I slowly open my eyes in time to be struck in the face by ice cold water. I sputter and cough, trying to make sense of my surroundings.
Ciara is tied up next to me, her teeth chattering as she struggles against her restraints.
The guy who gave me a rude awakening pulls off his balaclava, revealing a face I doubt his drug addled mother could love.
I mutter, “Fuck me, you’re an ugly bastard,” and receive a punch to the gut in return. As I double over in pain, I realise I’m not going anywhere; cable ties dig into my flesh, keeping me secure to this damn chair.
The guy turns on Ciara and snarls, “Anything to add, bitch?”
“Mam?”
We’ve been called a hell of a lot worse, a hell of a lot more creatively. If he thinks name calling is going to work on us, he clearly hasn’t met our mother.
Two of the shorter lads grab a bucket of ice water and douse us with it, causing me to shriek in response. I hate the cold.
Ciara’s teeth chatter so viscerally that I think she might break them. “Mmm,” she humms through chattering teeth, “anyone g-g-got s-some o-o-onions? I’m ma-aking s-s-soup!”
Oh my God, it hurts. It hurts like the devil’s razor edged cock, but I can’t stop laughing.
The frigid water drips down my back, sending shivers through my body.
Aiden, please hurry up. My nipples are going to fall off from frostbite at this rate.
* * *
AIDEN
The bike flies through the wind, the rain feels like needles against my skin. I can barely see through the downpour, but I make out one of the cars up ahead.
The bike comes to a screeching halt as it skids to a stop.
The idiot driver turns right into the barrel of my gun as I pull the trigger and paint the inside of his windshield red. “Where is she?” I roar, emptying the rest of the clip into the car as I approach on foot. One lad ducks out of the way just in time, spilling into the road.
He’s going to run?
Good.
I love the chase.
Jumping back onto my bike just as he pulls some unfortunate out of their car and speeds off down the street, I rev the engine and take offafter him.
In times of panic, people run to safety. There is a good chance he is unknowingly leading me straight to her. “Mikey, have you got your eyes open?”
His voice comes over the earpiece a second later. “Looks like he’s heading in the same direction as his mates; Raven’s waiting up ahead with Jay, sharp left on Cumberland Street; the lads are waiting on Marlborough to see if he turns up there.”
* * *
RAVEN
Jay sucks on his teeth; he’s bored. He’s made that clear several times already. “What are we looking for?”
“A blue Toyota Aqua with a dent on the driver’s side door.” I dropped Maria off at the hospital and answered AJ’s call the second he found out the direction the van was headed. They tried to pull the old switcharoo but were sloppy as fuck about it. We know Katie is around here somewhere; it’s just a matter of figuring out where.
We have to be careful. AJ has lost Moore a few times on the road, but every time he loses the detective, another garda car seems to find him. Too bad the bastards can’t be this efficient with the men who took AJ’s girl, or he wouldn’t be out here himself—ok, he would, but they could stop the impending bloodbath.
Jay stops drumming his hands on the steering wheel andcalls out of his buzzed down window. “You mean like that one?”
The car screams down the road, taking out several wheely bins and, thankfully, no pedestrians as it skids around the corner. I hear AJ’s bike before I see it.
