Biker's Bride: A Bad Boy Romance (Demons MC) (Includes bonus novel Kinged!) (43 page)

I sat there, alone and cold in my thin morning clothes, with my back against the hard steel bars, and continued to imagine Rex smashing Michael’s face in, over and over.

I
don’t know how long I sat down there. Time was hard to keep track of without a clock or the sun. Maybe twenty minutes after Michael left, the lights flickered then went out. He had promised some food and water, but none came.

It had to be at least a few hours. I felt my stomach growl, and I was incredibly thirsty, but I didn’t want to cry out. The longer I went without drawing attention to myself, the safer I was. A few hours in a cage with no food or water was possible; I knew it was nuts, but I was totally prepared to gut it out. I thought about the hours I had with Rex, the days we spent together in and out of bed, the way I felt like I knew him better than anybody before. I knew that he was my best chance at getting out of the situation alive, and all he had to do was win his fight.

The last time I saw him, Rex still wasn’t fully healed. The swelling was mostly down, but the bruises were still dark and bloomed yellow across his body. Between the tattoos and the pooled blood, his body was a mottled canvas of different colors. I had to be careful when we went to bed. He wasn’t the kind of man to take things gently, but even he had to admit that it was a good idea to give his smashed body a rest.

He wasn’t in great shape. He was still in pain even when performing simple tasks. For the first two days I had to help him undress and shower, which I couldn’t complain about one bit. I loved pulling his shirt slowly from his body. But the blooming yellow and blue along his ribs always hit me right in the chest and took my breath away. I couldn’t begin to understand the kind of pain he was in, and the kind of strength it took for him to carry on. Soon though, he was feeling better, and was up and about on his own, but I could still see the suffering on his face every once in a while.

I was worried. He had to win, he could win, but he was coming into the fight injured. Whoever Michael got would be in perfect shape, and probably pretty motivated. What if Rex lost? I knew Michael would kill him, but what would happen to me? I was afraid he’d keep me around, force me to be a part of the gang. I imagined horrible scenarios, like becoming a sex slave, or a forced prostitute addicted to drugs. But he couldn’t actually do that, could he? I had Shane and Amy, and they wouldn’t let me disappear. Shane Green had enough disposable income to tear the city apart trying to find me. I had to assume that Michael and his people didn’t know about my relationship to Shane, which was a good thing. If anything went wrong, I needed to get a message out to him and Amy. They were the aces up my sleeve, and I really hoped I wouldn’t have to involve them.

My mind wandered over all of the horrible possibilities as the time slowly slipped by. My body was stiff and a pain shot up along my spine, but I refused to lie on the disgusting mattress. Besides, there was nothing I could do.

Suddenly, as I got lost in another fantasy where I tore Michael’s spine from his gross body, the door to the basement opened and the light flicked on. I heard boots stomping down the stairs, and the wood creaked under somebody’s weight. The person turned the corner and came into view. I recognized him immediately: he was either Spud or Clutch, one of Michael’s personal goons. He repulsed me powerfully as he moved closer. His head was shaved and his pig face curled into a disgusting grin. He was holding a tray with a sandwich on it and three bottles of water.

“Hello, girlie,” he said, and his voice was a high-pitched lisp. I winced at the sound, and realized I had never heard him say anything before. They were quiet when they tore through my apartment.

He crouched down outside my cell, put the tray on the ground, and stared at me. 

“Are you going to push that in?” I asked, trying to avoid eye contact.

“I haven’t decided yet.” He kept staring at me, the crazy smile not leaving his face. He put his hands on the bars and leaned his forehead against the metal, staring in at me.

“What the fuck do you want?” I asked. Chills ran up my spine.

“Nothing,” he said, and continued to stare. He was unnerving and eerie, the way he hardly spoke. He ran his eyes all over my body and I felt like there were cockroaches crawling all over me.

“Leave me alone,” I said quietly.

“I like you,” he responded. He stood up and unlocked my cage. I squirmed away from him as far as I could get, but he took two steps into the space and was inches away from me.

“What do you want from me?” I asked again.

He smiled in return, and then reached out to touch my hair. I flinched away and felt nauseous. He took a strand of my hair and smelled it, his gross breath washing over me. I shied away and tried to pretend like he didn’t exist.

When he was done smelling my hair like a total animal, he reached out and touched my face. I grunted and moved away, but I was trapped in the back of the cell. He moved closer, and pressed his dirty thumb against my mouth. I felt his grimy nail part my lips and press up against my teeth.

“Open,” he said. He continued to press his thumb against my mouth, but his face got angry.

“Open,” he said again, and I parted my teeth. He slipped his slimy skin into my mouth. Before I could taste too much of his filth and his sweat, I bit down as hard as I could.

He let out a loud scream and I forced my teeth down as hard as I could. He jerked back and tore his thumb from my mouth, and toppled backwards toward the exit. I moved fast, hopped to my feet, and started to hobble out of the cage.

I don’t know what I was thinking. All I knew was that I had to escape, or at least try. I couldn’t be a doormat for Michael’s thugs to fuck with, no matter what. I didn’t get far though. My legs and hands were still tied together, and as soon as I cleared the cage’s doors, I tripped and fell over into a stack of liquor bottles. I tumbled to the floor and bottles rolled everywhere, making a loud noise of falling glass. I lay on my back, waiting for the inevitable. After a moment, he was back in my field of vision, looming over me and clutching his thumb.

No matter what happened, I wouldn’t stop fighting. I wasn’t weak, and I wasn’t a doormat. I’d do whatever I had to do to survive.

“That was bad,” he said.

“Fuck you, pig.”

He frowned. “That’s not nice.”

He cocked his foot back like he was about to kick me, when suddenly the door upstairs opened.

“What the fuck is going on down there?” I heard Michael yell down.

The pig-faced asshole froze, a look of panic blooming across his face.

“Nothing,” he called back.

I heard the stairs flex under Michael’s weight as he walked down. He turned the corner and saw me, laying on the bottles, with the creepy pig standing over me.

“What are you doing, Spud?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Spud said. He clearly wasn’t bright.

Michael advanced on Spud slowly. “What did I say to you?”

“Leave the pretty girl alone.”

“Yes, exactly. And what did you do?”

He stared at Michael. “I didn’t leave her alone.”

Michael shook his head sadly, inches away from Spud. “No, lad, you didn’t.”

Out of nowhere, Michael’s fist smashed into Spud’s gut, doubling him over. Michael lifted his fists above his head and brought them down on the back of Spud’s head, knocking him to the ground. Spud groaned.

“Sorry, lad, but you know the rules.” Michael kicked Spud hard in the ribs once, then twice, and stopped. He looked over at me, and I stared back at him, my eyes wide with fear.

“And sorry to you too, lass. These animals can’t control themselves sometimes, not when they see a woman like you at least.”

I didn’t respond. He moved over to me, grabbed my tied-up hands, and hauled me to my feet.

“Not hurt, are we?”

I mentally went over my body. My butt and back were a little bruised, not to mention I was starving, thirsty, terrified, and I was completely grossed out, but I was mostly fine. I shook my head in response to Michael.

“Good then. He’s pretty harmless, honestly. Most of the time.” Michael moved me toward the cage, and gently pushed me in.

“There you go now.” He pushed the tray in toward me. “Hope you like tuna.”

“He put his thumb in my mouth,” I said stupidly. I didn’t know why, I said it, but it just came out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I didn’t understand why Michael was protecting me and hurting his own people for my sake.

Michael nodded and seemed to understand. “I’m not a monster, but I have to work with them. He probably wouldn’t have gone any further.”

I returned Michael’s gaze and, although I loathed him with every inch of my being, I was grateful. I believed him when he said he wasn’t a monster, or at least he wasn’t always one. I guessed the years of acting as the boss of a violent mob had warped and twisted him into the thing I saw that day.

“Eat up. I’ll bring more later.” With that, he turned, and pulled Spud to his feet. Spud grunted and groaned.

“Alright, lad, alright. Let’s get you upstairs,” Michael said, and the two of them walked back toward the stairs. I watched them go, and was amazed at how tender Michael was being toward Spud. They were both disgusting, evil humans, but I saw something deeper in him. The two of them went back up the steps and were gone.

I hoped whatever humanity Michael had left was enough to keep him from killing me at the end of everything.

More than that, I hoped that Rex would tear them all to pieces.

N
obody bothered me after that. I wasn’t sure what I liked better, the terrifying interactions or the slow monotony that was sitting alone in a cage for hours. I ate the food they gave me, I sat in the corner, and I waited. That was all I could do: pass the time.

They brought me another meal awhile after the first one and the guy that slid it under the bars was a man I didn’t recognize. He didn’t answer me when I spoke to him and barely even looked at me. I guessed he heard about what Michael did to Spud.

I fell asleep on the mattress eventually. There was nothing else I could do. I kept picturing Rex’s boot smashing through Michael’s head, but even that lost its charm after a few thousand iterations. There were only so many ways for Michael to die in my twisted imagination. After that, I tried to remember every time Rex touched my body, starting with the very first night in the bar’s bathroom. It was odd; the lowest point and one of the highest points of my life took place in the same bar.

There were no dreams that night. I expected nightmares, but there was nothing. Only a soothing darkness, broken abruptly when Michael’s goon shoved another sandwich and more bottles of water under the bars of my cage.

By midday the following afternoon, I smelled terrible and was almost twitching with boredom. I hadn’t heard anything more from Michael about Rex, and I could only assume that he was playing it safe. There was a completely irrational part of me that wanted Rex to smash in through the front door, guns blazing, and rescue me. But I knew that was the kind of bullshit you saw in movies. Our best chance was if he won the fight and forced Michael to let us both go free. I knew that no news was actually good news in that situation, but it was hard to see when I was stuck twiddling my thumbs.

After my third meal of the day, I realized the fight had to be getting close. I was missing then for over a day, and I wondered if anyone but Rex even noticed. Probably not, I realized. The only person who checked in with me on any regular schedule was Amy, but she had no reason to worry if I was out of communication for a few days. Sometimes we didn’t talk for as long as a week, just for no other reason than we were busy. That was what happened as you got older. Even your closest friends drift. Sitting in that cell, reflecting on my life, I vowed to make sure Amy and I never completely lost touch with each other.

I vowed a lot of things during my time in that cage, too. It was hard not to reflect on all of the mistakes I made throughout the years when I had nothing else to do but think. I ran through all of the people I’d wronged over the years, and promised myself I’d go visit my mother more often. My dad remained firmly on my blacklist, and no amount of torture or prison time could change that. My mother though, she was a different story. I never fully believed that she was in on my father’s scam, or even knew anything about it. She denied everything from the start, and always stuck to her story. The important things became clear when my life was in danger, and it turned out that my family was important to me, whatever was left of it at least.

Most important of all, I realized that I wasn’t angry or upset with Rex. I didn’t blame him for what was happening to me, and if I could have gone back and done everything over, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have let him leave that first night in the bathroom, and again later on the Wharf. Other than that though, I regretted nothing. Ever since I had met Rex, my life was turned upside down, but I was happier. I had been drifting through my days, half there. But he made everything brighter and more alive. I couldn’t give that up, not for anything.

Eventually, Michael’s people started to filter down the steps. They started to grab the boxes and the barrels and carried them out the back door. Nobody looked at me or said anything to me, and as far as they were concerned, I was invisible. I felt exposed in small sleeping clothes, dirty from wearing them for too long, but nobody seemed to care. I guessed everyone knew what happened with Spud. Or maybe they were afraid I’d bite their faces off.

Soon, the basement was completely cleared out except for my cage. Once that was done, Michael approached me with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Almost time for the big fight, lass.” He smiled down at me.

“Are you letting me out?”

“Yes, we are. Can’t have you sitting in a cage. Bad for morale.”

He unlocked the door and opened it. I shuffled onto my feet and followed him out into the basement. When I was out, a few of his people emptied the space and pushed the cage itself further back into a corner.