Page 79 of True Bastard
The man stepped back and spat, “You can run, bitch, but you can’t hide. I’ll be seeing you later.”
With that, the man hurried away before disappearing behind a building. Bending over, I braced my hands on my knees as I tried to get my heart to stop pounding. What the fuck washedoing in Deadwood?
“You okay?”
Nodding, I muttered, “Yeah. Just give me a minute.”
“Maybe I should take you back to the clubhouse. Those Bastards really shouldn’t have let you leave without an escort.”
Turning toward the prospect, I narrowed my eyes. “What the hell are you doing, John-Boy? Does Skinner know you’re prospecting for Disturbed? Does Luc know he has a Death Dog in his club?”
“Yeah, about that,” John-Boy groaned as he looked around, right before he turned back to me and added, “Sinner wants a word with you.” Before I could move, his fist connected with my face and my world went black.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” I shouted, the raw panic a bitter bile in my throat. My heels dug into the grimy asphalt, each desperate scrape a futile protest against the rough hands that hauled me toward the gaping maw of the clubhouse. The stench of stale beer, sweat, and something undeniably vile clung to the air—a potent cocktail that promised a hell I’d spent years trying to outrun. And as they shoved me through the doorway, the familiar, suffocating dread tightened its icy grip. This was exactly where I didn’t want to be, not after everything.
I hit the dirt-caked floor with a jarring thud, the impact stealing my breath. Scrambling to my feet, my eyes met his. My worst nightmare—a grotesque caricature of a man—strode in, his face a mask of smug satisfaction. He was everything I despised—a bloated, self-important toad, his leering eyes like black beads in a doughy face. Every instinct screamed at me to flee, to disappear, but a cruel twist of fate held me captive. I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that this was precisely the man I’d sworn to fight against, the power I wanted no part of. And now, here I was, utterly at his mercy.
A wave of nausea washed over me, not just from his repulsive presence, but from the gnawing realization of my weakness. I’d built walls, honed my skills, told myself I was strong enough to resist this. But the tremor in my hands, the desperate urge to curl into a ball and disappear, betrayed the lie. He smirked, a slow, deliberate movement that promised all sorts of depravity. And then, the worst part: a cold, calculated understanding dawned.
He knew my history, my vulnerabilities.
He wasn’t just a threat; he was a mirror, reflecting my failures, the compromises I’d made to survive. He held the power to expose every crack in my carefully constructed façade, to drag me back into the darkness I’d fought so hard to escape.
The choice, stark and brutal, was already being made for me. Resist and risk utter destruction. Cooperate and become the very thing I swore I’d never be. A chilling resignation crept in, a feeling of inevitable defeat that tasted foul in my mouth.
“Well, lookie who finally came home,” Skinner, the president of the Death Dogs, leered as his eyes scanned me from head to toe. “You owe me, cunt.”
“Are you fucking stupid?” I spat, my words a brittle shield against the fear that threatened to crack my composure. I had to hold it together. I just had to stay alive long enough forFirestride and the Brotherhood to find me. “Do you even know who I fucking belong to?”
My defiance was met with a fierce backhand and a booming laugh, a grating sound, more like a fucking feral hyena whacked out on PCP. His eyes, sharp and cruel, bored into mine. “Bitch, you owe me for Pinch.” He leaned in, his breath hot and foul. “And if you don’t want your little...friends... to know just how deep your roots go, you’ll do exactly as I fucking say.”
Wiping the blood from my lip, I sneered, “Go fuck yourself, Skinner. I hope the Brotherhood fucking kills you.”
Several of the Death Dogs laughed as Skinner took a step closer to me. His foul breath curling my stomach as he licked his lips. “Oh, bitch, I hope they come for you. I really hope they do.” Stepping away, he shouted, “Tie up the cunt in the room with our guest. I’ve got to make some calls.”
Dragged kicking and screaming from the room, I was thrust none too gently into a hovel and quickly tied to a chair, before being left alone with a restrained man who’d been damn near beaten to death and was wearing the one fucking cut I hated above all others. But before I could voice my displeasure, Breaker punched me square in the nose, knocking my ass out once again.
I came to sometime later and saw that the man in the chair hadn’t woken up yet. My head throbbed, a dull ache that mirrored the churning in my gut. Every instinct screamed at me to ignore him. But a gnawing need for answers, a desperate hope that he held the key to my escape, forced my hand. I whispered, the sound raspy and weak. “Psst, hey. Are you awake?”
The man groaned, a pathetic sound, as he tried to reach for his head. A wave of something akin to pity, a feeling I desperately wanted to shove down and bury, washed over me. It was a dangerous emotion in a place like this. He probably deserved to be here.
My patience, already frayed to a thread, snapped. “Hey, wake the fuck up,” I barked, the harshness surprising even myself. Shame prickled at the edges of my mind, but fear was a powerful motivator, and fear made me ugly.
The man grunted, a guttural sound, and turned to look at me. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, then he groaned again and lowered his head back down. Desperation clawed its way to the surface, overriding everything else. I wanted out of here, and I wasn’t above using what he knew to save my ass. “Asshole, wake up,” I snapped.
“Asshole? What the fuck did I do?” His voice was a strained mumble. Slowly, agonizingly, he sat up. He grunted, winced, then finally got a good look at the hell we were both in. For a split second, I saw a flicker of shared terror in his eyes. But then, that flicker died, replaced by a weariness that mirrored my own. And in that moment, faced with his obvious suffering, a terrible choice presented itself: extend a hand, risking everything for a fellow captive, or seize this opportunity, using his helplessness to my advantage, even if it meant leaving him behind to whatever fate awaited him. The thought of leaving him, of knowing I’d turned my back when I could have helped, was a chilling prospect. Yet, the primal urge to survive, to get out now, was a siren song I was struggling to resist.
My gut twisted. I knew with a sickening certainty that he deserved to be here. The thought was a cold, sharp shard in my mind. He probably deserved this. But did he? The question was a dangerous whisper I couldn’t entirely silence.
“Where are we?”
“The clubhouse,” I sneered.
“What clubhouse?”
“The Death Dogs. What did you do to piss them off?” I asked, more out of necessity than anything else. Hell, at this point I wasn’t discounting using him to save my own ass. If Skinner hadhim locked up tight, then he must have crossed the fat fucker in some way. As far as I was concerned, the asshole made his bed, so he could lie in it. “Why are you here?”
“How much time you got?” The stranger looked down at his wrists, then smiled at me. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”
