With that, Blair saunters out of the Laundromat and disappears down the street toward her motorcycle. Bane waves as she zips away, then turns and takes my hand. The warm pressure of his fingers over mine gives me some courage in the face of all this insanity. Fake papers. Running for our lives.
There’s only one glaring problem we haven’t addressed.
“You said loose ends,” I venture, peering up at Bane. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”
Bane’s face goes stony. “You have to tell me what Jack has on you,” he grumbles. “How he’s been holding you at Death Layer. And then we have to make it go away. We have twenty-four hours to fix it.” He checks his watch. “Fuck. Make that eighteen hours.”
I feel the blood drain from my face, remembering the psychopathic seriousness on Mr. King’s face when he promised he’d shoot Rachel if I escaped. Until this point, I had been so focused on just getting the fuck out of the Death Layer compound that I had pushed the thought of dealing with his threat out of my mind.
With escape in front of me as a real possibility, I realize I have to face the man that sold me out, tossed me into trafficking, and ruined my life in the first place: the man with the piercing blue eyes and missing soul: Mr. King, CEO of Skollz Corp.
“You need to tell me what it is, Ava,” Bane says. “What’s Jack got on you?”
I shake my head slowly, knowing that there’s only one way to deal with a psychopath like Mr. King, only one language he’ll understand: violence. As long as he’s alive, Rachel isn’t safe. Taking a deep breath, I meet Bane’s searching eyes.
“Jack’s got nothing on me, Bane.” I say evenly. “It’s someone else. Someone powerful. The one who brought me to D.L. and gave me to Jack.”
Bane’s face takes on that cold, lethal resolve I have seen too many times. “Who is this bastard?”
I stare at this fierce man who has already saved me three times. He is capable of anything. I see it in the set of his jaw and the straightness of his posture that he’s made up his mind. His eyes burn into me, thrilling and terrifying me with his intensity. He’s gone killer again.
Only this time I feel I can actually join him over the edge, past the law and fear; I can, and I will, become just as fierce as the Beast.
I will do it for Rachel.
Chapter Eighteen
It is very late, probably around four in the morning, and I am exhausted. The spiked dog collar I am wearing is tight, but that’s not the real reason my breath is shallow and hurried; I’m working against my fight or flight instincts, adrenaline pumping.
I am standing in what is now officially my least favorite place in the world.
The D. L. Club.
I am dressed in only a bra and underwear and chains, my uniform from my first day here at Death Layer. God willing, this will be the last time I see these fetid walls, hear these orgiastic screams, or smell this stench of blood. Soon the D. L. Club will soon just be a bad memory, and I’ll have the rest of my life to blot it out.
Bane broke into Jack’s office earlier and used his computer to email Mr. King, requesting an urgent meeting. Mr. King was advised to show up on time—five minutes from now. The simple deception will lead to his swift demise. Our plan is very basic, but there are still a million things that could go wrong.
Like any one of the Death Layer MC guys stopping us.
Things around here are winding down, so we are banking on everyone being too wasted and bleary eyed to bother with us. Bane is behind me, leading me through the MC members’ entrance.
Judge Jefferson seems to know something is up, though Bane hasn’t confided our plans, and when he saw us he crossed the room to talk up a pair of bouncers near the door, distracting their attention away from us.
The thunderous trance music and the chaos of the crowd flood my ears and almost instantly give me a headache, but Bane’s big rough hand is on my shoulder to steer me through. He’s relentless, guiding me past the fighting ring. Both of us pointedly avoid looking at the ring or the orgiastic faces tuned on it, and I am warmed to know that Bane is just as disgusted by it as I am.
There aren’t a lot of patrons in the club tonight, just a few groups of them warming seats in the bleachers and ordering cocktails from naked slaves. I recognize one slave as Amy, the blue-eyed girl who tried to help me escape on my first night. Bane notices her too, and I see him grit his teeth as one of the well-dressed Wall Street-types grabs her and starts to force her head towards the fly of his pants.
Without even thinking, I open my mouth to shout her name and take a step towards her. But Bane jerks me back against him, a hand covering my mouth.
“Keep moving,” he orders me. “We can’t help her right now. There’s nothing we can do.”
My heart sinks—not wanting to believe that he’s right—but he is. There’s nothing an entire SWAT team could do right now to help her, unless they were willing to go kamikaze and trade their lives for hers. There are bouncers lining the walls holding whips and wearing guns, not to mention that Jack and his friends have to be somewhere close by.
“Fuck,” I whisper, frustrated.
The odds are against us. We’re god knows how deep in the Death Layer building. It’s going to be all we can do to get ourselves out of here. Silently, I vow to myself that I will do something—anything—to help Amy. Every Amy.
Once I’m free.
Bane walks me behind the bleachers, past the red-lit room filled with drug couches and naked female assistants, and aims our strides for that first chain-link fenced hall near the entrance from the parking garage. Here, women sex slaves are chained to the fence for sex, and a couple of adolescent-looking boys. My stomach churns looking at them, wondering what they were like as children, as people, before they were trapped and brought here.
Bane steers me to an open spot, away from the sight of the other patrons chained slaves, and uses his fingers to lift my chin and point my gaze away from the horror in front of me.
“Right here, Ava,” he whispers. “Look at me. Focus.” I do, meeting his eyes. “Just stick to the plan, baby,” Bane says. “Trust me.”
I nod, adrenaline beginning to pump. “I trust you.”
“Good.”
He kisses me deeply, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket. Lacing his fingers through mine, he gently raises my arms overhead. With terrifying speed, he locks the cuffs around my wrists and through the wire. I can’t help a small whimper of fear. I try to smile at him, let him know I can be brave.