Death Layer (The Depraved Club) (6 page)

“Shit!” Bane shouts.

Jack grins.

When Bane straightens again, an accusing finger is pointed
at Jack. “She’s my property, I do want I want with her. That’s the deal, right?
Club rules.”

Jack nods slowly. “Long as she stays with the MC. No
heroics, asshole.”

“Up yours.” Bane’s lazy grin is back. “You win this one.
I’ll keep her.” I stare up at him through my mess of hair, and catch his gaze
as it flits over me. He licks his lips. “But I do what I want with her,” Bane
asserts, “And no one else touches her. Got it?”

Jack grunts. “Fair enough.”

“Fine. Thanks so very much for the present, daddy. Now get
the fuck out of my room.”

As he ambles out, Jack winks at me. “Red, meet the Beast.
Good luck.”

There is a chorus of laughter from the men as they shuffle
out the door. It sends a chill down my spine. Bane stands and slams the door
behind them, and I get a view of his backside.

He’s got a tight ass and muscled thighs that I’d admire
under any normal circumstances, but it’s the hellish tattoo scrawled over his
back that grabs my attention and sends a spiral of fear through my belly.
“Death Layer” is scrawled in black ink across his shoulders, a huge flaming
devil’s head and crossed guns image underneath. The letters “MC” are off to the
side next to a black diamond with “1%” inside. Across his lower back are the
words “New York City.”

The gears click together in my brain, finally. I’ve seen
Sons of Anarchy; this is a fucking biker gang. Sweet baby Jesus.

“You had to get involved,” Bane is muttering to himself. He
bangs his forehead lightly against the door. “Biker with the heart of gold.
Dipshit. Jesus fucking Christ. Now I’m a fucking babysitter.”

He turns, crosses his arms, and slides his eyes all over me.
There’s something clinical and cold about the way he looks at me.

“You got a name?” He demands. “Or shall I just call you Red
too?”

My heart is hammering again, this time in my throat. My bra
and underwear do nothing to protect me from that all-seeing, assessing gaze of
his. I can’t read his eyes.

“Great,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “And she’s
dumb as a post. What the hell am I gonna do with you? I don’t like useless
pets.”

He chuckles at that. The sound is startling and deep and
sends a spike of sensation to my groin. My palms grow sweaty with confused
panic, lust, and desperation.

“Well miss, we don’t really have a choice here do we.
Outmaneuvered. You’re stuck—I’m stuck. We might as well make this pleasant if
we can. I don’t bite. Unless you’re into that.”

Bane “the Beast” takes a step towards me.

Oh fuck.

What now? Unable to think, I scramble back toward the wall
and feel my fingers close around something hard.

It’s the shotgun.

Chapter Seven

Bane laughs at me. “Just what do you think you’re going to
do with that?”

In answer, I unlock the safety. It’s been like, never since
I’ve shot a gun, but I’m willing to start now. I balance the barrel between my
knees.

Bane reads the message of my eyes loud and clear. “Don’t be
fucking stupid,” he warns. “I just might change my mind about helping you.”

“
Helping
me?!” The bitterness creeps into my voice
against my will.

“Whoa, it speaks.” He pretends to jump in surprise, and then
leans against the door with a mocking laugh. “You know, a little gratitude
wouldn’t kill you! I just saved your sorry bony ass from a fate worse than
death, and possibly including death. I’m your fucking knight in shining armor.
You’re welcome.”

I glare at him. “Jury’s still out on that, thanks.” I bite
out through chattering teeth.

His muscles are like a coiled spring ready to pounce as his
gaze flits over the business end of the gun. “That so?” A predatory grin curls
on his lips. “What’s your plan, princess?”

“I’ll shoot you if you come any closer.”

“Doubt it. You don’t have the balls.”

He thrusts his hips teasingly at me and I find myself
staring at his cock again. Reddening, I blink away. He grins at me, obviously
proud of himself. His casual ease and complete disregard for his own nakedness
are jarring to my scrambled senses. My flaming cheeks are now uncomfortably
hot, but I clutch the gun tighter. He grimaces.

“You’re not thinking,” Bane continues. “If you shoot me,
then you’re not my property anymore and I can’t be your babysitter, can I?
They’ll pass you off to someone else, someone who maybe isn’t as much of a
gentleman as I am. Maybe someone like Jack.”

He registers my shudder and nods.

“Now I know you only just met Mr. Keller,” Bane elaborates,
“But you maybe picked up on the fact that our boy Jack doesn’t share my
scruples about human trafficking. Or consensual sex.”

I feel the blood drain from my face and hands. I’m just one
large blob of adrenaline with a speeding heart rate.

“Gee,” I manage, “You’re a regular feminist aren’t you?”

Bane squints at me, eyes glittering. “Let me break it down
to small parts so you can understand, princess. Without me you’ll wind up smack
dab in the middle of the D.L. club chained to a fence or inside a cage with a
one-way door. Is that what you want?
Red
?”

A long silence stretches out. The reality of my predicament
is starting to sink in, as well as the fact that I’ve got nothing but some
biker’s account of himself and his world to cling to for safety. He said he
wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. He said he doesn’t do slaves.

Yet here I am.

So…why the hell should I believe him?

“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” he grunts, as if
answering my thoughts. “Not the worst deal for you but fuck if I’m pleased.”

Something about the menacing way he says that coupled with
the small step he takes in my direction freaks me out enough that my trigger
finger twitches ever so slightly.

It’s enough. There’s a popping sound and I scream, but for
some reason the shotgun doesn’t actually fire. Bane dives at me, swearing, his
body slamming me backward and crashing my bones into the hard mattress.

“No!” I wail, thrashing.

“Fucking moron!” He bellows.

He’s on top of me, his naked skin pressed against mine, and
he wrestles me until we are both sweating and breathless. I am pinned to the
bed, completely prone beneath him.

“That wasn’t nice!” Bane barks. He wrestles the gun out of
my hand and tosses it to the floor. I can smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Thank god it wasn’t loaded or we’d both be in deep shit. Idiot! Did you not
listen to what I just said?”

We are nose-to-nose, breathing each other’s air and tasting
each other’s sweat.

“Fucking women,” he curses. “You make no god damn sense.”

“Well excuse me if I don’t accept being some skanky gangster
man-whore’s property!” I growl. “Excuse me if I don’t fall all over myself with
joy! You’re a criminal just like them, otherwise you’d let me go!”

“Easy with the name calling,” he shoots back. “Look
princess, it’s complicated ok? We’re both up shit creek without a paddle here.
I didn’t exactly write you down on my Christmas list.”
“How terrible for you,” I spit, thrashing. “Would you rather have had a
different size or color woman? A boy? A blonde perhaps? Or two, since that’s
your thing? Should I apologize to you for finding yourself in the terrible
position of
owning
me?”

“You are really starting to piss me off lady,” he growls
through clenched teeth. He tilts his head back to get a better look at me. “I
didn’t ask for this. I sure as hell don’t want some frigid cager bitch dicking
around with my Remington. I’ve got enough going on, myself. So if it
were
up to me, you’d still be shoving organic popsicles up your ass on the Upper
East Side or wherever the fuck you came from. But clearly, that’s not
happening. So accept it. I’m the best fucking thing that could have happened to
you tonight, and you better get that through your thick head if you want my
protection.”

Finally, rage breaks through my fear and confusion. I am
pissed as hell, pissed that Mr. King hijacked my life, pissed that twisted
criminals like Jack exist, pissed that I’m caught up in a dark world I can’t
control. Pissed that there is a sex trade. Pissed that there are biker gangs.
Pissed that I’m in New York City at all when I could have just listened to my
parents and had a nice quiet life in Michigan.

Pissed that Bane is so goddamn full of himself.

All of this accumulates in my brain to the point of rage. It
wells up inside and renders me reckless. I snort until I can hock up a spit
wad, and send it right into Bane’s eye.

“You arrogant prick,” I hiss. “You’re the worst thing that’s
ever happened to me.”

He stares at me with deathly calm for a minute, then shifts
his weight over me until he can still hold me down while wiping his face clean.
When he’s finished, his face is livid.

“Wrong move, Red,” he whispers. An iron hand closes around
my neck. “Wrong move.”

Quick as lightning he is standing, yanking me up beside him.
His grip on my throat is controlling but not debilitating, and he uses it to
push me in front of him as he slams out of the room. Never mind that we are
both either naked or close to it: he marches me down the long hallway and up a
flight of stairs resolutely, muttering to himself all the way.

“You could have left her with Jack,” he says to himself.
“She didn’t have to be your problem. You could have minded your own business.
You could have had another blowjob by now. Hell, you could have had three
blowjobs. But no, you had to be a fucking hero.”

He stops me abruptly in front of a door and raps three
times. It opens a crack, and I see that it’s one of the other women from
earlier—Coco I guess. Trinity must be banging Jack somewhere.

“Watch this for me,” Bane grunts, shoving me through the
door. I stumble and Coco makes no move to break my fall, watching impassively
as I splay out on the floor. “Just keep her alive, I don’t give a shit how. You
can toss her in with the rest of the mamas, but no one touches her. She’s my
property.” He glances over me disparagingly. “Temporarily.”

With that, he stalks away.

I push up on my palms and realize that I am alone with Coco,
who locks the door behind Bane and turns to eye me with the same distaste.
She’s dressed herself in heels and a black lace babydoll that does little to
conceal the darkness of her nipples or pubic mound. She’s lithe like a model
and covered in tattoos, gorgeous, and dark-featured.

“Girl you must be some kind of retard to twist him up like
that, and you his bitch.” She plants one stilettoed foot on my chest, pushing
me back to the ground. “You suicidal, or just fucking dumb?”

“Both at the moment.”

She almost smiles but catches herself and pushes her heel
into me until I gasp in pain. “That was quite an entrance tonight, my bitch,”
she says. “I’m not big on surprises.”

“Me neither.” I glare up steadily, too mad to be careful.
“And I’m not your bitch, bitch.”

“Shut the fuck up!” she swipes a hand across my face and I
cry out as the taste of blood fills my mouth. She smiles down at me, licking my
blood off her fingernails. “Right now your protection don’t want you, bitch.
Comprende? You the lowest on the totem pole.”

She kicks me sharply in the side, sending me rolling over
the floor and cursing in pain. I hear the click of her heels as she follows me,
and as my body grinds to a halt around the legs of a bunk bed I feel her nails
on my shoulders. She spins me around to face her, leaning over my face so close
that I can see the gold specks in her irises. She’s laughing at me. “You my
bitch. You everybody’s bitch.”

I’m in at least the seventh circle of hell.

Chapter Eight

The bar is hazy and full of smoke and a cover band is
butchering Led Zeppelin. I’m no Robert Plant, but I could do better vocals with
strep throat. The off-pitch keeling makes me wince as I study the room.

There’s a pool table, a dancing pole, a swing. Topless women
are swaying on the bandstand and giving lap dances. Girls in G-strings serve up
wings and beers, and there is a lot of fondling and making out going on. Health
codes are definitely being violated. There’s a broken syringe on the middle of
the doorway that Coco’s stilettos crunch over as she pushes me in. All the
patrons are men, all wearing Death Layer Motorcycle Club colors. I soon learn
that the all-women workers are, if they’re lucky, willing club sweetbutts. Or,
if they’re not lucky, slaves—like me.

Coco and Trinity dragged me here after a sleepless and
foodless morning, their brass knuckles and sharp stilettos sapping the fight
right out of me. Now I am literally chained behind the bar, metal shackles
linking one of my ankles to a pole that runs the length of the bar along the
ground. Like a dog on a leash.

“Welcome to the clubhouse,” Trinity smirks.

Trinity has mercifully allowed me to keep on my bra and
underwear, which affords me more coverage than whatever ‘uniforms’ the other
girls in the bar are wearing. Coco has strapped a spiked dog collar around my
neck that earned me another black eye when I resisted putting it on.

At least my eyes match each other now.

My collar links by a chain to a parallel pole above the bar
on the ceiling. I have about a foot’s worth of give, just enough to bend over
for ice and cups. Satisfied that I can’t get away, Trinity holds my arms back
so that Coco can write on my chest with a sharpie: “Property of Bane.” She then
draws a big X over my face with a nasty grin.

Clearly she thinks this is some kind of sorority hazing.

“Do as you’re told and pour the drinks, bitch,” Coco laughs
at me as she tightens the metal around my leg until it’s painful, drawing a
pinch of blood. I’ve already learned not to show my reactions. She likes this
dominatrix shit too much, and I am not going to give her any satisfaction if I
can help it.

“You’re lucky,” Coco jeers. “Out of the goodness of my mama
heart I’m giving you a cushy job your weak ass can handle. If you can manage
not to piss me off today, maybe I’ll loosen these.”

“Might as well tighten them now,” I retort.

For no real reason, she punches me in my groin and yanks my
collar as I sag off-balance momentarily, choking me.

“Fuck!” I gasp.

It’s not like I have a dick but it still hurts like a
motherfucker, just like the time I lost my grip while climbing a wire fence as
a kid and landed with the wire between my legs…blinding sting. By the time I
catch my breath and straighten back upright, Trinity has hopped over the bar
and worked her way deep into the crowd, dancing and laughing.

“Don’t screw up!” Trinity calls over her shoulder.

Coco gives my chain another choking yank and moves to the
other end of the bar. I glare at her as she gives orders to another girl before
peeking her head through a little curtain in the wall to shout at the kitchen.
Great. I guess she’s my new manager.

And I thought George was bad.

The other girl behind the bar stares at me for a second with
wide blue eyes. They didn’t let her keep her bra, and I see that both her
nipples are pierced and a chain dangles between. Her ankle is cuffed to the pole
on the ground, too. She gives me a curt nod and returns to her work, her
expression carefully blank.

Unsteady, I look around to get my bearings. I know we’re
three floors below the sleeping quarters. I can see that the bikers come and go
through a door that attaches to the same stairwell we entered from. No light
filters through the tiny barred windows on the far wall, so I have no idea what
time it is or what the view is like.

The bar can’t possibly be at street level, but the sight of
windows—the first I’ve seen since coming to Death Layer—is driving me insane.
The outside world is tantalizing close and yet impossible to reach. I stare at
the glass panes longingly before remembering my chains.

There’s a giant black flag behind the bar with the Death Layer
MC colors and rockers, just like Bane’s massive back tattoo. The flaming
devil’s head grins luridly down at me between the crossed barrels of a pair of
guns. On the sidewall, there is a fleet of framed portraits—all men, all
menacing.

With uncanny speed, my eyes lock on to a familiar portrait:
Bane himself. It’s under a plaque that reads: “Road Captain.” A few rows above
him I see Jack’s picture under the words: “President.” I recognize one of the
big bouncer guys as the Vice President.

“Yo Jessica Rabbit,” someone shouts at me. “Dewar’s, neat.”

The irony of my situation does not escape me. Being fired
from a service job was, ultimately, the beginning of this mess, and here I am
right back to pouring drinks. The thought almost makes me laugh.

Yeah. Pouring drinks in hell. For Satan and company.

My head snaps up and I study the jerk that has decided to
crack a redhead joke along with my last nerve. He’s got a springy mess of
jet-black hair and a ruthless face. Muscles bulge large under his MC jacket and
enormous rings sparkle on most of his knuckles.

When I don’t move, his attention settles on me. “Dewar’s,
neat.” He repeats. “You deaf?”

I cross my arms under my breasts and glare, clearly
acknowledging and refusing him.

He laughs, his eyes sweeping over me and resting on my
matching black eyes. “Really?” He says. The laugh dies with a playful bite of
his lip. “Whoever gave you those shiners not enough for you? You wanna play
with me, too, bunnyrabbit? Huh? Ok.”

Startlingly fast, his hands snatch my spiky collar and jerk
my body forward over the bar until my face is close to his. He leers at me and
I can smell his surprisingly fresh breath, minty Listerine. Those hands of his
are way too big for me to pull away, and my stupid ankle cuff and collar are digging
painfully into my skin.

This is what’s called being stuck between a rock and a hard
place.

His voice is rough. “I’m happy to play with you and your
little attitude problem. Teach you a lesson or two. It’ll be good for you.”

I stare right back at him with open loathing but say
nothing. That was usually my strategy with bullies: don’t give them the
reaction they want. He chuckles, seeming to get a kick out of my lack of
physical resistance. To punctuate his threat, his free hand reaches over the
bar to squeeze one of my breasts.

The assault startles me out of my deadweight and in spite of
my restraints I lurch to get away, but the metal cuts into my ankle and neck
and a whimper of pain escapes my throat.

“Oh yeah, you like that? I’ll play with you anytime, bunny.
Don’t worry; I’m playing. I’m playing right now.”

His groping hand moves south over my bare navel and towards
my underwear. A wave of nausea washes over me. My hands scramble to push his
away but he’s way too strong for me, even if I wasn’t caught up in chains.

“Hey!” Coco is suddenly at my side, surprising the hell out
of me by trying to insert herself between us. Her arm wraps around my waist,
tugging. “There a problem I can straighten out for you here, Smokey?”

I feel like the rope in tug-of-war, both the biker and the
sweetbutt treating my body like their disputed territory. A frustrated growl
emanates from my throat.

“Butt out Coco,” the guy named Smokey warns.

“Can’t,” she insists, “Sorry Smoke, this bitch is Bane’s and
he says hands-off.”

“I don’t take orders from Bane, or you.” Smokey’s hand
lashes out to the side, cracking on Coco’s jaw and sending her sideways with a
startled cry. She lands on the floor behind the bar, her head hitting the
corner of the sink. I wince at the sound of the impact. “My hands go where they
want,” Smokey shouts over Coco’s moan. He grips me between my legs where I’m
tender from Coco’s earlier punch and lifts my body high, the painful pressure
distracting me from the cuffs cutting my ankle. I gasp in agony. “Right now my
hands are gonna fix your attitude problem for you, bunny. What you need is a
good finger fuck, yeah?”

“Let go!” I gasp, terrified. “Stop!”

Opening my mouth to speak was a mistake. He frees up a hand
and shoves his fingers under my tongue, moving them slowly, gagging me. “Get
them nice and wet for me,” he whispers. “For lube. You’ll like it. That’s a
good girl.” 

Something moves in my periphery but before I can identify
it, I see a wall of black slam into Smokey. His grip loosens on my neck and his
fingers fall out of my mouth. Stumbling back, I cough and swallow air like a
beached fish. The room is spinning.

The wall of black is a man, moving fast. His fists hammer
into Smokey’s chest and yank him off of the barstool, then slam Smokey down on
the bar. An iron fist shoots out, grabs a beer bottle, and breaks it on the
bar. Green glass splinters in tiny fragments in all directions and I’m showered
with beer droplets, shivering as I see that the now-jagged bottle end is poised
over Smokey’s throat. An edge pricks Smokey’s skin and there’s a slow drop of
blood dripping from the point.

Gasping, I glance up at the newcomer’s face. Though it’s
twisted in a violent mask, I can still recognize the incongruously clean and
rugged good looks: Bane. He leans over Smokey, and I can feel the heat
radiating off his tensed body. My legs are trembling as I watch on.

“I’ll just have to assume you’re an illiterate cretin who
can’t read, Smoke,” Bane snarls. “Otherwise, if you’re not an illiterate
cretin, I’d have to assume you read the label on that redhead. And then, I’d
have to kill you. See that?”

He grabs Smokey by the hair and twists his head back at what
looks like a painful angle until his wild eyes are pointed at me.

“See that writing on her chest?” Bane shouts. “Says she’s
mine, you fucking cunt.”

Bane picks up Smokey enough to slam him back onto the bar
for emphasis.

The darker man groans. “Come on, man, I didn’t do nothing.”

“Yet.” Bane is in Smokey’s face, his itchy fingers twirling
the broken bottle in his hand. “Just like I haven’t cut you. Yet. But I will if
I see anything by daylight between you and my property again.”

Bane jerks Smokey up and kicks him in the ass, sending him
stumbling away a few steps before he can catch his balance. Now Smokey is standing
upright, fuming. He raises a fist.

“Don’t push me, man!” Smokey shouts. “You’re pushing it,
property or no property. How was I supposed to know it was true huh? These
bitches are always saying bullshit, I don’t take em seriously.”

“You’ll take me seriously!” Bane’s voice is so powerful it
drowns the cover band for a second. “Or you’ll bleed. Are we clear?”

Smokey and Bane eye each other warily. That cold grin
tickles the corner of Bane’s mouth again. I believe he’s actually capable of
anything, and I am tempted to shut my eyes. I don’t want to watch another man
die like last night.

“Crystal clear,” Smokey finally says. He holds his hands up
in the air, the universal sign of surrender. “My mistake, brother.”

Bane nods curtly, but doesn’t relax his fighting stance
until he has watched Smokey cross to the other side of the bar and take a seat.
The blue-eyed bartender hands him his Dewar’s without a word.

The bar seems to collectively exhale in relief and the din
of the crowd resumes.

Bane tosses his improvised broken bottle weapon on the
counter and leans over the bar to help Coco back to her feet. As he bends past
me, the scent of his musky clean aftershave makes my pulse speed up. He wraps a
giant hand around Coco’s shoulder and pulls her back to standing.

“You ok?” He grunts.

She sucks in her breath painfully, pressing her fingers into
a new cut on her forehead. When she pulls her fingers away, she sees the blood
and turns furious eyes on me.

“You stupid bitch!” She screeches, lunging at me.

Bane has a firm grip on her shoulder, though, and holds her
back. “Whoa, whoa,” he says, sounding like the horse whisperer. “Let me handle
it.” He pulls her in and brushes his lips intimately over hers, and I look away
blushing. “Now scram,” says Bane, patting Coco on the ass and shoving her away.

Coco glares at me over her shoulder but obediently retreats
back to the kitchen, passing the other chained bartender and leaving us both
frozen in her wake. We stare at each other, the other bartender and I. Those
wide blue eyes are on me again, and I read understanding.

“You!” Bane’s hand cups my chin, forcing me to look at him.
He’s inches away from my face and I see the same angry sparks still in his
chocolaty eyes from last night.

“You’re a pain in my ass, Red, and next time I just might
not be in the rescuing mood. Get your ass in line! I don’t care if you are
really just that stupid or if you have a death wish. Either way, I can’t help
you if you’re going to cause trouble everywhere you go.”

I really don’t need or want the lecture. A mixture of rage
and helplessness pricks the corners of my eyes with tears and my mouth flies
opens to retort, to tell him to shove it, to tell him none of this is helping
me, that if he really wanted to help, he’d get me the fuck out of here. That
he’s just as much of a jackass as anybody else in this dump.

But I rethink it.

Bane still hasn’t touched me or hurt me. Why, I’m not sure.
Maybe he’s just repulsed by me, maybe he’s disinterested, or maybe he really
was telling the truth about his feelings for human trafficking. Who knows. It
doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that if he hadn’t happened to be
right here just now with his A-game, angry face and adrenaline…yikes. A shudder
passes through my body as I realize what Smokey would have done to me. In
public. Humiliation blooms in my cheeks.