Headbutts hurt, kids.
He stumbles back with a howl, his nose busted as pain flares through my head. “Damn, dude, you got a thick skull,” I groan, closing my eyes for a second.
When I open them again, he’s cupping his bleeding nose, his eyes furious. “Andrew, she’s yours. Get me everything I need to know then kill her,” he orders, before turning and ripping open the door.
Baldie follows and it clicks shut, the lock sliding into place. Andrew, the mohawk guy, steps forward, cracking his knuckles as he grins at me. “This will be fun.”
I sigh. “Andrew, really? I was expecting some cool name. Does your mummy even know you’re here? Do you need a permit?”
He grins wider, and then his fist comes at my face and everything goes black.
When I wake up, I’m tied to a wooden chair. Groaning, I stare down at my hands, each one bound to the chair arms, my legs are restrained too. Fuckers. The barbed wire they used to tie me digs into my wrists and ankles as I shuffle in the chair, trying to break free.
Well, that’s new. Stilling, I lift my head, saliva and blood dripping down my chin. There’s a marching band in my skull, my shoulders and back are killing me from hanging upside down, and my lungs are tight and my ribs creak with each breath.
Andrew isn’t here, probably somewhere jerking himself off, so I close my eyes for a moment, breathing through the pain. Those minutes fade as my mind drifts. It’s funny how when the end is coming, you start to think about the beginning.
My life has never been easy, but I gotta admit, I didn’t think it would end here. Of all the ways I thought I would die, this was never one of them. That’s the thing, though, life doesn’t owe you a goddamn fucking thing.
It doesn’t owe you life, you have to fight for it to endure and survive. And I did.
It’s filled with moments, of winding paths and unexpected turns. Each person that comes into your life offers you a new world, a new place and feelings, not always good, and from each one, we have the opportunity to learn. Whether we accept those lessons is on us. From my dad, I learned to accept pain, to understand how strong my body is, even when it’s broken repeatedly, and from that, I know I can survive this. Each person has taught me something.
Love, love is enduring. Love is blind. Love is messy and so perfect, we search our entire lives for it, even when we think we aren’t. I guess I wasn’t either, but I found it anyway in the form of four criminals. Their hearts as dark as their souls.
The thing is, I never tried to fight them, not really. I guess a part of me recognised them, and even though my mind was muddled with betrayal and anger, deep down, we clicked like pieces of a puzzle slotting together.
Diesel saw that before any of us. The rest of us lived in ignorance, unwilling to bend and break. Not him, he ripped open those walls inside me, refusing to hide from the truth. Some might call him crazy, but maybe he’s just enlightened…and, okay, a little crazy.
Kenzo…fuck, Kenzo. It will kill him if I die. He already lost his mum, and he’s got such a caring heart, even if you don’t always see it. When he loves, he loves hard. He’s all in.
Ryder will blame himself. He thinks it’s his job to protect everyone, to see everything coming, but he’s only human. It won’t stop him from hating himself however.
Garrett is so close to the edge anyway, this might push him over. My scarred enforcer will become lost in his demons until it gets him killed.
So no, I can’t die here, because it might break them, make them weak, and let the Triad kill them. I refuse to be the reason they die. I refuse to die myself.
As soon as I realise that, calm settles in my bones. I’m not fucking dying here. If I’m going to die, it will be surrounded by my men with a gun in my hand and a smile on my face. I need to tell them I love them.
The door opens, and Andrew strolls in, followed by Baldie. Shit, okay, it’s torture time. I’ve survived worse, I can survive this. I keep telling myself that as I tilt my head back and offer them a smile. “Hello, boys, my safe word is bubbles, by the way.”
“You won’t need a safe word,” Baldie jokes.
“I bet you say that to all the girls, probably why you don’t get past the first date.” I grin.
Mohawk, Andrew, laughs. “She’s not wrong.”
Baldie steps towards me and slams the gun into my stomach, making me puff out a breath. When I can finally breathe again, I grin. “Damn, boy, don’t you know how to play? You gotta start soft, get them all warmed up for you. You don’t just slam your piece in hoping for the best.” I look over at Andrew. “Who’s the newb? Do you bring him around like one of those women with chihuahuas in their purses?”
He bursts out laughing and glances over at Baldie, whose whole head is turning red. I watch with sick fascination as it crawls along his shiny head. “Do you wax that? Like, do you buff it too, like polishing floors? ’Cause it’s hella shiny—”
This time, he smashes the gun into my aching shoulder. A grunt escapes my lips from the sudden blast of pain, and I try to curl into it to protect it. I learned when I was young that eventually, everyone screams, it might spur them on, but honestly, people only don’t scream in the movies. Oh, a knife in your gut? Let me just stay silent, it doesn’t work that way. But there are two ways you can play it—you can let them destroy you, break you down, or you can use it against them.
Flip the narrative, be unexpected.
That’s what I do. When I can breathe without crying, I wink at him. “Is your nob bald too?”
He slams his gun into my other shoulder, and I feel a crack, goddamn bitch. “Motherfucking bald bitch,” I snarl. “That ain’t no way to treat a lady.”
“You ain’t no fucking lady, you whore, you’re a dead woman walking.”
It goes silent then, and I look over at Andrew. “This is super awkward, ’cause I’m not walking. Do you think he gets all his lines from bad action movies?”
This time Andrew stops him. “Franny, enough,” he snaps. “She’s mine, you’re here for muscle.”
I hold in my laughter for as long as I can, which is all of thirty seconds, then I laugh so hard, a bit of pee comes out. “Oh my God, your name is Franny? Holy shit, no wonder you’ve got anger issues, poor Franny!” I howl.
Baldie growls and comes towards me, but Andrew slides in front of him and, for a moment, I see why he’s the torturer. Anger flickers across his face, and he seems to grow larger. Baldie, aka Franny, backs down, swearing as he turns away, and then Andrew relaxes, slouching again and grinning like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
But I’ve seen it now, what he hides underneath. The true Andrew, he likes pain, he likes it to hurt, this should be…fucking horrible.