Page 24 of Property of Prowler (Kings of Anarchy MC: Nevada #1)

“Hello, sis. Long time no see.”

The sight of Travis renewed her fight. When he approached her, she twisted and flailed trying to loosen Billy’s hold, but it was no use.

“Open up, sweetheart.” Travis tipped a water bottle to her lips with a hand in a black brace. Fighting like hell not to ingest whatever it was, Taylor kicked Travis frantically while turning her head.

Travis grabbed her breast, digging his fingers in but standing far enough to the side she couldn’t kick him.

“Listen to me, sister,” he sneered. “You either open up and drink it now, or you’ll open up screaming when I shove my cock up your ass, and Billy can pour it in then. You’re choice.”

Being raped by Travis was a real and present threat since she was a teenager. It was her nightmare fuel, so she complied, swallowing the warm water with chunks of bitter pill bits in it, until he pulled the bottle away.

At that point, if he was going to do vile things to her, she hoped whatever he’d given her knocked her out.

They dragged her to the bedroom and tossed her on the mattress. When they started duct taping her, she tried to fight again, but it was two against one. She was completely overwhelmed.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked as they wrapped duct tape around her thighs.

Both men just looked at her like a bug under glass.

“This? Well, that depends on who you ask.” Travis kept wrapping, tearing the tape with his teeth and moving to her ankles.

They had taped her legs together , over her sweats, so at least rape wasn’t their primary intention, and she found a small measure of comfort in that. Especially since that used to be Billy’s kink, taking her when she really didn’t want him to. The harder she’d fought, the harder he’d gotten.

Funny how one’s mind works when faced with the unknown. With her biggest fear alleviated, she could analyze the situation for what it was, not from a place of defense.

“What’s going on?” she asked again since her previous inquiry went unanswered. She needed to understand, to have a sense of control.

“If you ask me,” Billy sneered, “You’re not worth much more than what’s between your legs and what you took when I got locked away.”

“What I took? Dude, you’re fucking delusional if you think that shack in the desert had anything worth taking.”

He got in her face so fast, she recoiled out of habit, but he didn’t hit her. Instead, he pulled her hair, wrenching her head back, and spit in her face. She gagged.

“Oh, there was, and you fucking know it. My stash was gone when I got out, and so were you. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Taylor’s brain was spinning. He’d gotten out shortly after she’d fled. He was only out three months before getting locked away again, that time for years.

When she left their home, if you could even call it that, she took nothing but the clothes on her back, her cigar box, and her piece of shit car that gave out within the week.

“Do you mean the one hundred and fifty bucks in the cigar box that I earned in tips? Because that’s all I took with me.”

“No bitch, I don’t mean that piddly stash of cash you had in a cigar box, I mean my stash,” Billy roared and drew back his fist. Taylor screwed her eyes shut and braced for impact, but it never came. Travis stopped him.

What the fucking hell alternate universe was she in where Travis protected her?

“Easy, big guy. I told you. You only get paid if I do, and I won’t get paid if she’s all bruised up.”

Billy turned on Travis

“You promised I’d get payback.”

“Yes, I did, and you will. But I can’t deliver that if the Kings don’t want to pay for damaged goods.”

“Payback isn’t just about the money and coke she took. She humiliated me when she left. That can’t go unanswered.”

“I said I would get you your money. As far as any other retribution you’re after … well, that will be between you and the Kings, AFTER we get paid.”

Billy was pissed at Travis’s answer. Taylor knew that look, and Travis would be smart not to turn his back to … wait.

“What?” Taylor asked in disbelief. What the hell did the Kings have to do with her brother and her ex? It made zero sense. Other than Travis and a ridiculous scheme to get money. No way Prowler knew her ex or her brother. The world just wasn’t that small.

“Oh, sweet sister. You didn’t think I found you by accident, did you? Wait, actually I did. And this whole time you were blaming Terry the goody two-shoes for ratting you out.”

“If Terry didn’t tell you where I was, how did you find me?” She cut her eyes to Billy, who was seething in the corner. He was the more dangerous of the two in his current state.

“I think it was divine intervention. I owe those bastards in Kings a large sum of money. And do you know they had the gall to threaten me? Sent their muscle after me even. I was a good customer, always paid my debts. But I get in a bind once or twice, and they turn into savages.”

Taylor was hella confused because none of what Travis just said answered her questions in any way, shape, or form.

“Get to the point already.” This from Billy in the corner.

Travis snapped his head in Billy’s direction. And issued a rebuke Billy didn’t take well. Hell, Taylor could’ve told him not to poke the bear.

Turning back to her, he continued. “As I was saying, they came after me, so I decided to turn the tables and go after them. I followed each one home and watched and learned. Imagine my surprise when I saw you sneaking out of the President’s house in the wee hours of the morning.

It was like God himself was smiling down on me.

So, I bided my time. How I wish I’d had the time to get you alone with that young one. Oh, how much fun we could’ve had.”

His mention of Cass stoked a fire deep inside her.

“If you even think about touching her, know that I will fucking hunt you to the ends of the fucking earth with my last breath. You will not touch her.”

“Don’t threaten me, sister, you won’t like the results. Besides, she is plan B. But you’re plan A, so do your part, and I won’t need to enact plan B.”

She was losing patience with Travis. He was monologuing just to hear his own voice, and whatever he’d given her was starting to kick in.

“How did you come to owe an MC money in the first place? They run a bar and a hotel. What? Did you take the towels when you checked out?”

His laughter bounced off the walls. “Oh, that’s rich. Do you not know anything about the men you spread your legs for?”

She cut her gaze to Billy. “Obviously.” She turned back to Travis. “Why don’t you tell me before I break the other one?” She stared pointedly at his wrapped wrist.

It was an empty threat, but she wanted him on the defensive, and he hated any shortcomings or failures being pointed out.

“It’s not broken, just sprained.” He sneered but stood up from the foot of the bed to pace.

She preferred the distance. Without him on the bed to feel her movements, she worked her charm bracelet down.

A part was caught in the tape, but it was loose-fitting, so she was able to contort her fingers and grab a charm.

Score, lightning bolt, the sharpest one.

She made a series of pokes and saws while Travis paced and spoke.

“The Kings don’t just own a hotel. They own a brothel. Picture it—the wife and kids are in the hotel pool while the husband is getting his dick sucked just a stone’s throw away. It’s brilliant really.”

If Travis thought that would shock her, it didn’t.

He didn’t know she’d been a working girl herself at one time, and you can’t turn away a client just because he was married.

However, the fact that the Kings owned one, hidden in Vegas no less, was a surprise.

Despite what people like to think, prostitution was in fact illegal in Vegas and Clark County.

“The bar—well, that’s just a bar, a run-of-the-mill dive with video poker. But it’s where people go to find the Kings and secure a loan or an invite to their casino.”

That paused her little lightning bolt. If Travis was to be believed, Prowler and the Kings were into some heavy illegal shit. The one thing casinos hated more than cheaters was illegal competition.

She wanted to keep stabbing and sawing at her duct tape. Free herself, kick their asses, and call Prowler to warn him about Travis and to protect Cass.

She also wanted to hear more of what Travis had to say. She wanted to keep him talking because something just wasn’t adding up. Travis and Billy knew each other from when they’d been a couple, but since when did they work together?

Billy had only tolerated Travis to piss her off.

He loved making her miserable, and Travis was one way to do that.

However, it was Travis’s loose lips that got Billy pinched one time, so he told him to disappear and never come back.

It was the one and only thing Billy had done in their relationship that made her happy.

More than knowledge, her body craved sleep. It was giving in to whatever Travis had given her.

“What was in the water?”

Travis waved her off with his bandaged wrist. “Nothing more than the painkillers they gave me for this. I just need you not to be hysterical while I contact your lover. Damn pills suck anyway, so it’ll wear off soon.”

She drifted off to sleep. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping, but it was light outside, so for a while she surmised. She vaguely remembered being awoken, allowed to relieve herself, and made to drink more pill water.

When she woke the last time, she heard Travis’s voice, but not a responding answer. When she peeked through her lashes, he was on the phone. She didn’t want them to drug her again, so she feigned still sleeping.

“I want to talk to your president.”

Pause.

“It doesn’t matter who this is. Get me the president.”

Another pause.

“I’ll call back in twenty. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll start carving parts off his girlfriend until he does.”