Chapter Nineteen
I lay there in the dark listening to nothing. That place didn’t even creak. There was absolutely nothing happening. The silence was mind-numbing, filling my head with a thick fuzziness. If I could have slept, I would have done. But I was awake. And hungry.
The sandwich must be on the floor beside the bed somewhere because I could still smell it as if it was held right under my nose. My stomach growled. How long had it been since I had eaten anything? Or drunk anything? At this rate, I was going to die from dehydration before they did anything else.
My arms tingled. They must have spent days in this same position, and while I was grateful my weight wasn’t hanging off them now, I needed to put them somewhere else.
The fiery pain in my shoulder blades had dulled, but it was probably that the nerve endings were so strained they were now burned out, a thick, aching nothingness the only feeling left.
The sigh was louder than anything, filling the room with my frustration.
How the fuck had I got here? Because Fury was a Northern King?
Because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I wouldn’t have been there if I’d stayed with the Kings.
And followed Kings’ rules. If I hadn’t broken away from the ride and done my own thing, the Rats wouldn’t have followed me. I might have been safe.
And where was my brother? Was he out looking for me? Dismembering rival bike clubs like their limbs were made of cardboard. Were they turning over every stone? And why the fuck had they not found me? All their resources. All their contacts. And here I was. Still tied to a fucking bed.
Now the room filled with a scream. Angry.
Ragged. Torn straight from my chest. It ripped through me before I even knew I was letting it go.
It sounded wild, broken, too raw to belong to someone who’d spent her whole life fighting to keep control.
Not to be controlled. The walls spat it back at me, warped and echoing; the room itself was mocking my fury.
I hated it, hated how desperate it made me sound, how much it betrayed me.
My throat burned with it, each note scraping up like gravel, but still I pushed, because silence felt worse.
Silence meant giving up. And uncertainty was telling me to do that.
If all I had left was the sound of my rage, then I’d make it loud enough to remind myself I was still alive.
And that was the way I was fucking staying.
I cut it off before it had really stopped, biting down so hard my teeth ached. The silence that followed was deafening, a hollow throb in my ears where the sound had been. My chest heaved, ribs straining, the taste of iron sharp on my tongue where I’d bitten too hard.
And now that fucking burn started behind my eyes. In the absolute silence, I felt the fabric growing damp. Fuck.
“Fuuuuucck!”
It wasn’t a scream now. It contained no fear.
Only rage. Fucked off anger ready to blow.
And it couldn’t blow because there was nothing to hit or strike because I was tied up so fucking tight.
Pain seared through my wrists. And I yanked my arms again, fighting the restraints, another wave of agony through my arms, into my shoulders.
“Fuuuccck!”
But something about it felt good. I pulled again, feeling the same red-hot liquid agony flood my veins. My heart thumped in my chest, gathering rhythm, momentum building. Twisting and pulling, each movement bit into my skin, but with each self-punishing movement, something felt looser.
The sound came from my feet. A clunk and then a scrape. The door opening. That smell. Him.
His steps were urgent. Rushed. I braced. My hands balled into fists I couldn’t throw.
“What’s wrong?”
His voice was as urgent as his steps. Low. Concerned.
“What do you fucking mean, what’s wrong?”
“I heard you screaming.”
“Wouldn’t you fucking scream if you were tied to a bed, waiting to be fucking raped?” The venom in those words felt like a missile.
Silence.
And now I felt guilty. Guilty for upsetting the only person who might be my ally, even though he was as much responsible for the position I was in as any of them.
I tried to push the thought away, to concentrate on the anger I should feel for him. To find that anger from somewhere. But every time I smelt him, it diffused the heat in my head, redirecting it to my chest.
So now I had Stockholm syndrome. Fucking brilliant.
Fingers slid over my wrists. Gentle and rough all at once.
The contradiction as confusing as it was something else.
The angry tempo of my heart stuttered, another rhythm taking its place, the same pace but totally different.
Behind the blindfold, I squeezed my eyes shut, concentrated on my breathing. Not that touch.
“Jazz, what have you done? These are a mess,” his voice was a low purr. It should have been soothing. It wasn’t. It was all kinds of something else.
I was going mad. The fear, the pain, exhaustion. All of it was making me hallucinate. Making me think this was something it wasn’t. This was captivity. By a club that wanted to see the Kings burn, and I was their effigy for it.
I winced now as he pulled the rope a little. A burning, chafing pain infecting a nerve and travelling down my arm. Concentrate on that. Not on the feel of his fingers, or that woody, spicy scent of the man who always smelt clean.
“This is going to need another clean.”
“No,” I breathed. “I’m fine; leave it.”
My voice was sharp. I didn’t have to see him to know he’d recoiled slightly. There was a sudden stillness around us.
“Jazz,” he started after a breath.
“Fuck off. Don’t come at me with that fucking fake concern. Leave it to fester. Why does it matter to you anyway?”
“Because it does.”
“Guilt?”
He paused, just for a second.
“Yes.”
“Then get me the fuck out of here, Chase. Then you’ll not feel guilty anymore.”
The touch on my forehead made me jump, and I hissed, moving the rope at my raw wrists, pulling against my bruised, battered shoulders. But his fingers didn’t stop, pushing the hair off my forehead.
Swallowing, I tried something else.
“I need the toilet, Chase. And a drink. Can you at least help me with that?”
The bed shifted, like he’d just got up off the side. For a heartbeat there was nothing but the sound of my breathing, shallow and fast. Then came the click. Sharp, metallic, unmistakable. Flick knife. Every muscle in me locked, every nerve ending poised.
I’d misjudged him. Misjudged this. All this time, the contradicting gentleness, the steady hands, the scent I’d learned as his.
Had I pushed too far? My stomach rolled.
The air around me shrank, heavy with the smell of metal, a thick iron smell and something cleaner, more surgical.
And now, his aftershave spiked. Sharper, like pepper and smoke. Leaning over me.
“Chase?” The words slipped out, my voice small.
I tried to listen past the hammering of my heart. But all I could hear was the knife’s joint settling into place, that small mechanical finality. The blindfold turned the darkness into something alive, pressing close.
Somewhere inside me, a small voice still whispered that he wasn’t like the others.
That the knife might not be for me. But that voice was drowning under the roar of fear.
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms, bracing myself for a pain I couldn’t see coming, hating myself for having believed, just for a second, that he might be different.
The sound wasn’t what I expected. A deep, fibrous pop. Like a taut muscle tearing, but it wasn’t my muscle. No pain. Only relief. The rope gave all at once, the strands splitting with a muted crackle that vibrated up my arms. Then my wrists sprang forward, no longer pinned to cold metal.
Pins and needles roared through my hands, blood surging, pumping fiery hot liquid fire through my veins. The sudden weightlessness made me dizzy, like I was falling off the hook all over again. And that stupid, pitiful gasp slipped out again.
I followed the slight thud of his steps, moving from my head to my feet. Then the same deep pop. The same sudden weightlessness. My feet sprang free.
Arms scooped under me. Careful. Strong. Guiding me upright.
“Chase?” I asked again.
“You wanted the toilet.”
Nodding, I stood. Blood rushing to areas it had long been pooling. My vision sank even deeper into darkness, sending me into a tailspin. I staggered backwards, my legs hitting the metal base of the bed and flopping backwards onto the mattress.
“Fuck,” Chase grumbled.
“Dizzy.”
“Ok, slowly this time.”
He guided me up, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling mine over his shoulder. I took a step, with him as my crutch, my legs wobbling, unable to take my weight.
“Just a sec,” I pleaded, blood not the only thing rushing from where it pooled.
Now I was desperate for that toilet.
“I got you, Jazz.”
Chase moved, lowering, and suddenly I was weightless again, cradled in his arms. Against his chest like the other day.
Two days ago? I didn’t know anymore. But I remembered feeling this.
The hardness of his chest, the strength in his arms. The richness of his aftershave and that same hint of clean, fresh oil.
I closed my eyes, thankful he couldn’t see that reaction because of the blindfold.
We were moving. Different shades of grey in front of my eyes with each soft creak of his feet on an old linoleum-tiled floor. I tried to count the footsteps. Tried to memorise an escape route, but I was completely lost. No idea of whether right or left led me to an exit.
Now it was darker, and he was lowering me. I could smell chlorine. Cleaning products and damp.
“I’m going to turn my back.” His voice sounded even deeper in the tightness of this recess. “You can do what you need to do, can’t you?”
“Yeah.”
But my hands were numb, and my arms ached. And I was so weak that every part of me felt like it was shaking.