The shock made her scream. She collapsed completely and shook while it road through her system. It felt like forever until it ended.
“Riley, we’ve got thirty-six hours to get reacquainted,” Trevor squat next to her, still smiling. “Maybe you should just behave. You never know, the guy might not pay us and then I’ll get to take you back home. Sorry, but your stupid fucking cat isn’t coming. You know how I feel about pets.” She glared at him for that last part.
“My pride will find me,” she snarled softly to him. “And they will fucking kill you.”
He shocked her one more for that comment. When she was done screaming, he stood back up.
“Your pride? You mean the group of guys you whore out for?” Trevor laughed at her. “Please, they got the piece of ass they wanted from you. They won’t be hunting you down. Even if they tried, we outnumber them if they did find us. They don’t stand a chance.” He nudged her with a boot. “Get some sleep. I’ll come back later and you can show me all the cool new things they taught you about how to please a real man. Maybe they finally got through to you where I couldn’t.”
They left her on the floor. She pulled herself on to the bed and curled up. She did think anything was broken and he hadn’t knocked any of her teeth out, so all in all, not bad.
She barely napped for a couple hours when the only female of the group walked in the room. The lioness looked down at her.
“Get up,” she snapped. Riley was slow but she made it. She stood, spine straight, and stared at the woman in front of her. She had ice blonde hair in a slick ponytail and a rocking body. She was nearly five foot ten and towered over Riley.
“Yes?” Riley stared her down.
“You with the Kingson boys, huh.” The lioness asked the question but her tone made it into a statement of fact instead. “In their pride.”
Riley nodded and the lioness nodded back, thinking about it for a moment.
She pulled a note out of her pocket and handed it to Riley, Riley opened it and read quickly.
Five million if I let them know where you are. Ten million if I get you out. Eat this. Nod or shake your head to answer. Tell anyone and I’ll just leave you here.
Riley nodded and shoved the paper in her mouth. Her saliva destroyed it and she swallowed. She nodded again after she was done.
“Your injuries don’t look so bad,” the lioness said out loud, walking around Riley in a circle. “But I’ll get you something for the pain if it keeps you quiet.”
With that the lioness was gone.
Riley was in over her head and her only allies were her guys(not here right now) and the lioness who was helping them hold her captive.
Several hours later, Riley had been unable to get any more rest. She sat in the corner of the room on the bed, her arms around her knees and just watched the door.
The ocelot walked in, dropped a bag in the room and two water bottles. He then left without saying a word. She waited nearly thirty minutes until she dared go near the bag.
It was standard fast food and she took a long sniff of each item. She went for the french fries first, the hardest item to drug. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast… yesterday? Her sense of smell told her nothing was wrong with the food but she couldn’t bring herself to eat much of any of it.
She went over everything knew again. Ten shifters holding her captive. Single house in the woods, no civilization or indicators of it. Window boarded up. When they last spoke, they were ‘handing her over’ in thirty-six hours. The was hours ago and she was running out of time. She just had no idea what to do.
“Is he going to get us our fucking money?” Snarled a man she didn’t know.
“He said we brought too much heat grabbing her off their property like we did. He wants to push it up to six am instead of six pm so he can get out of the state with her,” another male voice she didn’t recognize.
“That means we only have her for another eighteen hours,” Trevor snapped.
“Deal with it,” growled the first voice, older and gravelly. “Yeah, she’s your runaway girlfriend. We get it but the longer we keep her, the more likely we are to get fucking attacked by the Kingson Pride.”
“The Kingson Pride has all of five males in it!” Trevor laughed. “Why is everyone so fucking scared of them? Boss, our pride runs fucking Montana and we work for an even bigger pride.”
There was silence to that and whispering she couldn’t hear.
“Fine!” Trevor growled and she heard shuffling in the over room. “I guess I’ll have my fun now.”
Her head snapped up to the door at that. She waited anxiously and debated on what she could possibly do.
“Boss,” the lioness. “I am not letting him go in and beat her.” It was a desperate snarl. “We’ve never done business like that!” The lioness was on Riley’s side, not just looking for cash. This was the best bit of information Riley had every gotten.
“I know and Trevor knows that too,” The first voice she hear must be Boss, the one in actual charge. “Trevor you ca-”
A gunshot made Riley jump. It was just in the next room. A second shot punctuated the first. A scuffle was going on and she heard doors slamming open and shut.
“Does anyone else want to tell me what I can and can’t do?” Trevor laughed. “I’m in charge down. Let the lioness run. It’s not like she has anywhere to go now.”
“Fuck you, Trevor,” snarled a higher male voice. It had an oddly accent, something foreign but nearly gone like he hadn’t been home in years. “We had a deal.”
“Yeah and now we are cutting two million even less ways,” Trevor was still laughing. “Come on, me and my boys won’t killed you if you just go with the flow. You can just work with us like nothing has changed.”
A coup. They had a coup and killed off the leader who didn’t want them acting like monsters. The lioness was gone and Trevor was officially off the deep end. Or was he always this way and she just never knew? Her only confirmed ally was no longer in the house, screw the cash Riley knew the guys would have given her. She wouldn’t believe Trevor, her pride cared about her. She had to believe that.
“Now, I’m going to go have some fun. Kill some time.” Footsteps toward her room. “Coordinate the pick up for six am but ask for three million instead for the inconvenience.”
Her door opened and Trevor walked in, still holding the handgun. She didn’t know what type of handgun it was.
“Riley,” Trevor smiled down at her. “Sorry you had to hear that.” He put the gun in the holster and she kept an eye on it. She could steal it and she was going to fucking try.
She stood slowly. She wouldn’t enter this fight off her feet.
“Trevor.” She spat out, curling her upper lip in disgust.
He was still moving toward her and in seconds, he was within a foot of her.
“We can do this the easy way, Riley. No reason to deny me,” Trevor reached out for her and before he could grab her, she jumped out his range.
“I think I like the hard way more, sorry.” Riley hissed.
He snarled at her and jumped forward and she kicked his leg to try and knock him down. He stumbled but still got hands on her arms.
“You little bitch,” he growled, tossing her into a wall. Her back bounced off it and she felt the air leave chest. She dodged his punch and slid down. She threw all her weight forward, all one hundred and fifteen pounds of it. She aimed for his gut and was able to knock him down and land on top.
Before he could say anything, she tried for the gun. He must have realized and grabbed her arms, trying to roll them over.
She just needed to grab the fucking gun. Fuck, when did Trevor get this strong?
He was able to push her on her back and she kneed him the balls when he tried to get over her. His grunt was music to her ears and she shoved him off again.
She got the gun before he recovered. Then pain lanced through her, and she hit the ground shaking. She tried to look at Trevor, who was breathing heavy. Sh
e was screaming as the gun fell away from her, out of reach.
“Fuck you, little bitch,” he snarled. “You want the hard way? Fine! I’m going to come in here every hour just to watch you scream. You have a choice, scream as I take you or scream as I shock you.” He took the gun off the floor. She watched it leave her vision and with it, her last hope.
She couldn’t move when the shock finally ended. Trevor had an obvious limp as he left the room and called for their medic to look at him.
She laid there for a long time. Sure enough, an hour later Trevor came back.
“You have a hand,” she hissed. “You know how to use it. Or maybe the woman you cheated on me with. Find her.”
He shocked her because she was a glutton for punishment. She would rather have the pain then ever be under him again.
Later, she was nearly dozed off when he came back again and shocked her awake. She cussed him out after it and he shocked her again.
It was brutal and she didn’t know how to stop it.
She just knew she couldn’t give up.
GABE
He typed furiously. Twenty-four hours since Riley was taken and they still had nothing. Brenton was screaming at the other pride Alphas, mobilizing his lawyers and businesses to start a war path. Zachary had put four holes in their walls. Andrew closed the diner down completely until they found her, citing a family emergency. Troy was breathing down his neck.
“Troy, I can’t work with you there,” Gabe snapped at his brother.
“Fuck, can’t you do this any faster?” Troy growled, angry. Gabe knew Troy wasn’t angry at him, he was angry that Riley was gone. But Gabe was angry with himself.
“No,” Gabe hissed.
He failed. He was supposed to keep an eye out for anyone trying to make a move on Riley or the pride and he fucking missed it. He’d gotten complacent.
He spent the last twenty-four hours awake and furious. He was withdrawing into himself and craved a hit. Fuck. He quit that shit years ago and now he was shaking like a fucking junky again.
“Gabe,” Brenton’s voice rang out over the brothers. “I’ve got some news.”
He and Troy both turned to their Alpha and waited.
“Someone broke into the house of Cameron Slater, stole a few priceless things from him that he was attached to. Some are saying it was Isabella. It was only four days ago.” Brenton leaned again Gabe’s desk. Four days ago? That’s when the contract on Riley went up. “See what Cameron is up too, it might be our only lead.”
Gabe worked quickly. In seconds, he was rooting around Cameron’s life. In a minute, he was printing the guy’s last four days of bank statements and financial transactions. By five minutes, he was rooting through Cameron’s entire pride, looking for a connection. Gabe was good at putting puzzles together, even when he was missing pieces. His nose flared as he found connections to a Montana network of shifters. Shifters who pretended to be human and didn’t work inside shifter protocol.
Shifters who were mercenaries and militiamen. He had run into groups like that before. It was impossible to tell their numbers since they didn’t register with any pride that matter. They were paid and then they left and it was reasonable to assume that one never really saw their full strength.
“He is using militia prides,” Gabe snarled to Brenton. “Your fucking uncle is using militia prides to do his dirty work without his hands being on it.”
Brenton stiffened when Gabe used his familial relation to Cameron Slate, brother to Heather Slater, Brenton’s mother.
“He was furious when I told the other Alphas to stay away from her,” Brenton whispered. “And he doesn’t seem to care that she’s missing.”
“It doesn’t help that apparently fucking Isabella came back from the dead just to rob him,” Troy snapped. “If it is Isabella, is she fucking stupid? Does she not realize the danger she’s putting her daughter in?”
They both looked at Troy.
“If Isabella is alive and decided to fuck with Cameron, then she abandoned her daughter nearly eighteen years ago,” Gabe mumbled, half to himself. “Does anyone here really think she cares?”
Brenton growled at that.
“Find me the militia pride that grabbed her,” Brenton finally patted him on the shoulder.
“No can do, Brenton,” Gabe growled softly. “These guys stay off the grid and any paperwork they do have points them to being regular humans. It would be like looking for a nonexistent needle in a hay stack as big as this fucking house.”
“Then we’re stuck again,” Troy whispered.
“Try looking for…” Brenton snapped his fingers impatiently. “Fuck.”
“I’ll keep looking through Slater’s shit,” Gabe mumbled. “Maybe I can find a phone number or something. Troy, go through the banking paperwork.”
“Can do.” Troy was grabbing the stacks that were still printing. Cameron was a lot like Brenton, too much money to handle sometimes. They had limited time and a lot to do.
“Cameron likes to do things himself,” Brenton looked down at Gabe. “He’ll be doing any negotiations and payments. He’s arrogant and thinks no one will ever realize it.”
Gabe pulled up phone records and powered through them. Dozens of different numbers in the last four days. But only three in the last twenty-four hours. Including two calls in the last hour to same number.
He searched for all three of those number separately.
Phone number one was just his secretary. She was innocent of all this, a sweet bobcat shifter that just wanted to keep her head down and work. Gabe had met her a couple times and she was nothing to be concerned with.
Phone number two was interesting. It was to a Jessie Eriksson. Another woman. She was a self defense trainer… Why would Cameron be calling one of those? Gabe put the number to the side and her name. He would need to return to that one. It was interesting.
The last number was the one Cameron called most recently. It was to a Trevor Laursen. Gabe felt his veins ice up, he recognized that name.
“Brenton, grab the file on Riley,” he whispered in abject shock and Brenton ran off to his office. He continued to look through who Trevor Laursen was and found connections to gangs all over Montana but no real job. He was deadbeat with money problems and an infamous bad attitude it seemed. He had a couple of arrests but no formal charges for assault.
“Hey!” Troy snapped. “Going through three shell companies, I found several pulls of cash and guess what they equal?”
“Two million?” Gabe looked to his brother.
“Yup. Cameron was definitely the guy who put out the contract.” Troy was smiling a little and Gabe saw the malicious glint in his eye. “At least we know who to fucking kill after we get Riley back.”
“Good and here’s Riley’s file,” Brenton was back in the room. Gabe didn’t mention anything about Brenton’s shaking hand. His Alpha kept an incredibly tight rein on his temper and that was slipping if Brenton’s hands were shaking.
Gabe began going through the entire file but he wasn’t sure why he needed too. A puzzle piece was missing and he needed to find it. It would help them, he knew it would.
He finally stumbled on it in some email of Riley’s to her work at the time. She had been waitstaff at a fucking strip club and Gabe always gritted his teeth when he thought about that. The only reason he printed this email was because it was the only document with a name on it other then her’s.
Hey boss, can’t come in tonight. Trevor is sick and I need to be here for him.
-Riley
Trevor… He looked back at the screen to the information he pulled on Trevor Laursen and then back to the file.
“This can’t be the same guy,” he growled to himself. “There’s not fucking way. He ex-boyfriend was human…”
Militia prides made all their documentation point to a humanity they didn’t have.
The pieces snapped into place for Gabe and he snarled. Troy and Brenton both looked over to him.
“Tre
vor Laursen, infamous little gang banger in Montana. Unemployed. Known for beating up chicks and shifters in the state refuse to do business with him, he’s got a nasty temper.” Gabe was throwing the information at them. “But even better, he grew up in Washington state and moved to Montana when he got out of high school. It was six years ago, the same time as Riley.” He typed quickly. “And she once had to take care of a Trevor and it stopped her from going into work.” Bingo. “They went to the same high school. Trevor Laursen is in contact within the last hour with Cameron Slater. He is also Riley’s ex-boyfriend and he’s fucking got her. I know he does.”
“Find him. Find everything about this guy.” Brenton whispered.
“He must be in a militia pride to be able and hide this long. But no one fucking hides from me,” Gabe snarled and kept digging up everything on Trevor.
His parents were both cougars, both very dead. Trevor was suspected in killing them when he was fifteen.
He used his mothers maiden name to cover more of his tracks. Smart but not smart enough, Gabe hissed at the screen.
He recently flew into Denver. Only two days ago and he hasn’t left yet the state yet through any official travel plans.
“Now, that’s just sloppy, Trevor,” Gabe grinned. “He was here in Colorado just two days ago. He’s probably still here. Flew into Denver-”
“Grab Riley with a pack of friends or coworkers-” Troy.
“And stuff her away in a safe house until the money comes through and they can do the trade.” Brenton.
“Then take the money and get the hell out of dodge.” Gabe nodded. “But Trevor must have taken this contract for another reason. These guys found her way too fucking fast. Cameron must have told them exactly what pride she was in and where. So he’s really involved.”
“And then, here comes Trevor to find his half-breed toy,” Gabe could barely say the word. “She’s in a strong pride, she’s shifted, wealthy, and happy. Fuck, if he was a shifter then he purposefully kept her from knowing what she was. To fee; powerful.”
“This is personal for him,” Brenton groaned. “He took the contract because it allowed him to take his rage out on her. For leaving. He must have saw the contract and saw his moment to…”
Wild Pride (The Kingson Pride Book 1) Page 23