Chapter Thirty-Four

SHAY

"Why are you doing this?" I groaned, pressing a towel to my head with one hand since the other was zip-tied to an old wall heater.

I'd woken up in Jason's living room, right where I'd sat with Ali a few weeks ago, feeling like someone was playing tennis inside my skull.

The wooden floor was cold and hard, not helping the fact that I was nauseous, shaking, and more than likely had a concussion—the gun that split open my head being the culprit.

"Your boyfriend came by a couple weeks ago," Jason spat, pacing back and forth in front of me, making my head pound just that much harder as I fought to keep up with his erratic movements. He pulled at the sleeves of his sweatshirt, exposing grazes and scrapes that had begun to heal and scab over. "He did this! Right before he dumped fifty grand of oxy into my fucking hot tub!"

He grabbed a vase off the coffee table, and I was quick to cover my head as he sent it careering at the bookshelves on the opposite wall, the shattered pieces scattering around the room.

"I didn't know he'd come here—"

"You're fucking lying," he snapped, his eyes widening like saucers as he jabbed his finger at me. "You told him I had drugs. They came to destroy them and get rid of the competition." He cackled with laughter. "God, it makes so much sense now. Shay, the little addict, didn't get her shit together and become a nurse. Shay, the addict, became a nurse so she could steal drugs, and then when that wasn't enough, she started fucking the leader of this fucking gang to get more."

"Go to hell, Jason," I hissed in absolute disgust. "So what now? You've shot a club member, kidnapped the president's girlfriend, and for what? Because you're pissed over a few fucking pills? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?"

He was silent for a second, processing the information I'd just laid out.

"You have no idea, do you?" he questioned, though I was pretty sure he wasn't actually looking for me to answer. "Oh my God, you don't know."

He let loose a crazed laugh that seemed to fill his chest.

And I waited, letting him have the moment of brilliance he seemed to think he was having because the longer he wailed, ranted, and gloated about what he'd done, the more time Bishop and the boys had to get to me.

"Oh geez, I'm so glad I get to be the person to tell you this. To see your face." He rubbed his hands together like a fucking evil genius preparing his I won speech. "Vince Martelli killed his parents this morning."

Oh God.

The blood rushed from my face as fear settled deep into my bones.

"And the first thing he did was put a fucking hit out on your head!" He was practically jumping for joy, elated by the idea that someone had offered money for me to be killed. "My dealer rang after he heard about it, wondering if I knew anything, said we could go half in the money if I found you and he hooked me up with Martelli. I knew exactly where you were, just had to look up the address for the clubhouse and cruise by every half hour or so until your car was there."

The sad part was Jason obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. He really thought Vince would show up with a bag of cash and hand it to some rich kid with a vendetta.

"You're making a mistake," I tried to reason, but he just rolled his eyes and walked over to the desk across the room. He threw it open, shoving his hand inside and digging around like my brother had done a few weeks earlier.

When he pulled his hand out, he clutched a tiny pill bottle that rattled in his hand. "This Vince guy is offering a hundred grand. My half will at least replace the money your fucking boyfriend emptied into my hot tub."

"You know he's gonna kill me," I said, laying it out there even though I knew he wouldn't care.

He shook his head. "Actually, he specified that he wanted you alive. So lucky you, he'll probably sell you off to some foreign country, and you'll spend the rest of your days being a whore."

While it made me want to vomit, I was afraid he was right.

"I hope he kills you."

The smile dropped for just a moment, and I took what little delight I could from it.

It wasn't much, but I needed every ounce of positivity I could get right now. I needed to keep pushing, thinking, and looking for ways out.

"All this is fucking karma, Shay," Jason gloated, tipping a couple of pills into his hand. "Coming back to bite you in the ass for all the shitty things you did."

He placed the bottle onto the desk and tossed back the pills, swallowing them dry.

That's how you knew an addict.

Sometimes, it was easiest to take them and wait for the effects to slowly roll in. Other times, if you had the patience to stop and take a minute to crush them up, you could feel it almost instantly when you sniffed it.

I'd done both, desperation sometimes taking over.

Even now, as I sat here in full panic, watching him take those pills, there was an itch in the back of my brain that wanted to ask for one. The addict was always in me. That part never had left, and I was sure it never would. She was just quieter some days than others.

And the longer I kept her back there, the more she faded into the darkness.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Jason glanced over at me with a smile before heading out through the foyer to the front door. The creak of it pulling open felt like someone had their hand wrapped around my internal organs, and they were squeezing.

"Hey, come in. I'm Jason!"

"Vince Martelli."

I was going to be sick.

"Come through, she's just in here," Jason announced, the footsteps getting louder.

"How'd you get hold of her?" Vince questioned, their eyes instantly falling on me as they came through into the lounge.

Jason grinned. "Shay and I go way back. Her brother actually is a close friend of mine. I've known them since they were stealing money to pay for a couple of oxys as teenagers."

Vince raised his eyebrows, glancing between the two of us. "Shay was a druggie?"

"Not anymore," I snapped. "I've been clean for ten years."

"So she says," Jason said, rolling his eyes. He walked over and reached for the pill bottle, shaking it a couple of times like it was some packet of dog treats, and I would roll over and beg for them. "You can see it in her eyes. She still wants them."

Vince was back to that composed, put-together bastard he seemed to be able to pull off when I wasn't pushing his buttons. This was Hyde. Jekyll was there, though, just beneath the surface. "I'm grateful for the help in getting her into my possession. I'm sure Shay and I are going to learn a lot more about each other over the next few hours."

I was confused about his use of words. Why the next few hours? What did he plan on us doing together?

"So… shall we… talk money?" Jason prompted, his drawn-out words and slow speech a sign the pills he'd taken were hitting his system. "You gozz cash?"

Vince smiled politely, reaching into his back pocket. I expected to see a wade of cash, but instead…

"Oh my—"

Bang.

Jason was too slow.

So slow, in fact, I wasn't even sure he knew what was happening when the bullet was sent careening through the center of his skull, spreading blood and brain fragments across the bookshelves behind him.

My chest heaved, my breathing became ragged and uneven, and the thump of his body hitting the floor made me jump. "Holy shit," I cursed, shaking my head. "No."

"Oh, don't act like you're disappointed," Vince berated as he walked over to me. "That guy was a fucking asshole. And stupid. So stupid."

He was.

Jason was an idiot for thinking Vince Martelli was going to walk in and hand him that much money when the cold-blooded asshole murdered his parents that morning. His own flesh and blood.

Vince reached into his pocket, pulling out a Swiss Army knife. He flicked the blade open, and I flinched, making him laugh as he slipped it through my restraints. When he was done, my entire body tensed, ready to fight.

I needed to fight.

But less than a second after that knife sliced through my zip ties, it was pressed painfully against my throat.

Every thought I'd had of punching, kicking, and gouging until I could get away flew right out the window because I already felt droplets of blood trickling down my neck. One more move would open my jugular.

"Come on," Vince encouraged, holding out his free hand for me to take. "Let's go for a ride."

"To Hell?" I muttered, getting to my feet.

Vince grinned. "Pretty fucking close."