Page 4 of Skin Deep

Xavier did as I told him. “You’re going to tie him up?”

I took the zip ties and knelt, carefully binding our unexpected guest by the wrists and ankles. “We’ve got less than an hour before he starts to come around, and I expect he’s not going to be too pleased when he does. We need to get him out to the factory and into a room before then.”

Xavier stared at me in disbelief. “You’re taking him with us?”

“What choice do I have?” I snapped, rougher than I meant to be. I stood, tugging a travel-sized package of baby wipes from my pocket to clean my hands. “You two are going to work on Alvin. Stick to the plan and finish the job we came to do. I’m going to get to the bottom of who he is and why he’s been following us. Now help me drag him to the van.”

Icamearound,myhead throbbing, sure I’d heard a scream. My eyes didn’t want to cooperate at first. They refused to open despite me trying several times. Sound bled through the fog of unconsciousness, echoing off of metal in a large room.

The sound of metal doors slamming. Buzzers buzzing. Guards pacing down narrow corridors.

No. That was a memory getting tangled in the present. I wasn’t up at Mansfield Correctional anymore. I’d gotten out years ago. Did my time and now…

Where the fuck am I? What happened?I heard myself groan as my limbs started waking up. I tried to lift a hand to rub my aching head but found my hands bound behind my back. Ankles too. Shaking my head, I forced my eyes open and winced as bright light sliced into my retinas, making my head throb even worse.

Another scream echoed through the space, more distant.

“Welcome back,” came an unfamiliar voice.

I swung my vision to the right, taking in the man sitting in the metal folding chair. My first thought was that he was too pretty to be a cold-blooded killer. He looked like an angel with his chin-length wavy blond hair and his sharp features. He lifted his head and set those icy blue eyes on me and shifted his grip on the scalpel he held. An angel of death, maybe.

“Who are you?” he demanded, standing.

I twisted, testing the restraints. Plastic zip ties. Strong as I was, I didn’t think I could break them, especially since my arms and legs still felt like Jell-O. My movements were sluggish, my thoughts dragging and foggy. That’s right. He’d come up behind me and jammed a needle in my neck.

“You drugged me.” The words were a tad slurred as they fell out of my lips.

A scream cut through the air again, and this time, I thought I could tell which direction it was coming from. I glanced around. I seemed to be sitting in a large metal room in an industrial setting. An abandoned factory maybe? There weren’t any other clues.

He stopped a few feet in front of me, tilting his head to one side. “Who are you? I won’t ask a third time.”

I licked my dry lips, trying to think faster. He clearly had all the cards. The only way I was getting out of this alive was to cooperate. “Paxton Cooper.”

He squatted in front of me, the scalpel dangling from his fingers. “That’s a name. It’s a start, but it doesn’t tell me anything about you.”

I racked my brain, trying desperately to think of the right thing to say, replaying the scene from Tony’s Tavern in my head. In the parking lot I had thought I was coming to some poor kid’s rescue. I saw Alvin come out of the bar with a drunk young man, clearly aiming to take advantage of him, and I saw red. Next thing I knew, there was a prick in my shoulder, and I was surrounded by armed men.

At first, I thought they were on Alvin’s side, maybe some of his buddies that’d come to protect him. But I was sure I heard them talking about stringing him up as I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

Another whimpering scream cut through the air, ratcheting up the tension.

“My name’s Paxton Cooper. I’m a construction worker. A nobody. But if that motherfucker you’ve got screaming in the next room is who I think it is, he’s a child raping piece of shit.”

“And who do you think it is?”

“Alvin Telaris,” I replied through gritted teeth.

The other man studied me in silence. In any other situation, I might’ve been tempted to ask him out. He was stunningly gorgeous with soft pink lips and thin, delicate fingers, both of which would look perfect wrapped around my cock. Maybe that was the adrenaline talking, or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had sex in a year and a half. Maybe it was both or neither, but he was exactly the type of pretty boy I used to go for back when I fucked around with guys. That he’d drugged me, kidnapped me, and was now threatening to torture and kill me if I didn’t give him the answers he wanted barely seemed to matter to my stupid dick.

“How do you know Alvin?” he asked.

“My downstairs neighbors have a twelve-year-old daughter, Jimina Gordon. I’m here for her. Because she doesn’t deserve what happened to her, and he deserves to die.”

He looked me over curiously. “Are you some kind of vigilante?”

“Are you?” I shot back. It was only fair to ask. I squirmed against my restraints. “Look, man, we’re on the same side. I want him dead, and it seems to me you do too with all the screaming he’s doing. So, why don’t you cut me loose? I can help.”

“We don’t need your help,” he snapped with a sneer.

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