Dignity

by Jay Crownover

  My captors tossed me in the trunk of a car like I was luggage and slammed it closed. The cramped space smelled like gasoline and blood, which made my stomach turn. Behind the suffocating hood, I closed my eyes and started to work through my options. Everyone in the Point knew that if someone snatched you, you were far more likely to end up dead if you let them move you to a new location. Well, there was nothing I could do about that. We are on the move and I had no way to stop it. I also knew that I was supposed to look for a release latch or try to kick out one of the taillights and signal for help. The hood prevented me from knowing if I was up or down and my bound hands kept me from maneuvering around. I kicked my legs out in front of me and leaned on my side, groaning as my newly injured ribs screamed at me. My stiff shoulders also protested, but I made contact with something solid and kicked it with my boot. I moved a few inches and tried again. Metal thumped against the sole of my shoe.

  I kept kicking, making my way in a half circle when the car suddenly stopped and sent me rolling. I shrieked in surprise and tried to lift myself upright when the trunk was pulled open. Immediately, hard hands latched around my throat and started to shake me. I gagged involuntarily and tried to pull back, but I was stuck firmly in that punishing grasp.

  “Do you know what happens if someone stops us or calls the cops because of the racket you’re making?” I guess I was lucky he hadn’t put me in his patrol car. If he had, he would have been able to blow through lights and stop signs, sirens blaring.

  God, I wanted my hands free so I could fight him. I wanted to hurt him. I longed to maim and scar him. I wanted my face to be the last thing he ever saw . . . right before I destroyed him.

  “I’m a cop. I show my badge. I flash my gun and we go on our way. All you’re doing is making things harder on yourself.”

  He released me with enough force that I cracked my head on the seam where the trunk opened from the car. I felt a warm river of blood start to trickle down the back of my neck.

  “You aren’t a cop. You’re a lackey on the take. You’re a sellout and chump. You let some rich guy up on the Hill pull your strings. You’re a puppet and a pawn.” I bit the words out and laughed against the pain and dread that was infiltrating every single cell in my body.

  A heavy hand landed on my head and I was shoved back into the trunk. “Well, you’re fucking dead.”

  I snorted and screamed, “I’d rather be dead than someone else’s toy to play with.”

  He called me some nasty names but his voice drifted away as the car started to back up and continue the journey to my dismal fate. I stopped wiggling and kicking the interior of the trunk. I needed to keep up as much of my strength and energy as I could on the very off chance that I could get away from the guy they brought in to make me talk. I knew the opportunity for escape was slim to none, but I’d never been the kind of girl who was willing to accept the things that were forced upon me. I did not believe in the inevitable. Nothing was certain until it was, and even though I was pretty sure this was the end of the road for me, I wouldn’t give up or give in until my very last breath. I would fight until every single drop of resistance and defiance was dragged out of me. I wasn’t going to make this easy on any of the people who had put me in this position, myself included.

  After what could have been hours or minutes later, the car came to a stop. The darkness and ache in my head were playing with my sense of time. I had no idea where I was, but I could hear water and the low, deep signals that came from big carrier ships that were constantly coming in and out of the shipping ports on the edge of the Point. I could smell saltwater and oil, so I figured we were down by the docks.

  The older guy muttered something in his nervous voice and the dirty cop held me close—hands skimming over my chest and across the front of my pants—and there was a deafening metal shriek and a whoosh of air as a door was opened. I was forced forward and stumbled to my knees. The impact with the ground dug my teeth into my tongue and made my split head pound. I was jerked back to my feet unceremoniously and my shoulders throbbed in protest. I couldn’t hold back a yelp of discomfort and was startled when I was pushed into a chair. The metal legs dragged across the ground with a deafening screech and I screamed when hands went around my ankles. I kicked and flailed to keep from being tied to the chair but it didn’t do me any good. By the time the gross hood was pulled off of my head, I was trussed up like a Christmas ham and there was no wiggling my way free.

  A single, bare light bulb was hanging over my head, and for a minute, I swore I’d stumbled into a Tarantino movie. The Point was bad, dangerous, and ugly. But this, this was a whole different level of depraved and twisted. I couldn’t believe this shit rolled down from the Hill. Maybe Stark was right and it was the guys who made the rules who were really the ones we needed to watch out for, not the guys breaking them.

  The rusted, weathered metal door to the gigantic shipping container where I was trapped moaned in protest as it was pulled closed behind two new arrivals. It was so ridiculous that they called Mayor Goddard God for short. The man had nothing really impressive to speak of. He was average height, average build, and had thinning hair. His face was sharp, his nose hooked and slightly beak-like. His eyes were a washed-out blue that shouldn’t be menacing, but I knew what this man was capable of. I knew how little he cared for anyone aside from himself. He looked like a politician, not a monster. Yet somehow, he was both.

  The other man looked vaguely familiar. I couldn’t place him off the top of my head, but he moved with the same predatory grace and self-assured swagger like all the men with power in the Point. He moved like he expected people to get out of his way and show him respect without knowing a single thing about him. He was big, had a neatly trimmed beard, and was dressed in a pinstriped suit. His tie was loud and blood red. He had rings on his fingers that sparkled in the dim light and a scar across his throat that looked like someone had recently tried to decapitate him. His fog-colored eyes were cold and assessing as they rolled over me from the top of my head to my bound feet. His mouth pulled down in a frown that would’ve had me taking a step back if I were standing. He was scary in the way only men who killed without conscience could be.

  This guy was no joke.

  They called him a professional and I could see why. I wasn’t sure what he did, but whatever it was, he was the best at it.

  “I told you that what I do only works if the subject hasn’t been touched. If she has grown accustomed to pain, what I do will be less effective and the results are no longer guaranteed.” His voice was sharp and his tone was warning. He moved closer to me and tiny scraps of light from the bare bulb flickered over him. He was far better looking than the guys who had been making my life a living hell for the last two weeks, and I found that incredibly unnerving. Someone that pretty shouldn’t be able to do things so ugly. Brutality wasn’t meant to be beautiful.

  “Our friend with the badge tends to get slightly overzealous when she fights back. I warned him to take it easy on her, but the warning may have come a little later than it should have.” Goddard sounded bored. Asshole. Like it was every day he kept a woman against her will and paid someone to bleed information out of her. Remembering Julia, it occurred to me that he did, in fact, torture women on the regular with zero remorse. “He was smart enough not to bring her in the back of a police car. One of those parked down here would have the natives restless.”

  The guy with the beard stepped closer to me and slowly started to walk around my chair. His eyes picked apart every bruise and mark that was on my face. I felt his gaze burn at the back of my head. It licked over the trashed, torn skin around the zip ties at my wrists and flicked down to my bound ankles.

  I gasped when, wordlessly, he lowered himself behind me and grabbed my hands. I told myself not to move, not to make a single sound, but I couldn’t bite back a whimper of fear and pain. I heard the snick of a blade springing out of a knife and felt the chill of it against my skin. I sobbed in relief and in agony when my
hands were suddenly free. Blood rushed to parts of my body that were starved for it and every muscle in my torso started to tingle with sweet relief. The big man in the flashy suit moved in front of me and kneeled down. He looked at me from under heavy brows and the corners of his lips twitched as I watched him warily. He cut my ankles free with the same precision and efficiency that he had used to release my hands and gave me a little wink that no one else could see.

  “I’ve never had to tie a woman up in order to get what I wanted from her. Sure, I’ve had a couple beg me to restrain them, but I would say this is overkill.” Before I could form a thought or ask him what he was doing, he slid the handle of his switchblade into my hand and curled my fingers around it. In a voice that was so low only I could hear him, he muttered, “It’s about to get messy in here, babe. Brace yourself the best you can. Hold onto that and run the minute you have a clear shot at the door.”

  “I brought you here to get the information I need, not to lecture my men. Your way of extracting the truth might not leave marks, but it is no less violent.” The man spoke like this was just another business transaction, and it made my skin crawl when I realized that’s exactly what it was. My fingers tightened on the knife as the man with the beard climbed to his feet and put his back to me.

  He was taking a big risk. I could easily slip that razor-sharp blade right between his ribs and try and fight my way free while he bled out.

  “I told you. She was supposed to be untouched and unharmed. I can’t do what I do effectively if your careless thugs already damaged the parts of her that I need to make her talk. I work with the precision of a surgeon. You went in on her like a steamroller.”

  The Mayor stiffened and crossed his arms over his chest. I could tell he was unhappy and impatient with the man who had armed me. He wasn’t expecting pushback or concern about my condition. He wasn’t used to anyone defying him, not even a hired killer.

  “I wouldn’t think I need to remind you just how much I paid for you to be here.” He was condescending and haughty. It was almost as if what he paid this man to do to me was distasteful, as if he found the entire thing unsavory even though he was the mastermind behind it all. I would never have known who he was if he hadn’t touched his stepdaughter.

  “Yeah, I am intimately acquainted with the going rate for torture and punishment. Cruelty has never come cheap. I gotta tell you, it’s not enough. It can never be enough.”

  The cop took a step forward and the lawyer-looking guy shook his head and shifted nervously. Goddard blinked rapidly and opened his mouth like he was going to say something when suddenly, the entire world turned upside down.

  Everyone let out a startled sound as the metal container jerked and lurched with an ear-splitting noise. The concrete below the metal wailed in protest as something heavy and hard hit the outside with enough force to send the entire container careening to the side. The light swung wildly from the ceiling. The chair went flying. The dirty cop was flung sideways as the Mayor and the skinny, older man tumbled over one another. The guy with the beard, my savior and current hero, was also tossed heavily through the air. I was thrown around like a rag doll. My banged-up body protesting when the container finally stopped moving and rested on its rusted side. The single light had long since gone out and everything was pitch black. My head was bleeding even more now and the ringing between my ears was loud enough to drown out any other sound.

  There was shouting coming from somewhere outside the container and loud pops that were likely gunshots. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I could see a faint light at the end of the tunnel and I was going to run for it. Today was not the day I was going to die.

  Clutching the switchblade in my hand, I scrambled to my feet and took off for the far end of the container toward the door. I had no idea if it opened from the inside or not, but I was about to find out.

  The Mayor was pointing at me and shouting from where he was lying half under the older man who had helped keep me captive. I was scrambling, slipping and sliding my way to the door, when I was tackled from behind. I knew those hands and I fucking hated them. I didn’t even pause before taking the knife and driving it right into the back of one of those grabbing, clutching hands. I heard the cop scream and swear and I took a sick kind of satisfaction in the pain I caused. He let me go like I was made of fire, and in that moment, I wished I could burn him to nothing more than ash.

  There was a grunt and the sound of fists hitting flesh, but I didn’t stop to see who was fighting whom. All I cared about was getting free. I would throw myself against the door over and over again until I got through or died trying. There was as much yelling and noise happening on the inside of the metal shipping container as there was on the outside. Voices were yelling and there was a distinct pop that rattled off the walls. Someone had a gun and they had fired it at either me or the bearded man who had come to rescue me. I didn’t want him to die. I owed him my life, but his heroics wouldn’t be worth anything if neither one of us made it out of this oversized tin can.

  Head down and frantically feeling my way in the dark, fingers scraping across rough metal and cutting open on unseen hazards, I managed to make it to the sideways door. There was still a commotion going on behind me, and it was technically three against one, but my money was on the guy with the beard. He looked like he could handle himself, and I hoped against hope he could handle the dirty cop and the Mayor, as well.

  I tried to find my way out. I pulled and tugged. I pounded and screamed. I couldn’t find any kind of lever or latch, and I wasn’t sure anyone could hear me on the outside. It sounded like I was banging on the inside of a steel drum; the noise was making my head pound. I was collecting my breath to keep screaming my damn head off but I let it go in a rush when the cock-eyed door suddenly wrenched open. I tumbled out ungracefully and not sure if I was falling into the arms of the enemy or not.

  Luckily, as soon as everything stopped spinning and the world finally ended up the right way, I recognized the behemoth of a man who caught me before I landed face first on the concrete. Another bruiser with dark hair, haunted eyes, and a wicked scar that indicated he’d angered some very bad people in his time. Noah Booker worked for Nassir and was no doubt behind the chaos that was currently taking place on the docks. I could see bodies on the ground. I could see blood and spent bullets. I lived a rough life, but this was all new to me, and I could swear I smelled death lingering in the air all around me.

  “I got you.” His voice was nothing more than a harsh growl.

  I let him haul me to my feet and cast a look at the overturned container. “The guy with the beard is still in there. Someone has a gun.” I didn’t know if they were friends or maybe coworkers of some kind, but I thought he might want to know.

  He gave his dark head a shake and the scar that bisected one entire side of his face twitched as he frowned.

  “He’s on his own. If he makes it out of there in one piece, he gets his life back. He’s got a lot on the line so don’t worry about him. He’s really fucking hard to kill, believe me. Worry about you.”

  It was good advice and I was going to take it. I pulled my arm free of his hold and shook my head. “Who sent you? Why are you here? Why did you do all of this?” I swept an arm out to indicate the carnage he was walking through like it was a field of flowers. “How did you know where I was?”

  He looked like he wanted to strangle me. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best time for twenty questions, but I’d had enough of being jerked around and manhandled. I wanted control back. I wanted my power back.

  “I go where Nassir tells me to go and I do whatever he needs done.” It was said blandly, like laying waste to an entire armed security detail was all in a day’s work.

  “Why would Nassir care about me? How did he even know the Mayor snatched me up off the street?” I’d met Nassir one time, completely unwillingly on my part. He made it clear he had no use for me beyond the information he wanted at the time, and I couldn’t get away from him
and his ostentatious office fast enough.

  The brute of a man who had just pulled me from certain death cocked his head to the side and considered me silently. His lips twitched and that scar pulled in a way that was oddly endearing. “How do you think Nassir knew you were missing? Who do you know who would be willing to sign his life away in order to get you back?”

  I blinked up at him like an owl, sure the gash in my head and the lack of food for the last couple weeks had finally gotten to me. “Stark?” The word squeaked out and once again, the world seemed to spin sickeningly around me.

  I asked him for help and he told me no.

  It couldn’t be.

  “The boy genius sent us after you and told us not to come back if you weren’t with us. I’ve never seen him so worked up about anything. Minus the time you cleaned him out. I wasn’t sure he knew how to react like a normal human when shit went down.”

  I blinked again and started to tilt forward. Everything was going fuzzy on the edges and I could hardly hear him over the rushing in my ears. I wasn’t sure why I could no longer stand, or why, after everything I’d just been through, it was the knowledge that Snowden Stark did indeed give a shit if I lived or died that took me out.

  The last thing I saw was the big, dark man move toward me, swearing and muttering my name, as everything went black.