Property Of Drex #2 (Death Chasers MC #2) (11 page)

Chapter 17

EVE

My wrists are hurting where the rough twine is binding my hands behind my back. The chair I’m in has my legs strapped in place, holding them individually at each chair leg. And there’s some disgusting tasting gag in my mouth that I swear they’ve used to wipe motor oil up with.

Like every cliché possible, I’m in a basement with a lone light above my head. I’d be scared if I wasn’t so busy being pissed and feeling betrayed.

As if he hears my thoughts, the door opens, and Ben—my once best friend—comes walking down the stairs with a grim look on his face.

“Sorry about all the theatrics, Eve, but you’ve proven resourceful, even managed to lay low for weeks without us figuring out where you were. And somehow you survived Drex and the Death Dealers even with your sweet face. I’m afraid we don’t trust you.”

I knew Benny was twisted, but I never thought that trait was passed down to Ben. He
was
the sweetest boy I’d ever known in my life. How did I miss this side of him and never notice it before?

I’d ask that, if there wasn’t a freaking gross rag of some sort tied in my mouth.

“I’d take that gag out and ask you a few questions, but you won’t answer. I know how stubborn you are. Right now you’re pissed. You’d be asking me questions like
how can you do this
and saying things like
this isn’t you.
We can just skip that part. Let’s say you were so busy loving your normal life that you never bothered to notice I was changing. And I was too busy trying to be the guy I thought you wanted, to let you see the man I was. Turns out you like the sick fucks of my world, considering you rode Drex’s dick for however long.”

Ben is wrong. I wouldn’t be asking any of those things. I’d be trying to draw him closer so I could head-butt him.

He sighs when I struggle, wishing I could get free enough to kick him in the face. But I’m tied up tight.

“I’m Benjamin Gerald Highland Jr., Eve. The son of Benjamin Gerald Highland Sr. The president of the Hell Breathers is my father. Did you really think I was that sweet, loving kid? I was just hung up on you, so I played a part. Not just for your sake, but also for my father’s. Best he thinks I’m the weak shit he can smack around. That way he’ll never see me coming, just like Mom didn’t see me coming.”

That has me stopping my struggle. Hismother? What does
that
mean? I thought she left them.

“I wish you were the type to just spill everything with a few questions. Tried that already. Turns out you got it bad for Drex, which means you’re loyal. See? I know you, Eve. I know you well,” Ben sighs as he squats in front of me and rests on his haunches.

“She’ll talk when I get done with her.” The gruff voice has my head snapping up, and my eyes narrow as a bald guy with a beard walks in. He’s big and has a nasty beard that curls into a devil’s point that touches his chest. I swear there is food caked in that thing.

“If you touch her, I’ll put a bullet in you myself,” Ben tells him casually, glancing behind him at the beast.

My blood chills at hearing Ben say those words. They sound foreign and awkward coming from him. I keep expecting him to tell me this is all a horrible joke, since he really does suck at jokes and pranks.

“How else are we going to get her to speak?” Baldy asks.

Ben grins as he turns back to face me, and he licks his lips as his eyes roam down my body in a way that leaves me wanting a shower just to wash away the slime trail. Never would I have thought he, of all people, could look at me in a way that left my skin crawling.

“I have a few ideas. But we’ll start with the easy stuff. Starvation. Thirst. And of course my favorite, sleep deprivation. I need her body intact. I’ve spent most of my life chasing her.”

The bastard had me and then agreed we were better as just friends.

“I see that look. You remember our very awkward time as lovers,” he says, grinning when he reads my face. He really does know me. Guess that was a one-sided friendship since I never lied about who I was.

“You fucked me a total of ten times, Eve. How many times did you fuck Drex? I saved myself for you, and you just couldn’t get into me as anything but a friend. How long did it take you to drop to your knees and suck his dick?” The bite at the end of his words holds years of resentment. “Then, of course, still playing the only card I had, I went along with friendship. It was supposed to be me you came to when you were hurting for cash. It was supposed to be me you came to when you needed money. It was me you were supposed to come to when you needed anything at all. It was me who was supposed to be the hero despite the corruption surrounding me. But fuck it all to hell with the timing. I just needed a little while longer, Eve. Your bastard father had to get himself killed just a little too early.

“I had a backup plan, though. Did you really think I just expected Dad to
give
you the money without expecting anything in return? I grew up in this shit, Eve. I know how things work. And unfortunately, it was my second best option. I knew you’d go for it—knew you’d sell yourself for your family. That’s how you are. Dad was going to keep you, shatter you by doing things I’d really rather not think about, and I was going to rescue you within a few days. I know his clubhouse and his house. I knew how to get you out and be your hero. It was all still going to work out in my favor. But he fucking sent you to Herrin.”

He was just going to let his father fuck me for a few days so he could be my hero? Wanted me broken and vulnerable when he showed up? Anger surges and so does a sickness I hate. I hate him. I really, really hate him.

Freaking sociopath.

He blows out a regretful breath while standing back up and turning to face Baldy.

“Check in on things. See if Drex has made a move yet,” Ben orders.

As soon as Baldy leaves, Ben faces me again.

“I spent years making sure no other guy messed with you, threatening them, warding them off... You weren’t ever really interested in dating, always worrying about your family and how to help them. Always worrying about everyone in general. I kept thinking I’d eventually fix all your financial problems, and I’d be your hero then. Now… Now I see you didn’t want that sweet guy who could fix everything. You just wanted a rough asshole who could tell you when and how to get fucked.”

My body is shaking, but I don’t know why. I’m not crying, and I’m not cold. The shaking isn’t violent, but it is annoying. The only thing I can even think of is the fact I’m vibrating with fury, and I can’t stop.

He’s just venting and ranting and not spilling his diabolical plan the way the bad guys do in the movies.

“Shhh,” Ben coos when he sees me shaking, and the asshole runs his hand along the side of my cheek. “It’s just the adrenaline wearing off. It’ll pass.”

I jerk my head to the side, happy to have that one part of my body to move, and his gaze turns murderous.

“You let him touch you but not me. I’ll remember that, Eve. Remember I’m still trying not to break you right now because I actually fucking care about you. Piss me off, and life for you will really suck.”

He cares about me… Psycho. This isn’t
caring
about someone. This is insanity. This is obsession—and not the good kind, either.

“She probably doesn’t know anything,” Baldy says. I never even saw him come back in. “She’s just some whore Drex played with. He wouldn’t have let her go if she had anything worth knowing.”

Ben turns to face Baldy. “She knows more than you think. Drex has guys hanging out at Drake’s, and she’s been working with Drake. It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that she knows something, or he wouldn’t kept her close to the club and had his guys around her at all times. Hence the drastic fucking measures we had to take to catch her in between guards.”

Ben walks over and jerks my shirt collar down until it better shows my shoulder and the tattoo. How did he find out about it?

“He put his name on her. That says he was making a statement. He put Jessie Gavara in the hospital for touching her. The guy is in a coma, and he’s one of Drex’s men. Even if he’s done with her now, he still considers her his possession, and we took her. Imagine how this is going to work out in our favor. Drex doesn’t think before he pulls the trigger. He’s going directly after Dad. Problem solved for us there. While the war breaks out, we’ll sit back and wait until they kill the numbers off, then we finally have the
in
we’ve been waiting for. I expected Drex to attack him after our guys shot up his house, but Eve has apparently made him softer. She’s our ticket to pulling the bastard’s strings like a puppet.”

I’m starting to think my theory was spot on and Ben was the mastermind instead of Benny. Ben has always been incredibly smart. He got it from his mother. Not his father. That woman was smart enough to get away from both psychos four years ago.

Or so I thought. After what Ben just said, now I’m not so sure.

Ben talks about my starvation and dehydration schedule with Baldy like he’s leaving directions for a house sitter. I struggle in vain with my stupid bindings that cut into me painfully as they walk out, and I scream into the gag as the light goes off and music starts playing.

Loud, jarring, eardrum-bruising music roars through the muggy basement. I’m still soaked from the rain. I’m tempted to suck the water from the part of my shirt that I can reach with my mouth while I have the chance, but the gag prevents it. As bad as I want to cry, I don’t want to help them dehydrate me even quicker.

Ben doesn’t realize something very important. A person can change a lot in two months, especially when their life depends on it. He’s going to have one hell of a time breaking me.

Chapter 18

DREX

The table hits the ground as I flip it over, and I throw a chair across the room that Axle narrowly dodges.

“Fucking find her! They had to have passed store cameras. Fucking traffic cameras. Something, damn it! They didn’t just disappear!”

Rush walks in with bloody hands and he shakes his head at my silent question. It’s all I can do to keep from going downstairs and blowing the Hell Breather’s head off.

“He’s Benny’s right hand man and he doesn’t know shit about this. If he knew, he would have talked,” Rush tells me. “What do you want me to do with him? I can’t just let him go back to Benny like that until we know for sure what’s going on. It’s just going to stir shit.”

“We shouldn’t have snatched him up. It was rash and fucking stupid,” Axle growls.

“Rash and fucking stupid is taking Eve! She’s been missing for three days, Axle. Three fucking days. Imagine what those sick bastards are doing to her and tell me I’m being rash and stupid.”

His jaw tightens and he looks over at Rush.

“Let me have some time with him.”

“You think you’re going to get more out of him than I did?” Rush asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“You’re not as motivated as I am. I don’t want her going through what I think she’s going through,” he says quietly.

No one speaks as he walks out, but the second he’s gone, I smash my fist into the wall, feeling my knuckles split on impact.

“I’ll fucking get him to talk,” I growl, turning toward the door, but Dash, Snake, and Rush all block me.

“Hell nah,” Rush says, shaking his head. “We already discussed this, D. You’ll kill him. We need him alive. There’s going to be enough hell to pay for this. Dad is doing all he can to keep this shit from Herrin.”

“Fuck Pop,” I snap.

“You can say that now, but when Herrin locks you up and lets his boys take turns whipping you back into line, you’ll regret it. Let’s keep this shit quiet for now,” Dash interjects. “Eve needs you to keep your fucking head on right now.”

Eve needs me.

I sent her out there to be safe from all this shit. I did everything I possibly could to keep her safe. And somehow that fucking weasel still got his hands on her.

The door blows open, and I turn just as Sarah walks in. The fuck is she doing here?

“Find anything?” Snake asks her as she pulls out a laptop from her backpack.

My eyes cut to him but he doesn’t meet my gaze.

“It was raining too hard to find anything on traffic cams or surveillance footage, since we don’t know what vehicle took her or which direction they went. We don’t even have an exact timeframe of the crash, since Drake is in and out of consciousness right now and unable to say much more than ‘that fucker’ when he is awake. Blame the painkillers and surgeries. But I think I found something.”

I move behind her, having no fucking clue how she even knows what’s going on, but right now I don’t give a damn.

“Someone had to have scoped her out and learned her routine to know she was going to and from the shop with Drake. After the attack on Drex’s house, Drake severed all ties to the Hell Breathers.”

She pulls up a picture of a familiar face on the screen. “This is Larry Monroe a.k.a. The Dragon. He was nearly beat to death by Benny after he allegedly stole drugs from—”

“We know,” Snake, Rush, and I all say in unison, even though mine is more of a growl.

“Sheesh. Sorry. Anyway, he was hanging out outside of Fuck Me Ink for the past three days. I spotted him on film, but he hasn’t been on any of the appointment lists I’ve gone through.”

“Why the hell didn’t someone notice him?” I snap.

“He never pulled up when someone was outside. He only sat out there when he saw the security was inside. You can see right through the windows when Drake has the blinds up,” Sarah explains. “And it’s not like he was obvious about it. Drake’s place is right next door to a few other businesses. He just sat at the corner and made it look like he was waiting for someone. And he drove a different vehicle every day.”

She pulls up another picture, and my stomach tilts.

“This is the truck that slammed into Drake’s car. The first day Larry scoped the place out, he was driving it.”

She pulls up another picture that clearly has the same truck and places the plate numbers side by side. Fuck.

“This truck was registered to Auto Legends and Disasters. It’s the same company he was fired from two months ago, but I’m guessing he never turned in his keys, and he could have easily borrowed one of the trucks after hours. This particular shot is after four, which is when the Auto shop closes. Obviously the wreck happened after that—”

“Why the hell would The Dragon want Eve?” Rush asks, interrupting Sarah’s much too long explanation.

Sarah frowns as she starts clicking keys again. I thought she was a stripper when Snake hooked up with her. Right now, she’s the only one who has fucking found anything close to finding Eve.

“Anything?” I ask her, hoping she has an answer to that question.

“No, but I have all of his friends addresses and family’s addresses. You can start sending people to scope the places out and see if Eve is there.”

“Each of us takes a team. If anyone finds her, get her the fuck out immediately,” I tell them as our phones start chiming.

“Sent the addresses. I’ll search for anything else,” Sarah says.

Snake kisses the top of her head, and I walk out with him, reading over the first address then motioning for Drew and Isaac to follow me.

“Load up. We have a ride to take,” I tell them, then I turn toward Snake. “After I find Eve, we’re going to have a talk about Sarah.”

He purses his lips. “She’s not going to run her mouth, Drex. You can trust her.”

I grab my keys and helmet, and we load up on our bikes.

“That’s not what I want to talk about. Pretty sure she needs to be doing more than manicures.”

I don’t give a damn about how much Sarah knows as long as she finds Eve.