Chapter 6
RAFE
“Not part of the plan, you say?” Cleft’s dark laughter shivered up my spine. “If you ain’t gonna fuck him, why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I said so.” Jax’s tone brooked no argument.
Cleft pushed off me, and I let out a sigh of relief as his heavy boots thumped across the floor toward Jax.
“Just because you weaseled your way back in, don’t think you’re calling the shots now.
” He jabbed a finger at his chest. “If you don’t do him, I will.
One way or another, his ass is getting fucked and filmed.
He’s fucking Rafe Mason. That shit will sell. ”
“That’s exactly why you’re not filming him. It’s too risky. You know my old man will side with me.” Jax glanced around the room. “Besides, you’re full of it. I don’t see you filming shit here.”
“Just warming up.” Cleft rolled his shoulders. “Uncle Luke won’t have a problem with a little fun.”
“You’re not gonna touch him.” Jax curled his lip. “So back the fuck off.”
“This is bullshit.”
“No,” Jax said. “The mess in here is bullshit. Fucking clean it up.” He pulled a hand through his blond hair and moved toward me, his feet pounding the ground in angry stomps.
“Get him on his feet. Move!” he yelled when the guys holding me down didn’t budge.
They scrambled into motion and dragged me upright.
Blood rushed to my head, making my vision fuzzy as one of the goons bent to release my ankles.
The other stepped behind me and freed my hands.
“You don’t have the balls to do him,” Cleft said with a taunting edge to his tone. “Even though you want to.”
“He’s off-limits. That’s all you need to know.” Jax glared at the two holding me up, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Get those filthy sweats off. We need to get him to the showers.”
One guy bent and tugged my pants further down my legs. “Lift your foot,” he said.
I did so, my head in a fog, and blinked several times, but the whole room and everyone in it wobbled.
This wasn’t happening. This was another nightmare.
After he pulled the sweats free from one leg, I raised my other foot and nearly lost my balance.
He tossed the soiled clothing to the side and grabbed me by the arm.
Jax nodded toward the door. “Get moving. Cleft can clean this shit up.”
Cleft grumbled his dissent as they ushered me out the door and down a long tunnel.
We passed a guy hauling a frail blonde by a leash, her skin damp and pasty.
As she crawled past, she lifted her tear-filled eyes—eyes that grew huge as she took in my presence.
She didn’t even look old enough to graduate high school.
I could only imagine how terrified she must be, and seeing a guy my size, naked and barely able to walk under his own steam, must have sent a devastating blow to her hope for survival.
But I couldn’t think about that girl. Not now. Not with all the chaos raging through my head.
Jax’s familiar stride echoed behind us. The fact that it was familiar at all was shocking enough, but to wrap my fucking head around the rest of it—his presence here and the implication of his words back in that room—I couldn’t do it.
Thoughts bounced around my head, but I couldn’t catch a single one, couldn’t even form the words to convey the total mind-fuck this situation was. Words refused to leave my tongue. They were stuck there in surreal silence as Jax and the others pushed me into a room full of showers.
“Get lost,” he told the other two goons as he switched on the water.
I leaned against the tile, arms bent and forearms flat against the cold surface, and tried to gather my strength.
As soon as the door shut behind the men, I lunged for Jax, hands going for his throat.
But the floor tilted under me, and instead of attacking him, I used his shoulders to hoist myself upright.
“How the fuck are you behind this?”
He shoved me against the wall. Water washed over us in a chilly stream, dripping from my hair and soaking his T-shirt.
“You’re wasting your energy. They dosed you with the same shit you gave Alex when we took her.”
“Get your fucking hands off of me,” I said through clenched teeth. I pushed against his stocky frame, but he wouldn’t budge. Fucking drugs. It was the only way they’d keep me down, and they knew it.
Jax had known it. The fucker had shared a cell with me for…I didn’t know how long, but he’d been there, and he’d been in my damn house, living under the same roof.
He’d helped me take Alex.
He’d gotten me a fucking gun to protect her.
Why?
“None of this makes any sense.”
“Remember when we talked in your cellar?” He lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “I said I’d always have your back.”
“Like you have my back now? Don’t do me any fucking favors.”
He retreated with a sigh, and I went after him, my rage propelling me across the slick floor too fast. Slamming into him, we plummeted to the ground, and his skull hit the tile with a jolting thud.
Veins pulsed at his temples as he fought me.
He gained more ground each second, his muscles bulging under the exertion.
With a roar, he shoved me off and rolled on top of me, straddling my thighs.
“Calm the fuck down before they come back in here,” he said, face inches from mine. “You need to trust me.”
“You’re crazy. You’re behind this whole thing. They fucking hurt Alex. They destroyed the island. You think I’m gonna trust you now?”
Jax closed his eyes, and his shoulders slumped. “I loved that land almost as much as you did.”
“Why are you doing this? Fucking tell me that much, at least.”
Voices filtered in from the hall. Jax rose to his knees and allowed me to push to my elbows. With a frown, he glanced toward the door, and we listened to the scuffle of movement on the other side. “You won’t get out of here alive without me. I’m the only one on your side.”
“If you’re on our side, then get us the fuck out of here.”
“Can’t do that.”
I studied him—the furrow of his brow, the defeat in his expression, and replayed the words he’d exchanged with Cleft. He’d referred to his old man…who apparently was the guy in charge around here. “You’ve got no real power, do you?”
“I haven’t had any fucking power since the day I was born.” He stood and pulled me to my feet.
The room spun, causing bile to rise in my throat. I swayed for several moments, sure I was going to spew what was left in my stomach onto the ground. Jax propped me up, one arm winding under my armpit, and we shuffled toward the spray of the shower.
I planted a hand against the tile to steady myself.
He let go, retreating a few steps, and I closed my eyes as the water washed away the vomit and sweat from my skin.
He stood nearby with silent patience, so I took my time, hoping it would be enough to regain some strength.
I couldn’t protect Alex like this—fuck, I couldn’t even protect myself. This was bad.
“Where’s Alex?” I tilted my head and sent him a glare through the water dripping down my face. “Is she okay?” The question ended on a shaky note. I was fucking terrified of hearing the answer. I couldn’t stand to think of her as not okay.
Jax clenched his jaw, and his gaze lowered to his soaked sneakers. “How bad was it?”
“Bad. He used a cane on her.”
“Finish up.” He tapped his foot for a few seconds, his brows scrunched together, as if he were mulling over something. “I’ll take you to her.”
I switched off the water before taking a few cautious steps. The room swayed slightly, but at least I could walk on my own.
“You got this?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
With a nod, he gestured at the exit.
“You’re gonna make me walk out of here like this?” I raised my arms, indicating my naked state.
“Don’t have any clothes for you. If Cleft had his way, he’d be fucking you right now, so I’d say beggars can’t be choosers.”
Getting to Alex was the only thing that mattered, so I stepped through the door, water trickling from my body, and let him lead me down the tunnel-like hall that never seemed to end. “Where the hell are we?”
He glanced up and down the tunnel before speaking in a low tone. “Underground.”
“Underground where?”
He pointed behind us. “That end leads to the old man’s office and connects to the basement. Some of the Shanghai tunnels ran to the house, but this portion was built during prohibition.” He shook his head with a scowl. “Now it’s used to traffic girls.”
I raised my eyes toward the ceiling, where the pipes hung low. Some leaked in a few spots, creating small puddles of mud on the ground. “What about the other end? Where’s it go?”
“Somewhere in Forest Park.”
So we were in Portland, close to the bustle of people that could help us if they only knew this place existed. I wasn’t sure why Jax was telling me this, and I didn’t get a chance to question him further. A scream echoed from down the hall.
I staggered forward, every muscle bunching in preparation for a fight, adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“It’s not Alex,” Jax said.
He halted at a door, and another scream tore through my ears. He appeared stoically detached, as if the screech of pain was something he was used to hearing on a daily basis.
Maybe it was.
Maybe I hadn’t known him at all, even before I’d lost my memory.
He pushed in a key. “She’s in there.” He wedged the door open and removed a penlight from his pocket. The beam bounced across an empty cot. Mouth flattening into a line, he shoved the door wider, and the tiny stream of light lit up a huddled form on the floor.
“There’s no light in these rooms, but at least you got a bucket to shit in.” He swerved the beam to the other end of the room.
I couldn’t care less about the bucket or the lights or his casual, helpful tone.
He sure as fuck wasn’t a friend of mine.
I gazed down the hall, toward the end that led to the middle of nowhere in Forest Park, and wondered how much time it would take to get Alex out, assuming I could knock Jax on his traitorous ass first. The drugs were definitely wearing off, but the edges of my vision were still hazy, and I had shit for strength in my arms. She’d probably need to be carried out of here.
“Escaping isn’t gonna happen.”
My attention snapped to him. I was a moment away from trying to knock him out anyway, but the two goons—the ones who’d walked my pathetic ass into the showers—appeared a few feet down the tunnel.
Jax shut off the penlight and leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “We’re both stuck here, whether we like it or not.”
“Don’t play the victim, Jax. This is fucked up.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” He shoved me into the room and slammed the door. I turned, and my hands smoothed over the surface, but he’d already clicked over the lock.
Suffocating blackness strangled me, blocking my air—blocking out everything except the stream of memories that flooded my head. I slid to the floor, my limbs shaking, losing strength as the last bit of adrenaline left my system.
Another shriek came through the wall, knifing through me, as pieces of my past resurfaced.