Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (66 page)

“What’re you--”

Before I could even finish my sentence, he pulled a recorder from his pocket and instantly pushed the ‘play’ button.

‘Oh, River... Oh my God, River... God, please more, please more.’

I heard the muffled sound of River slapping his hips against me, and cringed.

‘Fuck, baby, yeah. I'll give you every goddamn thing you want.’

When he grunted, I sank down into the couch, remembering back to that exact time in his room at the club.

‘You... I just want more of you.’

"Oh my God." I lowered my head and wrapped my hands around my mouth if only to keep myself from vomiting.

After giving him the reaction he had all but begged me for, Ricky pushed the stop button and ticked up the corner of his mouth while glaring. "I have a few more tapes around here from when you almost fucked him on his bike and inside his pickup if you want to listen to those too--"

"What the hell do you want? If it's Avery, then you know she wasn’t with me--"

"No shit," he snapped, his voice lowering, "which is why you're here with me instead. I'm gonna take you to her once you tell me where the fuck she is, and we're gonna pick her up together and take her back home like a family. Well,
I'm
gonna take her back home, and to
my
family," he said, resting a hand across his chest. "Mi Familia, which is where
you
won't be needed any longer."

"You're sick."

"Not nearly as sick as you. Tell me, where did you..." He bent forward and smiled wide again, almost like a kid who had just been told he was allowed to go on a no budget shopping spree inside the local candy store. "Where did you learn to do that thing with your cunt that he seems to like so much?” He drummed his fingers across his lips. “Something about squeezing his cock with it? I swear there was nothing like what you gave me, which wasn’t a hell of a lot--"

"How did you get those tapes?" I asked.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles together. Then he quickly arched is brows and lowered them, and winked at me. "You think your boyfriend sold you out?" He looked down at the recorder and shuffled it up and down. "I had Chino and his boys place bugs all over the club when those motherfuckers weren’t payin’ too much attention. That’s the kinda shit that happens when you get pussy involved."

And suddenly I remembered how everyone in the club gathered bugs from every place around it after Chino and the rest of the Dragons became 'pink dust' the night before.

"You're a freaky little thing,” he said. “Kinky as shit, I must say. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to these tapes over the last few hours, and the sounds you make one after the other as he’s shoving himself inside you. Even found myself jacking off a few times if only to keep busy until I decided to wake you up."

"You're disgusting."

He leaned his head. "It's part of why you fell for me, baby--"

"You tricked me into believing that you were somebody that you weren't, you delusional psychopath from hell. And all for the sake of what, exactly? God knows you getting me pregnant sure as hell wasn't planned."

"Wasn't it?” He leaned his head and made a face at me. Instantly, I became mortified. “See, I knew you wouldn't take me any other way before then because you were too fucking pure with your church and your preacher daddy and your values and all that other bullshit that you had learned over the years. And I knew that in order to grow my family and expand my dynasty in this business, I needed an heir with someone that I could be seen out with in public, somebody smart,
seemingly,
and respectable. Though I've gotta admit, I was hoping for a boy to carry on the last name and that he’d look more like me than you. Either way, fucking you raw was the only way to make that shit happen for me, but you wouldn't get on your back for me without a fight, so I gave you one. Even if one of those Shadow Riding assholes got to you after me, it wouldn't change the fact that once you were confirmed as knocked up, that kid was mine."

I gulped and gradually shook my head. "You always knew."

"You thought I was a fucking idiot just because I didn't contact you immediately after? You really are one stupid as fuck bitch, Mia. A fuck of a lot stupider than I remembered you being.” He snickered. “The doctor at the clinic that you took Avery to when she fell off her bike was my first cousin. You never questioned why he was the first and only doctor to come out and see you in the waiting room? I knew you'd have no choice but to end up there, and even if you didn't, I had others on alert no matter where you chose to take her, in or out of the city." He rattled his head. "All he did was confirm what I knew. And the only reason she fell off her bike that day is because one of my men feigned running her down. That pile of glass in the street that she landed into was an unfortunate accident," he replied, callous and careless as ever. "But it got me the information I needed to eventually get back here, and to you--"

"An unfortunate accident?" I snapped, cutting him off. "She could've been killed! She could've been killed all because you can’t help being a manipulative son of a bitch--!"

"But she wasn't killed, was she?" He placed the recorder on the floor and stood up from his chair. He slipped his hands inside the pockets of his slacks and stared down at me with a set of hard, brown eyes. "Did you really think that everything I did leading up to the night I dropped you off outside of River's club was a goddamn accident, Mia? Or a fucking coincidence? You should know by now that I never do anything without a rock solid plan set in place. I'm meticulous and I'm smart as shit, which is just part of what you fell in love with."

"I was never in love with you," I told him. "I didn't know the meaning of the word in terms of feeling it for someone else outside of Avery and my parents until River. You were just a bump in a very long road that led me straight to him, but--"

"So actually, you have
me
to thank for this," he said. "And because you have me to thank for this, I should be getting something out of it in return. Like my daughter."

"No--"

In an instant, he lunged forward and wrapped his giant hand around my throat, squeezing so tight that I could feel the air in my lungs subsiding and my face becoming cold due to lack of oxygen.

He moved his face over to the side of my head and pressed his lips alongside my ear. "You don't wanna test me more than you have already, Mia, alright?" he muttered. His breath was warm against my skin, and wet. It felt like a snake slinking up the inside of my thigh two seconds before sinking his teeth into my flesh to poison me. "Now I know that you had her shipped off somewhere outside of the city. All I need to know is where she is." He squeezed even tighter and I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks and splashing across the back of his hand, but he didn't flinch, not even a little. I stared up into his callous, angry and heartless eyes and watched in agony as he inched his fingers up toward my pulse to feel each side thumping against my skin in fear. "You tell me," he said. "And I'll let you live."

"No," I croaked out.

He roared like some kind of wild and angry animal and threw me over on my side and released his hand. I knocked my head against the arm of the couch and felt dizzy as I tried sitting up again. My vision became blurry, dark spots appeared before my eyes. When his phone started ringing, he reached down inside the pocket of his slacks to grab it and turned away from me to answer. I looked around the room at anything I could use against him, anything that could overpower him, but I knew that even picking up the chair to smash across his back would do no good. At over six and a half feet tall, he was inches shorter than River, but just as built in every area like a mac truck in the same manner as Trucker.

It was clear that if he had done nothing else in prison over the last eight years, Ricky had stuck to a strict workout and diet routine. His hair had been cut just below his shoulders, which I hated to admit made him look somewhat better than he had all those years ago; his beard was lightly shaven, though unlike River's he didn't have a single strand of grey, which made him look even worse in that respect. His clothes fit him perfectly, almost too perfectly as if they had been tailored right onto his body; which wouldn't have shocked me in the least, considering.

After a few more minutes of talking to the person on the other end of his phone, he bobbed his head and hung up, then turned back to me and peered.

"Sounds like River got a one up on his old man."

"What are you talking about?"

He waved his phone. "One of my men still out in Crescent Beach just called to let me know that Wolf's prick son is on his way up to retrieve you, if he’s not here already. Seems the old man gave him the heads up on where we are, probably hoping that River would spare his life, which I guess he did." He arched his shoulders and sighed. "Oh well. That just means I'll have to move faster than originally planned." He tossed the phone across the room so hard that it broke in half, then he raced forward and yanked me up from the couch by my arms, and forced me to stand to my feet. I tried kneeing him in the balls but that only resulted in him smacking me hard across the face, enough to leave what felt like a bruise across my cheek as blood trickled into my mouth.

When he realized that despite his attacks, I still wasn't willing to cooperate with him, he bent down to dip his shoulder beneath my waist and hiked me up and over it. My arms and legs swung from one side to the other as he dragged me up a set of unattached stairs, down a hall and into one of three empty bedrooms at the very end of it.

Everything started looking so terribly familiar then, but not as if I had seen any of it before; more as if it was all a replica of things that had already existed at some point in the past.

And that's when I realized just exactly where we were, and why.

"Oh my God." He dropped me back down to the floor once we were inside the room. It was dark, cold and wet. But the wetness didn't come from water or a leak somewhere throughout. After a few quick inhales, I concluded that what I had been standing in was nothing more than gasoline. "OH MY GOD!" I screeched and raced for the door as fast as I could, but Ricky darted in front of it and grabbed onto me, throwing me back into the wall on the other side so hard that I felt something pop inside my back. As I struggled to move, I looked around the room again and saw that the only window had been completely boarded up like those downstairs, and was wet with gasoline as well. "You can't leave me in here!" I told him in a panic. "Avery will find out what you did to me and she will NEVER forgive you for it! She may even kill you for it--"

"She can't kill me any more than you can kill anyone," he shot back.

"I've killed someone before," I told him. "A member of the Shadow Riders who tried and failed to attack me." He made a face of disbelief, but despite my partial lie on it, I kept up the front that it was true. “I know how to use a gun and a knife which means that even now, Avery can be taught the same thing."

"That's good to know," he said, his tone remaining flat and careless. "Once I bring her back home with me to Italy, I'll be sure to gift her with such things." He grinned. "Now you tell me where she is..." he started. I latched onto a wooden panel and dragged myself up from the floor. "And I'll let you light the match instead."

"Not a chance in hell," I told him.

"Then I guess we'll meet again once I'm finally down there to join up with you." He looked behind himself for a few seconds and then turned back to me. "The entire upstairs floor is covered in gasoline," he said. "And every room in this house is made from nothing but wood and pine. I won't actually set you on fire myself, because I did love you once, Mia. And I know that despite what you say now, you loved me once too." His eyes crinkled and he pinched his lips. "So as much as I might want to see it happen, I can't actually burn the mother of my child alive. But I
can
hope that she dies in the fire that I've set for her. Or the fire that you set for yourself." He snickered. "I heard you on those tapes say how much River ... what was it?
Inflamed
you? Made you feel something real and satisfying? I don't think you really know the meaning of that word. And how it should be used," he told me. "At least you didn't then, but I'm guessing that you finally will now." He backed out of the room.

"NO!" I raced up just as he slammed the door shut. And when I grabbed down for the knob, I realized that any lock that the door might have had was located on the outside. And since the door opened inward, there was no way for me to kick it out and escape. "NO!" I banged on the door with everything I had inside me just to make as much noise as I could. I didn't know if anyone else was out there or could hear me but him, but I didn't care; all I knew was that I had to keep screaming, had to keep making myself known. "NO!" I screamed again. "Oh God." I backed away from the door and looked down at the floor and saw smoke from the outside instantly working its way through the cracks and filling up the room. "Oh my God."

I started coughing so hard that the strain of it burned my chest and throat. I raced over to the window and yanked on the boards, turning back every few seconds to see just how much smoke was coming into the room. When I realized I had no other choice as a way to keep it out, I ripped off my shirt and jeans and stuffed them against the crack at the bottom of the door. I didn't know how long they would be able to keep the smoke out or keep me safe; just like I didn't know where in the hallway he had actually tossed the matches or how long it would actually take to reach the door, burn it to the ground and send me up in flames as a result right along with the rest of the house.