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There’s nothing I can do but take it.
~
Every part of me aches like a bitch. I move, trying to roll my ass out of bed. It’s only when I get a mouth full of dirt that I realise I’m not in a bed. My hands splay on the ground, and murky images start filtering through my brain. Blood. Pain. Faces. My hands were tied. Not anymore. I cough and roll, about ready to give up trying to move, but then I see a pair of scuffed-up boots in my periphery. They’re crossed at the ankle. Relaxed.
The smell of acrid smoke wafts through the room, and I see a pack of Marlboro land near my face.
“Stop being a goddamn pussy. You’ll live.” I look up from the boots, scanning old, black denim until I’m staring at Dragon. Takes me a few minutes to remember in any clarity what went down, but it sure as shit fires some fucking animosity when I do remember.
I kick off the crumbling ground slowly and try balancing, glaring at him as he keeps smoking without a care in the fucking world. He reaches for a bottle of something and swigs, taking long draws on it until it’s near empty. “You can stop aiming that attitude at me. I barely touched you. Knox needed to vent, though. He didn't promise to behave.” Behave? “Have a smoke.”
I spit out some dried blood and phlegm. “Don’t fucking smoke.”
He cocks a brow up and the bottle gets offered at me. “Drink then.” I grab it from him and sink the rest of it, unsure what the hell I’m doing but needing some booze to cool me off. “So. Is she still worth it? 'Cause she seems to think you are, and I haven't got time for this shit if you're not.”
I scan the floor and think on that. My gaze comes up to the table, and visions of that woman screaming start coming back to me. “You fucking branded her.” Statement. He doesn't react at all, just keeps looking at me as he blows out some more smoke. “I'm not branding women like that. I don’t care what the fuck you are, or what the hell you do, but I’m not doing that.”
He sighs. “Well, now see, this is where it gets damn hard not to gut you. I'm being nice. Tryin', you know? And you're here bringing words like ‘no’ at my face when we’re discussing my sister.” The smoke gets flicked away, and he goes straight about lighting another one. “Those girls we’re working through mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Then why the fuck would you put them above Mariana?”
“I'm not. Wouldn’t.” He keeps staring at me, smoking, as if I should be understanding his viewpoint. “You’re saying I have to? Prove my worth somehow? I don't need to prove shit to you.”
He gets up and walks past me to the door, beckoning me. “Yeah, Kai, you do. One way or another, you've got a lot to prove to me. Helping her with that runaway was one thing, but I don't need another weak-ass punk in my way. All in, Kai. There’s no middle ground with this family. You want her, you’re gonna have to work for it. We don't piss around with obligations in this family.”
Following him turns into a full rundown of what seems to be their operation here. Low, easy words from him echo, as I look at cages of women lining some of the corridors. Some look scared as shit hidden-up back in the dark, and others are trying to goad me into fucking them. I don’t know what to think about any of it. It’s as far away from decent as it could be. But whilst I don't know these exact walls I'm in, I know the feeling they produce well. It's growing inside me with every next thing that comes from his mouth. Violence. Rage. Criminals with zero respect for the law and no morals to oblige themselves to. They’re top-tier level evil. Way past where I used to be in street gangs.
I stretch my jaw around, trying to ease the ache, as we turn through another dark run of cages. They're empty this time, and he explains how this works from his viewpoint. They're like cattle, apparently. Useable assets. No feelings involved. No interest in their well-being other than making sure they’re fit enough to fuck. Seems that's not all that important for some of them, either. Only one rule – nothing under sixteen.
“You understand?” he asks. I’m nodding, unsure why I am doing. “We find them, train them, profit off them.” This isn't alright. This is fucked-up beyond all levels of humanity. And I’ll turn just like them if I’m all in because there’ll be no getting out. Out, once in, will mean death. He doesn’t even need to say it.
A woman comes around the corner after a while. Well dressed, with hard features scanning me as she moves. She looks at Dragon and nods, taking a bunch of keys off her belt at the same time. A younger looking woman is walked out – maybe twenty – and Dragon takes hold of her to move her through the corridors. We end up in an open area. Some kind of dirty, concrete floor space with a dude waiting in the middle of it in a mask.
“Sit,” Dragon says to me, as he walks to the middle of the room. I take a chair on the left in the darkness, watching as he hands the woman over to the other dude. They exchange words for a few minutes, and Dragon nods over to the right with two fingers up in the air before coming back to me. Another woman brings a bottle of whiskey over to us soon after, two tumblers alongside.
“You like fucking?” he asks me, as she leaves and he lights a smoke. My brows pull in. “Not everyone fucks the same.” The dude on the stage slaps the woman hard. Hard enough that she falls to the ground under him. Dragon just picks up a drink and gets himself comfortable, like this is all in a day’s work. “We sell all different kinds of fucks. This one’s training for hard-core.” He sighs and looks at his watch as she screams up there and hollers out her distress. “She'll be sold to someone who might kill her. Kinks, you know?”
No, I don't know. The guy’s a fucking animal. Whole damn family must be. And I'm not one bit happy about this show. My hackles are all the way up. My fists are tight. Even my breathing is stilted, like the adrenalin just won't settle. What's really grating me, is some part of me likes this crap. It's easier than the decent I've been trying for. More tempting at least. I might not have lived this particular life, but I know rage and lawlessness. I'm damn good at that.
“Little Bella still worth it, Kai?”
I swallow and hold firm. I might be pissed, but every time he asks that question the memories of her on me just get stronger, and this atmosphere is pulling an energy from me I'm not used to. “Must be. I'm not trying to kill you."
He looks at me and snorts. “You gonna try?”
“Might do. I'll let you know later.”
He looks back at the stage, less than interested in my threat. “Don't. You’ll lose, and I’ll break my promise to her. Try impressing me instead. Watch. Learn. Get used to this. Try not to throw up.” I frown and reach for a drink. “Maybe we’ll talk some more about little Bella when it’s done.”
Yeah. Maybe.
CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
MARIANA
Kai is true to his word and has responded when I texted him this time. We’ve not made plans since our little trip to New York, and that worries me, but I know I need to be patient. I’ve given him a lot of shit and trouble to process, and despite my gut telling me to afford him that space, I’m desperate to see him again.
