Outlaw's Vow: Grizzlies MC Romance(43)

“Oh!” The asshole shined it right in my eyes. I jerked, feeling the light stabbing into my brain.

“Very responsive, just like your father,” a voice said, switching to English. “Miss Mathers, please call me Zee. You, sweet thing, are going to tell us everything we need to know about this ambush.”

Ambush? What the hell was he talking about?

“I don't know what you're getting at. I came here to help my father with a business deal. You were supposed to be doing a contract together. Weapons, I think? He never really told me the specifics.” I paused, considering my words. “He never really told me anything. Club business.”

I managed a shaky smile, repeating the phrase that had always worked before as a substitute for fuck off. I had to play dumb. If I could convince them I was just a stupid little girl helping with the family business, I might walk out of this alive, or at least delay them until Tacoma could get some backup.

But the entire club was here, wasn't it? I'd seen the bikes outside. Jesus, how many of them were still alive?

“You know, I might believe you.” Zee smiled, slowly pacing around me, circling like a menacing gray shark. “Why would dear old dad tell you anything about what's really going on when he was willing to put you between two dragons?”

Zee whirled, faced one of his men, and started talking Chinese.

What a piece of shit! Bring him in here. We'll just see how much she knows.

If she's telling the truth, we'll finish off his men, just like we planned. Sell her into slavery, perhaps.

If she's lying...we do them all. I'll garrote this bitch myself.

A cold, crazy chill ran up my spine. I saw him pull on something half-hidden in his pocket. A sharp cord, which he pulled up to his chest in the corner of my eye. Zee fiddled with it a few times, undoubtedly thinking about slicing into my throat with it, and then stuffed it back into place.

“We wait,” he said, staring at me with his dark brown eyes. “Dear old dad really must think he's hot shit. I flew here all the way from Shanghai, you know. My own fucking time and money, only to find out he meant to have me in that chair, ransoming me off after he killed my men!” Zee's hand slammed the wooden backside over my shoulder, rattling the chair so hard I could feel it in my bones. “Fucking idiot. Biker trash! I'll rip his balls off myself and he can watch them laying on the ground. You too, Miss Mathers, if you're telling the truth. He's wasted your time just as much as ours.”

His eyes bulged. He leaned in, looking like a total maniac.

Great, so I had Jekyll and Hyde to contend with. That terrified me, even if it gave me a few narrow options for survival.

No emotion. I couldn't let it come.

I didn't flinch, didn't protest, didn't show any reaction to the psychopath whispering in my ear.

When he stepped away, his face looked relaxed again, back to his somber, business-like expression.

Zee rolled up his sleeve and tapped his watch, an expensive platinum-plated luxury fit for a mafia don. A minute later, I heard several pairs of feet scraping on the concrete.

When I looked up, two of Zee's men were dragging my father into the vast room. His hands were tied together tight, and he looked like he was barely conscious. His movements were jerky, erratic, the protests on his lips so incredibly soft for being pulled along like an animal to slaughter.

“No, no, no,” he whispered, over and over, as if he could've believe it.

Neither could I. Hell, I could hardly handle what was happening in front of me. In all the years I'd grown up with daddy disappearing, going away and coming back cut, bruised, or bloody, he'd never looked as terrible as this.

So defeated. Dead, like they'd already done him in.

They'd bludgeoned him in the head. Blood dried in his hair and spread across his face, a rust red spiderweb coming out of the huge scar on his head.

Oh, God. Imagining the pain, my heart sank like a stone. It took everything inside me to hold back tears.

The Chinese released him and he toppled to the ground, laying like he'd just died. Zee walked over slowly, calmly, and then slammed his polished shoe into my father's ribs. His bones cracked so hard I winced.

“You have a visitor, old man. Do you still recognize your own daughter, or did that blow to the head fuck something up?” Zee grabbed my father's hair and pulled, yanked his head up like a doll's until we looked at each other.

Daddy's eyes went big and dark as soon as he saw me. I could've counted – five, four, three, two, one – before he flew into a biting, kicking rage.

“Let her fucking go! I made a mistake. I fucked up bad, asshole, but she doesn't need to be here like me and my guys. Just let her –“

Zee nodded. Half a second later, his boys shoved my father back on the ground. One held him down while the other bastard punched him in the stomach until he stopped making any sounds at all.