“If the rest of this table find out about this, they will end you.”
“I know. They have every right to.”
Samuel was silent for a long while. He dropped his eyes to his glass and turned it in is fingers. “If I end you; if I tell them and let them end you, then we lose the best chance we’ve got of ending the bastards who want me dead. Half my table is crippled at the moment. I keep you alive, I could give you a chance at redemption. I think I owe you that chance.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I’m not doin’ you a favor here. I want you to take out the bastards who want me dead. The chances are high you’ll die doin’ that. If you don’t, there might be a way back for you with this club, but I can’t promise that, I won’t promise that. That’ll be up to the table and they may well want to paint the bayou with your blood.”
“I accept that.”
Paul’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He’d forgotten that he’d picked it up, his hand guided by habit, as he’d left the house. He was going to ignore it. Now was not the time to be chatting with anyone. The only man with any claim on his attention at this moment was sat staring at him with hate in his eyes, but the sixth sense that had kept Paul alive more than once was working its magic. Paul pulled the phone out, ignoring the way that Samuel’s expression darkened still further, and answered it.
When the voice had finished speaking, the handset slipped from his fingers and bounced along the table. Samuel, having caught a word or two, was looking stricken now. Paul’s brain stuttered back into time with his heart, which had stopped dead and was now racing to regain its former rhythm. He turned wild eyes to Samuel.
“They’ve taken Ash.”
Chapter Twenty
The insistent knocking on the front door roused Ashleigh from a deep sleep. She ran her hands over the mattress as she came to and realized with a shock that the bed was empty. The shock turned to worry as she realized that the knocking was continuing. Surely if Paul as in the house he’d have gotten to the door already?
She scrambled out of the bed and tripped into her panties before tugging on a hoodie that had been slung across the seat of the chair. It was one of Paul’s, the kind without a zip that was more of a sweater, and it hung to her knees. She padded, half running on bare feet, to the door. Her confusion at Paul’s absence was momentarily forgotten in her rush to find out who was so adamantly demanding entry.
She saw the red and blue flashing lights through the glass and flung the door open, knowing who would be likely standing on the porch before she saw them.
“Where is he, is he okay?” She demanded, fear tightening her gut into an agonizing knot.
She didn’t see Chief Hooper’s fist swinging towards her face.
~o0o~
The blinding pain in her head roused Ashleigh from unconsciousness. She blinked, trying and struggling to focus. Panic stopped her heart until she realized that she was neither blindfolded or blind, only that the room was dark.
The room looked like a motel room. Generic decoration, generic, worn furniture, and no personal touches of any kind. It smelled like a motel, the musky, musty lingering scent of lots of bodies fighting past the pine disinfectant and the floral air freshener. Her heart stopped again when she allowed her head to roll so that she could see the other side of the room and she caught sight of the man sitting on the other bed in the room, watching her. She recognized him. One of the Rabid Dogs, the one with the red hair that had tried to grab her that night so long ago. The night that Paul had announced she was his. Paul! Where was he? She struggled to sit up. She wasn’t tied up, which seemed to be a massive bonus, until she realized that if they trusted her not to try to get away, it was because they had the means to stop her.
She took stock of her body. She was still wearing the hoodie and her panties. She wasn’t sore anywhere except her head, and she was still barefoot. A wave of dizziness and nausea washed over her as she pushed herself up against the headboard and tucked her legs under her. A mild concussion maybe... from... the memory was fuzzy at first, but the mist lifted a little and she remembered Chief Hooper knocking on Paul’s door, and then knocking her out.
Words split the silence. The man was on his phone telling someone else she was awake. He didn’t speak when he had finished his call, only smiled at her. That smile was both empty and full at the same time, and it chilled her to the bone. She was in deep shit. She had to find a way out.
The door opened. She caught a brief glimpse of a brass number glinting in the sodium yellow of the lamp over the door. Yep, a motel. It could be anywhere, though. She had no idea how long she’d been out. She might not even still be in Louisiana. She tried to focus on the two men who had entered the room. That bastard Chief Hooper and one that she didn’t know. Almost as tall, black hair, glinting eyes and a self-satisfied smirk. He was wearing a kutte, but she couldn’t tell from the slim patches on the front which club he was from.