Page 39

W e pull up to an unmarked warehouse, and Ryan helps me off the bike as I look around. We’re in the middle of some sort of industrial area with miles of cold gray warehouses the only buildings that lined our drive towards this place.

I turn around at the sound of a door creaking open to find Jax walking towards me with a smile on his face and a flicker of darkness in his eyes.

“You sure you want to do this, love?” he asks as his hands wrap around my waist. I let him pull me into him, let him brush his lips against my own.

“No, but I need to,” I say tentatively, willing my voice to remain steady despite my shallow breaths and clammy hands.

“Let’s go then,” he says, taking my hand in his and turning back towards the door.

I give Ryan a questioning look.

“I’ll be here,” he says. “I’ve already had my fun.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, not quite sure I want to know his definition of fun.

We walk into the building, through dark hallways and past empty rooms, before we start to descend an old cement stairwell into the darkness below. The building is silent, though I can barely hear myself think over the sound of my heart pounding in my chest.

“What is this place?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the mix of emotions swirling inside of me.

“It used to be a factory,” Jax responds as his footsteps continue to echo off the stairs. “It was fully functional up until a few years ago, and it used to be one of the many places we used for business meetings, hiding in plain sight while the operations would cover the comings and goings of everyone involved.”

“Clever,” I muse.

“But, when the economy went downhill it was hard to keep it running, hard to make the books look legit enough to maintain operations without questions. So, it shut down, and we ended up finding other ways to be discreet. So now this is just used when we have other types of business to settle.”

“It’s where you torture people?” The question slips through my lips before I can stop it, but Jax just chuckles.

“I’m not really into the whole torture thing, that’s more Ryan’s scene,” he says with a laugh. “Usually if people have made decisions that wind them up here, they don’t stick around for too long. The only exceptions being if I need information out of them, or if they’ve done something to you.” He looks at me, and even in the dark, I can see the glimmer of violence behind his eyes. “In those situations I am more than happy for them to spend a little time on the receiving end of my anger.”

I keep walking behind him, his hand never leaving mine, until we turn down a hallway with flickering lights. The further we walk, the brighter the space gets, and I notice that the rooms around us are bright now, their lights turned on. Jax stops in front of a steel door before turning to me.

“If you change your mind, you let me know. If you want to leave, just say the word. But if you want to stay, whatever you want to do, you have every right.”

I look into his eyes, at the understanding behind them, and nod.

“I want to talk to them,” I say, forcing a facade of confidence.

“That’s my girl,” Jax says with a nod of approval, before pulling the door open and leading me inside.

I gasp at the scene that greets my eyes, at the sight of Rhett and Tanner with their hands bound above their head, shirtless and tied to a metal rafter in the ceiling, their bodies swaying slightly as their feet barely touch the ground. Their eyes widen when they see me, and muffled sounds come from their mouths, currently covered in duct tape.

I let go of Jax’s hand, approaching them slowly, and not failing to note the various tools sitting on a table in the corner of the room. As I get closer to them, it becomes clear how their chat with Ryan and Jax went earlier; their bodies are speckled in bruises and blood, and both have black eyes. There’s blood on the floor beneath them, and it’s not until I walk behind them that I realize where it’s coming from.

I inhale sharply, unable to hide my shock as I look at their backs, both etched with dozens of cuts. Some are shallow, already crusted over with dried blood, and others are still dripping, the blood making a sickening sound as it drops onto the cement beneath their feet.

I look to Jax, who is leaning up against the wall by the door we came through, his arms crossed as a smile plays on his lips.

“You …”

“One cut for every one you had, love,” he says.

I look at their backs, the marks almost identical to what my back looked like when Jax first found me. My chest swells, and I don’t want to admit how much seeing these two people tied up in front of me makes me love Jax even more; it seems fucked up to have this effect on me, but a part of me loves witnessing the lengths he went to implementing his own form of justice.

Jax pushes off the wall, walking towards Rhett and Tanner, before ripping the tape from their lips one at a time.

They both swear under their breath, and I walk back around so I’m facing them.

“You stupid fucking—”

I jump as Jax’s fist finds Tanner’s face before he can finish his sentence.

“I won’t remind you again to be polite to her,” he whispers quietly into Tanner’s ear. “You speak to her like that once more and you lose your tongue.”

Tanner nods, but his eyes don’t leave mine, and I can feel the hate pouring off of him.

“Help us get out of here, Evi,” Rhett pleads. “Remember how good we used to be together? Remember all the times I bought you stuff? How well I took care of you? Let me make it up to you, let me show you how much you mean to me—”

“You had your friends kidnap me!” I say, my voice shaking with anger.

Rage floods through my veins.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Rhett whines. “It wasn’t anything serious. It was meant to be a prank, a pissing contest maybe, but it wasn’t anything serious, you know that. I was never going to let you get hurt—”

“You fucking broke me.” I seethe before pacing back and forth. “And you’re trying to tell me it was a prank? ” I repeat the words as I look at him. “Your friend fucking raped me while I was there, Rhett. You fucking threw me to the wolves, and not for the first time.” I pause. “Or do you forget that night you let them? The one you were all stupid enough to record?”

Rhett glances nervously between me and Jax. “I know the video looks bad, but I would never hurt you, babe. You know this. It wasn’t me in the video, it was the other guys!”

The sound of his voice makes me grind my teeth, his denial and gaslighting angering me as I realize what I put up with for so long, who I put up with for so long. Without thinking I bring my arm back and slam my fist into his abdomen, my technique almost perfect thanks to my training with Jax and Ryan. He heaves as the air leaves his lungs, coughing and sputtering as he tries to regain his breath.

“Stop playing stupid. You know exactly what you did. And now I know everything too.” I wander casually over to the table with all the tools, most of the knives already covered in blood. I pick one up, twirling it in my hand as I walk back to Rhett. “I’ve dreamed of killing you, you know?” I see Jax look at me with a hint of surprise in his eyes. “I’ve dreamed of all the ways I could cause you pain, of how I could make you suffer before I was the one to drive a knife into your chest.”

Rhett’s chest is rising and falling rapidly as his breathing increases, and I see the fear in his wide eyes as he hangs there, helpless in front of me. I put the knife up to his chest, the tip digging into his skin enough that blood starts to trickle out of the wound.

“I forgive you,” I say, surprising myself as I pull the knife back. “And I’ll eventually be able to get to a place where I never even think about you anymore.” I pause, looking at him contemplatively.

“I wonder what will hurt you more: if I kill you slowly now, or if I leave alive so you think of me every time you suffer the consequences of your actions. When you can’t walk in public without people staring at you, when you can’t get a job anymore because everyone knows who you are— what you are. You’ll be forced to remember me and how the way you treated me led to your downfall, led to your entire family’s downfall.”

He doesn’t say anything in response, but stares at me with a mix of panic and anger behind his eyes.

“And you—” I turn to Tanner, who doesn’t even try to plead his case. I look him up and down slowly, the anger in his eyes never leaving.

“Anything you want to say?”

The room is quiet except for the sound of Rhett’s panicked breathing. He looks from me to Jax, and I follow his gaze. Jax is standing a dozen feet behind me, which tells me he knows I can handle this on my own.

“I wouldn’t want to lose a tongue.” Tanner’s voice breaks the silence of the room.

I look back to Tanner. “Jax, don’t cut his tongue out,” I command quietly over my shoulder.

“Okay, love,” he says, his voice cold and calculated.

“So Tanner, what’s it going to be? Pleading your case like Rhett here? Or perhaps apologizing for everything you did to me?”

Tanner spits, and I can’t hide my disgust as I wipe the saliva from my face. For a second my mask falls, the false bravado I summoned to interrogate them, to play tough, and I’m reminded exactly how quickly they were able to make me feel incompetent, weak, worthless.

I shake my head, banishing the thoughts with it, forcing myself to remain calm and collected in front of them.

“Okay then,” I say, turning away from him. I take one step before I turn back to him, striding towards him until I’m right in front of him and can feel his breath against my skin.

“Why?” I yell, the anger palpable in my voice, as I press the blade to his skin, red blooming brightly against his flesh immediately. “Why did you do this to me? I never did anything to you, fuck , I didn’t even know you. And what? You hurt me because I scratched your eye while you tried to kidnap me ?!”

He laughs, actually laughs , at me. “You know why Evi, we’ve talked about this, or are you too stupid to remember?”

Jax lets out a sound that resembles a growl, but I don’t look at him, not when I already know the darkness that I’ll see in his features, the anger I can already feel rippling from his body and filling the space around us.

“I did it because I wanted to, and I always get what I want.” Tanner laughs. “You were practically throwing yourself at me after Heat—you wanted me. So stop lying to yourself.”

I feel the bile rise in my throat at his words, as the knife I’m holding shakes in my hand.

“I didn’t want you, asshole!”

“You loved everything I did to you.” He winks before looking at Jax as he continues to speak. “The way you moaned when I was inside of you, the way your pussy clenched when you came. I fucked you because you wanted it.” He laughs as he looks back at me. “Admit it, even when you were with Rhett, you’d open your legs for anyone who gave you a second glance, and it’s no different now.”

I can’t help but recoil at the disgust I see etched into his features, the shock of what he said in front of Jax rolling over me.

His laugh startles me. “I know how this goes, you stupid bitch,” he says cockily. “You and your boyfriend try to scare us, try to get money out of us for what we put you through. We’ll do this little song and dance for a while, and you’ll eventually let us go once you get us to agree to give you cash and you think you’ve scared us enough. But our lawyers will deal with the fucking shitshow you started. And before you know it, the story will be spun around. Suddenly you’re the girl who asked us time and time again to fuck you—you wanted our attention and our money. But, not wanting to come off as the whore you are, you decided to play the victim to try and get sympathy for being a slut.”

I’m trembling, barely able to control myself as wave after wave of anger rolls through me.

“You can’t scare me, Evi. You’re not important enough to impact me at all,” he says smugly. “You were an easy lay and that’s it. So go pretend to have a normal life with your boyfriend. And while you might forget about us eventually, I’ll always be thinking about you. And the second you drop your guard, the second you don’t have your man watching your back, I’ll find you, and I’ll make you pay for everything you’ve put me through. And you’ll experience pain you never knew existed, you fucking whor—”

I jump as blood splatters across my face and a loud bang echoes throughout the room.

Tanner’s body is now limp in front of me. I wipe my face with my hand, which is immediately coated in blood as Rhett sobs and Jax walks towards me, the sound of his footsteps loud against the concrete floor. I try to control the shock that rolls through me, try to steady the nausea that threatens to overwhelm me.

I turn to Jax, who holds a gun loosely by his side.

“You killed him,” I say in shock.

“I did.”

“I—” I’m speechless, actually speechless.

“I’m sorry for overstepping, I know you could have handled yourself,” he says apologetically. “But to hear him speak about you like that. To hear him say all his vile thoughts to your face… no one speaks to my girl like that and lives.”

I nod, the anger in me slowly dissipating as I realize Tanner is dead.

“I think I’m done here,” I say quietly, dropping the knife before turning and walking from the room slowly.

“What do you want done with him?” he says, and I look back at Rhett.

“Please, don’t do this,” he says between panicked sobs. “I’m nothing like him, I’d never hurt you.”

I study his features for a moment, his eyes wide with fear.

“I don’t care. Do whatever you want to him.”

I open the door, leaving the room before Rhett’s screams are the only thing I can hear.