Page 28 of Ink

The giant behind me speaks. “Kneel.”

I instantly break out into a cold sweat. My eyes have gone wide and I stare at Ink. I’m sure my face conveys exactly what I’m thinking, are they going to kill me?

Ink starts to yell at the man standing behind me. “This is between the MCs, me and you, Jorvic. Do not fucking touch her. I swear to God I will fucking end you if you hurt one hair on her head.”

To prove he’s the one in control he yanks my head by my hair again and pushes me down to my knees on the floor. My knees hit the hardwood floor and I cry out in pain as it shoots up my legs. Ink yanks at the handcuffs behind him and I realize they handcuffed him to the chair as well, lacing the cuffs through the bars on the back of the chair.

Ink is literally foaming at the mouth—furious. I have never seen this side of him and if I didn’t know him I would be equally as terrified of him as I am of the man behind me. He starts to say something else but one of the other giant men standing beside Ink cocks his fist back and hits him square in the jaw. I close my eyes, unable to watch. I can’t see them do this to him. Ink wouldn’t want me to see this either and I think somehow the man standing behind me knows this, too. Speaking of which, he walks around until he’s standing beside me and squats down.

“Doll. Open your eyes. Now.”

I squeeze them shut. Tight. Fruitlessly hoping that he will give up. His voice is deceptively calm. “If you won’t open your eyes doll face, I’m going to have to do something that will force you to open them.”

I believe him. I open my eyes because he will one hundred percent make good on that threat. This is not a man to fool around with or piss off. His smug voice fills my ear. “Good.”

He stands up and looks at the men in front of him. “Do it.”

I flinch in response because I don’t know what to expect. I sit on my knees and watch in horror as the two men standing beside Ink begin beating him. They punch and kick him, a cacophony that doesn’t end until Ink is unconscious.

I look over to the giant I now know is named Jorvic. He’s leaning up against the wall, foot pushed up behind him, smudging the wall, nonchalantly. He doesn’t look at me, he looks at the two men who are now cleaning blood off their hands.

“Now we wait.” Finally, he looks over at me. “Doll face when he wakes up, it’ll be his turn to watch.”

A shiver runs through me at what’s to come.

I don’t know how much time passes, but it is slow to come. I sit on my knees for so long that my legs become numb. Ink doesn’t move and he remains eerily still. Five minutes, fifteen, maybe even twenty minutes, I have no concept of time now. The men around me stand patiently waiting and then begin to eventually check the time. They start to slap Ink’s face and one even checks his breathing which scares me to death; almost as much as I’m scared of what’s to come next. One of the men goes to the kitchen and comes back with a cup filled with water and throws it into Ink’s face. Much to my relief he sputters awake. He seems groggy and in pain and after the beating he took, I can understand why he’s slow to move any of his upper body and face.

Jorvic comes into view and steps between Ink and me. “If only you and your friends wouldn’t have screwed up a good thing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ink manages to mumble out.

Jorvic laughs but it’s stiff and forced. “When you and your pussy brothers stuck your noses in where they didn’t belong by getting involved with that bitch Rayleighn and her baby daddy.”

Oh my God, this is still all because of Grayson?

“He owed us a lot of money and a lot of product. When you shot him and left him for dead on our door we lost both of those things.”

Ink looks over Jorvic’s shoulder directly at me. It’s painful to see him in this state. His face beaten, his body bleeding but I understand what he’s trying to tell me. He didn’t personally shoot Grayson. I know that. I already know it was Rider who shot him but I never knew what became of Grayson. I just knew from Rayleighn the club took care of him.

Jorvic continues. “Now we want paid and if that has to be in skin, then so be it. And then you had to take our enforcer so…” He raises his hands in a see what I mean gesture. “Now I’m here to enforce for him and my club. That best friend of yours, Griz the pussy cat enforcer of Mystic Venom. Let’s see what he does now when he finds you and your girl and the message we leave behind.”

We’re going to die here tonight. That’s the last thought I have before I start to shake and tremble so hard that I tip over to my side on the ground. My entire body feels numb and I feel lightheaded and then everything goes black.

Ink

“What did you do to her?” I hiss at Jorvic as he looms over me. He doesn’t reply to me, only gives me a smug look. I desperately want to punch that look off his face, but I’m cuffed to this goddamn chair. My entire body is aching from the beatdown he and his cronies inflicted upon me. I only have an idea of what’s in store for us next and while I don’t want to dwell on that, I’m trying to think of a way to get us out of this.

When I left the bar with Rider, he was going straight home and that was hours ago. I’m sitting here in my underwear and my phone is upstairs doing me no good. Think. I need to think. I stare at Carmen on the floor. I don’t see any visible bruises and she’s still wearing my shirt so I don’t think these fuckers tried anything with her or hurt her. The best that I can hope for is that she went into shock and passed out.

Jorvic walks into the kitchen and starts pulling drawers open, throwing things out of the drawers and onto the floor. I don’t know what he’s looking for but when I hear the double click noise, I know what he was searching for and has now found: one of my lighters.

He comes walking back towards me from the kitchen as the two men standing beside me reach down and hold me by my shoulders. I’m prepared for whatever comes my way, prison taught me that, but Carmen, she’s different, she doesn’t deserve any of this. I strain against the hands that hold me down. Just as Jorvic comes forward with the lighter open, flame hot, and poised to press it right to my skin, I see something.

My eyes catch movement outside above my kitchen window. At first, I thought it was just enough to catch my eye, a shadow of a tree limb or headlights from a car coming around the corner.

When I see Rider’s head I feel so much elation that adrenaline shoots through my body, making me feel like I could break through this chair.

I focus on Jorvic and I know that any second he’s going to burn me. “Wait!” I try to stall him. “What if I could get you the money back you lost?”

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