TORTURE ME_ The Bandits MC(163)

Just then, I heard what sounded like a gunshot, but it was just one.



Dimitri’s breath caught in his throat and he stood straight up, hitting his head on the low ceiling of the room.



“What was that?” I asked him.



“Be quiet,” he ordered me, cocking his head and listening.



It was quiet outside, but we could hear voices and footsteps as more men ran outside. I barely dared to breathe, and Dimitri held a finger up to remind me to keep quiet. We sat and listened, but we didn’t hear anything other than the occasional footfall of security moving around outside.



“Something’s not right,” Dimitri said, mostly to himself it seemed.



“What is it?” I asked.



“I don’t know,” he answered absently, still trying to hear whatever was going on up on deck.



Then, more shots rang out. Many more shots rang out. We heard shouting and people running around above us. A frantic knock came at the door.



“They’re here,” the guy told Dimitri in Russian.



“No shit, really? Come on, help me out in here.” He grabbed the young man by the back of his button-down military shirt and pulled him in. He looked like a soldier in the army, and I started to realize just how bad things had gotten since the collapse of the Soviet union  —yes, I was always doing research, so if anything relevant happened at any time, I was going to plug it into my understanding of Russia.



“What do you want me to do?” the soldier asked.



“Help me get her outside. I want her to see what happens to the men attacking us when we fight back. I want her to watch her boyfriend die, and I hope she gets caught in the crossfire in the meantime. That would just be a bonus.”



Both men grabbed my chair and started dragging me outside and upstairs. I heard and felt the wood creak, threatening to finally give, but it held as they took me through the door and up the stairs.



The gunfire grew louder and louder until it surrounded us. I couldn’t believe it. He really was putting me outside in the middle of the fight, where I was sure to get hit by a stray bullet at some point.



“What are you doing?” I asked Dimitri. “Why are you taking me outside?”



“I want you to have a front row seat for all of the exciting action,” he answered. “Plus, I want your boyfriend to see you and get distracted. You’re going to watch him die, Dr. Danvers, and for that, I’m truly not sorry. You’ve both earned the misery that’s coming to you.”



I wasn’t prepared for the shift from his sexually charged threats to his usual stony voice letting me know in no uncertain terms exactly how he expected things to go down. That shift in his demeanor meant shit was really going down. He wasn’t just having fun with me anymore, and it was all too real all of a sudden.



“Look, it doesn’t have to go down like this,” I protested.



He laughed dismissively. “You don’t get to decide how things happen at this point. All you get to do is watch us kill your boyfriend and his friends. You get to watch us crush that precious little motorcycle gang. It’s time to usher in a new era,” he told me.



“A new era?” My mouth started working on its own. “You’re just a bunch of damn street thugs. Don’t act like you’re making some great impact on the world at large just because you have some measure of control over drugs and weapons. You’re nothing. Your existence is tolerated by those who could easily crush you if they decided they were done with you, and you’re filled with so much self-importance that you don’t see it.”



I pulled on my restraints. The chair seemed much weaker while they were carrying it. If I could break it while it was in their hands, I figured I would have a chance at getting away from them, but it just wouldn’t give enough to break, and I didn’t have enough time to keep working it before they put me down again.



Even on flat ground, I figured if I threw my weight to the side hard enough, I could knock it over and buy myself another chance to break the chair and break free, but Dimitri’s partner grabbed the chair and held it down.



“Grab some weights,” Dimitri said. “Let’s secure her and keep her from escaping before she can see any action.”



He grabbed the chair while the soldier ran off to grab weights and more rope so they could be secured to the legs of the chair.



“You’re going to sit here like a nice little girl and watch the show, Julia,” he said in my ear. “And when it’s over, I might just let you go so you can fight back when I take you back down to finish you off. And I mean it in every way you can imagine.”