Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

Let's just say when a door from a car swings open and a big, scary dude lunges out of it, you know exactly what was going on.

I had been tricked.

And I was going to be used as some kind of bargaining chip.

"Stop fighting," the guy growled after throwing me inside, making my head crash against the other closed door, the crack making my teeth slam together painfully.

I hadn't even realized I was fighting. It was all pure, undiluted, animalistic instinct. I was flailing- kicking out with everything in me at the man who grabbed me as he got in the back with me and slammed the door.

"Could throw her in the trunk," came a suggestion from the front in a voice that sent a chill down my spine because I recognized it. It had once screamed at me, cursed at me, demanded to know where my supply was.

My head twisted to look into the front seat, seeing eyes in the rearview that made my stomach clench hard. The driver was the one who had beaten me. I would know those eyes anywhere. That, and the fact that his face was beat to hell still... thanks to Ryan. The passenger was looking over his shoulder at me and he was familiar too- the one who had searched my apartment, destroyed it, took away every bit of comfort I found there.

"Shut the fuck up and drive," came the almost alarmingly calm voice in the back with me, despite the comment from the guy driving, my leg had kicked out and collided with something hard- ribs maybe.

He looked somewhat similar to the guys in the front. There was a certain roughness to everything about him. His eyes were a dark brown, but unreadable. His face was one I might have found handsome under different circumstances with his strong, wide jaw, dark hair, and altogether hyper-masculine characteristics. He was big too- wide, strong. He seemed to take up all the space (and air) in the backseat.

My leg kicked out again, fear a collar on way too tight, choking me, making me react without thinking.

Strong hands moved out and grabbed my ankles, pinning them to his hard thighs. "Stop fighting," he repeated, but his words weren't loud or scary or even all that threatening. In fact, he said them quietly so that only the two of us could hear it, his eyes looking down at me.

If I wasn't strangling on my own terror, I might have said he looked like he was begging me to understand.

But understand what? Kidnapping me?

There was no way to understand that.

"Let me go," I whispered back, my eyes so big that I knew they were pleading and, quite frankly, my pride could take a freaking hike because there was no room for it in this situation. If begging, pleading, crying, screaming for my freaking mommy, anything could get me out of it, I was willing to try.

"Can't do that," he said back, just as lowly, his mouth barely opening to enunciate, but I understood perfectly well.

"What the fuck you doing back there, Albert, playing footsie with the bitch?" the driver asked, making my stomach turn sour again and I worried for an almost excruciating moment if I was going to be sick all over myself.

"If you don't shut your mother fucking trap and mind your own goddamn business, I am going to have you pull this car over. But the one going in the fucking trunk will be your stupid ass."

Those words shut the driver up with a small grumble as he reached for the radio and turned it up. The speaker behind my head on the door must have been blown out because nothing was coming out from there which was a blessing because I needed to think straight.

First thing was first, the guy in the back with me, Albert, seemed to be the one who was sort of in charge. Secondly, his name was Albert. I had heard Bry slip on and off about his boss and he had called him Dom, not Albert. So who was the giant in the back with me? Just someone higher up than the muscle-bound jerks who beat and robbed me?

"I won't tell anyone," I tried, taking deep breaths, trying to keep the growing panic at bay. I wouldn't be able to think anything through if my brain was completely paralyzed by those anxiety-fueled thoughts.

"Not my call, sweetheart," he said, an apology in his voice.

I didn't need his freaking apology. I needed his empathy, his moral compass, his realization that what he was doing was beyond messed up.

I felt the tears well up- useless but unstoppable nonetheless. I blinked them away rapidly, trying to not show so much weakness. But he was watching me and his own eyes closed for a long second, like he didn't like seeing them. But when they opened, he didn't give me any kind of comforts.