Diamond in the Rough: RBMC Pittsburgh, PA Book 2

by Deja Voss

  “Come on, just close your eyes. Go to sleep. Come to me, Jewel. We can finally be together forever,” his voice taunts in the back of my brain.

  “Fuck you!” I shout. “I’m done with you, you piece of shit. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this bullshit!” My right hand slips right out of the hole without much struggle. Before I can celebrate too hard, my entire arm feels like it’s both numb and being beaten with a hammer at the same time.

  I scream in agony before slapping my hand over my mouth. If one of Floyd’s men find me like this, I know it’s going to be really bad for me. The sensation subsides enough that I can use my spare hand to untie the other hand. This time I’m braced for the sensation of all the blood flooding back to my arm.

  I sit down on the rolling chair for a minute, catching my breath, gathering my thoughts, and crying out in relief. I know I’m not in the clear yet, nowhere near it, but for the first time since I was captured, I feel like maybe I’m going to be ok.

  I untie my ankles, even though my fingers feel like they’re going to break every time I bend them. I try to push myself up off the chair, but my legs don’t want to work. They feel like shaky rubber, and I fall to my face on the dirt floor.

  I’m not fucking going out like this.

  If I can’t walk out of here, I will crawl.

  And if I can’t crawl, I’ll slither like a snake.

  My tears and blood mix with the dirt and I use every ounce of strength I have to push myself forward. When I get to the door, I reach my arms up to the handle, groaning in agony as I pull myself up. The feeling starts returning to my legs, and I think as long as I can get myself to a soft grassy surface, I might be even able to take off running until I find a road.

  The night air hits me with an icy blast to my face, nearly knocking me to the ground, reminding me how weak I actually am.

  Then, the sound of gunfire fills the air, and I instinctively dive to the ground, throwing my hands over my head. There’s a house about thirty yards away with the lights on. All I can see are shadows through the curtains, but there’s one shadow that’s unmistakable. My heart starts to flutter, and the tears start to flow again.

  Tall, wide, strong…

  It’s Brass! I breathe a sigh of relief and push myself up from the ground, but all the blood rushes to my head and I see stars. I try to walk a few steps forward, but my legs go weak beneath me again, and I begin falling forward.

  As my body hits the earth, I don’t think I’ll be able to get any further. Going to sleep right now would be the most comforting thing. If I go to sleep all this pain will go away.

  “You’re so close to getting out of here,” a little voice inside me reminds me. This time it’s not Barney. It’s someone sweet. Someone kind. It’s a voice I’ve never heard before.

  He came to save me. I can’t give up now.

  “Brass,” I cry out to the best of my ability, my throat raw and my voice weak. “I’m over here.”

  Everything goes black and the last thing I see is his face. I don’t know if it’s a hallucination, or it’s really happening, but I let myself succumb into the darkness, I let myself feel fully safe and comfortable.

  Chapter Nine

  Brass:

  “Clear!” I shout as I take a quick look around the basement. There’s not much to it - a big shelf of canned goods, a stockpile of ammo, a couple of ratty couches with a confederate flag hanging behind them from the wall. It’s your typical trashy basement bunker, the perfect place for a bunch of little boys who want to play military men to hide out in on the weekends when they aren’t out inciting hate somewhere.

  It makes me fucking sick, but not as sick as the thought that these guys are holding Jewel hostage. She’s a tough chick, but what she has in strength, they make up for in numbers.

  So far since our raid, the only shots fired came from a kid who could barely hold his glock right, and I knocked him out with one swift blow to the back of the head, the bullets from his gun flying straight through the ceiling, splattering plaster all over our heads.

  I’d shoot them all dead if I had to for Jewel’s protection, but passed out in a puddle of blood and piss is good enough for now.

  “Jewel!” I shout, throwing open doors and flicking on light switches. I let myself indulge in the fantasy that she’s alive, she’s fine, and I’ll be able to rescue her and get her somewhere safe before she has to suffer at all. I gotta find her first, though.

  “She’s gotta be out back,” Lazarus says. “Come on.”

  We take the basement steps and waiting for us at the top is some random scrub yielding nunchucks. It would be funny the way Laz takes him down with a chop to the jugular if it were any other circumstance.

  It would be impressive, the pile of bodies scattered around the floors of the farmhouse, if we had Jewel safe and secure.

  We step through our wreckage and out the back door.

  The hair on my arms instantly stands up the second I catch a glimpse of a wooden shack about thirty yards away. I gulp back the lump in my throat, trying to prepare myself for what I’m going to find.

  The door is open and a dull glow of a lantern shines from inside.

  The only sound I can hear are me and Lazarus’ footsteps across the grass and the wail of coyotes a couple miles away.

  I take off running across the yard, grimacing the entire way, hoping I can hold my shit together when I find her. I need to be calm and collected for her sake. I hold on to that fantasy, hold on to hope, and run as fast as my legs allow.

  “Fuck,” Lazarus grumbles as he falls face first onto the ground, tripping over something. I reach my hand down to help him up, but I’m face to face with exactly what I didn’t want to find. Her eyes stare off into the distance, cold and empty, her body contorted, and her bloody hair matted to her face.

  “Oh my God.” I drop to my knees next to her, scooping a clump of hair out of her mouth. I’m scared to touch her. Scared to move her. The way she’s all bruised and bloody, bones jutting out of her arm, my heart shatters. Nobody should’ve ever had to experience the terror she experienced, and it’s all our fault. The MC should’ve done a better job protecting her. She’s one of our own. I should’ve never let her out of my sight. It brings a tear to my eye, knowing how badly I failed her when I promised myself I’d never let that happen to a woman I cared about ever again

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, pressing my fingers to her neck, feeling for her pulse.

  Lazarus runs into the shack. “Clear,” he shouts over his shoulder.

  Whatever happened here, she clearly never quit fighting. I just don’t like thinking about what kind of horror she witnessed on the way to her resting spot. Whatever it was, she didn’t fucking deserve it.

  Her pulse is weak, but her chest is rising and falling slowly. She’s alive, but barely.

  A rattling cough comes out of her mouth, and she starts blinking her eyes wildly, like she just snapped out of a nightmare.

  A smile forms across her swollen lips, and she opens her mouth to say something.

  “I did it,” she whispers. She tries to laugh, and I softly press my finger to her lips, wondering how she’s even functional.

  “You know who I am?” I ask. We need to hurry and get her medical help, but I’m trying to assess her condition so I can figure out how I can get her out of here without hurting her even worse.

  “I knew you’d come for me, Brass,” she says closing her eyes and smiling ear to ear. “You never let me down.”

  It warms my heart. I don’t know how she knew, but maybe there’s more to us than just a secret fuck behind a shack.

  Maybe she can see past the brute I am and know that I’ve always been here for her.

  Or maybe she’s just in shock.

  She looks like a dirty angel, a beautiful busted up martyr, a saint who was dragged through the fire and lived to tell the tale.

  She looks like the kind of woman who needs to get the hell away from us. I’
m never letting this happen to her again.

  “I didn’t tell em shit.” She smiles so wide, her teeth show, and they’re covered in blood, but it’s beautiful and heartbreaking. She’s old lady material, that’s for fucking sure. She shouldn’t have to be, though.

  “Alright champ,” Laz says. “We need to get you outta here, though.” I can tell by the way he holds his fist to his mouth, he’s about as clueless as I am. There ain’t a part of that woman’s body that looks like I can touch without hurting her. I know we have the best medical staff money can buy waiting back at the hideout, but getting her there is going to be a whole different challenge.

  So many times I fantasized about throwing this woman on my bike, her holding on to me, her pretty little tits pressed into my back. This isn’t how I ever fantasized about it going down.

  Lazarus reaches for her hand, and instinctively I slap his arm away. He’s not putting his hands on her. Nobody is. Not ever again. He looks at me with shock and shakes his head. “What do you suggest?”

  She reaches her arms up and I let her wrap them around my neck, cradling her as delicately as I can. It’s almost a relief, feeling the way she shivers in my arm, knowing she’s at least alive. I could stand like this forever with her in my arms, but she needs medical attention and she needs it now.

  “I think I left something back there,” she says meekly as I carry her across the yard.

  “It’s ok, babe. We’ll get you a new one.” I love the sound of her voice. I could talk to her all night long, but I worry about her bleeding from the inside out. I worry every time she talks she’s fucking herself up even worse. I can’t really see shit out here, with only the light of the stars to guide me to my bike, but I know she’s in a really bad way.

  “Okay,” she mumbles, and just like that she’s out like a light, snoring as her arms grip tighter around my neck. By the light of the moon I can see the stub where her ear used to be. I can see that one arm laced over my shoulder has a bone poking out through the skin. Rage bubbles up inside me and I vow that by tomorrow, I don’t care what the fuck Bruiser says, Floyd is a dead man and so is the rest of his crew. I’ll start with his ears and work my way down until he’s nothing but a pile of body parts, and I’ll relish every minute of it.

  For now, I need to get my angel to the safe house.

  Chapter Ten

  Jewel:

  I can’t feel a thing. Every once in awhile, I can see a little bit of light filtering through from the inside of my eyelids.

  I might catch a snippet of a conversation, a smell of something soapy or sterile or a taste of blood in my mouth. Everything else is numb. I know I should be afraid, but it’s almost like being back in the womb, just existing, not really aware and not really concerned, and not having to do anything at all. Maybe this is what it feels like to be dead. Maybe this is what it’s like when the soul leaves the body.

  “She’s lucky I suppose?” a man muses. “The cut to the ear was a very clean incision. I can’t imagine the pain she went through when he cauterized it, though. I’m sure she probably blacked out before she felt that.”

  “I’m gonna fucking kill him,” a familiar voice growls. I realize right now, I’m not dead, and it makes me smile. Last thing I remember was looking up into those bright blue eyes. Reaching up and grabbing that thick neck as he carried me across the yard. Brass came for me. He saved me. “Tell me where he is, Bruiser. Right fucking now or I’ll fuck you up.”

  I laugh, or at least, I think I do. Everything sounds so weird inside my head. I try to pry my eyelids open, and when I do, I see Bruiser’s terrified face. Brass has him pinned up against the wall like he’s a tiny little rag doll.

  “Put him down, you maniac,” another man says. “We’re gonna get Floyd. Just gotta be calculated about it.”

  I wonder if anybody knows I’m awake. Probably not. Club business isn’t something that gets shared outside of church. I guess that’s why I’m in this mess to begin with. I’m tangled up in club business, even though I never wanted to be. Barney fucked me from beyond the grave, and if any of these men here knew what I know, they’d probably pin me to the wall, too, or worse.

  My heart races and I start worrying about what they have me drugged up on. Will it make me talk? Will I crack and not even know it? It was easy to keep my mouth shut with Floyd because he didn’t give me the option to numb my pain. It made my mind sharper and clearer. It made my purpose stronger. These pain meds take all that clarity away. I’m just a big warm blob, no control between my mouth and my brain.

  “Knock it off.” Gin’s voice cuts through the chaos. “She needs her rest. She doesn’t need your drama. Take it outside. This is a place of healing.”

  Everybody gets really quiet. I can’t exactly assess my condition based on the numbness flowing through me, but I’m sure she’s probably right. I’m too exhausted to keep my eyes open, anyway.

  The smell of lavender fills the air and Gin’s cold hand grips mine. “My poor baby,” she sighs, and I nearly purr as she dabs at my forehead with a cool washcloth. “Are you sure she doesn’t need to go to the hospital?”

  “She’s on a heavy dose of antibiotics. Her wounds are all stitched and we were able to set her arm. She’ll need follow up care, and maybe in the future if she wishes, plastic surgery on her ear, but there’s no difference between keeping her here and keeping her in the hospital.” I don’t know who’s talking anymore, but they sound serious. All of that sounds serious. I know left to my own devices, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered seeking medical attention. That shit’s too expensive and I don’t have insurance. I probably would’ve just walked it off.

  “We know what we’re doing Gin. Besides, until we can figure out what Floyd wants with her, she’s going to have to stay at the hideout. It’s the only way we can make sure she’s safe. Only way we can make sure everybody’s safe.”

  “Well I’m not leaving,” she says. “You in there Jewel? You’re safe, babe. I’m here. You’re not alone.” I feel her breath on my face, and her cold fingers on my hand, and the more I feel the more I smile. I’m alive. I survived.

  I try to squeeze her hand back. Having her here makes me feel a lot better. I don’t know who all is in the room with us aside from her, Brass, and Bruiser, but something about being all doped up and unable to move makes me feel so vulnerable.

  “Gin,” I mumble, trying to part my lips. It feels like they’re sewed shut.

  “Yes!” she says. “I’m here Jewel. You don’t worry about anything. You just relax and rest. You’re going to be ok.”

  I pry my eyelids open and everything is still kind of blurry around the edges. There’s a lot of people standing around this bed. There’s more eyeballs on me than I can even count. As, I finally get some feeling back in my body, the first sensation is my bladder fixing to burst open.

  “Gin, bathroom,” I say in a panic, trying to figure out how I’m gonna get there.

  She smiles and nods and I can sense the panic in her eyes, too, because we all know there’s no way in hell tiny little Gin is capable of helping me to the bathroom. Without hesitation, Brass slides his arm underneath me.

  “You tell me if I’m hurting you,” he says in an assuring tone. Nothing on me hurts but my poor bladder, and he effortlessly carries me to the bathroom while Gin pushes the cart with everything I’m hooked up to behind us. I realize I’m wearing a hospital gown and I’m so thankful because the idea of somebody having to pull down my underwear for me to take a piss is pretty freaking embarrassing. He sets me down on the toilet and stands in the corner with his hands in his pockets.

  “Man, get the hell out of here,” Gin says, pushing him out the door. “I know you’re trying to be sweet, but she needs some privacy.”

  She must not know the condition he found me in. I was covered in blood, puke, piss, who knows what else when I was laying out in that field. He definitely saw me at my very worst. Still, I’m relieved to be alone with her for a minute.

 
“I’m so high,” I mumble, trying to will myself to pee. A few short seconds ago I didn’t think I was going to make it without having an accident, and now it’s like my bladder is so high, it doesn’t even remember what this room is for.

  “As you should be,” she says. “I’ll make sure you don’t feel a thing until you’re healed up. Promise.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know. I promise we’re gonna get em, Jewel. You’re safe now, though. Nothing bad is gonna happen again. I promise on my life.”

  She says that, but she has no idea what happened in that shack, or what Floyd wanted from me. Rescuing me was the worst thing the club could’ve done. Nobody’s safe now. Bad things are definitely going to happen.

  I finally start to pee, and breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I should’ve never let you ride home alone. I should’ve let the driver drop you off first. I wish they would’ve taken me instead,” she says.

  They wouldn’t have taken her instead, though.

  They wanted me, and only me.

  “Not your fault,” I say. “My fault for getting so trashed.”

  “What did he say to you? Did he tell you what he wanted?”

  “Gin, I can’t right now,” I say weakly. “I just need… sleep…” My eyes close involuntarily. I feel my legs go numb and I try to use my hands to prop myself up but my splinted arm keeps me from being able to catch myself. God, I’m a disaster. A helpless, vulnerable disaster.

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeats softly as she tries to help me from falling to the floor. “I shouldn’t push you. I just want to know what those fuckers did to you.”

  “You’re a good friend,” I whisper, “but the most helpful kind thing you can do for me right now involves some toilet paper in between my legs.” I chuckle because it’s so sad. I can’t even wipe myself.

  “Of course,” she says.