Page 15 of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

“Sex slaves?” I asked, having heard the rumors of what those bastards were into. She nodded. “You meet some of them?”

She nodded again. “One.” A far off look in Liza’s eyes accompanied her single word. I let the rest of her story ride there with us for a few miles, unfinished.

“Was it Random?”

“Yeah, he was the one that came in and threw Van out. When he finally saw the damage that had already been done to me he cussed, and basically threw a fit. Once he left the room no one else came in for two days except this one slip of a girl who was barely wearing clothing, and what she wore was practically falling off of her, because there just wasn’t enough of her to hold anything up. I felt so bad, until she told me they fed her just fine, she just refused to eat it, or when forced she ate, but then threw it all up immediately.”

“What the hell?” I asked, not understanding why any woman would do that to herself.

“She was trying to look less attractive so they’d let her go,” Liza’s soft voice spoke of a conversation she had with the woman that wasn’t going to pass her lips again. I understood. Some things were best left locked away.

“You said she was the only one allowed to come into the room where you were being kept for a while. Do you know how long you were there?”

“For the next two days she was the only person I saw, and I don’t know her name. She never would tell me. She told me the girl with the name had died a long time ago, and she was just nobody now. She nearly fainted in the room with me that second day, and after they took her out I never saw her again. Then on the fourth day Random came for me.”

My whole body tightened at that statement. “Who took care of you after the girl left?”

“There wasn’t anyone,” she informed me.

“What about food, water?”

I noticed the shrug of her shoulders then. They’d left in alone in a room with no food or water for two days. My body began to vibrate with anger. “What happened when Random came to get you?”

She cleared her throat and then turned so that her body faced mine. “He took me to a room where a bunch of the guys were waiting. They were all in various states of undress, and the fear of what was about to happen to me had me shaking inside and out. He took me to the center of the room where they had this iron tool sitting on a table. They sat me in a chair, strapped my arms to the table, palms up, and then he used some kind of torch to heat up the end of the iron bar I’d seen. It was a brand.” She rolled the sleeves of her hoody up and it was the first I’d seen the scars displayed there. One was placed right overtop of what must have once been a tattoo, but was now a scar that stamped KDS into the once tender flesh of her forearm.

“It was just after they got through with the second one that Random got a call, and when he did he looked angry, but conceded to whatever the call had been about. Then, he scooped me up, held me in his arms all the way out of the warehouse we had been in, and he took me to his bike. He didn’t say a word until he commanded me to get on. Then he told me, ‘I’m taking you to your brother, so get the fuck on or go back in there with the rest of them.’ He was referring to the club brothers of his that had been salivating over the pain those brands caused me.”

“They branded you,” I whispered while trying to contain my anger.

“They branded me a slave of the King’s Demons. That’s what the KDS means. The girl who had been coming in to feed me before she stopped had them too. I didn’t realize that’s what it was until after they branded me though. If Random hadn’t received that call, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I think I’d resigned myself to going out just like the girl who had attempted to care for me, but I don’t think I could have managed her slow demise. I’m sure I would have found a quicker way.”

“He took you to your brother after that call. Did you ever find out from him what the call was about?”

She shook her head in the negative. “He told me he didn’t know what I was talking about.” I was about to ask another question, but Liza held up her hands to stop me. “He was lying. I know that much, but I could never get him to tell me what he promised them, or what strings he pulled to get me out of there. He would never say.”

“Looks like we need to have another chat with your brother.”

“Good luck with that,” she mumbled before leaning her head back on the headrest and closing her eyes. It was obvious that reliving her ordeal at the hands of the King’s Demons had left her needing a minute to get herself together. I could understand that, because if I were to see any of them riding along near us now, I don’t think I’d be trying to hide from them as originally planned. Instead, I’d be bowling for bikers with my truck until I took out enough of them to make me feel a little bit better about the situation.

Still, when we pulled over to gas up the truck again I took my phone out and filled Iceman in on what had gone down and that Frank Rossi needed to be picked up by someone we trusted, because he had information we were going to need. There weren’t too many things a club like King’s Demons would give up a branded woman for, and that was information we couldn’t do without knowing.

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