He releases me as he hits me and I topple back onto the ground, pain shooting up my spine. The man turns and gets in the van, pulling the door shut behind him as I scramble to find my feet. As I get to them, the van peals out of there like the devil is on their heels.
I swallow bile as I watch the van drive off with Daimon. Fear clogs my throat as the van turns left out of the parking area.
I turn, quickly locating my bag on the ground where I must have dropped it during the scuffle. Blood is pouring down my face now and I can hardly see through the stream of red. Somehow I get my phone out and manage to dial Levi’s number. He picks up after a couple of rings.
“Hey, how’d your session—”
“Levi…” I break through his question, my voice wobbling and on the verge of hysteria.
“Brie? What’s fucking wrong?”
“They took Daimon,” I practically wail down the line.
“Where’s Daimon?” Levi’s voice changes and something dark coats his words.
“There was a van and some men dragged him into it. Oh fuck, Levi, I think he’s hurt. He wasn’t moving.” I can’t cover the sob that breaks through my words.
“Are you safe? Where are you?” he barks down the line and I hear movement in the background, voices demanding answers.
I peer around the empty parking area, my heart still hammering.
“In the car park by the therapist’s office.”
“We’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t fucking move.”
I swallow down my relief, grateful my brother will be here soon. Hopefully, he will know who took Daimon and how to get him back.
Because there’s no other option. We have to get him back. I’m not willing to live a life without the best thing in it.
25
Daimon
“He’s waking,” a voice I don’t recognise craws.
Slowly, I blink, trying to clear my vision, but everything is still blurry. Fuck, my head is throbbing and my neck is aching. I try to move, but pain sears through my chest. My body feels like a block of agony, so I freeze, trying not to puke.
The last thing I remember is standing in the car park of the rape crisis centre with Briella. Then, light’s out. Fuck, is Brie here? Did they hurt her? The bile I’ve pushed down suddenly starts to rise.
I listen for a moment, not hearing her, which I take as a good thing.
Where the hell am I, and who do these voices belong to?
Think, stay calm, stay alive, I coach myself. I need to be smart if I’m going to survive this.
I’m lying on a cold floor, my hands, I realise, are tied behind my back and my feet are also bound. The air in here is so freezing it’s like breathing in shards of ice. Every inhalation hurts, so I try to take shallow breaths. The copper scent lingering in the air mixed with the acerbic stench of bleach tells me one chilling thing. I’m in a kill room.
“Hey, fucker, wakey wakey.”
I blink again and this time figures looming over me come into view. A dark-haired man with tattoos running up one arm, and eyes that are blazing anger, is staring at me. His friend has closely shaved hair and a smirk etched onto his face. His dark eyes promise violence. They’re both wearing jeans, one with a hoodie, the other with a blue button-down shirt. They’re not MC. There are no colours on their backs, but I have no fucking idea who they are.
“Where’s my fucking girl,” I growl out.
The man with the shaved head laughs. “Left her in the car park. I sparked the bitch out after she did this.” He points to the claw marks up his arm, making my lips twitch. They look deep.
Then his words register. “If you’ve hurt her there will be no place to hide,” I sneer, holding their eyes, letting them see the truth in mine.
The dark eyed man steps forwards and fires a kick to my ribs. Pain splinters through my entire torso, making me grunt. I refuse to cry out, but I can’t stop that noise from slipping from my mouth.
I curl in on myself, trying to protect my already bruised chest, the concrete of the floor beneath me scratching the skin on my cheek.
“The fuck do you want?” I rasp out, my breath ripping out of my mouth as I speak. I sound mushy and wrong, probably from the swelling to my face that I can already feel. The skin is hot and tight over my cheek bones.
“Justice.”
His words make no fucking sense. Justice for what? I’m not a saint, I know that, but I don’t know these fuckers or how I’ve wronged them.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.” I smirk.
The man with the tats snags me by the front of my tee and I realise my kutte is missing from my back.
“We don’t have to be anything, cunt.”
I peer down at his hand and see the snake wrapped around a skull embedded in his skin. I know that fucking emblem. What the hell is it for?
“Where the fuck is my kutte?”
I’m shoved back onto the floor and then kicked savagely in the side. Pain explodes again and I taste blood in my mouth. Fuck.
“You know what happens to prissy little cunts that come into our territory?”
Territory? What the fuck is he on about?
“Ain’t ever stepped foot in your territory,” I growl out. “Don’t even know who you fuckers are.”
Kicks and punches rain down on me. Pain slices through me as the furious attack continues. The skin above my eye splits and blood pours down my face, occluding my vision. I want to fight back, but tied as I am, I’m helpless against the onslaught.
The attack is unrelenting, and when they’re finished, they step back laughing.
“This cunt doesn’t know who we are.”
I breathe out through my nose, smelling the blood in the air.
“You know who I am, who I belong to?” I hiss out between clenched teeth as I try to control the pain exploding through my body. I’m lightheaded and feeling a little nauseous. My vision is wobbly, like I’m coming down from the biggest bender. “You know what my brothers will do to you for daring to touch me?” A laugh rips from my lips.
“Think we’re scared of your little bike club?” the tattooed man snorts. “Ain’t bothered what those fuckers do to us. This is about respect, and the lack of respect you showed us.”
I have no fucking idea what he’s talking about, but anger flares in my veins at his words. Respect? He wouldn’t know the meaning of the word if it hit him in the fucking face.
“Don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about, but trust me, this ain’t the way to make a point.”
Tat guy kicks me again and I grunt out, refusing to let the cry that wants to slip out escape. I won’t show these fuckers any weakness. I refuse to.
“Disrespect has a price to be paid.”
“What fucking disrespect?”
“You came into our territory without asking. Took us a while to find you, but disrespect like that has to be challenged. Can’t have every fucker in the city striding into our bars and clubs without anything being said. It’s bad for business.”
Something clicks in my mind. The tattoo on his arm, the mention of the bar. These fuckers are Sic Bastards. Fuck. I’d pulled Briella out of a Sic Bastards’ club a few weeks back. It was where I found her drunk with that cunt’s hand in her knickers. Fuck me, this is about that? I should have cleared it first, asked Titch to make the necessary calls to let me move through another’s territory. I shouldn’t have gone there in my kutte, but there hadn’t been time to dick around. I was worried about Briella. Now, I’m seeing the error I made, because I don’t think these fuckers are going to be content with beating the shit out of me. This punishment will go deeper than that. How deep I’m not sure. If a rival stepped into our territory without permission, we’d gut them. Is that what these cunts plan on doing to me?