Page 66 of Rebel

I couldn’t say exactly what awaited me with the Blood Fangs, but I could damn well guess. Beatings and torture. All manner of assault.

I closed my eyes even though it was unnecessary and tried to stay calm, to keep my wits about me while the van drove and drove.

***

I wasn’t sure how long we drove, maybe an hour, before the van came to a stop and the doors opened. A pair of hands yanked me from the van, and I fell onto my hands and knees once again, surrounded by multiple pairs of feet.

A cloth went over my nose and mouth and within seconds I passed out.

When I woke up again, the first thing I noticed was the cold. It was ice cold, which brought me to the second thing I noticed. My lack of clothes. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing on my body and when I tried to cover myself, I noticed the third thing, I was chained to a bed.

Holy shit I’m chained to a bed.

“Help! Somebody help me!” I opened my eyes only to be met with darkness.

The cloth was torn from my head, forcing me to blink rapidly until my eyes adjusted to the light. “It’s about damn time, I thought they’d killed you.”

“Would’ve ruined your plans if they had?” My heart raced inside my chest, but I was laid bare—literally—so there was no point playing the shy damsel.

“Meh, I would’ve made it work. It’s what I do,” he said and flashed an arrogant smile. “I’m Thrash, and this is my MC, and you have caused me a lot of fuckin’ trouble Nikki.”

This couldn’t be the man behind the campaign of terror. He looked so… innocent. So nondescript with his dirty blond hair and plain brown eyes. He was lean, more lanky than muscular. He wore a pencil-thin mustache that was more gross than terrifying, which pissed me off for some reason.

“You haven’t shut up and now you have nothing to say?” He crossed his arms and arched one brow skyward.

“I haven’t caused any of your troubles, Thrash. Your misconceptions have.”Don’t poke the bear, Nikki. You have to make it out of here alive.

He flashed another disarming smile and nodded. “I agree, but the questions you started asking have too many other people asking questions now, and that shit is bad for business.” His jaw clenched but it wasn’t anger I saw on his face but fear. He was worried.

I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse for me. “And your reaction, the constant and very public threats only gave credence to what was nothing more than a few questions. And those questions weren’t about you, but the man who is paid by the taxpayers.”

His eyes narrowed in my direction. “You have a smart fucking mouth, you know that?”

“Yeah, and I’m not wrong.”

Thrash flicked his head towards me and five men appeared seemingly out of nowhere, long leather straps in their hands. “Right and wrong don’t fuckin’ matter, you’ll see.” I watched him walk away, completely oblivious to the hell that was headed my way.

“What’s going on?”

Thrash stopped and turned to me with a coy smile. “Bad girls get punished, Nikki.”

One of the men hit me with the leather strap across my thigh. Another raised his arm high in the air and whipped the strap down, slashing it across my belly. The other three joined in, whipping me from all sides until I cried out in pain and tears streamed from the corners of my eyes. I was bound to the bed sothere was no way to shield myself from the blows, all I could do was take it.

Pain seared through every inch of me. After the first fifty blows, I wondered if they would beat me to death.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Rebel

She was gone. She wasn’t on the fucking street, and she hadn’t gone to the clubhouse—if that was even her destination in the first place. “Where the fuck is she?” I paced inside his office while Slate did his thing in an effort to find Nikki. When it was clear I wouldn’t find her on my own, I came straight here and told my brothers what the fuck was happening.

“Hang on, brother.” Slate was hunched over the keyboard, black brows knitted into a thoughtful frown. “It looks like she requested an Uber, but the driver cancelled the ride since she never showed up. It was about three blocks from your place.”

“Fuck.” She was so close, and if I had just looked more carefully, I could have saved her. “And then what?”

“Her phone is still on, and it’s not moving. It looks like she’s on the other side of the city. Hang on.” The words came out slowly, each one about three syllables until he found what he was looking for. “I traced the path the phone took, and it looks like she’s in Clover Park.”

“What the fuck is she doing there,” Rocky asked. “That place is just a bunch of rundown buildings and trailers.”

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