Page 31

Blade

I was screaming Bella’s name, my heart breaking at hearing her anguished voice as she called mine.

The goons that had me pushed and shoved me through the side door of the mansion and every time I had an opening I’d swing at one of them, using my fists, my elbows, my knees, feet, even my head.

Their fancy suits don’t look so fancy anymore by the time they get me to our destination—a small room in what must be the cellar of the mansion.

It smells like coal and potatoes, so I’m guessing it used to be some sort of pantry.

Now it’s just an empty, dirty room, lit by a glaring white ceiling light, which makes the dust on the floor and walls look like rot. Or maybe that is rot. The single chair in the center of the room looks rotted too. But it’s not. It’s metal and bolted to the concrete floor.

Blood is running into my eyes, maybe from a head butt I dealt, maybe from one of the blows I received, none of which I felt.

I still feel no pain. Just an overwhelming need to get free.

Sweat is breaking out of every pore on my body, my heart racing harder than it ever has.

If I could just get my arms free I’d murder all of them then tear this house down with my bare hands looking for Bella.

They sit me down on the chair, two guys pinning me down as I thrash around. Then Matteo’s face is inches from mine as he loops a zip tie over my wrists and secures my arms to the chair.

“Give it up, Blade,” he hisses into my ear. “You got no chance. Save your strength. You’ll need it.”

I spit in the guy's face, wishing I could do worse. He wipes my blood and saliva off his cheek with the back of his hand and grins meanly. “Still just a little weakling. I don’t understand what my sister sees in you. Never did.”

“You don’t get to call her sister, you monster,” I snap at him. “You ruined her life once before and now this? Don’t you dare call her sister. She trusted you. She loved you.”

He chuckles darkly. “Her fucking mistake. I told her to stay the fuck away from here and from me.”

The two other goons are panting as they secure my legs to the chair with more zip ties. Too bad I was so focused on cursing Matteo out, else I could’ve gotten a few more good kicks in.

I thrash around some more, trying to get free, trying to make up for it, but they tied me up good.

“You calm down now, Blade,” Matteo says on his way out of the room. The goons follow him. “You’ll have plenty of chances to rage again in a minute.”

“Face me man to man,” I yell at him. “Easy to talk shit when I’m tied up like this.”

He looks at me over his shoulder. “This is not my fight.”

That just gets my blood boiling even hotter and I have no idea why I’m not strong enough to break through my restraints. I should be. I’ve never been this angry.

My voice is hoarse calling him every insult under the sun by the time I realize he was probably right. I should calm down, think my way out of this situation. Thinking was always my greatest strength. I’ve become a pretty good fighter over the years, but it’s my mind that does the heavy lifting.

It’s failing me miserably as I sit in the quiet room.

Water is dripping somewhere, or maybe that’s my blood trickling to the floor.

I can’t quiet my mind long enough to think past the fact that Bella is locked up somewhere in this house too, living her worst nightmare, possibly already getting married off to that fat, sweaty fuck Dante Moretti.

How the fuck did we let it get to this?

I never should’ve told her Matteo was with Moretti.

I should’ve kept a better watch on her, should’ve let her live at the clubhouse and fuck Rogue’s fears and wishes.

Only Skye, Judge and a handful others are there now, manning the fort, but it is built like a fort, no one we don’t want in the clubhouse can get in.

Now anyone who could help us is on the other side of the state and they have no idea we’re even missing.

And my mind’s not seeing any possible way out of this. Not a single one.

The door opens. Dante Moretti walks in with a big grin on his face.

He’s taken off his suit jacket, taken off his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt, the nasty rug on his chest showing through.

He’s got a tumbler of whisky in his right hand and a fat cigar in the other.

Matteo is one of the three goons with him.

“What you gonna do, Dante? Torture me by blowing smoke in my face.”

The best my mind can come up with is that I gotta make him too tired to mess with Bella. It’s a shit plan.

The idiot laughs like he really finds my joke funny.

“Nah, I lit up to unwind after a job well done,” he says, shuffling closer. “But I wanted to let you know what you can expect now that you’re here. Before I get back to my onetime bride, that is.”

I didn’t think it was possible to get angrier, but here I am raging and pulling at my restraints so hard I feel like the muscles in my arms are gonna snap. Dante and the goons are all laughing. Except Matteo.

“Just calm down, you’re not getting out of here,” Dante assures me. “In a few hours, our mutual friends the Hydra will be here. I’m gonna suggest that they cut you up and mail the pieces to your MC buddies one by one until you pay them back what you owe them. I think they’ll like that idea.”

The visual of that does give me a second’s pause. But I’d submit to that willingly if it meant he’d stop calling Bella his bride. She’s my bride, damn it.

“You really pissed them off bad, it seems,” Dante goes on. “And then you ignored all their friendly warnings to give back what you stole. So they’re taking more drastic measures and I don’t blame them.”

“You think I’m afraid, you sick fuck?” I yell at him. “All I’m hearing is that you’re a chickenshit, small man, obeying your masters.”

Dante laughs again, but not as happily as before. “I’m sure you’d know all about that kind of thing.”

“Not like you, small time,” I say.

One thing our surveillance of him in the past couple of weeks uncovered is that he has far less power than he wants to have.

It’s why he’s in bed with Hydra. Because he wants more.

And it’s clearly a soft spot, because his face turns a few shades redder as he clutches his tumbler so hard his knuckles turn white.

One alternative is to have him bash my brains in before Hydra can cut me up. It’s not a good alternative. None of the alternatives I can think of are good. I have absolutely no bargaining power here. But I gotta give it a shot.

“Ditch Hydra, they’ll fuck you over in the end anyway,” I say. “Join with us in getting rid of them and we’ll help you get what you want.”

He finds that funnier than anything I’ve said before.

“And I suppose you want me to let Bella go for that to happen?” he asks.

I nod, don’t bother saying it.

“But she already promised she’ll do whatever I want if I let you go,” he says and that hurts me deep in my chest. I feel pain from the first time since this shit went down. “And as sweet as that offer was, I had to decline.”

He takes a drag of his cigar and blows the smoke in my face.

“You see, I already have her and can do anything I want to her,” he says.

The goons laugh, Matteo cringes, but is grinning when Dante looks back at them, enjoying his attentive, supportive audience for his bullshit. I don’t know who’s sicker. Him or Dante. She’s his sister!

“And I don’t need your help with anything either,” Dante says, turning back to me. “Least of all dealing with Hydra. I know what they are. And right now, they’re exactly what I need. They’ll love this gift I got them. Meaning you.”

“Yeah, I got that, asshole,” I say.

Insults. That’s all I got to fight him with. I feel like I’m eighteen again, getting my ass kicked by a bunch of mafia assholes for loving the wrong girl.

“Good, good,” Dante says. “You think on that for a while. And I’ll be back when the Hydra get here. But I think I’ll have some fun with Bella before I tell them you’re here.”

He leaves and I continue screaming obscenities at him long after it’s only the hoarse echoes of my own voice I hear.

I’ve read and reread so many books by great thinkers, ancient, old and new. I’m hoping for some guidance from them right now. But only one quote comes to mind now.

All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It’s by Shakespeare, spoken by Macbeth after he learned that his queen was dead. I had to memorize it for school in the ninth grade, and I hate how eerily it aligns with my and Bella’s current situation.

But I can’t deny that my mind showed me the most fitting damn quote. What we’re heading for here is a tragedy of epic proportions. And we’ve been on this trajectory since the first time we kissed. That’s the truth, no matter how much I rage against it.