by Levine, Nina
Time stood still.
I heard Nitro yelling that he would do whatever Joseph wanted, but I couldn’t push my way through the haze of pain circling me.
Bone crunching.
Blood spilling.
My soul breaking.
I wasn’t sure I would survive this.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
The pain was too great and death seemed easier.
Eventually the punches stopped coming.
I lay curled up in a ball on the cement.
Boots sounded next to me, until they were a distant noise I could hardly hear. The door clicked shut.
And then came silence.
Beautiful silence.
I was alone.
Floating.
Drifting.
Dreaming of heaven.
Arms embraced me.
Pulled me into a lap.
Warm breath whispered across my skin.
A hand gently smoothed my hair.
“I’m so sorry, Vegas.” Nitro’s grief-stricken voice broke through the haze, and I blinked my eyes open.
He stared down at me. His eyes were filled with tears. And pain. So much pain. I didn’t want there to be any more of that for either of us. We’d had enough. Done our time. Paid the price for our sins.
He rocked me for what felt like hours. It could have been. Or it may have only been minutes. It didn’t matter how long it was. The only thing that mattered was that those final moments together were filled with so much care. The kind of care a person searches their whole life for. In those moments, Nitro loved me.
Nitro
“State Of My Head” by Shinedown
“Send her home.”
Joseph narrowed his eyes at me. “And then?”
“And then I will do what you want.”
He watched me closely for a few moments. “You will give up Storm.”
I winced as I shifted my weight onto one foot. My leg screamed with pain and I needed to take most of the load off it, but it only brought more pain to the other one. Joseph’s beatings over the last two days had been severe. Worse than any I’d ever received. I could barely see him through swollen eyes, and bruises covered every inch of me.
My chest squeezed at the thought of what Joseph had done to Tatum earlier. He’d beaten her so badly that I thought he would go too far and kill her. It surprised me that he’d left me alone with her when he was finished. In hindsight, though, I realised he used it as another way to break me.
If watching her go down hadn’t been enough, sitting with her had shattered me. Holding Tatum in my arms and knowing that everything I saw and heard was because she’d chosen to be with me had torn a chunk out of my heart. I’d realised just how much she meant to me and that I would do anything to keep her safe. Agreeing to return to Joseph had been a small price to pay in return for her life.
“I will give up Storm,” I agreed.
“Very well,” he said and took the few steps to the door of the room where he kept me locked up.
“Joseph,” I called after him. When he faced me, I said, “If you ever lay your hand on her again or hurt her in any way emotionally or physically, I will leave you and I will never come back. I will fight you to my death if I have to, but I won’t allow Tatum to be hurt again.”
He smiled that evil fucking smile of his that I wanted to wipe off his face. “It seems we have found your reason, Rhys.”
“My reason?”
“Your reason to stay with me. I won’t touch her unless you leave, and you won’t leave unless I touch her.”
I allowed him to believe that because it guaranteed Tatum’s safety. “Come and get me once she’s gone. We have shit to discuss.”
He raised a brow. “Now this is more like the soldier I raised, son.”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“And there’s the man you’ve become. We just need to find a way to merge the two sides of you.”
He slipped out the door, and I doubled over in agony. Clutching my stomach, I pushed out a few sharp breaths. My entire body was alive with this pain. I was aware, though, that it wasn’t just physical pain. My soul was bleeding. It was oozing the blackest shit it had ever known. Joseph would not get away with any of this. I would die to ensure it.
* * *
Joseph returned sooner than I thought he would. “William has taken her home,” he announced as he entered the room.
“Was she in a state fit enough to call someone for help?” She needed a doctor to check her out.
“Yes.”
Thank fuck.
“Right, so you need to bring me up to speed on your business.” And get me out of this fucking room. It was bare except for one chair. I’d spent my time in there pacing and plotting revenge. The few hours of sleep I’d managed had been on the cold cement floor, which had been agonising as hell.
He closed the distance between us in two determined strides, his face clouding over with annoyance. “You don’t tell me what to do. That’s the first thing you must relearn.”
I stared into his dark eyes. “So tell me then, how is this going to go down? Because I thought you wanted me back to run your new Sydney operations.”
“You’re testing my patience, son.”
I clenched my jaw. He called me that to push me and I refused to show him what it did to me. I needed to lock my emotions down again.
When I didn’t say anything, he spoke again. “We’ve got a meeting with a new client tonight. Eric Bones. I want you there with William and me so you can begin building a relationship with him.”
I already knew Eric Bones. He was a Storm ally and if I was in that meeting, news would travel fast.
“Joseph, I have to leave the club first. If they hear word of this before I tell King, there will be hell to pay.”
“You think I give a fuck about a motorcycle club, Rhys? I could crush them in the blink of an eye.”
“No, you couldn’t.” He had no fucking idea.
He grabbed my shirt and yanked me to him so our faces were close. “You forget what resources I have. With the knowledge you have of Storm’s business and King’s way of thinking, we can bring that club down together.” He let go and shoved me backwards. “We start work on that tonight.”
I stared at him while he walked to the door. My next question was one I didn’t want to know the answer to. “What do you have planned?”
He looked back at me, his eyes glinting with menace. “Eric Bones is desperate for cash. I’ve agreed to sell guns to him cheaply in exchange for his loyalty. He’s also going to flood the market with cheap coke from me, undercutting the club. And you’re going to help by giving him details of Storm’s trade so he can use that information against them. Tonight.”
He exited the room without another word, and I stood in shock at what he wanted me to do. Joseph was a smart motherfucker. Forcing me to disregard my club loyalty achieved two things for him. One, it showed I was serious about returning to him. And two, it ensured my ties to Storm were cut. Because no way would the club take me back if I betrayed them like this.
* * *
Eric Bones inspected me. Every bruise and cut on my face were noted, as was the way I grimaced each time I moved. Finally, he met my eyes. “You’ve left Storm?”
Joseph and William sat either side of me, their bodies rigid while they waited for my answer. William had spent the drive to the meeting point trying to drill his special brand of fear into me. I’d anticipated that, though, so I had done my best to prepare my mind for it. And I’d succeeded. So far.
“Yes.”
His eyes widened and he whistled. “Fuck. Never thought I’d see the day, Nitro.” Jerking his chin at my face, he said, “They do that to you?”
My mouth flattened into a hard line. I needed to get this shit over with as fast as possible. Sitting there discussing my club was not fucking helpful.
Before I could reply, Joseph stepped in. “No, I did that to him.” Leaning his arms on
the table, he added, “This is what happens when I’m not happy.”
Eric’s brows lifted and I took in his nervousness. I hoped to hell he was reconsidering his involvement with Joseph. With a shaky laugh, he said, “Remind me never to piss you off.”
“You will do well to remember this,” Joseph said. “Now, can we get down to business?”
Eric tapped his fingers on the table, jittery. “Umm, yeah, about that….”
“Yes?” Joseph’s voice was low. Dangerous.
William leant forward. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you, Eric? That wouldn’t make Joseph very happy.” There was no mistaking his threat. William had a presence that shrieked danger.
Eric stared at him. The fear rolled off him as he assessed William who had been silent up until that point. Swallowing hard, he said, “I just need a little more time to get some shit worked out.”
“This happens today or not at all,” Joseph said.
Eric’s indecision was blatantly obvious in the way he said he wanted in on the deal while his body language said the complete opposite.
Raking his fingers through his hair, he said, “Man, honestly, I just need a few more days and then we’re sweet. I don’t have the cash for the guns yet.”
Joseph fumed next to me. I watched as he splayed his hand out on the table in the way he did when his urge was actually to punch someone. It was one of his control mechanisms.
Silence filled the air for a minute while Joseph considered what Eric had said. Finally, he stood. “Three days, Eric. If you’re not ready then, you’re dead.”
As William and I stood to leave with Joseph, I took in Eric’s expression. He looked like he was about to shit his pants.
Greed was a dirty fucking thing. It made you do shit you thought you’d never do. I’d watched countless men fall after a relationship with it. I hoped that Eric gave up on this deal, but something told me that the threat of death wasn’t something a man like him would be willing to risk. Men like him would rather sleep with the devil than give everything up for some peace.
I wasn’t like Eric Bones.
I’d choose death over the devil every time.
* * *
I slept on the cement floor again that night. Not that I got many hours of actual sleep in. Probably two at the most. My body hurt too damn much on the floor. On top of that, I couldn’t shut my mind off. I spent most of the night worrying about Tatum. I wasn’t a praying man, but I prayed like fuck that she’d received the medical attention she needed. I also prayed that Marilyn was okay and that Renee and Dustin were dealing with it all.
When the sun rose, I paced the room while I waited for Joseph to arrive. He hadn’t said anything to me when we’d returned from the meeting with Eric Bones. He’d been furious with Bones, and because I knew Joseph’s evil mind well, I knew some of that fury stemmed from the fact my hand hadn’t been forced to declare my loyalty to him over Storm. I’d been given a reprieve, and all I could hope was that three days was enough time to show Joseph where my true loyalty lay.
He didn’t show his face that morning, but William did. He turned up wearing his cargo pants, black tee, and combat boots, which told me what kind of day it was going to be.
Throwing clean clothes at me, he fired his orders. “You’ve got five minutes for a shower and then I want you waiting outside dressed in these. You and me are gonna spend the day together getting reacquainted.”
I followed him to the shower and did what he’d said. The day was going to be tough enough as it was, I didn’t need to start arguing with him early on.
When I was done, he led me to a Jeep that was parked in the large open area of the warehouse and indicated for me to get in the back. He joined me there while another man slid into the driver seat. We were then driven about an hour away to what I guessed was Joseph’s base camp for soldier training. William blindfolded me at the beginning of the journey so I had no sense of where they’d taken me. When the blindfold was removed, we were parked in the middle of the bush.
“Out,” William barked.
He then proceeded to put me through my paces. Their land was dense with trees, but they’d cleared a section that held the shit I knew was designed to break a man. Trenches of muddy water, pits of mud, steel cages over deep troughs of water that could drown a man, dangling wires designed to shock, and a bath of ice were some of William’s favourite things. He could spend hours doing this part of his training. Brutalisation was designed to start the process of ripping a man’s sense of self-worth from him. It was just one aspect of what William did. And he did it well.
I spent the next five hours following his orders. I ran his fucking obstacle course and didn’t back down from any of it, even though my body was in excruciating pain the whole time. Hell, it had already been in a world full of hurt before I started. William’s goal was clearly to kick that up a notch, and he succeeded.
At the end of the five hours, he came to me and grabbed me around the throat. “You think you can beat me, soldier?” I knew from the way he spat his words out that he was pissed at me.
I held his gaze triumphantly. What he didn’t realise was that the day was exactly what I’d needed. My conditioned response to him was still there, but my mind was in a whole new place. They didn’t understand that by hurting Tatum they’d splintered my mind and screwed with the wiring they’d put in place years ago. So while I still felt that stirring of fear when I looked at William, I was able to mentally withstand it. The five hours spent with him doing his training, and surviving those hours mentally strong as fuck at the end, only solidified my ability to ignore the fear he tried to draw out.
“I know I fucking can. I might have agreed to work with Joseph again, but it’ll be a cold fucking day in hell before I fall at your feet,” I gritted out. “Your power over me is dead.”
His lips curled up into a snarl. “We’ll see about that.”
He dragged me to the ice bath and forced me into it. I wanted to fight him off and force him into it, but I knew I had to be smart. If I had any chance at saving myself and my family, I needed to wait for the perfect moment to kill both him and Joseph together.
I immediately began hyperventilating, drawing in very fast and deep breaths as the cold water surrounded me. William watched with smug satisfaction as I fought for air. My body was going into shock. I knew the process because he’d subjected me to it many times. I just had to get through these first few minutes, get my breathing under control and then last until he pulled me out of the water.
Easier said than fucking done.
“You think this is going to be a walk in the fucking park, Rhys?”
My teeth chattered as I stared up at him, still struggling for breath. I couldn’t reply, but then, he wasn’t looking for a reply. He was simply trying to strike fear.
Crouching, he said, “It’s been a good nineteen years since I’ve had the pleasure of training you. My program has evolved and this is just the beginning, soldier.”
I sucked air in as deep as I could. And I went to battle with my mind. He would never break me again. Never. As my muscles grew weak the longer he left me in there, and the pain in my body increased, I attempted to focus on Tatum. I imagined her smile, her eyes, her laugh, her fight. God, how I loved her fight. I’d never met a woman with the spirit she had. My thoughts drifted to the future. I wanted one with her. I knew that. When I escaped this hell, I would make it happen. I’d give her everything she’d never had before. Starting off with space in my fucking wardrobe.
“Almost five minutes, Rhys. You ready to fall at my feet again?”
I blinked slowly as I processed his words. Five minutes was a long time to be in icy water. Almost too long. I knew that. Hypothermia could kill me if I didn’t get out soon. And yet I refused to give in to William.
I waited it out. And eventually he was the one to crack. But not before my muscles became so weak I couldn’t walk when he dragged me from the bath. My coordination took a hit, too. After he had
pulled me out, he left me on the ground and organised for the Jeep to be brought over. He and the driver managed to get me into the back seat. William yanked my clothes off and wrapped me in a light blanket he had stashed in the back as the driver sped all the way back to the warehouse.
I drifted in and out of consciousness.
So cold.
So fucking cold.
Tatum
“XO” by Beyonce
I lay on my hospital bed, drugged up on heavy-duty painkillers the doctor had me taking for all the injuries Joseph had inflicted on me and watched as Monroe walked into the room.
Meeting my eyes with a small smile, she said, “She’s safe.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled, ignoring the pain in my face as I did that. Opening them again, I asked, “Dustin?”
She nodded. “He’s safe, too. And Renee assured me her mother is okay in the hospital. Renee has moved into Nitro’s house to be with Dustin until Nitro comes home.”
I stared at her in silence while tears filled my eyes and fear clogged my throat. “What if he doesn’t come home?” I whispered. My throat was scratchy and sore, which made it difficult to talk.
I’d been in hospital for two days after being treated for multiple injuries including fractured ribs and a collapsed lung. Monroe hadn’t left my side until today when I’d been conscious enough to ask her to check on Nitro’s family. I was relieved to know they were safe.
Monroe took hold of my hand. Gently, because it hurt, too. Every inch of me did. “Your guy is tough, babe. He’s going to get through whatever he has to and then he’s going to come home. King was here yesterday, and the club is looking for him. They’ll find him. You can’t keep much hidden from bikers.”
She was right. But a lot could have happened in two days. The longer he was gone, the more concerned I grew. I just prayed that when they did find him, he was alive. My heart hurt worse than my entire body when I thought about him not making it out of that hellhole.