Exposed_Fury Riders MC

by Sophia Gray

  “It means that you’re in enemy territory and that unless you tell me what I want, I’m going to give you to my men as the spoils of war.”

  Spoils of war.

  I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what that meant. It meant that Leo would have me. Or maybe one of the others. Hell, maybe all of the others. I shuddered as I thought of the terrible things they might do to me. And all of this after torture?

  There was no chance that I’d survive.

  “Are you worried about that?” Diego asked me kindly, as though he weren’t just threatening to pass me around like a whore to his men.

  I didn’t nod. In fact, I did my absolute best to fix my expression into one of cool indifference. I couldn’t say how close I was to the mark. If anything, I felt like a trembling ball of anxious fear, but if I could hide as much of that as possible, I would. Maybe it wouldn’t help in the long run, but it would make me feel a little better.

  “You should be,” he told me when I didn’t answer. After a moment, he straightened up. “But not yet. First, I have some questions for you. And I think you’ll answer then.”

  Questions? I wondered. What could he possibly want to know from me?

  I wracked my brain in search of information that I might have that he’d want to know. The only thing I could really come up with was what happened to Kato—which he already knew, so why would he ask me?—and the location of Pax’s house. But again, he knew that, too, didn’t he? Or at least he knew the general area since he sent his goons to find me and run me off the road.

  So what I could I know? What could there possibly be that he would want to uncover from me?

  Although I’d been determined to keep my mouth shut just a moment ago, to sit there in silent indifference, I now couldn’t help myself from asking, “What questions? What could I possibly know?”

  Diego’s mouth tugged down into a frown. “You’re close with Pax, aren’t you?”

  I hesitated. For two reasons, really. The first was I didn’t want to inadvertently give him anything that might be useful. The second was…well, I really wasn’t sure if we would be considered close. Yes, we’d had amazing sex together—which I hoped to repeat—and he’d promised to come back for me, but was that enough to constitute close?

  My last serious relationship was supposed to be “close,” but it had ended in disaster. It had ended with an engagement ring thrown at his head and fake tits for his new girlfriend. The one he’d been sleeping around with the entire time he’d been dating me.

  So maybe I just had no freaking idea what close was anymore.

  Not that this guy is asking about all of that, I reminded myself, focusing once more on the here and now. Even if I didn’t really want to.

  I took too long to answer because Diego narrowed his eyes at me. For a second, he looked angry enough to hit me—or do worse—but the next, his heavy brow lifted, his features smoothed out, and he smiled.

  “Don’t feel like answering?” he asked. Again, his tone was kind. “That’s alright. I understand. It’s important to learn how this works anyway?”

  How this works?

  A second later, I figured out what he meant. Diego dug into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He pressed a couple of buttons, then smiled at me serenely. A second later, there was a scream coming through the wall.

  “Stop it!” I heard myself saying, my voice choked with emotion as I realized what was going on.

  The scream stopped a second later. Diego replaced his phone in his pocket, then stepped closer to me again. “Ah, I see you’ve caught on. I ask you a question, you don’t answer it, Kato pays the price. Understand?”

  I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling, screaming, or crying. But that also kept me from answering, and apparently, that counted as a serious question. He pulled the phone out again, pressed a couple of buttons. Then there was another scream.

  “Yes! Yes, I understand!” I yelled hurriedly, trying to mitigate the hurt Kato had to be feeling just on the other side of that wall. Oh, God, because of me he was being tortured.

  The screaming stopped. Diego smiled. “Good. Now, let’s try this again.” I winced. “Are you close with Pax?” He held out his phone this time, waving it at me as though to emphasize the power he held in his hands.

  I swallowed heavily. “I…” How did I answer that? “Um, yeah. Sort of. I mean, not really, but…but kind of. Recently.” I sounded like an idiot, but I had to tell him something and I didn’t know what that something should be. It was complicated and more to the point, which was the answer that wouldn’t make things worse for both Kato and Pax?

  Diego considered my answer, then shrugged. “You’ve been living with him.”

  So they definitely knew where the house was, I thought. Then I shuddered. And they’ve been watching it.

  “I was there to take care of Kato,” I answered honestly.

  He cocked his head to the side, almost like a cute little puppy, one that was about to turn rabid and eat my face off. Cute thought. “So you’re close with Kato.”

  I shook my head. “No. I found him. On the side of the road, injured. I’m…I’m a nurse.” I didn’t like that I was giving him personal details, but I did it anyway. Anything to keep him from pressing more damn buttons on his phone.

  Bastard.

  “I see.” He paused for a long moment, mulling things over. Then he asked, “Have you slept with either of them?”

  My mouth actually dropped open in surprise. Did he really just ask that? What the hell kinds of questions were these anyway? “What does that have to do—?”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “Ah. I’m the one asking the questions, you’re answering. Do I need to remind you of how this works?” He waved the phone at me again.

  I quickly answered. “No! No, I remember. Um, I… No. No, I didn’t sleep with…them. Either one. Neither of them. I didn’t.” I winced. All of this was coming out wrong. And I was lying, but I didn’t think it was any of his business. Plus, I had the sinking suspicion that answering yes wasn’t a good idea right now. Besides, he only said I had to answer his questions, not that I had to be honest.

  He paused for a moment, putting his pointer finger to his chin, pretending to think it over in an exaggerated fashion. Then he dropped his hand and fixed me with a cold, hard stare. “I don’t believe you.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t give a damn what he believed when he lifted his phone again. He pressed those buttons. Kato screamed.

  “No! Damnit, stop!” I half yelled, half sobbed at him. “Please, leave him alone! I answered your question!”

  The screaming died down, but Diego looked livid. He took one more step then bent at the middle so that his face was up close and personal with mine. His free hand gripped me by the back of the neck and jerked me forward. “Honesty! Answer with some fucking honesty!” I could smell tobacco on his breath and see the flecks of green in his eyes.

  He was too close.

  Then he jerked back and looked away. He smoothed his hand through his close cropped hair, then turned back to look at me. He smiled, looking composed and like he hadn’t just lost his shit two seconds ago.

  Jesus.

  “When I ask a question, I expect complete and total honesty,” he explained almost patiently, like he was talking to a damn child. His condescension was so thick I nearly choked on it. “Now. I’m going to ask you one more time—with these men?”

  The urge to lie was still strong, but it wasn’t worth it, not when he had the power to torture Kato with only the push of a couple of buttons. Swallowing down my personal anger over being asked about my sex life by a psycho, I lifted my chin and said, “Yes. I am sleeping with Pax.” Okay, more like we slept together and I’m hoping, despite my better judgement, that we’ll continue to sleep together, but he doesn’t need to know all of that.

  Satisfied with my answer, Diego nodded. “Which suggests you’re close, right?” He raised his eyebrows, emphasizing that this w
as indeed a question.

  “Yes,” I responded evenly, though I wasn’t entirely sure. I felt close to him, I just couldn’t tell if it was reciprocated.

  “Which means he tells you things, right?”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  He pressed the buttons again and once again, Kato screamed, though he threw in curses and swears whenever he managed to catch a breath. I didn’t know if that was supposed to make me feel better or not. Mostly, I just felt like crying.

  “Please,” I begged him. “Please, stop hurting him!”

  The screaming stopped, and I wondered if it was just from exhaustion. God, what were they doing to him back there?

  “I’ll ask you again, does he tell you things?”

  I began to shake my head, knowing already how badly this was going to go. Diego wasn’t going to believe me, but Pax didn’t tell me things and if I said yes, it would be just as bad because Diego would expect information. He’d expect me to know things that I didn’t. “No,” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut as I knew what was coming next.

  I didn’t see him press the buttons, but I heard Kato scream. A sob slipped between my lips, my throat closing up until I felt like choking. “Please!” I said again, but I didn’t even know if he could hear me, my voice was so watery.

  “What did he tell you?!”

  Diego had to half scream himself to be heard over the noise coming in through the wall. I sobbed again, shaking my head. “Nothing! He doesn’t tell me anything! I don’t know anything!”

  “I don’t fucking believe you!”

  More screaming and then…silence. Oh God, was he dead? Did they finally just kill him? And then the most selfish thought I’d had yet slipped through my brain—did that mean they’d start on me?

  I clenched my eyes closed as tightly as I could, feeling terrible that I was dreading Kato being dead mostly for my own personal comfort and safety. That made me a horrible person, and I tried to remind myself that I also cared about Kato’s wellbeing.

  Large hands clamped down hard on my jaw, causing my eyes to snap open. Diego had come to stand right in front of me again, and he jerked me forward by my chin, causing my neck to strain uncomfortably as the handcuffs on my wrist bit painfully into my skin.

  “He’s still alive, but for how much longer?” he murmured in my face through barred teeth, almost like he could read my thoughts. “Are you going to keep lying to me? Eventually, it’ll be too much for your friend in there. Are you going to be the reason he dies?”

  A small sob escaped my lips, though I tried to contain it.

  “What do you want to know?” I managed to get out, my words garbled thanks to the lump in my throat and the way Diego was still gripping my jaw.

  Smiling in a way that was more like a grimace, he patted my cheek lightly and said, “Good girl. Now, tell me what he’s planning.”

  I felt like crying all over again. “What who’s planning?” I asked, playing stupid to try and buy myself some time because I didn’t have any answers to his question.

  Diego slapped me across the face quickly and harshly with the back of his hand. “Don’t play dumb with me, little girl! Tell me what Pax’s planning or I’ll teach your friend in there some lessons he never wanted to know about electricity and water!”

  Oh God. Electricity and water?

  I’d seen enough of those spy movies to know what that meant. An image solidified in my mind of Kato tied up to a chair much like myself but his feet in a bucket of water. My mind conjured up the way the wires would look, how they’d be attached and, the kinds of burns they’d leave behind. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to see these things, they came anyway, flooding my brain with the worst kinds of thoughts.

  “Please, I don’t know anything!”

  He slapped me again, shouting, “Bitch! You will tell me!”

  Then Kato was screaming all over again, and I was crying. Diego was yelling at me over and over again to tell him what he wanted to know, to tell him what Pax was planning, but I honestly didn’t know. If I did, I would have told him right then and there just to save Kato’s life. To save him from that terrible pain in the room next door…

  But I didn’t have any information to give. All I could do was sob and hope that somehow Pax was going to get here in time to save us both.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pax

  I would have been one hundred percent willing to skin Chevy alive for wasting my fucking time by stopping me, even if part of me was grateful to know what was going on with Jamie. I didn’t fucking like it by any stretch, but at least now I knew that I needed to be careful. I couldn’t just torch the damn place. Instead, I had to go in and rescue her before someone got grabby.

  Assuming they haven’t already.

  I shoved the thought away with such force that it was almost physical. I had to believe that she was fine, that they hadn’t touched her yet, and that I’d get there before they had the chance to. Otherwise, I was going to lose my shit, and no one was ready for that.

  We drove like mad men to the decrepit, old neighborhood that was the epicenter of the Chaos Disciples’ territory. It was where they’d started, and if I’d known that they’d become this sort of problem for me at the time, I’d have burned the whole fucking place down. There’d have been some collateral, but with the way I felt now, I was pretty sure I’d be okay with that.

  I didn’t care what sort of fucking bastard that made me.

  Driving through the enemy’s territory wasn’t the most subtle of plans, not when you had more than a dozen men behind you, all riding motorcycles, and all speeding like demons from hell. But I wasn’t going for subtlety or anything close to that. I wanted that son of a bitch to know I was coming, and I wanted him to be fucking afraid.

  The neighborhood looked deserted as we drove through it. I didn’t think I saw a single soul in the rundown buildings that lined either side of the blacktop. They were probably there, the squatters and the junkies, but they had the good sense to stay away from what was obviously about to go down.

  Smart, I thought.

  Because things were going to go down that they didn’t want to be involved in. And I didn’t want to deal with more collateral damage than absolutely necessary. I’d kill whoever I had to in order to save Jamie. That much I’d already decided, but it would be better if I could avoid it in the first place.

  I led the charge on my motorcycle. Behind me were Travis and Clint on either side. Beyond them, the rest of the boys filtered out, each of them ready for war. There was an intensity in the air, screaming that we were ready for whatever might come tonight. I felt like roaring out a battle cry, announcing to the world that we were headed into battle, but I didn’t. I let our rumbling, growling bikes do that for us.

  They announced our arrival long before we got there, which was why I was a little surprised to see only two guards on the front porch of what I knew to be the Chaos Disciples’ headquarters.

  Frowning, I tried to discreetly look around for others. Hiding in the bushes? Around back? In the upper windows? Were they just waiting to ambush us once we got close enough?

  That was what I would do.

  If I knew someone was coming, I’d make sure that I had a few guys out front just so that the enemy didn’t feel like they were getting off too easy. Doing that would make them more cautious and suspicious of what was going on. Then I’d hide away my biggest, baddest guys. I’d station them around the house and from strategic vantage points, that way when the assholes came in thinking they’d stormed the castle, my boys would shoot them down.

  It was a little ruthless to the men standing guard out front, but it was a good plan and would work…so long as your opponent wasn’t suspicious.

  Which I was.

  What is that asshole up to?

  I wanted to know, and I wanted to be cautious because it really did look too easy. But I wasn’t in the mood to wait. Every wasted second was a second more they had Jamie. And Kato. If it
were only Kato, I wouldn’t be as worried. Not because I didn’t care for the guy, but I knew that he was a strong man. More than that, he’d signed himself up for this life, and he’d been through the ringer before.

  I wasn’t worried about him. He’d hang tight until I got to him.

  But Jamie? She might be feisty and stubborn, strong in her own way, but physically, she was no match to the things that those men could do to her.

  The thought of how bad it could be had my blood boiling. I wanted to kill something—or someone—here and now, and I was man enough to admit that I probably wasn’t thinking as soundly as I needed to be, not when my boys were blazing their way into battle, following me whatever choices I made. They were trusting me with their fucking lives, and I was feeling pretty damn reckless with them.