34. Aimee
Aimee
The hood over my head reeks of marijuana. So deeply it’s all I smell as I sit alone in a room for however long Titan leaves me here. It could be minutes, or it could be an hour. Someone sits in front of me, shifting every so often, but they don’t speak.
Titan told me he’d put a bullet in my father’s head if I so much as moved or said anything, so I don’t bother.
Until I can see where I am and get a view of my surroundings, there’s no point anyway.
All I can do is sit and wait with my ass digging into this wooden chair, hoping that Chaos is okay.
Hoping Levi finds me.
That he doesn’t hate me for this mess I’ve gotten us into.
After a long beat of silence, a door finally opens, and I straighten my back. Boots thump across the wooden floor, and then the hood is ripped off my head .
With sunlight streaming through the window, it takes me a moment to blink the face into focus. And when I do, I find Titan grinning at me.
“Welcome home.” He steps back, and I take in the too-familiar room.
The one that haunts many of my nightmares. And now, being here. Seeing it and smelling it, I’m surprised I don’t vomit. Especially when a figure across the room steals my attention.
Locked in the chains bolted to the ground is my father. His ankles are tied together so he can’t run, and a messy wrap, soaked in blood, covers where he’s missing a hand.
The shuffling I heard wasn’t someone guarding me. It was him.
“Dad.” I shoot to standing, but Titan moves into my path.
“You remember the deal, Aimee.” He tilts his head to the side, watching me. “Behave and I won’t hurt your father.”
“Don’t listen to him, Aimee.”
“I thought I told you to be quiet, or I’d gag you.” Titan glares over his shoulder. “Don’t tempt me, Anderson. You’ve already lost one hand. You won’t be much use without the other. And then I won’t have any reason to keep you. But I’ll keep her.”
Titan smiles, and my father fights against the chains.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I lie. “I’m okay.”
“There she is.” Titan grins, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand .
But when I step back, his hand falls, and his amusement falters.
“I’ll forgive that once since I know you’re just readjusting to your surroundings,” he threatens.
“You have me now. I turned myself over. Let my father go.”
“Did you turn yourself over?” Titan steps closer. “From what I recall, you said you refused to come with me. Forced me to drag you here when you know how much I hate using effort to retrieve what’s mine. You were difficult on purpose.”
“Let my dad go, and we can work this out.”
Titan’s slimy gaze slides the length of my body, and I can’t help but shiver as he pauses at my chest. “I suppose we can.”
“Don’t do this, Aimee—”
Titan spins around, backhanding my father to cut him off. “I told you to be quiet. Do you really want her to pay for your mistakes any more than she already has? And to think I once considered you a friend.”
Something solidifies in my stomach as that last word falls from Titan’s lips. “What do you mean friend ?”
“He really never told you?” Amusement blooms in Titan’s eyes as heat drains from my cheeks. “What do you think your father was doing all those years you were away? Why do you think he’s still here? Your father is one of my most trusted business partners.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You made him help you.”
“When he tried to back out of his obligations, yes.” Titan shrugs like it’s nothing. “But no one forced him to get involved when this all started. He was more than happy to assist with anything I needed, so long as I paid for that pretty house you lived in and funded your private education.”
I swallow, but my throat feels like burning coals. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father and I have been business partners for years, Aimee. Long before I ever knew what a true prize he was hiding in that big house of his.” Titan grabs my chin and angles it up.
“I suppose I should thank him for losing me all that money a decade ago. He was very good at keeping you off my radar until he had no other option.”
“You’re lying. You’re just trying to turn us against each other. If that was true, I would have known.”
“How?” He angles his head. “Your father certainly wasn’t going to admit to anything when he was the one who got you kidnapped. It was easier for him to let you hate Havoc and the Twisted Kings than for him to admit to his mistakes.”
“You could have told me.”
“Why bother when you were such a helpful little tool to make your father behave. So long as I held that truth over his head, it was one more reason for him to cooperate. That’s why I kept our little secret, right, Anderson?”
Titan winks at my father, but my father doesn’t meet Titan’s gaze. His eyes are set on me. His expression is ripped open, telling me everything Titan is saying is true.
“You worked for them this entire time?” I swallow hard. “But you hated bikers. You hated Levi and his club. ”
“Because I knew what would happen if you didn’t keep your distance. You getting involved with Levi put you in danger.”
“It put me in danger with your friends .” I scoff, putting the pieces together. “I’m in this mess because of you . They came to our house because of you . They—” My hand flies to my abdomen. To the scar that changed me. “You’re the one who brought this on us.”
Not the Twisted Kings.
Not Levi.
My father.
“How? Why?” As if any answer can explain what he’s done.
“I thought it was legitimate. I didn’t realize what Titan would ask after that first transaction. It was just a couple of passports—”
“Don’t discount your work, Anderson.” Titan turns from my dad to me. “Your father’s expertise with legal documents has been extremely beneficial over the years. Especially when we need to move people in and out of the country. He has a gift for getting around the system.”
Trafficking.
My father has been helping the Iron Sinners with their trafficking operation.
I shake my head, but no words come out. My father helped the Iron Sinners sell people as if they had no worth. And he dragged me into it.
“You should have told me.” My throat tightens. “You should have said something. ”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.” Dad’s apology might be genuine, but it doesn’t erase what he’s done.
I’ll never be the same because of him, and my story isn’t the worst of them. There are women who endured worse. Women who likely died, all because my father was greedy and got in over his head.
Dad lifts to his knees. “I’m sorry.”
But Titan is done letting him talk. He circles Dad, lowering the butt of the gun on the back of his head and knocking him out.
“That’s enough for now.” Titan’s expression is tight.
My father is limp on the floor, but he’s still breathing.
“I can already see you trying to forgive him.” Titan continues to circle the room. “You always were compassionate toward the wrong people.”
“I’m not forgiving anyone right now.”
“Whatever you say.” Titan scratches his jaw with the barrel of his gun, and I wish it would accidentally go off. “I’ll always be thankful for your father personally. Even if he’s mostly worthless now. He brought us together. That’s the only reason I let him live this long.”
“You make it sound like we’re in a relationship.”
“Aren’t we?” Titan takes a step toward me. “The fact that you made it so easy for me to get you proves how much you missed me.”
“I didn’t miss you for a second.” My teeth clench.
“Are you sure?” He tilts his head, skimming me with a sickening sweep of his eyes. “You showed up knowing that I’d find a way to get you out from under them. That’s the problem with the Twisted Kings. They’re always a step behind, trying to catch up.”
Arrogance beams from his eyes, and I’ve had enough.
“You’re right, Titan. You’re always one step ahead of everyone, and that’s the ongoing problem. Which is how they knew you’d take me straight to him.”
Titan’s grin falters. Barely. A slight shift as he processes what I’m saying.
“Did you really think they would send me to you without a plan? They assumed you’d do this. Why do you think they made it so easy?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like you said, why would my man have me meet with you and not be there himself? I can promise you it’s not because he’s bored.” My eyes narrow.
That comment has Titan’s grin dropping completely. He shares women all the time, either to fulfill a fantasy or as punishment. But he never shared me with anyone.
Watching his rage bubble is pure pleasure. Knowing I finally found a way to hurt him, when it’s always been the other way around.
“You laid your own trap.” I smirk. “It was so well thought out, you didn’t realize you were the one falling into it.”
“But you refused to come willingly.”
“If I’d agreed, you’d have been suspicious,” I point out.
“So I played my part. I distracted you while the Twisted Kings pretended to break into your safe houses, knowing my father wasn’t there.
I acted surprised when you thought you’d caught them in their scheme.
I even fought you on coming here, just to make sure you would. They needed you to let them in.”
“They’re going to be disappointed then.” He steps closer. “We’ve upgraded our security. The Twisted Kings might have followed you here, but they aren’t getting in.”
“Are you sure about that?” The lights flicker with an explosion at that exact moment. “You were so busy focusing on keeping them out, you forgot to pay attention to who you were letting in.”
A girl who is done running.
Done fearing.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small chip that looks like nothing more than a coin, except for the button hidden inside.
A button I pushed the second I was through the gates, starting a timer on a series of electromagnetic pulse points around the property that Ghost said would take out the security grid.
The lights shut off a second later. In the middle of the day, I barely notice, except that it makes Titan’s jaw tick.
“What is that?”
I toss the small remote to the floor since it’s worthless now. “My way of thanking you for what you did to me.”
“Your father will pay for this.”
“I don’t think so.”
Gunshots start to ring around the property.
I don’t know who is where or how many Twisted Kings descend, but the clubhouse fills with the sound of boots, yelling, and gunfire. In the distance, there are faint explosions at the fence line .
But Titan doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as tear his eyes away from me as realization settles. As his eyes harden and his jaw tenses.
“You think you’re a smart girl. But not smart enough.” He pulls back, reaching for the rug and revealing a trapdoor.
When he flips it open, dust fills the air.
A tunnel.
“We’re leaving.” He aims his gun at me.
I was in this room so many times, and I never knew it existed. If Titan gets me in the tunnel, Levi will never find me.
I glance over at my father’s unconscious body, my hands trembling for the first time.
Quickly, I shake them, snapping myself out of it.
Panic won’t do me any good. Think now, feel later. There will be time to process what is happening, but this moment is not it. I need to act. To do something.
I need to stay out of that tunnel.
“No.” I straighten my spine.
Titan’s teeth click. Rage fills his dark, empty eyes. He rushes forward to grab me by force because he doesn’t actually want to shoot me. And that’s my opening.
He closes in, and I grab the blade off his hip just as he shoves my back into the wall.
His hand in my hair pulls so hard my scalp burns.
But I lift the blade between us and shove it up, right in the soft spot Tempe talked about when she probably thought I wasn’t paying attention during her self-defense lessons .
I drive the blade right under Titan’s ribs and pierce his lung.
He releases me and stumbles back, but I don’t loosen my grip on the handle. The blade slides from his abdomen, and blood pours down his chest. He almost trips, and I don’t stop. I uncork years of rage and unleash on him.
I’m the one rushing forward now. The knife sinks into his shoulder, but I hit bone, so I pull it out. Then I’m stabbing him in the side.
Again.
Again.
Until he’s fallen to the floor, and I’m straddling him.
The man who let someone take a knife to my body. A man who sliced me open and took my choice away. A man who ripped and tore and bit until he chipped away at every ounce of innocence. Until I was nothing more than his mess.
I feel no guilt as I press the blade to his throat. As Titan’s blood soaks through my pants. It paints my arms. It runs down both of us.
I feel no guilt as his wide, dark eyes stare up at me in fear.
For the first time in his miserable existence, Titan looks afraid of something. And that something is me .
I’m no longer in my body. I’m not a person. I’m a force to be reckoned with.
I slide the blade across his throat and deliver his judgment .
Blood spurts out, painting me in a beautiful red river as the light leaves Titan’s eyes. It rains over me until there is no sound. Nothing except for him and me.
I don’t move or think. I barely breathe until arms grab me from behind and pull me up.
Maybe Levi won’t get me in time, and the Iron Sinners will do what they will. It doesn’t matter. Because Titan carved this hole in me. Hollowed me out. But at least I got to pay him back before I die.