Tempted

by Brenda Ford

  “What have you done with her?” I growl back. “Where the hell is she? Is she okay?”

  “You don’t need to worry about Rose, I have her here with me,” he replies smugly. I don’t know if that means she is alive or not and I am far too scared to ask. Instead, I just need to convince myself that she is okay. “Not right now anyway. Instead, you need to take a long hard look at your future, because like you said you know that you can’t leave the gang once you are in. That’s what you agreed to when you joined.”

  Fuck. My heart sinks. So, Butch isn’t going to let me go after all. I guess I should have known that. He didn’t want to let me go and with Tara talking and twisting his mind, it was never going to work out in my favor, was it? She was never going to let me leave her and the gang. Not for Rose especially.

  “That has nothing to do with Rose,” I tell him firmly. “Nothing at all. Don’t get her involved in this.”

  “But it has everything to do with her, doesn’t it? She is the one who is making you leave.”

  “No, she isn’t making me do anything,” I insist. “Nothing at all. I made the choice alone….”

  “Because of her.” Butch isn’t having any of it. “You want to leave because of her. So, she needs to go.”

  “Go?” I yell in terror. “What do you mean go? She doesn’t need to go anywhere.”

  “She can’t be around here, can she? Distracting you. I need to get rid of her…”

  “You don’t, you don’t,” I gush desperately. “I will do whatever it takes. Just leave her alone.”

  “Well, that sounds good.” Butch is pleased, I can tell. “Finally, you are coming back around to my way of thinking. You know that you have to put the gang first. You have to remember where your priorities lie. So, I am still going to give you some time to think. Then I want you to meet me by the bridge at eleven AM.”

  “No,” I scream. “No, don’t hang up the phone, no, Butch. No, don’t go. I can’t wait that long. That’s two hours. I want to meet up with you now. I want to know that Rose is safe…”

  But I can yell all that I want. I can scream and shout in to the oblivion it won’t make any difference. Butch has already gone. He has given me his terms and he’s left me alone to stew over this. I fall back on to the bed and let out a guttural scream of frustration. This is supposed to be a brand-new start, a brand new me. Me and Rose are supposed to be in a good place now, working towards a brand-new future, but instead we are being ripped apart by fucking Butch and the gang. I certainly can’t call the cops here either-or Rose will end up dead.

  What a God damn mess.

  Chapter 14 – Rose

  What the hell is going on with me? How the hell did I end up here in my worst nightmare ever? It doesn’t help that I feel all woozy and sick like I have been drugged or something. Perhaps that is what happened and that’s why I am in some old run-down building that could be an old abandoned warehouse or something, tied to a pole with cable ties, leaving me absolutely no chance of getting out. I wouldn’t be able to escape this even if my brain wasn’t foggy as anything, still clouded with whatever the hell has been given to me.

  I let out a little whimper, a pathetic little weep as I try to shake my hands once more. I might rationally know that I am stuck here forever, not going anywhere, but I guess I still have some survival instinct inside of me that wants to win. That wants to get out of here. Even if it is God damn hopeless, even if I am trapped for good.

  I knew that Artie was mixed up with bad guys, I didn’t know the details of his life because I never wanted to, but deep down I always knew that it wasn’t good, that it was criminal… but I never thought that I would be caught up in the middle of it. I never assumed that it would result in my life being in danger. No one ever thinks that they are going to end up being kidnapped, do they? That would be crazy to assume…

  Nikki was right. She saw something like this coming. I mean, she might not have actually said that I would end up tied up in a strange place with my life hanging in the balance, but she did say don’t fall too hard and too fast. She did try to warn me that Artie has become a bad person and I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear it. I thought that I knew better because I knew Artie… but the version of Artie that I knew was a school boy. Not the person who he has become. The person that he has become strived from grief and sent him down a very negative path. One that I can’t pull him out of now because he’s in too deep and I am as well. I might not even survive this mess. I could become a body in a desert somewhere that never gets found, and no one will even know where to look for me because I stupidly haven’t told anyone where I am and what I’m doing.

  A tear leaks down my cheek as I lean my head back against the pole, giving up just a little bit more. The drugs in my system are batting off my fighting spirit and leaving me with absolutely nothing left. If I carry on like this then I will end up dying before anyone comes in to kill me. I will simply cease to exist.

  The sad thing is that the one person who is really in the fore front of my mind at all times is Artie. He is the one who basically put me here, I should despise him, yet all I can really focus on is the lost opportunity of me and him. We almost had a second chance, we almost got our opportunity to be together at long last, just like I always assumed that we should have been after high school. I kept imagining us living out a freaking happy ever after. Marriage, babies, a home together, the whole thing. How stupid of me was that?

  I loved him… I love him. I love him with every part of my being. I hate myself for it, but I still do. I wish that he was here with me, saving me, making me see that our love is still worth fighting for even if we have to battle the whole world. I assumed that it would just be the negative opinions of me and him, I didn’t know that we would have to physically fight as well, but I guess I just wasn’t ready for how bad it would get.

  I squirm as I hear foot steps outside of the room. People have been walking around a lot and it freaks me out every single time that they do. I haven’t seen anyone since the guy who ripped the black hood off my head, and I don’t know what it will mean when I finally do. I guess it won’t be me getting out of here, that’s for sure.

  The door swings open with a loud obnoxious creak and I scuttle backwards as if making myself smaller will help me to survive. I’m expecting a beefy man to walk in to the room and to maybe start beating me, to make sure that my foggy brain remains, and I definitely can’t get out of here, but it’s a woman facing me. One that I don’t recognize which is confusing because what the hell could she have against me?

  “Rose,” she sneers, curling her painted lips up in to a snarl. “Rose fucking Smith. The woman who is trying her hardest to steal my man away. But as you can see, you aren’t going to be able to.”

  “Your… your man?” I stammer back. “Artie? You and Artie are together? I didn’t know…”

  “Well maybe that’s why you shouldn’t fuck guys that you don’t know then.” She rolls her eyes and snorts with sheer rage. “Perhaps you should be a bit more careful about who you screw around with. In case you didn’t already know, Artie is in a motorcycle gang and you can’t pull him away from that.”

  I don’t know what the hell she is talking about. I have no idea about the motorcycle world and I sure as shit have no idea about gangs, so I don’t know what she thinks that she is going to achieve by saying all of that to me. I hope that my blank expression is telling this stranger that I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit.” She rolls her eyes, clearly very annoyed. “Once you are in a gang, it’s for life. It’s a loyalty thing. You go through a lot together so you can’t just leave. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I whine. “I don’t get it. Artie hasn’t told me anything about all of this. I guess that means he has been loyal to you because he hasn’t said a thing.”

  “Honesty means not leaving. Honesty means being in the gang forever. Loyalty mean
s not running off the moment that some bimbo comes along and tries to change things. He is supposed to be with a woman who accepts the gang, who is even part of it. He should be with a woman like me, not you.” She runs her eyes angrily up and down me. “You wouldn’t accept the gang life, would you? I can’t imagine a clean-cut bitch like you ever hanging out in our club house and drinking beers with the guys, shooting the shit with them.”

  I part my lips, about to let this woman know that I would do anything for Artie, but I stop myself at the last moment. I don’t think I could be involved in some kind of criminal gang for anyone. Not even Artie. I don’t think that he wants that for me either. My life isn’t supposed to be slotting in with his, we are supposed to be starting afresh, doing something different together. I can’t do this, and this woman knows it.

  She smiles smugly at me and nods her head, knowing that I am silently agreeing with her. “That’s what I thought. This is why you are in this situation, because you meddled with something that you shouldn’t have done, and now you need to pay the consequences of that.” She leans right down and stares right in to my eyes, her breath heating up my face in this ice-cold room. “You may even know too much now…”

  Oh God, there is only one thing that can happen to someone who ‘knows too much’. I don’t need to know anything about the criminal life for that. People who have knowledge end up dead, just like I feared.

  “I don’t know anything,” I insist. “I don’t know a single fucking thing about you and the gang. I didn’t even know that there was a gang until you just said it. Just let me out of here and I will go.”

  “Oh no.” She shakes her head slowly, loving how much she is tormenting me. “You aren’t going anywhere. You will be staying here for as long as my brother deems it necessary.”

  “What does your brother want from me?” I wail. “I don’t understand what I can do.”

  She smiles and steps back, moving back towards the door, clearly ready to leave the room without giving me any of the answers that I so desperately need. It’s wrong. There is no way that she should leave me here with nothing, she shouldn’t leave me in fear like this, but I guess that’s what she wants is.

  “Have you told her?” A gruff voice follows this woman inside the room, chilling my blood ice cold. “Does she know that she is going to die here?” Fuck, I think I might wet myself as he says this. I can’t even cry anymore, there aren’t any tears left inside of me. “Does she know that Artie is going to die because of her too?”

  “No,” I call out raspily. “No, please don’t hurt Artie. I will do whatever it takes. Please.”

  The man’s heavy footsteps get closer to me and I see the glint of a blade in his hand. Shit, I really am going to die here. I do feel scared but I’m not sure it has properly sunk in yet. I don’t think I have really accepted that my life is about to end here, and I am going to die in a horrific, painful way.

  “You love him, don’t you?” He presses the blade to my cheek, threatening me but not quite plunging the blade inside. “You love that idiot of yours which means you don’t want anything to happen to him.” I just about manage to grunt out a little noise of agreement. “Which means you will do whatever it takes?”

  I nod but this doesn’t seem to appease him. The blade pushes a little harder in to my skin and I let out a little squeal of pain as it pierces my skin. A burning hot drop of blood drips down my cheek which terrifies me. Now there is real blood, it’s starting to become a lot more real. Plus, I have seen a lot of faces now which means I could go to the cops if I want to. I really do know too much. I am never getting out of here alive.

  “Good, because I am going to need you to do certain things for me to keep Artie alive. Maybe even yourself as well. You are going to have to play ball, and I expect you to do what I say.”

  Of course, I am going to say yes. The man has a knife to my cheek, but I will do what he wants anyway because I don’t want anything to happen to the love of my life. If I can do anything to make him okay, then I will even though I am absolutely terrified of what that might mean. This man could ask me to do absolutely anything and I would have to. I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.

  God this is a mess. A God damn mess. I can’t believe that I have ended up here in the middle of this hell.

  Chapter 15 – Artie

  Eleven AM takes forever to come around. My head is all over the place as I imagine all of the terrible things that Butch could be doing to Rose and it scares the living shit out of me. It’s a long time for him to have her under his control and I have no idea how she’s been treated during that time. It’s killing me to not even know if she’s alive. I really don’t know if I can stomach it for much longer. I’m falling apart.

  Of course, that’s what Butch wants. This is my punishment for even daring to suggest that I might leave the gang. He wants me to feel this heart ache and agony, he wants me to know that while he has respected me this far, he isn’t going to do it further. I am now going to be one of his lackeys, treated like shit by him. This is to tear down my spirit so that I agree with whatever the hell he wants me to do. I’m ashamed to say that it’s working as well. Right now, as I head towards the bridge to meet Butch, I know that I will do whatever.

  “Fuck.” I can already see that Butch hasn’t come to this meeting alone, he has a lot of other guys with him. He means business right now. This could be my very last day on this planet. “Fucking hell, fuck…”

  I step out of the car with my hands in the air. I want Butch to know that I am coming here without the intention to fight. I just want Rose to get out of his clutches safe and well… not that she’s here.

  “Where is Rose?” I snap anxiously with my eyes darting everywhere. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, well, well…” Butch doesn’t answer me. Instead, he drops a bloody blade to the floor which makes me feel sick to my stomach. “You have come with a bit of attitude right now, haven’t you?”

  “I haven’t.” I gulp back a thick ball of emotion and shake my head. “I just want to know that she is okay.”

  “She’s fine.” He rolls his eyes and smirks while nudging the blade with his foot. “And you will be too if you slide your gun away from you. I just don’t want any worries when it comes to weapons.”

  That’s fucking ironic when I have guns pointed at me from every angle, but I’m not going to argue. I take mine out and slide it along the ground out of my reach. It leaves me vulnerable and exposed to these men but it’s what Butch wants, and I have to give him that for as long as I can. The calmer that we can all remain as we get through this, the more that we will survive. I would love for us all to live through this.

  “Butch, I never wanted this to happen,” I reassure him right away. “I came to speak to you to try and do this all in a rational way. I didn’t want it to get all dramatic like this. I never wanted this…”

  “Well, this is what you brought on yourself.” He shrugs his shoulders and smiles. “This is what happens when you try to walk away from a lifelong commitment. Things like that aren’t allowed to happen, Artie.”

  My heart sinks. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to do this in the respectful way. Instead I should have just slunk off like I wanted to in the first place. Then Butch wouldn’t have been able to find me and Rose at all then we wouldn’t be in this position right now. We would both be safe and living our new lives together.

  “I’m sorry.” I need to go along with this for a moment. I think that Butch wants to make a big show of me in front of everyone to throw his weight around. I need to play along. “I shouldn’t have ever tried to walk away. I know that it is a lifelong commitment. I was wrong to even think about it.”

  I keep my eyes on the floor even though the silence around me is absolutely deafening. I am itching to glance up to see Butch’s face but instinct screams at me that would be the wrong thing to do. All I can do is keep looking at the ground and wait to see what happens. Hopefully nothing bad…

  “
Argh, shit.” All of a sudden, pain radiates from the left side of my face and the shock sends me tumbling to the ground. I see Butch looming above me with his fists squared above me and his teeth bared. He looks like an animal; his primal war instincts have come screaming out and he is going to destroy me.

  “No one walks away from me,” he snaps with spittle flying out of his mouth. “No one walks away from the gang. Especially not someone like you. I have given you lee way, I have let you get away with a lot because I have always felt sorry for you, I liked you, but that has kicked me in the ass. I have let you walk all over me and now that’s what you’re going to repay me. It’s absolutely disgusting. You should be killed.”

  As his foot slams in to me over and over again, I’m pretty sure that’s what will happen as well. He has brought me here to publicly beat me to death, to warn the other gang members what will happen to them if they try to pull the same sort of shit as me. And I can’t even defend myself because there are guns on me from everywhere. I just have to curl up in a tight ball and allow this to happen even if my body feels like it’s giving up.

  “Don’t ruin him.” God, I have never been so glad to hear Tara’s shrill voice. “I still want him, you know.”

  “I’m not going to keep him here just for you, Tara,” Butch snaps back. “You have to be joking. This guy is a maggot. You can’t still want someone like that. You deserve so much better.”

  While this exchange happens around me, about me, I take the chance to suck in as much air as possible. My lungs are struggling. The beating has taken a lot out of me. I need to replenish myself for just a moment, even if it ends up useless and I lose my life anyway. There is no guarantee that Tara will win this argument.

  “But I do still want him,” she whines like I am a toy in a store, and she is a toddler trying her hardest to get her own way. “I see potential in him, you just need to give him one last chance.”