Chapter 4
Half a kilometre. The distance I made it past the South Bay town line before I was thrown in handcuffs.
For a cop in South Bay, pulling over a person like me is like an early Christmas present. One they get to unwrap with their fists.
Can’t count the number of times Jack, Axe, or Jimmy came home from a night in a cell with a fresh face of bruises. You have an association to the club, you get a beat down. At least that’s how it was when Chief Decker ran things.
And from my experience so far, South Bay hasn’t changed much in the last ten years. Another Donovan with a swollen eye socket, another Decker to blame.
I press my head back against the cold concrete cell wall and close my eyes, tugging at the handcuffs still binding my wrists behind my back.
Every movement makes them tighter, the metal digging into my skin, scratching at my bones.
Teeth gritted, I push through the pain, trying to keep the emotion off my face, my temper in check.
There’s no room for that here. No place for panic or anger.
I have to keep my cool. Look unfazed.
That’s what Jimmy would tell me to do. Never let ’em see you sweat, kid.
You let ’em rattle you, you let ’em win.
Easy for him to say. He had decades of practice sitting in a cell.
Unlike him, I haven’t made a career out of evading law enforcement.
Not until recently, at least. I definitely didn’t expect to be welcomed back to town by a nice big dose of police brutality.
I’m fucking mad.
Keeping all my screams on the inside is proving difficult.
They have my bike. That’s the worst part. They find what I’ve got hidden in that thing, and a couple bruises will be the least of my worries.
At the sound of a loud metallic clank, I snap my eyes open and straighten my spine. The door to my cell swings wide, and a cop walks in. Not Decker or that other dick, but this guy doesn’t look any friendlier.
I affix my best glare. “Am I free to go?”
Maybe Decker and his buddy were bored. Maybe they just wanted to rough me up, scare me, and send me on my way. A message. The police are in charge. Even though we all know who really runs this town.
The cop smiles. He’s a little on the shorter side, kind of skinny. Blond hair. Beard. Dumb smirk that says w e got you, Donovan. We win.
Yeah, yeah. You win. Whatever. Just let me out of here. And give me back my damn bike.
“No,” he says as he steps inside the cell and closes the door behind him. “I’ve got some questions.”
This guy must be new. Jimmy pulled me and my mom out of club life when I was just shy of seventeen, but it’s not like I wasn’t paying attention for all those years before. We don’t talk to the police. You wind up in handcuffs, you shut your mouth and wait for the lawyer to show up.
Except no one knows I’m here. There’s no lawyer. No big brother coming to bail me out.
He strolls over and sits next to me on the bench.
I move to scoot away, but he grabs me roughly by the arm and pulls me closer.
The move causes the handcuffs to tighten further, making my wrists scream in pain.
A strained whimper sneaks past my lips, and in response, he breaks into a disgusting smile.
Fuck this guy.
“How about we start with something simple?” he says. “Is Jimmy in town?”
I clamp my lips shut. Jimmy is far away from here. Thank god. If he knew I was in a jail cell in South Bay, the one place he forbade me from going, he’d go ballistic.
“Where is he?”
Like I was raised to do, I keep silent, my glare steady.
He shifts, like he’s settling in. “I suppose you don’t want to tell me what your brothers have been up to?”
How the hell should I know?
I’ve barely spoken to Axe since I was a teenager. We may share a last name and half our DNA, but we’ve never been close. And I don’t have any idea what’s going on in Jack’s life either. We haven’t been a family in a really long time.
“Look. We can do this one of two ways. The easy way, where you answer my questions like a good little girl, and when I’m done, you walk out of here in one piece. Or we do it the hard way. You won’t like that one. It’ll be a lot less… pleasant.” He leans in closer. “And you don’t want that, do you?”
I smile, ignoring the urge to shudder. “Yes, please.”
Never let ’em see you sweat, kid. You let ’em rattle you, you let ’em win.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He grips my arm tighter as his other hand moves to my upper thigh.
I jerk away, my stomach jumping to my throat. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t touch me.”
“Like I said. Unpleasant. For you. Me, though? I think I’ll really enjoy this.” Before I can even consider screaming, he slaps a hand over my mouth and pulls me tight to his body. “Look around, bitch. It’s two a.m., and we’re in the basement cell. No one’s gonna hear you.”
A tidal wave of fear washes over me. No. NO.
This is not happening. Cops don’t do this. Not even the bad ones.
Finally, I scream, but the sound is heavily muffled under the weight of his hand. I kick at him, but he’s got a firm grip and holds me in place. Tears burn in my eyes, threatening to spill out as my heart thrums violently and panic grips my chest.
“This is the hard way, you understand?” he grits, his hot breath heating the side of my face. “You tell me what I want to know, or I’ll spread those biker whore legs wide open and fuck you until you’re ready to talk.”
I fight against his grip, but it’s no use. He only slides his hand higher on my thigh. My pulse bangs hard against my eardrums, drowning out all other sound.
“Problem here?” a voice says.
I tear my focus to the cell door, which has once again been opened. Relief blooms in my chest.
Dark hair. Chiseled features. Handsome face. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see Lincoln Decker.
We lock eyes, and he holds my gaze for a beat. Then he turns to the officer restraining me, his face neutral. The picture of calm. The knot in my stomach twists. This cop is threatening to do what men do best, putting his hands where they don’t belong. And Decker’s just… he’s just standing there.
The asshole holding me doesn’t let go. “Decker, isn’t it? I’m Murphy. Allen said you’d be cool. That we had an understanding. Wasn’t wrong, was he?”
It takes a second for him to answer, like he seriously has to think about it.
A trickle of fear runs down my spine. No. That can’t be right.
I know him. I know who he is. He may be Jack’s half brother, fathered by the same man who used to slap me around, but he wasn’t raised with the same violence as the men who wear the patch.
He was raised by the badge. He was raised to be good.
The kind of good that was bad for my family, but the kind that would intervene in a situation like this.
He’s noble and righteous, law abiding. A fucking boy scout.
“All good.” Decker, face shadowed in the dim light, smiles.
Sickness churns my guts. I try to scream again. To swear at them. At him. But the hand covering my mouth gets tighter.
“You need to be careful,” he continues, ignoring my muffled shouts. “Couple cameras down here. Not sure everyone else will be as understanding as me.”
Murphy jumps away from me like I’ve just caught fire, and I scuttle backwards down the bench and press myself up against the wall.
“You touch me, and you’re dead,” I snarl. “My brother will fucking kill you.”
Ignoring me, Decker motions to the area just beyond the iron bars, where there’s a small desk and low lighting.
“Key is to know the blinds spots.” He tugs Murphy to the right, towards the corner of the cell.
Then he peers back, tilts his head, and repositions, as if he’s trying to measure a distance, like he’s really working out the perfect location to assault me without being caught.
“Cameras won’t catch anything if you stand right about… here.”
He moves fast, turning Murphy around and shoving him against the wall, then twisting his arm behind his back at a painful-looking angle. Murphy lets out a yell. In response, Decker smashes the slimeball’s face into the cell wall.
“Shut the fuck up. Another word and I’ll break your fucking arm.” He angles closer. “All I gotta do is pull right here”—he yanks on the guy’s wrist, causing him to grunt in pain—“yeah, you feel that? A little more pressure, and it’ll pop right out.”
He looks at me again. This time when our eyes meet, that calm he wore when he stepped into the cell dissolves. Now a mix of tension and tightly restrained fury contort his handsome features into a menacing mask.
“You all good, Gracie?” he grits.
My heart is a cluster of explosions against my ribcage. I can’t fucking breathe. No. I am not all good. But I swallow the bile sitting at the back of my throat and nod. “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”
Decker presses his forearm into the back of Murphy’s neck, pushing his face harder into the concrete wall. “Maybe you can explain to me what the fuck you think you’re doing.”
“You know what I was doing,” he hisses. “Allen said…”
“Allen said what?”
Murphy sucks in a shuddering breath. “He. He said?—”
Decker pushes harder. “Tell me exactly what you were about to do. I wanna hear it. Just so there won’t be any confusion when I beat the shit out of you.”
“It’s… it’s a?—”
“Can’t hear you,” Decker snarls. “A little louder for me.”
“An interrogation tactic,” he chokes.
Decker’s body goes still, and he lets up a little on Murphy’s neck. “Come again?”
“Thought you knew, okay? The women know more than they let on, but they won’t talk. You make it seem like you’re gonna do… that to them. And they get real chatty. I wasn’t actually gonna”—he clears his throat—“you know.”
“Rape her?” Decker snaps.
Murphy startles, his eyes going wide. “Course not!”
“And this is Allen’s doing?” he asks, giving Murphy’s arm another twist.
The asshole winces. “Who do you think sent me down here? Now come on, man, ease up.”