Finally, rage breaks through my fear and confusion. I am pissed as hell, pissed that Mr. King hijacked my life, pissed that twisted criminals like Jack exist, pissed that I’m caught up in a dark world I can’t control. Pissed that there is a sex trade. Pissed that there are biker gangs. Pissed that I’m in New York City at all when I could have just listened to my parents and had a nice quiet life in Michigan.
Pissed that Bane is so goddamn full of himself.
All of this accumulates in my brain to the point of rage. It wells up inside and renders me reckless. I snort until I can hock up a spit wad, and send it right into Bane’s eye.
“You arrogant prick,” I hiss. “You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He stares at me with deathly calm for a minute, then shifts his weight over me until he can still hold me down while wiping his face clean. When he’s finished, his face is livid.
“Wrong move, Red,” he whispers. An iron hand closes around my neck. “Wrong move.”
Quick as lightning he is standing, yanking me up beside him. His grip on my throat is controlling but not debilitating, and he uses it to push me in front of him as he slams out of the room. Never mind that we are both either naked or close to it: he marches me down the long hallway and up a flight of stairs resolutely, muttering to himself all the way.
“You could have left her with Jack,” he says to himself. “She didn’t have to be your problem. You could have minded your own business. You could have had another blowjob by now. Hell, you could have had three blowjobs. But no, you had to be a fucking hero.”
He stops me abruptly in front of a door and raps three times. It opens a crack, and I see that it’s one of the other women from earlier—Coco I guess. Trinity must be banging Jack somewhere.
“Watch this for me,” Bane grunts, shoving me through the door. I stumble and Coco makes no move to break my fall, watching impassively as I splay out on the floor. “Just keep her alive, I don’t give a shit how. You can toss her in with the rest of the mamas, but no one touches her. She’s my property.” He glances over me disparagingly. “Temporarily.”
With that, he stalks away.
I push up on my palms and realize that I am alone with Coco, who locks the door behind Bane and turns to eye me with the same distaste. She’s dressed herself in heels and a black lace babydoll that does little to conceal the darkness of her nipples or pubic mound. She’s lithe like a model and covered in tattoos, gorgeous, and dark-featured.
“Girl you must be some kind of retard to twist him up like that, and you his bitch.” She plants one stilettoed foot on my chest, pushing me back to the ground. “You suicidal, or just fucking dumb?”
“Both at the moment.”
She almost smiles but catches herself and pushes her heel into me until I gasp in pain. “That was quite an entrance tonight, my bitch,” she says. “I’m not big on surprises.”
“Me neither.” I glare up steadily, too mad to be careful. “And I’m not your bitch, bitch.”
“Shut the fuck up!” she swipes a hand across my face and I cry out as the taste of blood fills my mouth. She smiles down at me, licking my blood off her fingernails. “Right now your protection don’t want you, bitch. Comprende? You the lowest on the totem pole.”
She kicks me sharply in the side, sending me rolling over the floor and cursing in pain. I hear the click of her heels as she follows me, and as my body grinds to a halt around the legs of a bunk bed I feel her nails on my shoulders. She spins me around to face her, leaning over my face so close that I can see the gold specks in her irises. She’s laughing at me. “You my bitch. You everybody’s bitch.”
I’m in at least the seventh circle of hell.
Chapter Eight
The bar is hazy and full of smoke and a cover band is butchering Led Zeppelin. I’m no Robert Plant, but I could do better vocals with strep throat. The off-pitch keeling makes me wince as I study the room.
There’s a pool table, a dancing pole, a swing. Topless women are swaying on the bandstand and giving lap dances. Girls in G-strings serve up wings and beers, and there is a lot of fondling and making out going on. Health codes are definitely being violated. There’s a broken syringe on the middle of the doorway that Coco’s stilettos crunch over as she pushes me in. All the patrons are men, all wearing Death Layer Motorcycle Club colors. I soon learn that the all-women workers are, if they’re lucky, willing club sweetbutts. Or, if they’re not lucky, slaves—like me.
Coco and Trinity dragged me here after a sleepless and foodless morning, their brass knuckles and sharp stilettos sapping the fight right out of me. Now I am literally chained behind the bar, metal shackles linking one of my ankles to a pole that runs the length of the bar along the ground. Like a dog on a leash.
“Welcome to the clubhouse,” Trinity smirks.
Trinity has mercifully allowed me to keep on my bra and underwear, which affords me more coverage than whatever ‘uniforms’ the other girls in the bar are wearing. Coco has strapped a spiked dog collar around my neck that earned me another black eye when I resisted putting it on.
At least my eyes match each other now.
My collar links by a chain to a parallel pole above the bar on the ceiling. I have about a foot’s worth of give, just enough to bend over for ice and cups. Satisfied that I can’t get away, Trinity holds my arms back so that Coco can write on my chest with a sharpie: “Property of Bane.” She then draws a big X over my face with a nasty grin.
Clearly she thinks this is some kind of sorority hazing.
“Do as you’re told and pour the drinks, bitch,” Coco laughs at me as she tightens the metal around my leg until it’s painful, drawing a pinch of blood. I’ve already learned not to show my reactions. She likes this dominatrix shit too much, and I am not going to give her any satisfaction if I can help it.
“You’re lucky,” Coco jeers. “Out of the goodness of my mama heart I’m giving you a cushy job your weak ass can handle. If you can manage not to piss me off today, maybe I’ll loosen these.”
“Might as well tighten them now,” I retort.
For no real reason, she punches me in my groin and yanks my collar as I sag off-balance momentarily, choking me.
“Fuck!” I gasp.
It’s not like I have a dick but it still hurts like a motherfucker, just like the time I lost my grip while climbing a wire fence as a kid and landed with the wire between my legs…blinding sting. By the time I catch my breath and straighten back upright, Trinity has hopped over the bar and worked her way deep into the crowd, dancing and laughing.