and if they thought I wouldn’t return willingly, I wouldn’t put it past them to put a gun to my head in order to persuade me. Better to ask for forgiveness later if that’s what it took to keep me from escaping again. But no one in the Colony would wear tattoos. They considered them graven images, a sin.
But then who is this man?
The only other answer is that he’s a member of the Satan’s Bastards MC, the rivals of Spider’s club and a gang that, according to him, is looking for payback. This guy’s looking to use me to get to Spider.
Instinct to scream for Spider rears up. As if he’s aware of my thoughts, the man presses the gun harder under my chin.
“Behave yourself,” he warns. “I have no problem putting a bullet in you.”
My whole body shakes, and I squeeze my eyes shut. The voices of the Outlaws drift from across the parking lot—Spider and Dragon’s—yet I don’t dare call out.
Trying to control my breathing, I give a nod, letting him know I’ll cooperate, while my brain scrambles for some way to get Spider’s attention. It’s useless. He’s too far away to hear me unless I shout, and if I try that, my life is over.
There’s nothing to do but go along with him.
I nod again.
The gun’s barrel lowers, and he grabs the back of my neck in a vice-like grip. “Move.” The gun presses into my back, and he marches me to the rear door.
Nothing about his words or his voice tells me who he is or what he intends to do with me. What would a club member do to a woman associated with their rivals? I shudder. I don’t want to know.
Pulse hammering, I walk out to the rear of the lot behind the building toward the open back of a black van parked there. My mind races for a way to avoid letting him get me inside that vehicle, but there isn’t one. If I run or fight, or if I call to the MC, my brains will end up splattered all over the pavement. There’s nothing I can leave behind, nothing I can do to let the Outlaws know I didn’t leave of my own free will if they come looking for me.
I climb into the back. He slips the gun into the back of his pants and hops in.
As soon as the gun is out of his hands, I kick at his stomach, hoping to knock him down. He must have realized it was coming because he shoves my foot away before it connects. Then he slams his fist into my face, and…
The last thing I remember is a flash of pain, and then… nothing.
My jaw is throbbing, my head pounding, a dull, irritating pain that makes it hard to think.
Disbelief, numbing disbelief swims in, almost overriding my fear.
I’d escaped the Colony only to end up kidnapped by an outlaw motorcycle club, the virtual plaything of one of the evilest men I’ve ever met, and now a guy from a rival club is kidnapping me from him?
It sounds like the plot to one of those bad comedy movies my previous employer’s wife used to love, one of the few things they allowed themselves to watch.
If I weren’t so scared, I might have laughed. Now more than ever, I’m certain the God I’d been raised to worship all my life is sitting up there having a good laugh at my expense.
I bang my fist against the back wall of the vehicle—or I do so as best I can with my wrists shackled there. My ankles are tied with rope, so I bang both my feet on the floor, throw back my head, and holler a wordless scream through the gag.
The driver doesn’t stop, but then I’m not even sure he can hear me. The engine rumbles on, and I feel the van bump as it hits a pothole. I thump on the floor again and give another yell.
Nothing.
Panic rises, slowly morphing into terror. Where is he taking me? What will he do to me when we get there? Will he use me to force Spider to pay for killing the brother of the Bastard’s president and then shoot Spider as soon as he shows up, the way those guys tried to do the night Cap was shot? Or…
While Spider was torturing me for information on Adamson, he’d promised to send my head back to Seth in a box if I was lying