“Call in every fucking club slut and bitch associated with The Fallen. They have until sunset to be at the compound. Anyone missing, I want you to arrange a team of our best to go hunt them down. I want them found. I don’t give a shit… “
“Heard ya. Got a couple of the girls on their way to visit Momma Cass, is all.”
“You miss the part where I said I want them there by sunset or they’re being hunted?”
“Didn’t miss that at all. Why are you in such a cunt of a mood, Pres?”
I hit the horn when someone goes to stop at a yellow light before swerving around them. “A Fallen club slut sold Tristan. They literally accepted money for my woman.”
“Swing by, pick me up,” Joker says, and the grunt of pain is as obvious as his enthusiasm.
“Nah. I need you there.”
“Call Siderno,” Joker says. “He fucking owes you big time.”
“He does. But I have back-up.”
“King, I don’t like this. You’re going in unprepared.”
“I disagree. When I drive through the gate at my compound, Joker, no one better be looking at me or my truck.”
“What else can I do?” he asks and I can hear him writing shit down.
“Get every fucker away from my house, and double down the guards. Only person to be around is Stain. I want him there ready to go. Extra eyes too, Joker, we might have the Death Riders on their way over for a visit. We might not either.”
I hang up and open the window trying to chase away the constant state of suffocation I’m in.
“What aren’t you telling us?” Maverick says after a few minutes of me driving like a fucking rally driver through the middle of the city.
“Rex stabbed Steel after he forced him to fuck and pack Tris.”
Chapter
Fifty
TRISTAN
I’ve ended up in a hoodie that smells like blackberries and butterscotch. It’s so big I can pull it over my legs but it does nothing to stop my teeth chattering and my shivering. I’m so fucking cold. I’m pretty sure I need to sit in a bath of hot water for an entire day to stop my bones from aching.
Every now and then the floor under me vibrates like elephants are charging. But it’s not like an earthquake; it’s just the comings and goings of Rex’s entourage.
Despite the blindfold over my eyes, their faces are now burnt into my memory. Their vile, systematic taunting is barbed. I’ve got no idea how long I’ve been here, I really couldn’t say, but it’s been fourteen visits.
The door opens again, but I was already half prepared, their footsteps and voices as they came closer gave them away.
“Fuck me,” one of them laughs, “each fucking time we come in ’ere, she looks so fucking hopeful.”
Their enjoyment of seeing me scared and their disrespect towards me is as obvious as their disgusting scent. Even with my blindfold still on I know there’s four of them. Together they’re so offensive to my senses it takes all my control not to vomit on their feet. Rex smells like ammonia. It was faint at first but thelonger I’ve been around him, the more obvious it has become. And every time I smell him now it gets worse, he’s like a poison.
The other Alphas scent similar, along the same vein of toxicity—kerosene, stale liquor, and mould but only kerosene man has been with us the entire time.
He joined Rex almost as soon as we turned out of the driveway, riding away from the barn. Rex lied to Steel about all this falling in his lap, this was organised and planned but at the same time this was about fucking Steel over, as well as King.
Rex comes close, his scent all but burns my senses now. He rips down my blindfold, taking a clump of my hair out at the same time. Even though I knew he was there, and I knew what he was going to do, I still recoil and make a noise. I wish I didn’t because Rex loves my fear. I wish I knew how to stop reacting because I hate the satisfaction on his ugly face.
Funnily enough while he’s been playing his sicko games, Rex has inadvertently given me the chance to see how strong I actually am. Without question he scares me shitless and leaves me questioning my sanity but he hasn’t broken me. The longer I’m locked up and at his mercy the more I believe that too.
“Guess the bitches got wrong about how fond King was of ya. And since even Steel ain’t come to get you, your pussy’s clearly not gold. Makes me wonder if we need you.”
