Page 21 of Jazz
Dougal sighed, crossing his hands over his chest and turning to the wiry, skinny VP, who stood beside him now looking sheepish.
“Chase is fucking right,” Dougal grumbled in that low Scottish rumble. “He’s gonna be pissed off enough that you’ve fucked her face up like that. We all know he likes a looker.”
“So now what?” I asked.
“Guess we’d better get that video out to the Kings. String her back up, Chase. Might as well get some good content to get their blood pumping.”
I glanced back at the woman standing in the middle of the warehouse, with the heavy hook lying on the floor next to her and the look of defeat on her face. I had no choice. There was nothing I could do here.
I turned, walking back to the handle in the wall. The heavy metal hook scraped the floor, dull and resounding. Jazz stiffened, her head following the sound. If she was thinking up an escape plan, she didn’t act on it; her face was trained on me as I strode back over to her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I took hold of her bound hands.
The skin around the plastic ties was now mottled red. I hooked it over the metal end. She didn’t fight. She was just still; her blindfolded stare boring into me.
“Fucking hell!” A voice came from behind me. “That’s fucking Jazz. It’s you guys who took her?”
Jazz’s head shot to the doorway, to the blundering mass of man with the fiery red hair and beard to match.
“Thrash?” Surprise flooded her words, then resolution.
Chapter Thirteen
Underneath the blindfold, my eyes followed the sound of the conversation. The Scottish voice fainter, metres away. Chase was just in front, but his voice muffled, his back facing me. My head still whirled. A combination of dizziness and a confusing fullness. And a throbbing, pulsing ache in my jaw, catching my cheekbone and then fading slightly. Every time my lips moved, a sharp scratching pain erupted, half burning, half ripping.
The voices in front of me were hard to focus on. Chase was angry. I could tell by his voice, and the Scottish one was calm, collected.
“String her back up, Chase.”
I heard those words, though. My shoulders reacting in a searing, pulsing panic of pain. I couldn’t go back up there. I couldn’t last any longer hanging. The pain was unbearable, like I’d suffered a gruelling shoulder press workout for forty-eight hours. Every movement tore my muscles some more, every second closer to dislocating my shoulders.
His scent was stronger now. Closer. He wouldn’t put me back up there. He’d just saved me from his vice president, surely, he wasn’t going to put me back. I couldn’t take it. Not a tiny second.
The hook scraped on the floor, moving beside me. I could feel the subtlest of vibrations at my feet, hear the deep groan of the links in the chain. No! Hands brushed mine, edging them upwards gently, but the movement in my shoulders sent that hot, blinding pain racing over my skin. It numbed the pain in my face, distracted me from the thumping bruising forming in my thighs. None of it compared. Even when the skin on my lips had burst open and blood had spilled down from my mouth only minutes earlier, this wasn’t like that. All that was bearable. This wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice low and deep. A sound that should thrill me, deep and velvety, but with the stretching, scraping pain in my shoulder blades and my back, that sound couldn’t distract me.
I shook my head. A silent plea. The nearest to begging.
He rubbed my wrists. Reassurance? Reassurance that he was going to hang me back up like a piece of meat. I wish I was a slab of meat. Dead. Pain free.
“Fucking hell!” A voice came from in front of me.
Deep, resounding. Not like Chase’s velvet tone. Brittle. Familiar.
“That’s fucking Jazz. It’s you guys who took her?”
Thrash. President of The Notorious. My ex.
“Thrash?” I called out, hoping I was right.
“Aye, babe. Funny seeing you here.”
“Get me out of here, Thrash.”
There was a silence. No one saying anything. Why wasn’t he agreeing? If he knew what was good for him, he’d rescue me. Make it up to the Kings.
“Thrash?” I called out again.