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“Motherfucker,” Ripper growls, and it’s echoed by the other men like we’re in a bear cave and someone just threw in a great big piece of meat.
My heart drops into my stomach. A few minutes ago I was thinking about how nice all this was, and at that same time, Nicky was going through who knows what.
“So here’s the deal.” Crow’s tone is laced with self-satisfied venom. He knows he’s got us bent over a barrel. “As fucking delightful and dainty your girl’s fingers and toes are, I’m going to start taking them.”
I can’t hold in my sharp gasp. Not Nicky. “Let her go! She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
He laughs cruelly. “The look on your face says she does. What? You didn’t think I’d do whatever it fucking takes to get what I want?”
“Your dad deserved what he got,” Dad snarls like an animal. “He used pussy tactics like this shit to get what he wanted because the only ones he had the balls to hurt were women and children. My only fucking mistake was that I took pity on you because you were young.”
“Dad! Don’t make it worse” I don’t care how much of an animal he is. If he makes Crow hurt Nicky, I don’t know if I could forgive him.
“You motherfucker—” Crow cuts himself off. “Yeah, Daddy, don’t make it worse. Have you seen what he can do, bitch? I bet you thought it had been so long that we wouldn’t give a fuck about the old deal, but so long as I’m in charge, we don’t forgive or forget. I fucking loved my dad and you took him away. So if your daughter doesn’t come to me, bringing the fucking videotape with her, then I’m going to take pieces of her friend right here, one at a time until there’s nothing left, and I’ll mail you every single one of them separately. Her end will be as long and painful as I can fucking make it. Understand me?” In the background, Nicky whimpers.
“Don’t hurt her!” I yell over the cursing and outrage of the bikers around me. “I’ll come!”
“No, you fucking won’t,” snaps Dad, his face twisted in rage. “I’m not fucking giving you to this creep.”
“Nicky’s my friend!” I tear loose from Alpha’s embrace to point a finger at Dad. “I’m not going to leave this psycho to take her apart piece by piece!”
“Think,” says Ripper. “It’d just replace her with you, and we’re not going to fucking let you.”
“Not going to let me? Are you listening to yourself?” I yell at the phone, “Tell me where and when. As long as you release Nicky.”
“The fuck you are!”
Crow laughs at the chaos, but when he speaks, everyone quiets to not miss anything. “Here’s what you’re going to do. I’m going to send you a fucking address. You’re going to show up there, fucking alone and unarmed, with the God damned videotape, and if you fuck any of this up, you’ll be able to put your friend back together like a fucking jigsaw puzzle when I’m done with her. Got it? It’s so simple that even a Screaming Eagle should be able to figure this shit out.”
“Okay,” I say, in a breath I’ve been holding too long. I don’t want to go, because Ripper’s right. It would put me right in their hands, all to get back at Dad.
“Faith!” Dad and Alpha explode at me at once, fury radiating off them in palpable waves.
“You can’t trust a word that comes out of his fucking mouth,” adds Ripper. His frustration is thick.
“I know that, but what choice do I have?” I try very hard to ignore Crow’s laughter.
“I’ll leave you to discuss,” says Crow. “But her deadline’s literal, remember that.”
The phone goes dead. A moment later, it plings with a message coming in. The directions.
“You’re not going. Over my dead fucking corpse,” growls Dad, pulling up to his full height to loom over me. “And I’m not blind. You might think you have them wrapped around your finger, but Alpha. Ripper. Blade? They’re not letting you walk into that shit either.”
“Eagle-eye’s right,” says Alpha. “It’s only going to get you killed.”
“But you don’t care, do you?” Blade looks past Alpha to me, his expression grim.
“Don’t fucking encourage her.” Ripper glares between us.
Blade ignores him. Instead he speaks directly to me. “So what would you do?”
“I…” God, I really don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. “I don’t know, but I can’t let them keep Nicky.”
He nods. “So then they’ll have you both. Let me go.”
“What? No! He wants me.”
“He wants Eagle-eye to suffer. You’re just the knife he wants to stick in his side.” He looks at my father. “They’ll never see me. Not until it’s too late.” The steely promise in his dark tone has me shiver. He’s ready to kill.
