I’ll be so fucking pissed if he’s the last thing I see before I die.
His boot eases up. It takes me a moment to realize a trickle of air is entering my lungs. I gasp, start struggling again. He laughs.
He fucking laughs, and his thugs join him again, cackling and whooping. Fuck them. I hope they choke on it. I bet they’ll want an Oscar for their performance, too.
Dickheads.
“I hope you don’t expect any of this after your little stunt.” Grinning gleefully, Simon lifts his foot off me and fishes out a small plastic bag filled with white powder from his pocket. He dangles it in front of me like bait.
My mind goes blank, then red-hot with need. I lunge after the bag as he steps back, leaving me to fall on my face, still woozy and out of breath.
“Damn you,” I whisper.
“Enough small talk.” One of his goons grabs me and lifts me up like a ragdoll. No small feat, considering I’m as tall as he is. “Boss asked if you know Chet Storm,” he barks in my face, spitting like a mad dog.
“Never heard of him before,” I croak.
Not a lie. I assume that’s Raine’s father, but I never knew his name.
And I still look longingly after the small plastic bag, need singing in my blood. Fuck, I’m in such big shit.
The Neanderthal thug shifts his hold to one hand on my shoulder, grips my jaw with the other and turns my face back to him. “How do you know him? What’s his connection to the Chicago families?”
Oh fuck. Mafia. “I don’t know.”
I never see the punch that lands into my stomach, but I gag and twist, trying to curl around the pain but unable to, what with gorilla-face holding me up and all.
“Think again. Maybe it will come to you.”
Another punch, and a hard shake. Jeez. I hope his shoes are real expensive and that they’re his favorites, cuz I’m about to puke all over them.
Then I wonder whether it’d be wiser to relax in his hold to minimize the damage—or fight him and hope he knocks me out quickly so I won’t have to deal with the rest.
But my fear of getting raped while unconscious won’t let me do either thing. I can’t pretend to relax, and I can’t hope to get knocked out. Fucking joy. At least the pain’s taking my mind off the drugs. It’s all I have right now. I cling to it as the gorilla pounds me again, and again, asking the same question, as if that will trigger my memory.
Maybe it works, I think fuzzily, as disjointed images dance through my mind—another basement, another man punching me, kicking at me, cursing me—but the pain always brings me back to the here and now. This basement, this man. This clusterfuck.
My story doesn’t change. I don’t know who Chet Storm is, I was just passing by the alley, I don’t know anything about the mafia.
He thinks pain will break me? I’ve suckled on pain as a baby. It’s all I know. If anything, he’s fueling my stubbornness, grounding me more.
Until they shove me down on the floor, on top of the scratchy blanket, and drop their pants.
The panic returns, and I just hope that my memory will be game in erasing this day from hell for me. Blacken it out, delete it, push it down so deep it never resurfaces.
What’s one more lost fucking memory, right?
Chapter Twenty-One
Raine
DeathMoth, Rafe’s and Dakota’s punk rock group, has a rehearsal today at Collateral Damage, and we’re taking advantage to check the technical aspects—mics and speakers, deciding if to place a raised stage or not, where the cables will go.
I’m taking notes, nodding as the technician explains things to me. In theory, I’m in charge of this event, but Megan has more or less taken over the organization.
Just as well, since I can’t remember a word the technician has told me and my notes consist of depressing doodles. My mind hasn’t been on work ever since the night Jason helped save me from the attack in the alley.
The last time I saw him. I’ve gone looking for him, every morning before work, every evening after, but he’s not to be found at his usual spots. I tried tracking down the people I sometimes see him talking to—a lanky guy, a girl with spiky hair—but it’s as if the ground opened up and swallowed them all.