TORTURE ME_ The Bandits MC(114)

I began to feel the drain of talking to Dimitri again. The confusion he worked so diligently to foster in me sapped me of all of my energy. I didn’t want to put up with it again.



“Dimitri, I’m not going to help you. I’m going to take my chances with Gage,” I told him.



“You’ll be sorry,” he told me. “Gage is not who you think he is. He’s putting on his charm so you won’t see how ruthless he is. Why do you think Ivan needed me to come all the way from Moscow to work for him? Gage is ruthless and brutal. He will leave us both dead. You already know the Kings’ reputation.”



Again, Dimitri was right. The Kings of Hell did have a pretty nasty reputation as a brutal motorcycle gang. They definitely weren’t anything like the MCs that had been springing up over the last few decades, the groups who tried to help their communities by getting kids off the streets and giving them something to do.



From what I’d seen prior to meeting Gage, the Kings had more in common with the motorcycle gangs of the 1970s and earlier. They had developed a strong prison network through a regular revolving door of members getting sentenced and let out.



I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Dimitri, but I can’t let you do this to me again tonight. I can’t let you confuse me again like you did before.”



I pushed my chair back and stood up to leave.



“Listen, just watch your back,” he added with what looked like genuine concern in his eyes, but I was pretty sure guys like him were good actors when they needed to be.



“Thanks for the advice, but our conversation here is done.” I turned and walked back to the door, unlocking it on my own. Gage had given me the key for it when we came in that morning. He told me I could come and go as I pleased to talk with Dimitri.



He was still sitting in a chair waiting for me when I walked out.



“Anything yet?” he asked me.



I shook my head. “Nothing yet.” I didn’t want to tell him what Dimitri had told me this time.



“You look troubled,” he said. “What did he say?”



“Nothing. He’s just trying to confuse me,” I said.



“How so?”



“Nothing, alright?” I snapped at him, storming away through the pit, heading for the stairs. “I need some fresh air.”



For all I knew they were both trying to manipulate me for their own selfish needs in this. Once again, I found myself trying to figure out who was the actual good guy in this story. It was very possible, I realized, that neither one of them was the hero. That would make me the heroine. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that idea either.



I didn’t go back downstairs all day. I didn’t want to talk to Dimitri again. It was beginning to seem like a hopeless pursuit to try to get information from him. He just wanted to get out, and he was pretty determined to get me to help him. My loyalty was already paid for. My allegiance in this was no secret.



That being said, I also avoided Gage the rest of the day. Every time I saw him, all I could think of was Dimitri telling me that I was essentially a prisoner, just like he was, and my fate was going to be the same as his once Gage tired of his little game.



Gage had told me only to pack about a week’s worth of clothes and that ideally I wouldn’t be returning to my apartment until all of this was over. He’d also told me to let the department know that I was chasing a research lead on the Russian underworld.



Was he going to kill both of us and make it look like I’d been shot by someone who’d been tracking Dimitri? And wouldn’t his criminal connections be what got me shot anyway? If Gage did it, wouldn’t it be the same as if someone random had done it?



By the end of the day, my head was spinning with so many conspiracies, suspicions, and doubts.



Gage found me sitting in a metal chair in the garage at the end of the day, my head in my hands, trying to stop the spinning and contain the noise.



His large hand rested gently on my shoulder. “Are you ready to call it a night?” he asked in a tender, caring tone.



I touched his hand, expecting my confusion and suspicions to subside, but they did not. I was in too deep to turn from him, though. I couldn’t run at this point. I was stuck playing the part I’d been paid to play.



“I think I called it a night before lunch,” I told him, managing to force a light little laugh out for him.



“Come on, then,” he said, stepping around me and taking me by both hands. He walked me outside to the street and climbed onto his old Harley Davidson. It was one of the older, longer models, with the front wheel sticking way out in front and the longer handlebars that always made the driver look like he was sitting back, taking it easy.