by Raine, Meli
KEEPING ALLIE
(BREAKING AWAY #3)
MELI RAINE
WHAT IF ROMEO AND JULIET HAD A HAPPY ENDING?
The son and stepdaughter of rival drug dealers, the odds are stacked against Chase Halloway and Allie Boden, but love doesn’t care about odds. Love only wants to find a way.
Chase Halloway knows he’ll take over his father’s motorcycle club when old Galt Halloway’s done, but he has dreams. Plans that have nothing to do with the drug ring his father’s so carefully built since Chase’s mom died years ago. Untamed and unmoored, when he sees Allie for the first time he realizes maybe the future doesn’t have to be so lonely...
Protected by Chase during a blow-out brawl in her stepfather’s bar, Allie can’t believe the tattooed, muscled man who has eyes only for her really wants her...forever. With a past marred by her mother’s death and a stepfather who won’t let her leave for sinister reasons she doesn’t understand, she wants to choose Chase and her own fate.
Drawn together by an attraction so strong they can’t find words for it, and unable to resist a physical temptation so strong they can’t deny it, can Chase and Allie’s love survive kidnapping, murder, false accusations and more?
The Breaking Away series is a new romantic suspense trilogy: Finding Allie, Chasing Allie, Keeping Allie. Each is a full-length novel, and be warned: books one and two end on a cliffhanger, but book three gives Chase and Allie the happily ever after they so richly deserve.
Keeping Allie (Breaking Away #3)
Help.
I’m alone, tied up, bleeding and terrified.
I’m a prisoner at the Atlas motorcycle club compound. Someone kidnapped me, and it looks like it’s Chase.
No one knows I’m here. Then again, I’m no one, right? No mother, no stepfather, and my sister may have been kidnapped, too.
They can make me disappear. Or worse. It turns out there are worse things than disappearing.
I thought Chase was my only hope.
Now he turns out to be my worst nightmare.
Something flickers in his eyes, though. A glimmer of love. If I can get him alone, maybe I can convince him to let me go. To let me live.
To let me go back to a time when I thought he was a good guy.
Only Chase has the power to make that happen.
Everything I am is in his hands right now.
And those hands are about to touch me.
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The Breaking Away series is a new romantic suspense trilogy: Finding Allie, Chasing Allie, Keeping Allie. Each is a full-length novel, and by book three Chase and Allie get the happily ever after they so richly deserve.
Copyright © 2015 by Meli Raine
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
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KEEPING ALLIE
Chapter One
I didn’t know that you could die and still be alive. No one ever told me that every cell in your body could explode, yet your heart continues pumping. I’m trying to meet Chase’s eyes, but I can’t lift my head. The rope pulls too hard. Even if I could look at him, those last words tell me everything I need to know.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “El Brujo’s going to love her.”
It loops through my head a thousand times a minute as the crowd surrounding me laughs. I’m still in so much pain and my mouth sticks, the lips pasted against my dry teeth, my tongue giant and heavy. I need to stretch, but every movement causes more pain, more damage, more injury. Why bother moving? Why bother trying to do anything? The reality of my situation hits me in waves. Sickening layers of pain.
Pure agony.
Chase isn’t going to save me. Chase is one of the people who’s causing my pain. He ran off, leaving me in Los Angeles with a note that was so vague. Now the note makes more sense.
Dear Allie,
I’ll see you soon.
Chase.
That’s all the note said. I’d taken it in a positive light. Now it feels sinister, evil, wrong. Was everything he told me a lie? Did he lead me on, so he could just deliver me to a drug lord as a sex prize? Was his acceptance that I didn’t want to make love all the way not a sign that he was a gentleman? Maybe he was just saving me for his boss.
Deliver the virgin intact.
Oh, my God.
This is the part where I’m supposed to fight. I should scream. I should become so angry that I pull my wrists out of the bloody ropes and find some clever way to escape. In the movies, I’d find that power and do something smart. Get out. Run away. Find justice.
That’s not going to happen. That’s not my fate. A cup is shoved against my lips. One of the women, who I’ve never seen before, holds it in front of my mouth.
“Drink,” she says. “Drink while you can.”
Her hand goes to the back of my head and she pulls my hair. It’s not a cruel gesture. She yanks down just enough so I can drink. The water sloshes in my mouth and pours out of the corners where my lips are stuck together. It hits my breasts, drips down my nipples onto my lap. A small amount trickles down the back of my swollen throat. It burns.
How long have I been here? How long have I been like this? I sniff, trying to clear some of the water that’s struck my tonsils, and then I cough -- a racking, hacking cough that makes my chest scream. Some of my skin at my hip splits, like a scab zippering open. I feel wetness there. Warmth. Must be my blood.
Any movement more than an inch in any direction makes me feel that a bone is about to crack. It wouldn’t surprise me if I already have some broken bones. My skin is just a bag now for my bones and muscles. A bag full of nothing. A broken, crumpled mess of Allie.
Virginal Allie.
El Brujo’s payment.
She holds the cup up again and tips it, giving me no choice. This time about half the water goes down my throat. And even though it burns, it soothes too. The rest drips endlessly down my naked body. One drop trickles down from my collarbone all the way to my big toe. I can watch it, and by the time it hits the wood floor, the water has turned pink. From my blood.
She helps me this way for about a minute. By the time she’s done, I’ve had a half a cup of water or so. I’m forced to swallow over and over, and it clears my ears. Everything felt like it was wrapped in cotton.
Now that’s gone. I wish I had it back. The smell of the room comes and goes. The pee, the hay, and now the copper scent of blood. One nostril opens sometimes, the other clogged. I blink as much as I can, my eyes dry. I focus in and out. I see Frenchie, Chase and Galt—they’re the only people I recognize.
Time has no meaning.
A door somewhere opens and a shaft of light pours in. The mechanical wheeze of a garage door lifting up and down rumbles the wall. I’m in the center of a wide open space, but I can hear it, even if I can’t feel it. A stab of hunger makes my stomach growl. If I tried to eat, I would just throw up.
Marissa. I suddenly remember Marissa. Her name is on the tip of my tongue and I want to ask where she is. Did they steal her, too?
If I ask, I could put her in more danger. There’s a small chance that no one got her. I don’t know.
The fact that I don’t know anything, not even where I am—not even what happened to my clothes or my sister, or Chase—makes all my questions feel like knives t
hat someone is stabbing me with. I thought being under Jeff’s control for the past two years was the worst kind of oppression you could experience. Boy was I wrong.
I breathe in slowly, controlling the only thing I can. Bit by bit, they seem to have taken everything away from me, except my breath. If I’m hungry I can’t eat. If I’m thirsty I can’t drink. My bladder seems empty right now. What happens when it’s full? My hair is dirty and oily, hanging in my face, some of it stuck to my back. If I twist my neck just so, it pulls against my skin. But then the ropes pull, too.
Everything hurts. My heart hurts the most.
“She’s too dirty for El Brujo,” says a female voice from the crowd.
I don’t look up. I need to conserve my energy.
At the mention of El Brujo’s name, the tiniest spark of fear erupts in me. It’s minuscule. I’m reaching the point where I don’t care. My mind is crazed at the same time that it’s dying out. I wish I couldn’t feel anything. Pretty soon, hopefully I won’t.
My body hurts. It burns and sends messages to my mind of pain. Of agony. If I could just stretch...
Maybe if I could stop my mind from feeling anything, my body will calm down.
“She’s right,” says Frenchie. “Allie’s pretty fucked-up looking.”
“Maybe El Brujo likes ’em dirty,” Chase says. That makes a bolt of pain go through me, mind and body.
“I’ll clean her up,” says the woman’s voice again.
I hear scuffling sounds. Out of the corner of my eye, a long snake appears. I flinch. I still have that fear instinct. It’s not a snake. I see someone turning, twisting a knob, and then ice water hits me in the belly.
She’s laughing. The whole crowd is laughing except for Chase. He’s just watching me with eyes narrowed to triangles. He’s close enough that I can see him, even through the mist of the cold blast. A scream dies in my throat. Why bother? It won’t matter.
I realize there is no crowd as my neck lurches up, my body reacting to the water’s shock. Just the woman, Frenchie, Galt and Chase. My mind created more people. My mind invented a group. What else is imaginary? Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe it’s all a nightmare.
Please let it just be a nightmare.
In some ways the ice water helps. It helps deaden me. The shock of the cold is what I feel most. The pain of the needles and the force of the spray help to deaden everything. I’m cleansed, the water a pale pink as it pools between my feet.
If you pound a nerve long enough, it stops sending signals to the brain. Maybe if they hurt me enough, I’ll stop feeling it.
When the spray hits my eye socket, everything goes dark.
I don’t remember anything that happens until I wake up alone, tied to a bed and gagged.
Chapter Two
As my eyes flutter open, soft light filters in. The room is small. I’m on a bed, my aching bones relieved. My arms are stretched out and my feet are straight, attached to legs that burn from muscles that were cramped before. My hair is matted around my bare shoulders. I’m wearing something. I don’t know what it is, but my belly is still bare.
The light above is a fixture covered with a silk drape that hangs down, billowing. It’s purple. The room has a pale lilac glow to it. There’s a window. I turn my head toward it, but my neck spasms. I sink into whatever I’m stretched out on, and just focus on breathing. The stabbing spasm takes way too long to go away. In fact, it doesn’t really fade. I think I just learn to ignore it.
A tear travels down the side of my face, pooling in my ear. My heart feels warm and dry inside my chest. I take an inventory of my body. My toes are all there. My calves burn and let me know that they’re there. My thighs shake uncontrollably. My ass feels like it’s bruised. Something on my hip is raw and nagging, like it’ll hurt more later.
No one has touched me in my most intimate place. There’s no injury, no rawness there. Thank you, I think, sending the thought out to the universe.
All the talk amongst the woman, Chase, Galt and Frenchie was about saving me for El Brujo. They’re good little foot soldiers. They’re doing what they’re told. That includes Chase.
More tears come at the thought of him. Everything I thought was love turns out to be false. I’m hurtling through time and space, unmoored and completely out of control. I can’t even use the bathroom upon request. I can’t get a sip of water. I am at the mercy of my captors, and one of them is Chase.
The man who was supposed to love me.
Love me. He told me I was beautiful. Special. Important.
He lied.
A door creaks. Light filters in, and I turn instinctively toward it—the sound, the light, the everything. It’s Chase and Frenchie.
“She cleans up good,” says Frenchie, eyes eating me up. I watch him, avoiding Chase. One of my eyes doesn’t open as far as the other. It’s the one that the woman sprayed earlier.
“You beat her up good,” Chase says, shaking his head slowly. There’s no emotion in his eyes, no anger, no protectiveness, no outrage. Just the cold, calculated observation that I’m not as perfect as they might want me to be, to hand off to their boss.
“At least she’s not all greasy and nasty now. How many times can somebody piss themselves?” Frenchie remarks.
A retort pops into my head, and I want to say, As many times as she has to, when she has no choice.
No choice.
I’m a piece of flesh. I’m like one of those packages in the meat aisle at the grocery store. I’m completely at their mercy, and they don’t care.
“Marissa,” I say, swallowing slowly. The back of my throat sticks together and I cough.
Frenchie rolls his eyes and reaches for a glass of water next to the bed that I didn’t see. I didn’t see it because I couldn’t see it. It was behind my head, and I’m tied down.
When I turn to watch him, I see that my hands are handcuffed to two poles at the top of the bed. That’s why I can’t move. The handcuffs aren’t as tight as the ropes. I’ll take what small mercies I can get. He puts a rough hand behind the back of my head and lifts it up. Hard enough to make the muscles in my neck tense and my back scream.
Enough to make me choke from pain. And then the cup is in my mouth, and I’d better figure out how to swallow before it goes down into my lungs.
Chase watches the whole thing and doesn’t say a word.
“Who the fuck is Marissa?” Frenchie asks, looking at Chase and then looking at me.
Chase’s nostrils flare. His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t say a word. I take that as a hopeful sign. Is he protecting Marissa?
His eyes are on me now. I’m searching them, clinging desperately to the idea that maybe there’s an emotion for me inside Chase. That maybe all of this has a reason. That maybe there’s a piece of hope inside him that I can reach. His face is haggard, dark circles under his eyes. He looks tired. His tan skin seems textured, and he has two days of stubble.
I’m not supposed to care about him. I don’t want to even look at someone who could be so cruel. He’s my only hope, though. My wrists throb, the pain coming back into my head. My mind feels like a rat that’s drowning. I need to know. Whatever happens to me is inevitable. I have no choice.
But if Marissa’s safe, that’s something.
Frenchie nudges him and shoves the cup up to my lip. It hurts, but I drink. I’d better drink. I don’t know when I’ll get water again. My mind starts to realize that tiny moments like this have to add up to my survival. Drink when I can. Breathe when I can. Relax muscles when I can. Take in information where I can find it and store it away in case...
In case what? I can escape?
I exhale, a fast and sad sound.
I’ll never escape.
The desperation to find something in Chase that connects with me has become a luxury. Nothing I do matters. There will be no escape, but if Marissa’s okay, then maybe—
Chase rolls his eyes and gives Frenchie a hard shove. “Marissa’s her sister, you fuckhead.”
&n
bsp; “How the fuck was I supposed to know?” Frenchie protests, and slams the cup down on the nightstand next to my fingers. It’s out of reach, not that it would help me anyhow. I can’t even pick it up and bring it to my own head.
Chase just shrugs, quirking one side of his mouth up.
“What about her sister?” Frenchie asks.
Chase shrugs. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.” And then he looks at me like I’m supposed to shut up about her.
I do. It’s the first sign of humanity in him. And I’ll take any small moment I can get.
Frenchie gets in my face. He takes one hand and stretches his finger out, cupping my breast. He touches it the way you would touch a cantaloupe or a peach. “Nice,” he says, making a face that indicates approval. He squeezes, hard. “El Brujo’s going to like it. Fresh, pure.” He looks at Chase. “Maybe she’ll be the one to cure him.”
“Cure him?” I croak the words out. A little spark of fear starts clicking over and over again, like two pieces of flint against each other, trying to start something.
Frenchie snarls at me. His lip curls up in a sneer.
I’ve become hyper aware of everything. My eyes meet his. His eyelashes are beautiful. Long and silky, they crawl all the way up into his eyebrows when his eyes are wide open. The lower lashes are almost as long as the upper ones. I’ve always thought of him as this greasy jerk, a slimeball not worth paying attention to unless you have to. But as he stares me down, and I look right back, I see the beauty in him. The terrifying beauty.
“El Brujo needs virgins to help him get better,” he explains, his hand leaving my breast, riding up my collarbone, cupping my jaw. His hands are brutal, taking their time. My skin normally would crawl from the unwanted touch. His strokes feel like he’s telling me something. A message. I don’t know what, though.
I’m overthinking this because the rat in my brain is flailing now.
Frenchie’s touching me because he can. He’s groping me because no one’s stopping him.