Iâve been hit by shrapnel, Iâve been shot, Iâve seen a lot of men die. Iâve seen my own death at least a dozen times. The reason I always survive is because I anticipate the enemyâs next move. But how do you anticipate an enemyâs next move when you donât even know they fucking exist?
Iâm in and out of consciousness, I donât know how much time has passed. Has it been an hour? Six? I have no idea. I woke up here after Jake hit me. I hang from the center of the room, my arms outstretched and aching. I can feel dried blood on my face and the throb in my head where Jake hit me with a fucking pipe. The tops of my feet graze the floor and theyâre zip-tied together, I think.
Jake. My brother, by all accounts.
Now, he stands in front of me with Marco fucking Foxx and I know for the first time in my life, my enemy has the better of me.
Subconsciously, I hear parts of the conversation like a fever dream. It brings me right back to the sounds of the almost dead men screaming. I can hear them so clearly. Iâm back in that cave. I know I need to fight. I know I need to find my way out, to save anyone who can be saved but I canât do anything except listen in horror as I see her face in my mindâs eye.
I let the darkness take me.
Icy water hits my face, and my eyes surge open, cloudy with the forced influx of water and my own blood. I shake my head and raise it. Yep, definitely bleeding. Pretty sure Iâm bleeding from quite a few places, actually.
I have no idea how much time has passed since they dragged me in here, but itâs enough that Iâve faded in and out like this at least three times. A few hours? Longer?
âWeâre gonna do this one more time.â
I look up at Jake, my jaw set. At least thatâs not broken yet.
In my periphery, I see Marco snort two lines of coke off the table.
âI donât want to make this more painful than it needs to be, man. Fuck,â Jake says, his eyes pleading.
Mistake number one: Never go weak with your victim.
âJust give me the accounts and thisâll be quick.â He holds a gun to my face for the fifth time tonight. I didnât give him my personal bank account info any of those other four times, so I have no idea why heâd think this time would be any different.
Iâll sit through another hundred days of this before I ever let the fucker in the corner snort away the $1.3 million Iâve managed to personally save.
âFuck!â Jake yells. âThis is all your fault.â He makes his way to the table and nervously carves out a bump of his own. I donât know how much powdered courage it takes to betray someone whoâs been like a brother to you, whoâs always been good to you, someone whoâs always given you way too much fucking grace.
Iâve been asleep for half of this, but my guess is a lot.
âIt was supposed to be me. Not you. He always compared every fucking thing I did to you!â He bends down, keeping his gun on me and snuffs some more of that false courage up his nose.
Marco stands and smacks Jake in the back of the head. âStop fucking rehashing history to a dead man.â
He stalks toward me, and I know when I make it out of this, Iâm going to separate every limb from his body and keep him alive long enough to watch me put them through the wood chipper out back.
A lead pipe comes down on my knee. I grunt out a strangled sound as my head falls back. Thatâs feeling pretty fucking close to broken now.
âDid you know that youâve been fucked from the start? Your VP here told us all about your meets, your latest clinics. He even let us onto your property so we could take that truck out as a warning.â His grin pulls back over his yellowing teeth.
I think back to the night before the wedding when Jake disappeared. I thought he was hooking up. Motherfucker was letting that prospect in.
âYou arenât letting the club do the right kind of business. Weâre fucking outlaws. Do you know how much money we could make if we mule in the real stuff?â Jake asks as he fidgets.
I instantly know heâs already got deals set up in the event of my untimely demise. I donât wonder how long heâs been planning this. I donât give a fuck. Heâs dead to me.
âYou arenât getting out of here alive, so give us the fucking accounts,â Marco snarls.
I spit blood at him. I force myself to grin and say nothing.
This time, the pipe hit comes down on my head and the darkness descends again.
âYou shouldâve said no when he nominated you. It was my place. I lived under his shadow my whole fucking life. Now I live under yours. No more. That gavel is mine.â
Iâve been listening to Jake drone on since I came to again ten minutes ago, but my eyes are still closed as he paces back and forth in front of me. I have no idea where Marco is right now.
This little prick is whining, and I havenât been able to feel my arms for a fuck of a long time. I act as out of it as I can, groaning and moaning. But with as much clarity as possible, I search the room for my opportunity when he isnât looking. Right now, I donât see one, but I can wait. I will not die at the hands of this traitorous piece of shit.
ââ¦Youâve limited our earning. Every opportunity weâve had for big money, you turn down. You just focus on these fucking clinics. You know the big money is on the street. We could be earning three times as much.â
I open my eyes and focus on him with a grin, deciding that without Marco here I may get him to fuck up.
Jake never knows when to stop talking. Itâs whatâs gotten him into shit his whole fucking life.
âBut then weâre just like every other piece of shit gang. We earn plenty from the clinics. Clearly, since you want everything Iâve earned. What Iâve worked for.â
âFuck you! You and your fucking honor. Itâs time this club started taking more, earning big money.â
âYouâll never get the others to agree.â
âTheyâll agree when they start seeing dollars,â Jake says, sniffing and brushing at his nose.
I raise my head enough to analyze him. Heâs spinning out, nervous, which is when he starts to panic. His plan is going to shit, and he knows by the look in my eye that Iâll never give him what he wants. My money is protected if anything happens to me.
Because unlike him, Iâm fucking smart.
âYour father wanted the club to earn and live outside the fucking ridiculous laws of this country without killing people needlessly. He never wanted it to be blood money. Thatâs why he chose me.â
âBut youâve fucked up! Youâve made it too easy. DOS was coming for you and youâve been distracted by her. Someone has to take over, someone has to bring us into big money before DOS takes us out. I saw the opportunity. DOS is gonna work with us. You left me no choice.â
I start to laugh, then spit the blood thatâs oozing in my mouth onto the floor.
âIf I donât gut you, Mason will. Heâll never work with DOS; you donât think things through. Thereâs always a choice, you just never make the right one, and now youâll die because of it,â I bite out to him.
âIâve had enough of this shit,â Marco says, coming through the door, heâs obviously been outside listening to us. âYour plan of talking to him isnât working. He needs more motivation.â Marco wanders to the table and puts on a glove, a cut resistant one, then picks up a two-foot-long piece of barbed wire off the table. He grins evilly as he moves toward me.
âFuck! Fuck!â Jake grunts out as he paces more. âJust fucking tell us the fucking account information!â he yells.
âIâm gonna carve you up like dinner, son, and then Iâm gonna carve her up next. When you die tonight, picture her face on the end of my dick before I gut her like a fucking fish.â
The deepest kind of rage seeps from my body as I struggle with everything I have against the chains holding me before the barbed wire is wrapped tightly around my chest and dragged downward.
I bite down on my lower lip as I feel my skin being ripped open. I hope the bloodcurdling roar that leaves me is loud enough to demand the pits of hell to open and swallow him whole.
I will not give in. I will not give up. I will get out of this, so no one hurts her.