35. Tempe

35

Tempe

My ears are ringing.

It rattles me awake, and I fight to blink my eyes open. My head hurts, and my body aches from lying on a hard, cold surface.

I plant my palm on the ground and search for my center of gravity when it feels like I’m spinning.

I’m in a basement, or at least somewhere underground. It’s cool, and the only light in the concrete room comes from the far corner.

Pushing myself up, my head spins, and my stomach heaves as I struggle not to vomit. Whatever they stuck in my neck has my head woozy, and it’s definitely not all the way out of my system.

I feel around me as I try to place myself in the room. My hands are free, and from what I can tell, I’m not chained down. But that’s not comforting when I know they’d only do that if they didn’t think they were at risk of me breaking out.

My vision clears, and I look around, searching for my brother.

“Austin.” I try to lift, but everything feels heavy, and when I search the room, I don’t see him.

“Don’t worry, he’s taken care of.” Dimitri’s voice comes from the staircase, and he stands up as I blink him into focus. “He’s going to take longer to come to from the sedatives. Being little and all.”

I’d almost think he’s saying it because he cares, but I know better.

“Where is my brother?”

“That’s not something you need to worry about.” Dimitri steps forward, and my hands shake.

His gaze moves to my bare legs, sending a cool chill up my spine. I smooth the bottom of my skirt, uneasy with how he’s watching me.

“Why are we here? Why are you doing this?” My throat is scratchy, so the words come out rough. “I already told you I don’t have whatever it is you sent me to the clubhouse for.”

“And I already told you that didn’t matter.” Dimitri laughs. “You’re still not getting it, are you? We never needed the flash drive to make it out.”

“Flash drive?” My eyebrows pinch.

“Cute.” Dimitri squats down in front of me. “They didn’t even tell you what they found, did they? You just cooperated while they kept you in the dark, doing anything and everything Steel wanted. I heard you were nice and compliant.”

My teeth grit. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The pictures say otherwise.” His dark eyes gleam.

“Pictures?”

“Let me guess, Steel didn’t tell you about those either. Wouldn’t want you worried someone was watching while he fucked you all over his clubhouse. Turns out you’re a whore just like your mother.”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” I snap.

“Why not? She’s the one who got you into this mess in the first place.”

“What are you talking about?” My throat burns as I stare into the eyes of the devil. “Where is she?”

“Where she belongs. Burning in hell for lying to me.” Dimitri glances to a dark corner of the basement where there’s a lump underneath a blanket.

He stands up, walking over to it, grabs the edge, and pulls back. Bile rises in my throat at the sight of my mom’s mutilated face. Her skin is gray, and her eyes are empty. But her face is battered from whatever they did before slitting her throat.

Even after seeing the video of her at the house, I held out an ounce of hope. That someday, she’d explain everything, and it would all make sense again. Now, she’ll never get the chance.

This isn’t like before when her death was an illusion. It’s the cold truth staring at me. She’s gone. She isn’t coming back. I really am the only family Austin has now .

My fingers tremble as I brush my hands over my legs. Goosebumps prickle my skin as a tear rolls down my cheek. I’m fighting to hold them back, but it’s useless.

“Why?” I shake my head; tears stream down my face. “I just saw her—she was alive.”

“She was.” Dimitri tosses the blanket back over her body, turning to face me. “Made an awful fucking mess when she changed her mind that night and tried to stop us. But the doc managed to patch her up long enough for her to get me what I needed.”

My head is spinning, and it’s taking everything in me to hold back the vomit. “What could she possibly have that you needed?”

Dimitri tilts his head to the side, watching me.

“The envelope?” I answer my own question.

“A birth certificate,” he snaps. “Proof.”

I shake my head, trying to process what he’s talking about. “Proof of what?”

But even as I ask the question, a sour feeling settles in my gut.

“She never told you, did she, Tempe?” He grins, and it’s filled with malice. “Why do you think Austin isn’t down here with you? Who do you think she was trying to protect?”

My heart races as I put the pieces together.

Mom refused to talk about Austin’s dad, and the few times she did, I got the impression she was scared, but I didn’t know why. Now I do.

“You’re his father. ”

For the first time, I see it. The shape of his nose—a little sharp at the end. The thick eyebrows and the strong cheekbones. As much as I hate to think it, Austin looks just like him, and I don’t know how I didn’t put it together before now.

Once more, Dimitri squats down, his eyes gleaming. “You’re not as stupid as your pretty face makes you appear. But you’re as blind as she was.”

I pull away when he reaches for me, but he doesn’t let me get away. His hand grips my jaw so hard it hurts.

“Where is my brother?” I ask again, even if he refused me an answer the first time.

“Don’t worry. My son is safe now that he’s free of you and your fucking Twisted Kings. He’ll be raised with the right colors on his back now that he’s home… You, on the other hand, have served your purpose.”

“So you’re going to kill me?” I swallow hard. “If that was the plan all along, why didn’t you just shoot me in the kitchen and take Austin when you had the chance?”

“That was the plan until you decided to be a little bitch and hid him from me.” Dimitri’s teeth clench. “Besides, Titan needed something done, and with your mother being a defiant whore, you were the next best option. Lucky for us, it worked out for the best.”

“But they caught me.” I shake my head.

“That was the fucking point, Tempe.” He stands up, pacing the room, watching me. “They were always going to catch you.”

I swallow hard, processing what he’s saying. “What did you do? ”

“The real rot always starts from the inside.” Dimitri sneers. “Steel should have learned that lesson after his vice president turned his back on his club, but lucky for us, he didn’t. It’s one thing to attack from the outside, but to make it really hurt—to destroy someone—you have to rot them from the inside out.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We never needed you to get the flash drive out of the club. We just needed them to find it. We needed them to wonder why a traitor’s daughter would be looking for it. We needed them to doubt you. It’s the only way Ghost would trust it.”

Dimitri walks up to me, grabbing my jaw and forcing me to look at him when I try to pull away.

“The harder it was to hack, the less they’d suspect what we were doing. And the more Steel focused on you, the more distracted he was to what he’d just let in.” Dimitri pinches my cheeks with his hold, and tears sting my eyes. “You think you were there to take something, but you weren’t. You were there to deliver the package. The moment Ghost hacked that drive, we got everything we were looking for.”

A tear rolls down my cheek. “You planted a virus.”

“Something like that.” Dimitri grins. “All thanks to you .”

“I didn’t do anything for you.”

“But you did do something for us , didn’t you?” Dimitri drags his thumb over my mouth, and the feeling like I’m going to vomit returns. “You kept Steel’s attention. You were the perfect little distraction, being Helix’s daughter and all. He was too busy focusing on your pretty face to see us coming.”

“And what if he had decided I was a traitor like my father instead of keeping me around?” I glare.

Dimitri drags his hand down my throat, and I push him away, but he just chuckles.

“Steel isn’t blind, and he’s not known for killin’ women.” He stands up, pacing the room again. “You’ve got a pretty face and a traitor’s blood in your veins. Everything we needed to keep Steel’s attention while Ghost let us in.”

“You can’t—”

“We already did.” Dimitri grins down at me. “And now my son gets to watch and learn while I make your boyfriend’s club suffer for everything they’ve done to the Iron Sinners over the years.”

“Don’t do this,” I plead, hating that I have no other choice. “You can’t take Austin.”

“He’s mine.”

“He doesn’t even know you.” I shake my head.

“And whose fault is that?” Dimitri yells.

A shiver runs down my spine, and I get a glimpse of the man my mother spent Austin’s life running from. The real reason she probably avoided Vegas for the past four years. If Austin was here, Dimitri could have gotten to him sooner.

“Please.” I climb to my knees, trying everything I can for my brother. “Austin is only four. He’s not going to trust you. He’ll be scared. Please let me see him. He needs a familiar face. ”

I think of anything—say anything—to try and talk my way out of this.

“He already has a familiar face.” Dimitri smirks. “One Steel made sure he was nice and comfortable around from what I can tell.”

My eyebrows pinch as the memory of being dragged into the van floods back to me. “Reyes.”

The last thing I remember before the world faded out was Reyes grabbing Austin. In my haze, I wanted to think he was trying to save him. But he wasn’t.

Steel trusted him to protect us, and now they’re going to use that familiarity against my brother.

Dimitri nods. “Steel should blame himself, honestly. He’s the one who gave a prospect full access to his life. Who do you think planted the flash drive in Helix’s room in the first place? It’s not like he could walk up to Ghost and hand it to him. They’d be too suspicious.”

“Reyes is an Iron Sinner?”

“Born and raised.”

“But how…?” Jameson would have looked into a new prospect, and Ghost seems like someone who doesn’t let things like that get past him.

“Let’s just say Steel’s not the only one with resources now. It doesn’t matter how deep Ghost digs, he’ll never be able to discover who Reyes really is.”

Who he really is?

A traitor.

A merciless killer.

It won’t matter once Jameson finds out what the two of them have done. I’m not a killer myself, but I hope Jameson makes them pay, whether I’m around for it or not.

I take a deep breath, gathering my composure. “Steel is going to find us, and when he does, he’ll make you pay for what you’ve done. Your whole club is going to suffer for this.”

“You’re awfully confident for a biker slut.”

I glare up at him. “And you’re awfully confident for a murderous piece of shit.”

Dimitri storms across the basement at my comment, winding his arm back and striking me across the cheek. His knuckles hit so hard I see spots, and my back slams into the wall behind me.

He grabs my hair, forcing me to look into his sick, devilish eyes.

“I’ve changed my mind. Death would be too easy for you after all. You want to know what the Iron Sinners do to bitches who don’t know how to keep their mouths shut? I’ll show you.” He tosses my head away, and the back of it hits a wall. “Steel won’t find you out here. No one will. And when I bring my men back downstairs, you’re going to wish I’d slit your fucking throat.”

The darkness in Dimitri’s gaze sends a shiver up my spine as he glares at me, and with a final dark chuckle, he walks up the stairs, slamming the door behind him. Something clicks, and I assume that must be a lock.

Steel will find me.

He has to .

But until then, I can’t sit around and wait. I have to get out of this basement before Dimitri and his men come back. I have to find Austin.

If I don’t, I’m not sure either of us will survive.