Chapter 1

I feel myself fading.

The off beat dripping of water is the only sound I focus on.

Not the scratching of the metal tools Liam is picking up from the stone table top or the upbeat tune he"s chosen to hum as he figures out what"s next on his sadistic menu.

Drip, drip...drip.

"This will do." Liam mutters before something heavy and hard collides with my side.

I throw my head back, roaring with the pain that is now bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball against my rib cage. Sweat drips off my face, several drops sliding into my eyes as I squeeze them shut.

Liam grunts. I brace myself for another blows but this one lands lower against my hip. My bones protest and I"m almost sure something is broken.

Struggling is useless, Liam and the rest of the guards in the room have made it impossible for me to get away from the torture.

Peeking over my shoulder, I see Liam standing slightly to the side, a crazed smile on his face and a mini sledge hammer leaning on his shoulder.

Of course, he"s trying to break me down with brute force. He was never able to beat me physically before, I"m guessing this is his way of proving his strength.

"You sadistic fuck." I grumble.

Liam gasps and presses the head of the sledge hammer to his chest as if he were offended, "who, me?" With a chuckle he slowly walks so he"s standing in front of me. "Now why would you go and say a thing like that? You know me, Bishop. We"ve riden together, partied and prayed... we"ve done it all together."

"Yeah, so when the hell did you get so fucked up? You"re not the same man I knew before." I wheeze, trying to get the pain in my side and hip to lessen.

"You"re right. I"m not the same man. In fact, I"d go so far as to say you"re one of the main reasons I am the way I am today."

My eyes never leave his as I shake my head in confusion, "I"ve got nothing to do with what you"ve got going on here. Don"t blame me for your bullshit."

Quickly, the broad grin on his face drops as he lets go of the sledge hammer and grabs the back of my neck tugging forward and holding me at a uncomfortable postion. "Of course, you were part of it. The Boys of Djinn MC was going straight to the top. There was no one around to stand in our way. Not only could we have run the underground but with most of us having ties in the FBI we could have run all the legit avenues as well. All you had to do was going along with the plan. But that wasn"t good enough for you. You were the one who got it in my brother"s heads that we should try to link up with the Wings of Diablo, afterwards it was your idea that the club stay true to their word about not coming after them. You might not have come up with the plan but you damn sure made it so we needed one."

Finally, he lets me go and the sudden momentum forces me to swing backwards. "Do you even hear yourself. That"s called being a good person. There was no need to go after them in the first place. They weren"t a threat to us until you made them one."

"We"re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I"m hoping that sooner or later you"re going to see things my way." He shrugs and pulls the hammer back into position.

I know what"s to come. More pain.

"I"m never going to see things your way, Liam. Never."

"Oh, don"t say that. We"re going to be here for a long, long while.

***

We've moved on to an ice bath.

I'm not sure if this form of torture is better or worse than the blunt trauma. On one hand, at least he's not trying to break my bones anymore. But on the other hand, I'm shivering so hard it feels like my muscles are going to rip from my bones.

"I don't understand… I… I… I don't know what you want," I speak through clenched teeth, the force of keeping my jaw locked making my head pound.

"Oh no, shhh, don't worry yourself about figuring out what you can say to make me stop. I promise you, there are no right words. I don't want anything from you."

I groan and try to flex my fingers. The ice, along with the way I'm shackled in the big tub, makes it hard for me to get any blood circulation going.

"Then wh… why?" Asking is moot at this point. I already know the answer, but no matter how many times he's brought me to this room and set up various forms of pain, I always wind up asking him.

"Like I told you before, I'm never going to let you go. You and my brothers left me in that jail to rot. I didn't even get a birthday card or anything. Do you know how lonely it is locked up in a cell for twenty-three hours a day?" Liam dumps another bucket of ice into the already chilled water, and I groan as the water drops another few degrees.

"I'm doing this to you for one reason and one reason only. I want to break you, Bishop." He stands in front of me, capturing my pained gaze in his demented one. "I want you to curse the day you ever met my brothers and decided to ride for the boys of Djinn. I'll turn you against them even if I have to beat the loyalty out of you." He smiles and walks off, probably to get more ice, while I'm left to shake through the pain of being frozen alive.

My eyes begin to droop as I feel the effects of hypothermia start to set in. He's not going to let me die, though, right now death seems like the sweet release I've been wishing for over the past few weeks.

Liam starts humming again and picks up his phone to slide mindlessly through the apps and internet.

I give him my best glare. How the hell can he be this fucked up in the head and we not know it? Sure, when he first went after the Wings of Diablo, we knew he was a bit overzealous, but at least he had excuses for why he was doing what he was doing. Now there's no excuse. He's hurting us just for the thrill of it.

Hurting me and Gabrielle.

"You… you… You know," I stutter before taking a deep breath and trying to talk again, "I… I always thought I was the outsider in the club. You are all brothers and I'm just some man you met at work. It's plain to see who the outsider is though. You'll never be the same caliber of people your brothers are."

This gets his attention. "The same caliber? Are you out of your fucking mind? I'm the best of them. I'm the one with the drive and ambition, the one that they should've all been taking their orders from." Liam rushes over to where I am, his hands balled into fists.

"Don't you remember? They were taking orders from you. They were doing your bidding, which included getting one of our members killed and pulling a child from his mother to be put into the foster care system. Those was all your orders. Don't you remember that? You were the start of our downfall." Every part of my body is shaking and the pain is surreal, but I find quite a bit of joy in the look on Liam's face as he realizes everything I've just told him is true. When he was running the boys of Djinn, we were going down fast and hard all because he didn't know how to play nice with others.

"That"s the same thinking that got you guys in this situation to begin with. The reason why the club is shattered to pieces, with some of the members scattered to the furthest corners of the earth. The reason you and your woman are locked up in this little slice of hell." The sneer drops from his face and he replaces it with another smile. "You shouldn't have tried to turn the club against me. You should've just followed along."

"You turned them against yourself. This is all you, Liam. No one else."

He sighs and reaches over for another bucket. "I hope that's not true. I don't mind spilling your blood, but I'd hate to have to kill my brothers too."

I keep my eyes glued on his, just to see if there's any bit of hesitation, but I don't find any.

Liam Djinn is so far gone he'd rather see his own flesh and blood dead and in a grave than admit that he's not the leader he thinks he is.