Chapter 35 #2
I backed deeper into the room toward the desk, my eyes flicking to the drawer where I’d found some of Harry’s porn.
It was a classic attempt at misdirection because I wasn’t feeling as panicked as I probably should have done.
A part of my mind was calculating the scene, watching his hand on the 9mm that he pulled from the back of his jeans, relaxing as he let his finger sit along the side of the trigger guard, leaving the safety on.
.. for now. The logical part of me was focusing on the door and calculating my odds of getting through it and down to the safety of Drew’s office before Owen could get a shot at me.
“They in there?” he barked, pointing the gun at the drawer I’d glanced at. I raised my hands and slipped away from the desk, shaking my head, playing the scared little rabbit I used to be. All the while I was rotating us, putting him closer to the desk and myself closer to the door again.
Owen wasn’t stupid, though. Far from it. He moved closer to the desk, but he took off the safety and pointed the gun directly at my chest. “Move again, and I’m going to put a bullet in your head.”
I stilled and watched as he approached the desk, pulling the magazines out, gripping the spines, and shaking them violently. Naked girls rattled on the pages before he dropped one and grabbed another, the gun a constant and steady aim on my chest.
“Why did you do it?” I asked quietly. “Why would you betray the people most loyal to you?”
“You think I’m going to open up and confess all my sins to you, little girl?
” He snorted out a bitter laugh, filled with hatred.
“You think you can save yourself by spreading those legs and flashing Drew’s tight little bit of cunt at me?
I’m not that fucking desperate, and I ain’t in the mood for confessions. Confessions mean you’ve been caught.”
“He’s going to kill you,” I said bluntly, changing my tactics. “He will hunt you down like a rabid dog, and he will kill you in a way that will make your worst nightmares seem pretty.”
“He ain’t that smart.”
“I think you underestimate him.”
“I think I estimate him just fine. He ain’t here, is he?” Owen spread his arms around the room making a point. I sneered at him, baring my teeth, my hatred now boiling in the center of my chest, white hot.
“Only because you ran like the little rat you are.”
That hit its mark. Owen made his way across the room in two steps and backhanded me so hard I could hear bells in my ears as my lip split open and my ass hit the mattress.
Standing over me and panting, Owen tried to gather himself, his hands tugging on the edges of his cut, the gun making little metal scrapes against the fasteners.
Just seeing the patch on him made me more reckless.
I couldn’t stand the thought of this man getting away from Drew and the others before they had their pound of flesh.
I would do what I had to do to keep him talking.
Even if it meant five more slaps across my face and a bullet in my chest. I wanted Drew to get his vengeance.
Pushing my tongue against the cut on my lip, I tasted the copper tang of blood and blinked back the tears at the sudden throbbing in my teeth. I wasn’t scared, not really. I was still in full control of my actions, so I swallowed the bitter tasting liquid and smirked.
“That all you got?” I asked smugly.
“Ayda, I’m not fucking with you. I’ll kill you.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
Owen gripped my hair in his fist and pulled my head back until I was faced with his twisted and contorted features.
He loathed me—that much was obvious. He hated what I stood for and represented.
At that moment, he didn’t have to say why he’d done what he’d done.
I could see it in those piggy little eyes of his.
“I hope they tear you limb from limb and beat you within an inch of life and leave you for the rodents to feast on, you sad piece of useless shit.”
It wasn’t a slap this time. I felt the impact of his fist on my jaw, felt some of my back teeth loosen, and shuddered at the pop in my neck as it snapped to the side. White lights burst in my vision. Bells rung so loud that I couldn’t make out what Owen was screaming at me.
It took a while for the ringing to clear, even with the subtle shakes of my head to ward it all off. When sound finally started to penetrate again, Owen was still ranting over me.
“... won’t kill you yet, but you will fucking hurt, whore.”
“You hit like a girl,” I mumbled, wincing in pain. I knew I was provoking him again, but I needed an excuse to bend over and get the switchblade from my pocket because if I tried to reach it now, he’d know I was up to something, and I couldn’t risk that.
He took the bait, this time swinging at my stomach, so I was forced to double over.
I could barely breathe through the pain.
He’d winded me so thoroughly that my brain slowly started to panic as oxygen became thin.
I tried my best to focus on the fold of the knife digging into my hip, and I gripped my stomach, hunching over myself.
It hurt so bad as the pain rattled down my thighs, and the sharp sting twisted in my gut.
“You’ve got a big fucking mouth on you. No wonder that boy is pussy whipped. Next thing you know, cooches like you will be wearing the cuts and calling the shots. Drew Tucker has made a fucking joke of this fucking club. All because of a decent lay.”
I groaned, slipped the knife from my pocket, and pushed it up my sleeve, my thumb finding the small button to release the blade.
“You don’t think much of women, do you?”
“You’re good for two things: fucking and reproducing.”
“Misogynistic pig.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I pity your wife,” I spat at him.
“Don’t you pity her. She’s living the high life now, well clear of Babylon.”
I frowned hard, both from the physical pain I was in and from the sudden confusion that was making riddles out of my thoughts. “You sent her away from here, didn’t you? You knew all this was coming?”
“Fuck knows what Drew sees in you.” He sighed heavily, avoiding my question. He slapped my cheek lightly, as though trying to sober me up as I blinked away the spots in my vision, and he gripped my face painfully. “Where’s all Harry’s shit on me, Ayda?”
I shrugged. I was humming from so much pain and adrenaline now that I was feeling slaphappy and reckless.
Two things that had pretty much managed to get me into the predicament I was in already.
I wasn’t sure if it was the ringing in my ears, but I swore I could hear the roar of bikes somewhere in the distance.
When Owen shook me again, it took me a minute to realize that he’d heard them, too.
“Get up.”
“Why?” I asked, slurring a little.
“Because I’m planning on keeping this conversation between the two of us. And you’re now my leverage.”
“You’re going to use me as a hostage?” I laughed.
Owen ignored me and dragged me to my feet, the cold barrel of his gun pressing to the underside of my jaw as he pushed and dragged me through the building. The bar was still completely empty, but the noise of the bikes was growing louder, the sound of them all together like an angry hive of bees.
I knew I had to stall somehow and slow this all down. If Owen got away before Drew and the others got here, I was in trouble. Once we were outside of these walls, the evidence we had wouldn’t matter. He would get away and kill me out of spite because he knew that would hurt Drew.
I pulled and tugged against Owen’s grip. I writhed and kicked, my body fighting his every step of the way until sunlight flooded my vision, and I was pushed out onto the porch and down onto my knees just as the bikes approached the yard.
“He’s going to kill you, and I’m going to watch,” I said coldly as Owen tried to drag me by my hair to his bike. I pulled back, crying out at the feel of handfuls of roots shifted from my scalp.
Owen lifted his hand as though to slap me, and I struck. In a series of motions almost too smooth to believe, I ejected the blade, launched my body forward and drove the sharp end deep into Owen’s thigh, praying that I hit something good.
I didn’t.
In a spin of his body, Owen punched me so hard the whole world shuddered. I tried to catch my breath, but everything moved. My eyes wouldn’t focus, and the pain spread out inside of me so violently, I barely noticed the porch rising to greet my face until it was too late.