Maddox smiled darkly. “I betrayed my club brothers and my own blood for you. What kind of feelings do you think?”
“Lust,” I joked, but my voice was hushed. None of this had been part of the plan, not for Maddox, not for me.
“So much more.”
Commotion and the snapping of twigs made me and Maddox pull apart to search the area. Cody and Earl were on their way down to us with two bikers whose names I didn’t know. Earl had Satan on the leash and Cody carried some kind of machine.
“How sweet,” Cody called, a nasty smile on his ugly face. Maddox’s uncle, on the other hand, looked furious. “If I’d known how easily you allow pussy to cloud your judgment, I would have made sure you stay away from her.”
Maddox eyed his uncle with contempt and wariness. “It’s time to end this game. Vitiello was our target, Earl.”
His uncle ignored him in favor of hovering in front of my cage and eyeing me with an unsettling glint in his eyes. “Cody has a knack for ink. I hope you’ll appreciate it.”
He unlocked the cage door. I resisted the urge to back away even if every fiber of my body screamed to flee. I was a Vitiello. I couldn’t appear weak even if I was terrified of what lay ahead. I’d felt the same terror when I’d first been kidnapped, ready to break under the force of my fear, but I hadn’t broken down, and I wouldn’t now either.
Cody carried the tattoo machine, I realized now, into the cage before he grabbed my upper arm in a crushing grip as two more bikers crowded into the narrow cage. They set a generator down beside me and attached the tattoo machine to it.
“Let her go,” Maddox seethed, his eyes brimming with fury as he gripped the bars, looking ready to tear them down.
“Your word means dick, asshole,” Cody said. Would they torture and kill us before my father arrived?
I believed in a higher power but I’d never been much of a prayer. Still, I begged whoever was listening to let my father arrive in time. In time to spare me more pain and whatever Cody was going to ink into my skin. To save Maddox too.
Cody shoved me against the dog hut and I fell forward, bracing myself on the dirty surface. Another man gripped my neck and held me down. A rip sounded and air touched my skin as my back was exposed. I struggled but I didn’t stand a chance against the three men in the cage with me.
“Earl, be reasonable, for fuck’s sake. Vitiello will be here any moment. Don’t waste your time on this,” Maddox tried to reason with his uncle but his voice didn’t sound like someone who wanted to negotiate. It sounded like murder.
“Vitiello wants to screw us over? His daughter pays the price.”
I rolled my eyes so far to the side until I caught Maddox’s gaze. The buzz of a tattoo needle sounded. I dug my teeth into my lower lip. The moment the needle touched my back, pain radiated down my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut, against Maddox’s desperate expression and the world as a whole. Cody was probably making sure it was particularly painful but except for a few sharp intakes of breath, I didn’t give any of them the satisfaction of a scream or my begging. They would all pay tenfold. Even if it took my last breath, I’d make sure of it.
Eventually the pain turned into a fiery burn and throbbing that I eventually got used to. I wasn’t sure how long the ordeal took but when I was finally released, I felt too weak to straighten. I pretended I had passed out. My eyes burned with tears ready to fall and so I forced my lids shut.
“Not as tough as her father now?” Earl said.
I didn’t react. I should have given a comeback but right this moment, I couldn’t do it. I needed my energy for the fight that lay ahead. I needed my strength for the reunion with my family so they didn’t have to worry more than they already had. I wouldn’t waste any of it on Earl or Cody or any other ugly biker.
“You’re dead,” Maddox growled.
I wasn’t sure whom he was talking to. Probably Cody. His bond to his uncle was still too strong.
A warm breath ghosted over my ear, raising goose bumps all over my body and sending a shiver down my spine, which sent a new wave of pain down my back. “This is what you get for messing with us. And soon I’ll fuck your ass right before your father’s eyes. Maybe I’ll force him to fuck you as well to save you,” Earl rasped.
I wanted nothing more than to kick him in the balls but I remained motionless. I still wasn’t sure if my legs would have carried me if I’d tried. I felt shaky and my back was throbbing. Worse than the pain, though, was the uncertainty about the tattoo. It had to be something nasty. Earl seemed way too smug.