Broken: Boxed Set

by Wilde, Leah

  “I don’t want you going down there trashed and trying to talk to him. I need you coherent, so if you get something, you can bring it back to me.” He placed a hand over the top of my glass to keep me from drinking any more. With his other hand, he grabbed the stem of the wine glass and slid it away from me.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I cried. I wasn’t really upset, just more shocked that he was so bold and commanding. I was even more shocked at how it made me feel. I wanted to be offended that he was trying to control me, but I wasn’t. I was turned on by his dominance. I’d never known another man with such a take-charge attitude.

  “I want to make sure you’re listening to me. I need you to take this seriously, Julia,” he said, his dark eyes penetrating through my nerves and anxiety.

  “Okay, I got it,” I told him. I took a deep breath, realizing that in spite of my reservations, I had allowed myself to get too comfortable being here. The pace seemed so much more relaxed here than what I was used to. It was easy to let it steal my sense of urgency.

  “Alright, you already know I need to know where this Ivan person is. I need to know what his next move is and who all is involved,” he explained, diving headfirst into the world surrounding his relationship to Dimitri and dragging me with him.

  “Hold on,” I said. I held my hand up to stop him. “Let’s start over. Let me ask the questions. Don’t just vomit random information at me.”

  “Okay,” he said, sitting back in his chair. He seemed antsy and ready to divulge any information he had for me instead of letting me pull it from him.

  “First, who is Dimitri? What is his background? And if you tell me he’s Russian, I’m going to slap you.”

  Gage laughed, visibly relaxing a little in his seat. “Dimitri works for a man named Ivan. Yes, they are both Russian. Ivan is a local mob boss; he’s pretty big news. He has ties to the Russian mob, and we think that’s where Dimitri came from. He’s Ivan’s right hand man, and he’s what some guys would call an enforcer. I think he likes to think of himself as an assassin, but that didn’t work out too well.”

  “Wait, he tried to kill you?” I asked, my jaw practically hitting the table.

  “Yep. That’s how he wound up in our basement,” Gage explained to me.

  “Why the hell was he trying to kill you, Gage?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And to think, I was working for this guy. I was getting mixed up in his world of mob bosses and hitmen. I had told myself that I didn’t need to know this much, but I was eating up everything he could tell me.

  “We’ve been working to shut own Ivan’s drug operation for a while now,” Gage explained, “and not too long ago, we broke up a pretty big deal between him and a long-time client. So, of course, it just makes sense to send someone to handle that situation,” he explained.

  “I see.” I did see. I saw more than I wanted to. He hadn’t said anything but I could tell that he was telling me his guys had taken over part of Ivan’s drug operation. That client they’d shut him out with had become their client, surely.

  “So, why do you want to know where Ivan is?” I asked him. “Revenge for sending Dimitri after you?”

  “There’s some of that, certainly,” Gage admitted. “But really, we just want to take him down. We’ve been working on taking him out for a long time now, and now that we’ve got one of his men—his top man—we’re finally in the right position to do that.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that you just pulled me right in the middle of some sort of turf war,” I stated, summing up the information he’d just given me. “Ivan is the other boss, and his organization is threatening your business, so you’re pulling me in to help you get information from one of Ivan’s top guys to help you shut down his organization.”

  “Something like that,” Gage agreed.

  “This is not what I had in mind when I got my degree,” I told him, laughing nervously. I had gone from sitting across the table from a biker with the body of a god to sitting across the table from the violent leader of a motorcycle gang, a criminal organization in the midst of trying to eliminate their competition.

  “Well, I tried to tell you that you didn’t want to know what you were really helping me do here,” Gage countered.

  “Good point. But why tell me now?” I asked.

  “Because I felt like you wanted to know,” he told me. “And I feel like you deserve to know what you’re doing here. You’re helping us shut down a violent criminal organization that law enforcement is either powerless against or just clueless about, because they’re not doing anything.”

  “Stop,” I told him. “Don’t say another word about it, Gage. I don’t want to know anything else. I just want to talk to Dimitri and get you the information you need on Ivan so I can go home.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “You don’t think you know too much already?” he asked in a vaguely threatening tone.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snapped at him. “Are you threatening me, Gage? Is that what this is? Are you trying to tell me that now that I know more about what’s going on, I won’t be able to leave at all? It certainly sounds like that’s what you’re doing.”

  He waved a hand dismissively between us. “Don’t worry. I was just teasing.”

  “You didn’t sound like you were teasing.”

  “I know. My voice doesn’t carry humor well,” he said with a dry laugh.

  Likely excuse, I thought. I couldn’t believe I had tried to convince myself to trust this man. Unfortunately, it seemed like I didn’t have much choice in my current position but to try to trust him.

  “Well, I was going to ask if there was a way I could interrogate Dimitri somewhere besides that little room down there, somewhere a little more conducive to talking. But I guess that’s out of the question,” I said.

  “I’m afraid he has to stay down there,” Gage said. “And it’s important that he stays tied up as well. Don’t get any ideas when you go back down there to talk to him again. I don’t want things to get ugly.”

  “It’s a bit late for that,” I commented under my breath.

  “Yes, it would seem so, wouldn’t it?”

  “I mean, you’ve got a guy tied to a metal chair in what is essentially a concrete bunker underneath your motorcycle club’s headquarters. Things are already pretty messy, aren’t they?” I asked him.

  “Things are always messy around here, Julia, if that’s your definition of messy,” he countered.

  “I guess so. Still, I’d like to think there’s got to be a better way to get information out of Dimitri. He doesn’t seem too interested in talking. Maybe if there was a way I could approach him in a less confrontational manner, you know?” I directed the conversation back to the matter at hand. I couldn’t just solely focus my energy on the fact that I was working for a criminal organization, essentially aiding them in the kidnapping of another criminal.

  “It’s really for the best to have him down there,” Gage said flatly. “We can’t really do anything differently with him. I hope you understand after what I’ve told you just now.”

  I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back down there to talk to him again after finding out that he’d been sent to kill Gage by the rival boss. “When do you want me to go back down there?” I asked him.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Gage answered. “The sooner you can get some information out of him, the sooner all of this will be over, just like you said.”

  I really didn’t feel safe going back down there by myself, so I mustered up the courage to ask him, “Will you go down there with me?”

  “Of course I will, Julia,” he said. “I’m not going to go back in the room with you, just because I agree that you’ll probably get more out of him if you’re on your own, but I’ll be down there by the door in case anything goes wrong. While you’re here you’re my responsibility,” he said. “I can’t let anything happen to you.”

  I found his sense of responsibility for my well-being o
dd and almost out of place. He presented this rough, bad boy exterior to the world, but underneath, he seemed to be a rather upstanding gentleman. I was having trouble reconciling the two parts of him I was seeing.

  I thanked him for his kindness and told him I was ready to go back downstairs.

  As we got up from the table, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Remember when you go down there, I need to know where I can find Ivan and what his next move is. See if you can get a timeline of what he’s up to or what he has planned. Also, see if you can get specific locations as to where he is and where he might be,” he coached me.

  “I got it,” I said. “Don’t worry. I think I can remember those questions. Now, let’s go before I lose my nerve.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked as we started making our way back to the stairs.

  “You’re sticking me in a room alone with the man who just recently tried to kill you,” I reminded him.

  “Changes your perception of him a little, doesn’t it?”

  “Just a little,” I agreed.

  “Don’t worry, Julia.” In a change of tone, Gage had become very concerned about me, repeating that I would be alright and that he would be watching out for me.

  Normally, I would have been quick to tell someone that I could take care of myself, but my confidence had been shaken by my conversation with Gage. I welcomed his offer to protect me and watch over me while I talked to the assassin that had been sent to murder him.

  Gage kept going back and forth between someone I knew better than to trust and someone I didn’t have a choice but to trust. I looked around the room at all of the other bikers in their vests with their Kings of Hell logos and patches on. I knew that if anything went wrong, and Gage simply said the word, each of those men would be at his side to protect me.

  Still, if he was supposed to be the good guy, just how bad was Dimitri supposed to be? I didn’t want to find out, but as I stood in front of the door to the interrogation room again, watching as Gage opened it, I knew I would probably find out sooner rather than later.

  I shot Gage a look as I walked into the room, letting him shut the door behind me. He didn’t lock it, and I was sure Dimitri heard that as well.

  Chapter 7

  As the massive steel door closed, I found myself alone in the small concrete room with Dimitri, the Russian muscle behind the rival operation opposing the Kings of Hell. Just by standing in the room I realized I was taking sides in whatever the conflict was between Ivan and Gage. My allegiance had already been determined for me.

  And to make matters worse, the man sitting in the chair before me was a killer. Sure, he was worn out from sitting in that chair for an undisclosed amount of time, but his presence was threatening now that I knew who and what he was. I also knew that I had something invested in finding out what I could from him.

  As much as I wanted to resent Gage for coming into my life and putting me in this position, I couldn’t deny my attraction to him. I also couldn’t deny the rush I got from realizing I was involved in some clandestine underground criminal activity. I wanted to deny how I felt. I wanted to be put-off, offended, all of that, but I wasn’t. It was thrilling to find myself here, skirting danger even as I approached the chair across from Dimitri. It was even more thrilling when I reflected on how delicious the man who got me into this was.

  I sat down at the wooden table. Dimitri lifted his head, and seeing that it was me, he sat up straight in his chair.

  “Help me,” he wheezed in Russian. We only talked in Russian.

  “I’m trying,” I assured him, “but you’re going to have to give me some kind of information to take back to Gage if you want my help.”

  “Fuck him,” he told me in his exhausted voice. “He’s going to kill me as soon as I give him any information. You have to know this.”

  I looked Dimitri over. Other than where the ropes seemed to be rubbing him raw and a fresh cut on the middle finger of his right hand, he didn’t look like anyone had roughed him up. He looked tired, and his features were beginning to look a little emaciated, as if he’d been down in the basement for several days with minimal nourishment.

  That wouldn’t have surprised me, I decided. It seemed very likely that Gage was treating him as a prisoner of war. A weakened killer was much better than a killer who was still on top of his game, I figured, making the situation with Dimitri a little easier to handle.

  “Don’t you think he would have already killed you?” I asked him.

  “No. He wants to torture me until I talk.”

  “Well, as long as you don’t talk, we’re both prisoners here, Dimitri, so I need you to talk. I need to return to work and my life at home,” I told him, trying to appeal to his emotions.

  He let his head fall forward again and laughed. “You’re never going to be free,” he said. “He’s not going to let you go.”

  “What makes you say that, Dimitri?” I crossed my legs and shifted my weight in the chair.

  “He doesn’t let anyone go. I’ve been watching Gage for years now. No one leaves him. Once you’re in, you’re in for life,” he croaked.

  “I don’t know about that,” I told him. I wanted to believe Gage when he said he would let me go after all of this. Knowing the nature of his relationship with the Russian, I didn’t have high hopes for Dimitri, but I had to try to ignore that to convince him to talk.

  “You’ll learn,” he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

  “Gage told me about who you are,” I mentioned, trying to provoke him to talk more.

  “What did he tell you?” He tilted his head back down to face me, opening his blue eyes and giving me a chilling look.

  “He told me you tried to kill him.”

  A slow, crooked smile spread across Dimitri’s face. “I did. That rat bastard. He undercut my boss on a trade, and it cost us a customer. So I came around to pay him a visit. I camped out across the street, but when Gage and his biker thugs left the clubhouse, two of his men broke down the door where I was and jumped me. It was two on one, and it was a surprise attack. He knows he can’t take me one-on-one.”

  “Says the guy who was camped out in a room across the street with a sniper rifle pointed as supposedly unsuspecting bikers who were leaving their clubhouse to go for a ride,” I added for him, helping him create some perspective.

  “Hell, it didn’t even have to be with a sniper rifle,” he added. “He knows he can’t take me in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s why you had to distance yourself with a rifle like that. But what if I told you he had you defeated the moment you showed up to ambush the ride?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean he knew you were going to do it, so he staged the ride to draw you out and set you up.”

  “There’s no way he can be that smart,” Dimitri argued.

  “Seems to me you two underestimate each other a lot. If he was able to find out that you were planning on taking him down, don’t you think he’s capable of finding out where Ivan is without you?” I asked him.

  “I’d like to see that,” he replied with a laugh.

  “He’s got people on it right now,” I lied. “And if they find him without your help, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of here alive. They won’t even beat you. He told me they’ll just come down here and shoot you. Then, they’ll remove your body, and who knows what will happen to you then?”

  “Bullshit. How do you know?” He was growing agitated, pulling on his straps and wiggling in the chair trying to work himself loose.

  “He told me, just a little while ago, when he told me why you were here,” I told him, keeping my tone even, trying to sound like it didn’t matter to me one way or the other what happened to him.

  “You’ve got to help me get out of here,” Dimitri said anew, no longer worn out and tired, like he’d seemed when I came in at first. Now he seemed wide awake, full of energy. He seemed alive again. It was pretty am
azing how that worked, I thought.

  “I’ve already told you,” I reiterated, “I’ll help you when you help me.”

  He sighed and stopped fighting. “I’m not telling you shit,” he barked. “Now, either help me or fuck off so I can figure out how I’m going to do this.”

  “You know, it’s probably not wise to tell me you’re planning on escaping,” I suggested to him.

  He froze and leveled his eyes on me.

  “That’s right. I’m sort of in with the guy who’s holding you down here. If you tell me you’re trying to escape, I’m somewhat obligated to let him know.”

  “Come on,” he pleaded. “You can’t possibly have any issue with me. You don’t even know me.”