probably ruptured one of his testicles. Blood pooled beneath him, and I knew right away I’d hit a major artery somewhere.
I was startled that I’d gone that far. It was gross and horrible, but this man.... If ever a man deserved a slow, painful death, it was this vile piece of shit. The urge to continue stabbing him was insistent, but I refrained. His groin was so shredded that nothing would be able to save him.
