The third man grabs my arm and hauls me to a small room off the main basement. There’s a cot, a bucket, and nothing else. The door clangs shut behind me, lock sliding home with a final, echoing click.
I slide to the floor, curling into myself. My wrists throb, my face aches, and my throat tastes of chemicals and bile.
No one is coming for me. Not Daniel. Not campus security. Not my parents. I am alone.
For a few raw, silent minutes, I let the grief crash over me. Grief for Daniel, for my lost freedom, for the girl who thought she was just here to help a friend.
But I do not let myself break.
I stare at the narrow window high on the wall, where rain streaks in silver lines.
Tomorrow, they’ll ask me to cook poison for them and I’ll play their game. What other choice do I have?
But tonight, I gather my strength. I’ll need all of it and my wits, if I don’t want to end up like Daniel.
Because if there’s no one coming to save me, I’ll have to find a way to save myself.
And as I close my eyes, I swear to the darkness that when I get out of here, I will burn them all down and walk on their ashes.
2
BEAST
I’ve been at this for three damn months and I still have nothing to show for my efforts.
Winter thawed a while back. Reaper’s Christmas lights are all packed up and I’ve missed every damn book club meeting for nine weeks in a row.
I break at least five traffic laws as I lean into back road curves and pass the cruisers out for a Friday night ride. I’m not out here joy-riding though I’d like to be.
The sun set about an hour ago and the seedy side of the Big Easy is just waking up as I slip over city limits.
Louisiana spring rides in with a humid wall of air, thick with the scent of old magnolia and city rot, but for me, the air still tastes like cold metal and burnt hope. I open the throttle on my bike and let the sting of the air bite into my cheeks. It feels damn good after a long winter to feel the power of my girl between my legs. Her rumble does something to my soul. I push a little harder, my knuckles tight on the grips as I tear down the highway that splits the bayou from the sprawling cement of New Orleans.Three months hunting the same ghost, chasing the same trail, and I’m no closer to Layla Wren now than the first time I heard her name.
I can’t help but feel a nagging suspicion this is going to drag on for a while yet. But someone knows something and I’m going to dig that fucker out one way or another.
The engine thrums between my legs, vibrating up my thighs, keeping me sharp. My cut snaps in the wind, and I let the air bite at my neck, fighting the urge to look at my phone for the hundredth time today. Her picture waits on the lock screen, black hair wild around her face, delicate shoulders barely visible under a too-big cardigan. Hazel eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. What kills me most is she’s not smiling. Or at least not for whoever took the photo. She doesn’t look afraid, either. More like she’s waiting for life to be good to her. Charli called the look in her eyes haunting. I think she’s right, but there’s something else there too. Something that speaks to me.
Loneliness.
I throttle down and slide through the city at a slower pace.
I spent twelve weeks memorizing every freckle dusting the bridge of her nose over whiskey at midnight or coffee at dawn. By now, she’s all I see when I close my eyes. Every scar on my body, every line across my knuckles, they’re old stories. But the ache inside me, the itch to find her, that’s brand new and it burns. I don’t even know the sound of her voice, but somehow I know I’ll recognize it the second she speaks.
The Savage Reign crew has thrown every contact, favor, and bullet they can at finding Layla. Storm chased a tip through half the bayou before the trail went cold. Cipher ran every phoneping and ATM camera from the city to all the surrounding parishes. Hell, I even called in a favor with Riot from the Bratva Savages, and that man doesn’t do shit for anyone outside his brotherhood. In January we got so close I could smell the bleach on the abandoned railway car, the scorched metal where someone tried to burn the evidence. By the time we got there, Layla and the Vultures were gone. They left nothing behind but a pair of cheap sandals with glittery rhinestones and a broken gold chain.
I still have the chain tucked in my saddlebag like it will lead me to her somehow or some shit. Damn. I don’t know. It’s pathetic, maybe. But every man needs a reason to keep going. She’s mine, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
I flick my blinker, veering off the main drag and into the sticky heat of New Orleans proper. The city is alive, all neon reflections and steamy gutters, jazz notes drifting through alleyways slick with last night’s sins. My boots slap down onto wet pavement as I kill the engine outside the Viper Pit, the glittering temple to the Red Letter Syndicate’s vanity.
Rich motherfuckers with their hands in every single pot that rakes in the money. They stick to their business and we stick to ours. It’s a business arrangement that has worked for us since the beginning. There’s plenty of dough to go around and everyone is respectful of the other.
They drop major money in our establishments and we return the favor.
I inhale deeply and let the heavy air settle into the bottom of my lungs.
Even the air outside this place is different. It is perfumed with money, egos, and arrogance. Two valet boys in tuxedos stare at my bike. I catch sight of myself in the mirrored windows, a big man in black jeans, boots scarred from years of riding, a white tee stretched across my chest and my cut sitting heavy on my shoulders. My dark hair is cropped short, stubble roughing my jaw. Tattoos coil up my arms and peek out beneath my collar, a patchwork of color and memory against my tan. A woman dripping in layers of silk and diamonds walks by on the arm of a man in a suit that probably costs more than most make in a month.
I throw her a wink and offer an air kiss that makes her duck her head. But I caught the little smile on her red lips. Her man doesn’t approve and jerks her forward harshly. Asshole.
