Page 22 of Living Without

It will kill them.

I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t have my family see me like that.

Tears filled my eyes.I’m so sorry, Kelsey.

“Last chance. Get over here now.”

Shaking my head, I said, “I won’t.”

His smile was sinister, only lifting up one corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowing on me. He jumped up on the bed. I was ashamed at my scream as I ran for the door. I didn’t make it. Malcolm grabbed my arm and twisted it painfully behind me. My back hit his chest as he faced me towards Baxter, who was already stalking our way. I grunted through the agony.

“Stupid move, sweetheart,” Baxter snapped, spittle landing on my face.

“It will break them. Please, please don’t do this.”

He threw his head back and laughed. When it died off, he looked back to me and said, “I want them to break. I want them to hurt.”

“Why?” I whispered. I needed to understand his torture. How and why he’d become the way he was.

“Many reasons really. Many. Hawks has fucked with my life too many times and finally. Finally,” he roared, “I get to pay them back in a way that will slice them open. In a way they’ll remember forever.”

“Just because Talon refused you to be a member? Because Dodge beat you in a fight?”

He grinned. “That was a start. But it didn’t throw me over the edge.”

“What then?” I screamed in his face. “What did they do that was so terrible to fuck you up? Because you are fucked up, all of you are. What you do, it’s sick. You aren’t right in the head. None of you are.”

The punch to the cheek was expected. The slap to the other side of my face was too. With his fist in my hair, he ripped me away from Malcolm and turned me in his arms. He gripped the top of my slip with one hand and roughly pulled it down so one breast was naked. He squeezed it so hard I couldn’t help the cry slipping past my lips.

“You fight this, you get worse. Though I’ll make sure you heal before I sell you. At least a bit of blood on your lips and a red patch on your cheek will add to the photo. So thank you for fighting.”

“Why are you doing this?” I pleaded.

“They screwed with my family.”

“Who?”

“Cameron Peterson was my cousin.”

My eyes widened. Cameron was the man who stalked Josie. He was going to kidnap her. He’d shot me trying to help her.

A snort left me. “He deserved what he got.”

Baxter chuckled behind me. His hand once again cupped my mound. I bit my bottom lip when he forced a finger inside of me, making sure his nails dug into my skin everywhere they touched.

“So do the Hawks and so do you,” he said. “Now smile for the camera.”

I tipped my head down. There was no way I could get out of the photo, but at least I could show my refusal in some way. I looked up and narrowed my eyes, clenching my jaw despite the pain. I had to show my family I wasn’t broken. I could only hope they’d see it in my eyes.

Chapter Eight

SAXON

Three days later

Nearly a week had passed and nothing. No leads. Nothing. After Lan had run the plates, he’d told us they were fake. Christ. Coming up empty played me hard. The thought of what Nary was going through tormented me. I couldn’t sleep, and if I wasn’t forced to eat, I wouldn’t. We’d discovered, from the two men we had left from interrogations, one of them had been the driver of the car that took Nary. When he’d told us he’d handed her over at a destination, there was still no lead. He was killed by my hands. It didn’t take much though. Killer and Dallas had worked him over for days.

I was a wreck. I bit heads off when the fury hit, hit things when the frustration got too much, or simply sat on my ride in a darkened street at night, staring up at the sky when the sorrow took over.

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