Rule of Law: A Chimera Novel, page 3
“I don’t forget, Law,” the hulk answered then backed up slowly into the darkness he’d come from.
Lana shook her head. He was just there and now he was gone. Looking up at the rail, she blinked. It was empty. Squinting, she could just make out translucent shadows. Were they fucking with her head or was she in the twilight zone?
“According to the paperwork, she goes by Brandi. Brandi Harper,” someone said from behind them. “But I’m guessing that’s an alias.”
Breaking out of Law’s hold, Lana whirled around to face the voice. It was True, the one who kidnapped her from Carson. Catching her breath, she stared wide-eyed at him. He was as tall as Law, as muscled and as intimidating. But the similarities stopped there. Whereas Law was dark and brooding, this man was bright and better tempered.
“It is Bran—di,” she stuttered.
True’s intense blue eyes held hers captive. “The name you were born with.”
Did they know who her father was? Would they tell him she was here? A new fear engulfed her.
Lana stiffened her spine. “My name is Brandi Harper.”
True shook his head. “There are consequences for dishonesty.” He looked past her to Law. “I’ll leave it up to him to decide what that consequence will be.”
Lana whirled around to face Law. “It’s Brandi, I swear it.”
“Yeah? You have about thirty minutes to rethink your answer.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“Then I will begin to apply pressure until you give me what I want.”
“Torture? You’re going to torture me until I tell you my real name?”
Law grinned. “Ah, now we’re making progress.”
Lana seethed. He’d tricked her! “Fine, my name is Fuck Off Fiona.”
Law’s eyes gleamed. “Game on. You now have twenty-nine minutes.” He looked past her to Treva.
“Let’s go,” Treva commanded as she nudged Lana forward.
Jerking her arm away from the woman, Lana shook her head. “Don’t touch me.”
Treva smiled, malice lacing the curve of her Cupid’s bow lips. “I’ve had a long night, and I’ve got the migraine to prove it.” She nudged Lana forward. But she didn’t move. Treva grasped her elbow. “Move, girl. Now.”
“Easy now, Trev,” True warned. “Law went to a lot of trouble to bring her here. Don’t break her before he has a chance to.”
The implication of True’s words stunned Lana to silence. Turning, she raised her eyes to Law, searching for a hint of compassion.
She saw none. Instead his dark green eyes bored into her with violent passion.
The thud of her heart made it hard to breathe. The realization that she might never leave here of her own accord hit her hard.
A sudden wave of sickness hollowed out her soul. What could the devil possibly want with her? She was nobody to everyone. She was nobody to herself. She hadn’t been anyone for a long time.
“What,” she whispered to Law, “Are you going to do with me?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Chapter Four
That remains to be seen?
Had she been kidnapped by one sex trafficker for another? No, no, this gothic hallucination was much more advanced than simple sex for hire. It went deeper. Darker. Danger emanated from Law in ominous waves. His cryptic people: Chimera, elegant, evocative, enigmatic. Each and every one of them, most especially, Law, highly evolved.
Altruistic? Doubtful.
Criminal? Most certainly.
Chilling. Absolutely.
She didn’t know what was real and what was imagined. The shadows and the whispers. The sensation of being watched. Evaluated. Judged for her worth—all of it was unnerving. Worst case scenarios flooded her brain. Flesh forcing flesh. Begging sobs and silent terror. Screams of pained pleasure and pleasured pain. Her screams. She had to get out of here, wherever here was.
Treva pressed her hand to the small of Lana’s back, guiding her toward the stairway left of the bar. A black hole beyond. Palpable malice radiated from the woman’s warm palm to Lana’s cold skin. When the blackness engulfed them, Lana whirled around, panicked, wildly searching for Law. Did he care that she was terrified? That she needed a fix desperately?
Deep in the shadows, the only clue to his presence was his burning gaze lasered on her. His power was intense. Drawing her toward him. She pushed back against Treva’s steady hand, inexorably drawn to Law’s dark allure.
Behind her doors opened softly. Treva nudged her away from Law to an open elevator that was anything but utilitarian. Soft black pin tucked leather enhanced with pearl rivets encompassed three walls. A thick mother of pearl handrail ran the length of the back wall.
“Back against the rail, Brandi. Hands behind you.” Treva voiced the command so softly, Lana strained to hear her words.
Pushed into a figurative corner, Lana complied. As her back pressed into the leather, something grasped her wrists.
Crying out, she jerked away from the enslavement; pulling so hard she lost her balance and fell to her knees on the cold white marble floor. Pain shot from her knees up her thighs to the small of her back. Helpless, she clung to the rail, yanking at the shackles that had encircled her wrists as if by dark magic. Her weakness was growing. Coming down off a heroin high had become harder and harder.
“Your lack of dignity is appalling,” Treva hissed. “Law’s out of his mind to have risked so much for someone like you.”
Off balance, Lana struggled to stand. “You don’t know me,” Lana defended.
“I know what I see.”
The jacket slid from Lana’s shoulders. Looking out to where Law stood in the shadows, his burning gaze piercing the darkness between them, she wished she could veil her own. Hide somehow. She fought the sensation that he was reading her mind. Thought by thought. Going deeper. All the way down to her soul.
Holding Law’s gaze, defiant, Lana slowly stood. Her back arched as she pulled hard against the shackles, realizing for the first time they were lined with the same soft leather as the walls. But they were the real deal. She was a prisoner in the devil’s lair. She screamed as the doors soundlessly closed.
Tears slid down her cheeks when the elevator glided upward. In the recesses of her mind Lana knew she should make a run for it. She had to get away. Find a place to hide, a place to recuperate, a place where she could find what she needed and break free of this nightmare.
The elevator came to a smooth stop. As it settled, Lana looked up at Treva who stood staring at her.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” Lana said. It was the truth.
“You won’t care what anyone thinks of you as long as you think so little of yourself,” Treva shot back, then pressed a hidden button on the right panel.
The shackles were withdrawn from Lana’s wrists. She clutched the rail. Unwilling to let go.
Silently, the doors opened to a softly lit foyer. High polished marble reflected the electric flicker of wall torches. Treva’s hand pressed Lana between the shoulders. “Go straight, there’s a door across the foyer,” she directed.
“I—don’t want to,” Lana breathed, resisting. “I want to go home.”
“This is home for as long as Law says it is. Now move.”
Vehemently, Lana shook her head. Turning to push Treva away, Lana stopped mid movement. The glitter of a blade held her at bay.
“I don’t want to cut you, princess, but I will.” She inclined her head toward the foyer. “Now go.”
Swallowing hard, Lana preceded her across the cold marble to an extra wide, metal-strapped door.
Treva slid back a panel to the left of the door and quickly pressed a sequence of numbers. Several locks disengaged.
“Open it,” she commanded.
Reluctantly, Lana turned the ivory knob and slowly pushed the door open. What the muted lighting revealed stopped Lana at the threshold. First to assault her senses was the dusky scent of the white stargazer lilies on the nightstand. Squeezing her eyes closed, Lana forced back the traumatic memories associated with the scent.
“Can, you—get rid of those flowers,” she whispered afraid if she spoke louder she would scream the request.
“The flowers stay,” Treva snapped, pushing Lana further into the room.
Fighting back a full-blown panic attack, Lana regulated her racing pulse. She could do this. Flowers couldn’t hurt her.
Nodding, Lana said, “The room is nice.”
“Glad you approve,” Treva said.
It was spacious and decidedly feminine but not frilly.
Every corner was rounded, from the carved wooden bedstead to the walls, the armoire, the settee and the secretary in the corner. There was no window that she could see.
As she stepped deeper into the room, the large mirror on the wall over the dresser caught her eye. Peering intently at it, she had the uneasy feeling she was being watched.
The white on white fabrics, wood and paint suggested purity. Her gaze swept over the headboard to the artwork that hung above it. An alabaster relief of the curve of a woman’s back and buttocks, the only color in the entire room, a wisp of crimson along the inner thigh of the relief. Sacrificial blood? Is this where the devil took his virgins?
Lana was anything but, in the physical sense anyway.
She suppressed a shudder. This room wasn’t the serene sanctuary it appeared to be. It was a prison. Pointing to a second door she assumed was the bathroom she said, “Where does that go?”
“That remains locked from the other side.”
Lana swallowed. No way out except the door she came through. Her fear, combined with the remnants of her last high, wreaked havoc in her stomach. Without a fix soon, she’d be in really bad shape. She could do it, she told herself. Stop cold turkey. She’d done it once before. Her gut tightened at the remembered bone deep pain. The clawing need, scraping at her belly. The sleepless nights that turned into days. The desperation for just a taste to get her over the hump. It had been excruciating. But she’d woken up one morning without the craving. She knew then she would be okay. Until Anton forcibly shot her up, keeping her high as a kite until the night of the auction. Forcing her to sign the contract for a fix.
She deserved what came after.
“Is—there a restroom I could use?”
She had to pee. She needed a drink of water and to wash the sweat from her face. And she had to think fast. The door to freedom was behind her. This would be her only chance to escape before Law showed up to exact his punishment.
Treva stepped past Lana to the tall armoire and pressed the middle of the full-length mirror flanking it. A faint click and it opened, revealing a spacious bathroom.
“There are clothes in the armoire. Find something to fit you. The bathroom has everything you need. I suggest you take a quick shower before Law gets here. He doesn’t like dirty women.”
Lana had no response to that. Nodding, she hurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her and peed, her mind racing with ideas to get out of here alive. Flushing the toilet, she stood and quietly walked to the door. Silence. It was now or never.
“Oh my God! Treva, hurry!” she screamed as she opened the door.
When Treva came running through the doorway, Lana slammed the door hard into her head. The woman grunted from the impact, hitting the tile floor, out cold.
Lana didn’t waste a second. Stepping over her, she tore through the armoire looking for something, anything that would fit! Ripping a red sheath dress from the hanger, Lana held it up to her body.
Too wide. She swore under her breath, tore off the shreds of her dress and yanked the new dress over her head anyway. Running back to where Treva lay, she yanked the black belt from the dress, quickly slinging it around herself. Stepping over the woman, Lana hurried to the mirror over the sink and checked her reflection. Gah! She looked like hell.
Pale skin, pale lips, dark shadows beneath her swollen blue eyes. Hair, a total mess. Quickly she splashed her face with cold water. Smoothing her hair back, she pulled it up into a knot. Pinching her cheeks, she dug for lipstick in the top vanity drawer, finding a tube of red and quickly applying it before she dashed back to Treva and pulled off her shoes. Flustered, unable to buckle them in her panic, she threw them across the room and emptied the bottom of the armoire.
“Yes!” she cried out in relief. A glossy black wig was neatly laid out in the bottom drawer. A few hard tugs and she was wearing it.
Treva groaned in pain.
Not wasting precious seconds of time searching for shoes that fit, Lana grabbed the heeled sandals and ran to the door.
Nervously she looked around for something to use as an improvised weapon when she remembered Treva’s threat. She patted down the still-unconscious woman and found the knife, hiding it in the fabric folds of her dress, then hurrying back to the door.
Locked. There was no knob. Frantic, Lana ran her hands over the nearly invisible divide between its smooth surface and the walls. There had to be a way—ah, there it was. Pressing the heel of her hand where the knob would be, she felt an unseen mechanism inside move before the door swung open.
Quietly she closed the door behind her. Looking down the hall she inhaled deeply then slowly exhaled. Do or die. She could do this.
Hurriedly, Lana strapped the heels to her feet, and while they were slightly too large, she was intimately acquainted with challenging footwear. It was a given that the sexier the shoe, the more difficult it was to walk in.
Throwing her shoulders back, ever watchful, Lana sauntered down the low-lit hallway like she belonged there. As she rounded the corner, she nearly jumped out of her heels when the ding of the elevator reached her.
Law. That had to be him. Riding up to the white room. Expecting to see her, but not like this. Tiptoeing, Lana moved as fast as she could to the metal door at the end of the hall.
The door clicked open. She rushed through it. Heart thumping wildly, Lana flew down the stairway to the next floor. She would have continued downward but the stairs ended at a landing and another door.
Nervously, she tried the door. It was locked. Even worse, the stairwell was dark. Panic swarmed through her. She could go back the way she came but Law would see her. She couldn’t magically make the door open. Looking up and down and all around, she had two options; stay where she was and use the knife to fight for her life or go back the way she came and make a run for it.
She’d go back. Just as she passed the door, she heard the click of the handle. Backing up so quickly she hit the wall with a loud whoosh, Lana stood perfectly still as the door opened in front of her. Silently she reached out for the handle as the person walked through, her presence for the moment undetected.
Whoever it was, male or female, was small like her. Lucky break. She pressed the tip of the knife into the person’s back.
“Open the door.”
The body stiffened. “Did Law send you?”
Lana flinched. Male. He sounded innocent.
“Yes, he did. He wants you in the white room.”
Instead of forcing, she lowered the knife. Instinctively she knew that he wasn’t capable of hurting her.
When he turned around and looked at her with unsuspecting brown eyes she knew she was right. He was an adult but no taller than her, his brown hair pulled back into a man bun. The area above his right eye was concave, along with a long scar that ran from it into his hairline. He’d either taken a hard fall or had been severely hit by something. He wasn’t wearing black or red. Instead he was casually dressed in khakis, white button down shirt and loafers. He didn’t belong in this sinister place.
He had to have felt the knife tip. But he didn’t ask questions. Too shy? Too scared? Hard to tell.
Slipping from behind the door and then between him and the darkened room beyond the door he’d inadvertently opened for her, Lana smiled as he let her pass. “Law and I are playing hide and seek. Please, Jimmy?” She gave it a shot.
“I’m Monty.”
“Yes, sorry. Law told me your name, I must have forgotten. My bad. Please don’t tell him you saw me.” She smiled. “Law always wins. This time he’s going down.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, it’s just a game. Nice talking to you, Monty.” She put a hushing finger to her lips and winked at him as she closed the door. When it was completely closed, she pressed against it, letting out a long sigh of relief.
A motion sensor somewhere inside the room gradually illuminated it, a weird electric blue like something out of a sci-fi movie. She was in a control room. Dozens of closed-circuit camera feeds were mounted above her, the screens tilted at an angle for optimum viewing. A long metal table held six desktop monitors, some with several active screens within their screens. The half a dozen keyboards were situated beneath the screens, each with its own laser mouse.
At the center of it all was a lone chair.
Holy shit. She’d stumbled into the nerve center of Law’s cryptic world. No time to waste. Taking a deep breath, she proceeded into the room and stopped at the first monitor, touching a key.
The screen came to life, revealing saved social media pages and file documents. Squinting, she looked closer.
It all added up to a dossier of a local biker gang, Los Coyotes, in the city. She pressed the mouse and scrolled through about a dozen member profiles before moving on to another biker gang, Lucifer’s Legion.
Ugh. Several of the Legion members frequented the Ultimate. They were in tight with Anton.
But her disgust turned to cold fear when she glanced at the next monitor on the metal table, appalled to see a freeze frame of her being pulled out of the van earlier tonight. She jabbed at the Enter key and the frame turned into video. Oh my god. Had he watched her kidnapping go down? How? A drone?
What the hell kind of man was Law?
She straightened, fighting back the fear, and stepped away from the monitors, looking around her instead. She took in a panoramic view of the Bay and yachts secured to a private dock. Was that black glass structure cantilevered out over the dark water a nightclub? Was that the music she’d heard when they pulled her from the van in the garage?
