Page 5 of Biker's Hostage

My arm ached, my wrist burning as the zip tie dug into it. How long had I been here? I didn’t know. It felt like a lifetime. The windows were so grimy in this room that I couldn’t see the light outside, couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

All I knew was that I felt like I was going to give out if I was stuck here any longer without food or water. My lips were parched, my body ached, and I knew the hangover was only part of my problem. God knows what he had given me, but the sedative in my system was making me feel even more crummy. It was as though I had been wrung dry, and there was nothing left in me.

I had no idea what I was doing here, not really. He told me it wasn’t... it wasn’t about that, but I still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t just been lying to me. Just because he said this was about the Dogs didn’t mean he was telling the truth, right? Because if he had really wanted to get to them, he wouldn’t have picked someone like me to make that point. He would have gone after Chuck or Lee, one of the higher-ups. I was barely even part of the gang, not really, not after being away for so long.

And who the hell was this guy, anyway? Did he have something to do with the troubles my father had been so reticent to tell me about when I had arrived home? Who was his brother, the guy he claimed he was doing this all for? My head was heavy with questions, and I didn’t have answers to a single one of them. It felt as though I was losing my mind, and the physical discomfort wasn’t helping piece anything back together.

“Hey!” I called, for what felt like the dozenth time. I doubted he was listening to a thing I was saying, but I just needed... God, I just needed something right now. Some promise that I wasn’t being totally ignored. He couldn’t abandon me here with no food and no water, not if he wanted to keep me alive. If he did want to keep me alive, that was...

All at once, the bedroom door opened, and he stood there in front of me again. He flicked on the light, and I winced as it burned into my retinas—but, for the first time, I got a decent look at him.

He was tall, at least six feet, with a slim build, but I could see how muscular he was beneath the white tee he was wearing. Tattoos laced up and down his arms, flash art, snakes, skulls, tribal symbols, that kind of stuff. His eyes, in the light, glistened a bright blue, and his shaved head made him look even more intimidating. I’d known plenty of guys like him over the years, being so close to the Dogs, but I had never been afraid of one before. Him, though? He scared the shit out of me.

He had a glass of water in one hand and took a step toward the bed. I pulled back, and he narrowed his eyes at me.

“I told you, I’m not going to do anything to you,” he snapped at me, clearly annoyed by my reaction. “Here, sit up...”

He reached for me, slipping his hand behind my head to draw me upright as he guided the glass toward my lips. I took a few grateful sips, my parched mouth starting to moisten once more. His fingers were surprisingly gentle at the back of my scalp as he helped me sit upright.

Once I had finished the water, he planted the glass on the table beside me and sat on the end of the bed. What was he doing this close to me? I eyed him with open suspicion. I wasn’t sure about this, not one little bit.

“Can you just let me go?” I pleaded with him, though I knew it was utterly fruitless. He wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to trap me here in the first place if he intended to just let me go the first chance he got.

A smirk quirked up the corners of his mouth, and he reached for the glass. “You really think that’s going to work?” he demanded. I could feel my heart sinking. I had never been good at dealing with negative emotions. No, when I was faced with trouble, I found myself turning to anger instead. And if he thought he was going to get away without me unleashing on him, he had another thing coming.

“Does it make you feel like a big man, huh?” I fired back at him. “Tying me up here?”

I tugged on the strap wrapped around my wrist.

“It’s not about you,” he snarled back at me. His voice was written with an anger that sent a shiver down my spine, but I pushed it away. I was never going to let a man scare me. I had sworn that a long time ago, and my father had raised me better than to allow some fucker like him to get under my skin.

“Then you can just let me go. Untie me right now.”

“And, what, you’ll go back to your Dogs and beg them for help?”

“You have no idea who the Dogs are. My father—”

“Oh, your father, huh?” he asked, cutting me off, eyes narrowing. “You think he’s going to be worried about you? Or do the Dogs care about their own like that?”

“Don’t you ever even talk like that,” I spat back at him. “My father loves me. He’ll do anything to keep me safe. And when he finds out what you’ve done, he’s going to—”

He moved close to me, his face just a few inches from my own. The words failed in my throat, and I stared at him, those blue eyes blazing into mine.

“He’s going to do what?” he demanded, his voice dropping, the threat oozing off of him. I wanted to come up with some other smart comment to show him that he didn’t scare me, but the truth was… he did. I was terrified. Fucking terrified. I might have seen a lot of the darkness that this city had to offer, given who my father was, but I had never been exposed to it without the protection the Dogs offered me before—and I knew how vulnerable I was. This man could do anything he wanted to me, and there was nothing I could have done to stop him. Nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied, pulling back from me. I breathed a sigh I didn’t even realize I had been holding when he was close to me, but despite myself, some part of me wanted him back, near again. Which was ridiculous. I had no idea what this man intended to do to me, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good, that was for damn sure.

“Keep your voice down,” he told me as he made his way to the door again. “Nobody’s going to hear you in here. Better to save your energy.”

He paused in the doorway and flashed me a grin. It didn’t reach his eyes, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I parted my lips, willing myself to say something, but there was nothing I could bring to mind. I just... I just didn’t know what to do.

He pulled the door shut behind him as he stepped out, and I heard a lock scrape into place, as though the binding on my wrist wasn’t enough already. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, my stomach twisting into knots.

I silently sent out a prayer to whoever might have been listening that I would find a way out of this sooner rather than later because I had no idea how I was going to survive this otherwise, no idea how I was going to handle this man who seemed determined to get his revenge on the Dogs through me for reasons I didn’t fully understand yet.

I prayed that they would find me soon. And prayed that he would keep me alive until they did.

Chapter Four – Zane

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