“Fuck. He was just here,” I sigh. “You want me to ride down?”
“Nah,” Ghost answers, “I just thought you’d want to know. Squid said he was his way yesterday.”
That’s one good thing that came out of this, at least. Ghost and Squid have been working together to find Les, which allied the Vipers and the Disciples. It gave them both added numbers if shit happened to go wrong. Ghost cleaned over half of the Vipers out after Xander’s untimely passing, thanks to Les, and recruited more. He has a solid crew now that is damn good.
“He’s up to something more than what he’s saying,” I muse. “We just need to figure out what.”
“He gives me the fucking creeps,” Ghost chuckles. “Alright, man. I’ll let you go.”
“Let me know if you need me.”
“Will do,” Ghost replies and hangs up.
I go to say something to Holden and realize he’s fallen asleep against me. Not wanting to disturb him, I kick my boots off and put my feet on the coffee table, rearranging him onto my chest so he’s more comfortable.
He’ll fall asleep in my bed at night, but if I wake up in the middle of the night, he’s gone. I always find him in his office digging through anything we’ve discovered over the past six weeks, hoping to find something he missed.
I’m not going to risk waking him now.
Chapter 2
Zane
“Where is she?” I ask Jay when he comes strolling into the room.
They took her from the room yesterday, and I haven’t seen her since.
“None of your fucking business,” he replies with a creepy grin. How the fuck did I not know this dude was psychotic? I worked side by side with him for two years; I even considered him a friend. “I had a visit with one of her boyfriends today. They aren’t any closer to finding her than they were before. It’s sad, really.” I just stare at him, knowing he’ll eventually get on with it. “Anyway. It won’t matter soon. She won’t have anyone left to run to but me.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I already took care of one of them. The rest are next.” At the mention of Gage, my heart sinks. Jay rubs it in Les’ face every chance he gets that Gage is dead, and it’s like her heart breaks even more each time. Gage may not have been a friend to me, but he didn’t deserve that. Jay squats down in front of me where I’m tied to this goddamn pole, the same way I am every time my eyes are open. “I’m going to let you watch her surrender to me. That’s the last thing you’ll see before I put a bullet between your eyes.”
I swallow back bile from that threat. Not because he threatenedto kill me, but because I know what he does to Les to get her to surrender. He comes in every night, jerks the curtain closed that separates us, and touches her while I have to listen. Nothing I yelled, screamed, or threatened stopped him.
The first several times, she fought like hell. He kept her tied down because he knows what she can do. Then one day, she just stopped. She stopped yelling, screaming, and bucking. It’s like a switch is flipped in her now; she’s just empty, and it’s killing me.
They’re cautious with me too, after what happened the first day we were here. Even injured and spitting up blood, I broke one guy’s nose and cracked another’s ribs. So, any time they move me, they make sure I can’t get loose. They leave me tied to this pole, Les hanging from the ceiling during the day, and bind us to the beds at night; that’s the only way we can differentiate time.
I have no fucking clue how long we’ve been here, and every day I watch Les sink further into a place in her mind that I’m not sure anyone can get her out of.
Jay gets tired of my silence and stands up. “I’m going to give you one small favor, though. I’ll take out Ryder next, and I’ll let you watch. Plans are already in motion.” He taps his chin. “I might let Precious watch too.”
I despise the nickname he gave Les. He never says her name; it’s like he’s afraid she’ll snap out of whatever dreamworld she lives in. Not that I blame her for that dream world. They might torture the fuck out of me all day long, but it’s nothing compared to what they do to her. My wounds will heal, and my scars will fade, but hers might not.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. We figured out soon after we got here that Jay was her stalker. What started as an investigation against her for justice for his brother quickly became an obsession. The only reason he tried to feed me bullshit about how bad she is, is because he wants her, and he wants me out of the picture.
“Come on, Zane,” he chuckles, walking towards the door. “You know why.” He walks through the door and turns back. “She will surrender to me,” he says, slamming the door behind him.
He’s convinced that Les will give in to him willingly. He doesn’tsee anything wrong with what he’s doing to her every night, which makes him even scarier. He has no concept that what he’s doing to her is wrong.
A few minutes pass, and the door opens again, two guys shoving Les through. They jerk her over to the chains, hooking them to her hands. They spin the lever on the pulley, pulling them tight over her head, then each grabs a chain and wraps it around her ankles. They got smart after she almost broke one of their necks with just her legs.
She stays there for the longest time with her head hanging. Her hair is wet, and they changed her nightgown, the same thing they do every day, saying she needs to be cleansed for Jay. This is the first time they kept her out of the room at night.
“Hey, Beautiful,” I greet, trying to get her to look at me.
Her head lifts slowly; she turns blank blue eyes on me, then looks back at the floor. I know she won’t answer me; she hasn’t said a word since she stopped trying to fight Jay off.
