Chapter Twenty Two
I heard the voices before the footsteps.
Loud. Boisterous. Obviously not Chase. I knew he wasn’t with them.
It wasn’t just the pitch of the noise; it was the way it carried.
His voice always moved like a blade. Low.
Measured. Cutting through the air like it was slicing out a space just for itself.
This was different. Messier. Full of swagger and dangerous excitement.
Hurried steps. Lots of them. A stampede up the corridor outside. Echoing.
A clunk. A metallic rattle. Even the sound of the key in the lock was different.
Not Chase’s smooth, deliberate turn, but a clumsy jab, bouncing off the plate, metal scraping against metal until it found its slot.
The teeth grated, grinding in the lock, loud in the silence.
I held my breath, counting the seconds between the first twist and the final heavy clunk of the bolt shifting.
“Fuck,” someone spat. “Key doesn’t work.”
“Fucking kick it then, fuckwit.”
The door rattled with the first blast of a foot, stuttering but holding.
Shit. Another bang, but the door held. And now I held my breath, tension grabbing me around the throat.
Another bang. A splinter of wood. With each blow, it yielded.
And then it clattered, wood screaming, someone falling forwards.
And now they spilled in. I tried to count the feet, but there were too many.
Too many confusing footsteps. The room was filled with scents.
Beer. Cheap deodorant. Fading aftershave.
Nothing familiar. Not like Chase’s. And then sweat, warm and clinging on someone, like it had been trapped under leather for too many hours.
My stomach turned with the memory of Chase. He’d brought me food this morning, sliding it under my blindfolded world like he was doing me a favour. Bread, cheese, a bottle of water. His voice low, telling me to eat. Then walking out again, leaving me still tied, still blindfolded.
And now the world exploded. Voices, all at once.
Rough, loud, half-laughing, half-arguing.
The kind of drunk noise that didn’t care how far it carried, rolling over me in waves.
The shift was a shock to the system after hours of nothing but the sound of my own breathing, my own thoughts gnawing away at me.
It was chaotic, a battering ram against my skull, every word blurring into the next.
I couldn’t sort through the voices. Couldn’t pick out an ounce of familiarity, my senses overloaded.
The footsteps scuffed the floor as if they owned it.
Heavy boots on not quite compliant legs.
One of them laughed, a short, barking noise that set my teeth on edge.
Another shouted something I couldn’t quite catch, and the words tumbled over each other, blurring into a drunken slur.
They were hyped, like lads on a night out, like hyenas sniffing blood.
I shifted against the ropes automatically, my wrists sending sharp warnings through my nerves.
The cords were rougher now, or maybe my skin was just raw enough to feel every thread.
My shoulders burned, the joints stiff and swollen from too long bound at angles my body wasn’t built for.
I clenched my hands into fists, trying to will some strength back into them, but they only trembled weakly.
The voices moved closer.
“Where we doing this then, Skinny?”
Fuck. Skinny. And no Chase to protect me from him.
“Just on the bed. We’ll just turn her over.”
Those words. The threat. My stomach tumbled right down to my ankles, my whole body stiffening.
I forced myself to count the inhales. One. Two. Three. Hold it. Four. Don’t let fear win. If it did, it would pin me down worse than the ropes. Worse than these men.
Something clinked. Bottles knocking against each other maybe, or a belt buckle hitting metal. Panic was rising in my chest. Boots shuffled, the sound spreading out as if they were circling. My heartbeat turned erratic, beating against my ribs in a frantic staccato.
I thought of Chase again, the way he’d stood too close this morning, the heat rolling off his body, his hand brushing mine as he gave me the food. Not a rescue. Just a reprieve. For what? For them? For this? My mouth went dry. My stomach rumbled, half hunger, half nausea.
Hands closed around my ankles, fingers digging into my skin.
I kicked out, but my legs just bobbled, not enough slack in the ropes to get much movement.
Chuckles. They would fucking laugh now that there was no way I could land a kick.
They wouldn’t have been fucking laughing if these legs were free.
Fingers gripped my forearms now as well. Something cut the rope with a dull pop.
“Get the fuck off me,” I growled, throwing my weight around as chaotically as I could.
“Flip her over, lads, before she clobbers someone.” Skinny’s voice. How I hated the fucking sound of it.
I fought harder, my whole-body writhing under their hands.
Fighting with everything I had left. Because whatever they were going to do to me, I was going to fight my way out of it.
But suddenly I was flattened, face down on the bed, inhaling lungfuls of dirty, rotting mattress as my face was shoved hard into it.
They yanked at my arms, securing them back to the headboard. Anchoring my feet once more.
The click of the knife was familiar. Almost the same as Chase’s, but it wasn’t his; the tone wasn’t as deep. Pressure tugged at my neck, and I tried to shift underneath it, squirming as much as this new position of restraint would allow.
The pressure dragged, and the leather gave way.
The sound of tearing fabric was almost worse than the formidable click of the blade.
The bike jacket fell away as if it was nothing.
Then, with a tug, cold air rushed at my back.
The knife worked between my shoulders, the blade icy against my skin, and I tried not to jump.
The blade dipped under the strap; a snap of elastic rebounding against my back.
Rough fingers brushed away my bra, lingering over my exposed flesh whilst I lay bound, unable to do a fucking thing about it.
My stomach clenched, useless rage twisting inside me.
My wrists burned against the ropes as I pulled, the headboard rattling with every useless jerk, and my chest pressed hard into the filthy bedding, stale sweat and mildew filling my nose. I tried to twist, tried to buck, but every angle met another set of hands forcing me still.
Then came another sound. Not the knife. Not voices. A sharp, mechanical buzz that cut straight through the chaos.
It was steady and high-pitched, drilling straight into my skull. Like a swarm of bees trapped in a tin can, angry and endless. I froze, all the fight spilling out of me for half a second as my brain clawed for recognition. And then found it.
“No.” The word scraped out of my throat, small, raw.
I knew that sound. I’d heard it in parlours, in bars, echoing off tiled walls where bikers wore their ink with pride. Where I’d had my own. A tattoo machine.
Horror bled through me, thick and choking.
My stomach dropped like I was falling, the cold sweat breaking out across my skin before the needle even touched me.
The mattress reeked in my face, my lungs straining against it, but I couldn’t escape the thought of what they were going to carve into me.
What they were going to make me wear forever.
After all these years of not being allowed in the Kings. Of being born and bred in the club but never being allowed to fit because of what was between my legs, I was getting a patch of my very own. A rat with red eyes.
I thrashed again, harder this time, a guttural scream tearing free. It was instinct, animalistic, because I knew what was coming next.
The scream left my throat raw, but they only laughed, voices circling above me like crows. Heavy palms bore down harder on my arms, my legs, until I could barely twitch, and I strained against the ropes that held my arms. The mattress springs creaked under the weight.
The buzzing drew closer. It changed pitch as whoever held it tested the needle against something, the harsh whine shivering through my skull. I tried to wriggle away from the sound, turning my head as if my blindfolded eyes could escape it. But it followed. Louder. Nearer.
“Keep her still, lads.” A voice slurred, drunk amusement lacing every syllable. “This will be a fucking work of art.”
My chest heaved against the bare stink of the mattress. My mind clawed for Chase, for his voice, his scent, anything, but all I had was this. Hands gripping me, the mechanical snarl above me. I was about to be branded like property.
Then the sting.
A deep burning throb lanced across my skin, sharp and hot, searing into the tender flesh of my back.
It wasn’t like a cut. Cuts were sudden, clean.
This was a burn that burrowed deep, a thick, nagging scratching, dragging slow and deliberate, over and over, working at the skin until it was sore and swollen.
The sound of the machine vibrated inside me, and the pain carved its echo into bone.
I screamed again; the noise tearing out of me against the mattress, muffled but violent.
They whooped above me like it was entertainment.
Like my pain was their fucking party. Whoever was working that needle was digging it in much further than it was meant to go.
I was sure. It felt like the Rats’ sigil was being implanted, not tattooed on me.
I wriggled again, trying to throw the weight of the men off me, like I had any chance of that. Bound and held. There was no escaping what they were doing. The vibration was deep. It was slow and determined, etching a fucking enemy patch into my skin.
And then I stopped fighting. And I lay there and took it.
Because what other choice did I have? I was defeated.
And now branded. For the first time, I let those tears fall, soaking into the blindfold.
They couldn’t see. They would never know that of all the beatings, the attempts to rape me, it was a tattoo that broke me.
“That looks mint.” Skinny’s voice broke through the drilling sound. “I want all Rats’ women tagged like this in the future, lads. Reckon we take a vote on it at the next meet.”
“What’s the fucking point?” Someone asked from over the top of me. “We’re all gonna be the Bloody Hand soon, anyway. The Rats are a thing of the past.”
Grumbles and tension answered. And I concentrated on that, at something else in the room.
“Twenty fucking years,” someone else complained. “And Dougal’s just handing us over to the fucking Hand.”
“You wanna tell him that? Go ahead. But we’re in this fucking thing way too deep now.” Another voice, one I hadn’t heard before.
Over the top of me, the machine still buzzed, and my skin still burned. My tears soaked into the blindfold.