Chapter 9
WAR
W rong.
That’s the only word to describe what I sense as I wake, my body lying heavy on a cold, dank floor. A basement? Or warehouse?
The mustiness causes my lip to curl in distaste as I force my mind to right itself. Where the fuck did I pass out? And how?
Opening my eyes, I’m confronted by gold paint on delicate toes. A woman’s bare foot. Did she fucking drug me? In a sex dungeon maybe? If so, her ass is in a lot of fucking trouble?—
No.
Something went down.
On a dark road.
Where?
And what?
The damp smells like wet leaves as it seeps in through my nose… and bare skin. Nasty. Am I bare-assed?
Nah. As I reach down, I clock that I’ve got boxer-briefs on at least.
I get my palms against the earth and push, rolling onto my side. The area is mostly dark with faint light somewhere to my left.
Steel bars rise from within the dirt floor up to a stone ceiling.
A fucking cell.
In some sort of cavern.
My gaze drops to the bare foot and follows a slim leg to a pair of blue cotton panties and, beyond them, to a matching camisole that fails to cover a pretty little belly button.
Or to conceal a pair of pointed nipples.
Shit. Not the circumstances where I can enjoy a beautiful, nearly naked body. Especially this one.
Ashling Patrick is unconscious on a mattress that lies on the floor a few inches away from me.
The dark road… I was following her.
And I wasn’t the only one.
They ran her off the road, and she wrecked.
I jumped from the Crue truck, seeing men in balaclava masks.
A kidnapping attempt. Feet pounding. Mine.
I slammed into one of them. We hit the ground.
Then… Nothing.
I shake my head. Someone must’ve hit me from behind.
Except my head doesn’t hurt.
I’ve been concussed before. Had my skull fractured by a pipe. When I woke up afterward, I could tell my head had been split open. And I was basically blind for days. A faint amount of light filtering through, but nothing else. Except pain. A lot of it.
This is nothing like that. On the whole, I feel good right now. Better rested than I have in a while.
Drugs, then. Gotta be. And it explains the amnesia of those last moments before I went out.
My hand reaches over and shakes the girl’s calf. First, the stillness is unnatural and so is the weight of her flesh in my palm. I scowl.
Did they kill her?
Blackness settles in my chest. If she was to die young, this wasn’t supposed to be the way. Not at the hands of incompetent kidnappers. At the first opportunity, I will fucking end them.
My calloused palm squeezes again, testing the silky texture of her flesh. It’s still soft. Still flexible at the joints. Relatively warm, but the body may be cooling. Could be too soon for rigor.
That thought drives me to rise and move closer.
Nah, alive. Her color’s too pink and golden. Death’s colors are different. Blue. Gray. And eventually, black.
I tweak her chin in a firm pinch, and she comes awake with a start, thrusting her hands out defensively and sitting up with a jerking motion. Her upper lip is swollen on the right side.
“Get off,” she slurs. Her palms slide off my chest ineffectually, only catching part of my arm as they do. Then, her eyes seem to focus on my face. “ You .” Her lips purse. “War.”
The recognition requires no response, so I give none.
She rubs the heel of her hand over her eye. “They took you, too?” Her body curves in my direction in a way that’s rare from her. “Did you get a call off?”
“What?” I kneel at the edge of the mattress, still trying to force my brain to recall the last pieces of what happened. A stubborn blank stretches out from the point of impact. I rammed the guy. We hit the ground. Nothing more.
She rubs her temples. “Did you get a call off to the Crue? Before they shot you?”
Shot me?
I glance down my body and move my shoulders experimentally to twist my back. No, not shot. At least not with lead bullets. “No call.”
“Shit,” she whispers. Exhaling heavily, she rubs her arms, trying to warm herself. “You should’ve done that before leaving your truck. Or instead.”
Is she for real? My palm twitches to smack her right on her pretty little ass.
She licks her pink lips, ones that probably match her nipples and the ones between her legs. As usual, errant thoughts of sex with her hit at the wrong time. My response to other women is easy to control. Not so where blondie is concerned.
“Crue trucks have bulletproof glass. You could’ve just?—”
“What?” I say, cutting her off with a tone that’s equal parts dismissive and hostile. “Sat back and watched? From the safety of a vehicle? While they took Trick’s little sister? Yeah, right.”
“The Crue would’ve understood. All things considered, it would’ve been a better strategy.”
Rolling my eyes, I shrug. “You know what strategy usually works? The one where I mow down assholes who try to act up.” Rising, I walk to the bars and give a hard shove against them.
They don’t budge. I look up at the mortar between the stones.
Feels solid, but it’s old so maybe not solid everywhere.
Reaching overhead, I grab the bar at a point closer to the ceiling.
“They came prepared.” Her voice is calm, and for once, she’s not in constant motion. “Loaded for bear, as it were.”
My gaze drops to her. She’s got her arms folded across her chest, blocking the best parts of that view. But she’s also sitting cross-legged, so I’ve got a perfect sightline to the bull’s eye zone of her blue underwear.
Spotting my interest, she kicks her legs out and crosses them at the ankles.
Turning back to the bars, I grip a couple in my fists.
Just as I’m starting to use my weight as a lever, footfalls come pounding down the dark corridor.
A man, still in a mask but now wearing jeans and a sweatshirt rather than combat gear, appears.
Average size. I’d say five-ten, one-sixty.
No challenge for me in hand-to-hand, if I could make that happen.
He points a rifle at my center mass. “Let go, and back up.” No foreign accent. Native English speaker from the East Coast. Farther North than Boston or Manhattan. Maine, maybe? Designer logo on the pricey sweatshirt. A GU student then, not some mercenary hired to do a job.
I release the bars but don’t retreat. The mask’s a good sign. If straight-up killing was the plan, no need for masks now. But covering his face might only be for the girl’s benefit, not mine.
“What’s the plan?” I ask. “Ransom her?”
“Ask her.” His tone is terse.
My gaze slides to Ashling, who sits back against the wall with the expression of a pissed off princess. Which I suppose she kind of is.
Eyes narrowing on her, I say, “Well?”
“I already told them. I don’t know what they’re talking about.”
A blatant lie anyone could spot by the smugness in her tone. She might be as fast with a comeback as her older brother, but she doesn’t have his skill when it comes to lying.
Unless she’s got some reason for wanting them to know she has what they want.
I readjust my assessment of the situation. This not being a kidnapping for ransom gives us more control but also puts her in more danger. C Crue is soft for this girl. They would’ve paid the ransom instantly and then got on with the business of hunting these bastards down once she was safe.
Instead, the kidnappers will try to force her to give up what she’s got. And my guess is that pain and humiliation await her if they’re gonna try to break her. She’s stubborn, but given free rein with the methods, I’d get it done in less than an hour.
Not looking to give anyone ideas, I remain silent.
One thing nags my mind. If the girl’s got something they want, why not just kill me and leave my body on the road? It’s what I would’ve done. Instead, I’m here. Why?
Maybe they wanted to cover their tracks? Still could’ve put my dead body in the back of the truck and run the truck and her car into the river.
If they’re squeamish about killing, they’re in the wrong business.
Also, taking on C Crue if they’re amateurs? Really stupid. The Crue stood their ground against an army of made men back in the day, and it’s no less lethal now whenever they feel the situation calls for it.
The armed asshole scowls at the girl and shifts his weight in agitation. “You’ve got less than an hour left to cough it up before he hurts you.”
Her head tilts, and she stares at him. “Who? Crosby? If he’s with you, let me talk to him.”
The guy shifts his body in a clear bid to talk directly to me.
I turn to face him, waiting. Assessing. I could crack him in half if I could get my mitts on him. But he’s too far from the space between the bars.
“You’re here to get her to give us what we want. If you can’t do that, you’re dead.”
Ah. I’m the he who’s supposed to hurt her. Interesting. And likely a lie. Doesn’t make sense to expect me to become a confederate.
Scapegoat, perhaps. But then she would have to be dead or tricked into going along with a story. Dicey plan.
“You hear?” he asks, brown eyes narrow.
It should be evident from my expression that I’m not in the mood to take orders, and probably never will be, if these pricks are giving them.
I will be infinitely harder to break than my little cell mate.
I’m seasoned at taking a beating. Also, getting close to me…
A dangerous proposition for anyone trying to dole one out.
“Listen,” the girl says, her voice different now. She’s adopted a tone she rarely uses with me. The soft one designed to throw men off their game. To trick them into doing what she wants. “If you’re not going to kill me, you can’t kill him, either. For the exact same reason.”
The corners of my mouth dip in a frown. I don’t need or want this girl speaking for me.
The masked gunman turns his head to stare at her. His silent attention gives her the opening to keep going .
“You know who C McCann is, right? He’s C Crue’s leader.” She nods at me, her voice light as a sparrow feather. “This is his nephew. C Crue flesh and blood.”
“Yeah?” the guy says coldly, leaning forward.
Almost within reach. Another few inches, and I could get hands on him. Crush his throat and take the weapon. And keys if he’s got ‘em.
My muscles tighten, and I wait for my moment.
He uses the tip of the rifle to make a menacing gesture but doesn’t inch closer the way I need. “So what I hear you saying is we’re better off killing both of you? Got it.”
A predatory glint appears as he stares at her.
He would like to fuck her. Not surprising, of course.
Most men would. What’s interesting is that they put her in the cell with me instead of chaining her up in a room where they could all have a go.
Someone has decided they won’t rape her. At least not yet.
Dragging his gaze away, he returns it to me.
“We’re watching. Touch the bars again, and we’ll shoot you so you can’t stand up.
” Turning his shoulders, he looks her over with exaggerated slowness.
“Some of them think it would be a waste to kill you clean. You should give up what she gave you before someone does something nasty to you to force you into it.”
The girl inclines her head and looks up at him through her lashes, blue eyes all innocent and demure. As fucking if.
“I appreciate the advice.” Her tone sounds sincere, which sets my teeth on edge.
As he’s walking away, he calls over his shoulder. “Strip her and toss what’s left of her clothes out as a show of good faith.”
“Sure,” I say in my best impression of Ashling’s reasonable tone. “I appreciate the advice.”
The girl’s face grows suspicious, and she tries to stare me down with big blue eyes that couldn’t scare a rabbit with a wounded foot.
That’s right , I think, giving her a true hard stare. One that would make a shark think twice before risking his teeth in a bite attempt. My expression says what I don’t. We are not in this together. So, if you’re going to suck up to someone, it had better be to the guy you’re sharing a cell with.