Death Layer (The Depraved Club) by Celia Loren, Colleen Masters Page A

that. ‘How can you taste it if you eat so fast,’ she’d say. ‘Don’t
be an animal.’”
    “Yeah well my mother would call the cops on you for
kidnapping, beating, and starving me.”
    “Yo mama sounds lame.”
    “Yo mama sounds mean.”
    “Let’s not.” Bane grimaces. “And for the record, I didn’t do
any of that shit to you.”
    I snort into the rice. “For the record, yeah you did.”
    Bane’s chopsticks become pointers. “Let’s set this fucking
record straight, Red, not only because you are proving to be a monumental pain
in the ass, but because I think you just might be smarter than you look. You’re
obviously too smart for poor Coco, but for god’s sake don’t tell her I said so.
I’m gonna level with you here because I think your higher judgment will bring
you around to my way of seeing things.”
    “I’ll never be your property.”
    He laughs. “See, now, I admire your balls, but you’re
misguided. Listen to me, I’m only going to say this once.” Bane sets down his
tray of chow-mein and levels those calculating eyes on me, suddenly serious.
“You keep this up, we’ll both be dead within the week. Yeah, both of us. Dead.
D-E-A-D dead. I need you to chill the fuck out, and you need me to protect you.
See? We need each other right now. I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. I
scratch your back, you scratch my…well…whatever you don’t mind scratching.”
    That boyish grin almost makes me smile in spite of my
disgust. But I crush the impulse and say with boiling calm, “Please let me go,
Bane.”
    Bane’s grin fades and he slowly shakes his head. “No can do.
Look, I don’t know what they have on you, but I am assuming that they covered
their asses somehow before tossing you in here, am I correct? Some kind of
threat, what’ll happen if you run away?”
    I blanch, suddenly remembering Mr. King’s threat to kill
Rachel.
    “That’s a yes,” Bane interprets. I’m beginning to wonder if
he can read minds. “Trust me, Red, they mean it. They’ll do it.”
    Trust. That’s one thing I certainly can’t do.
    Bane takes another bite of chow-mein, chewing it
thoughtfully before continuing with his mouth full. “They’ll do it no matter
what, sure as the sun shines. Death, rape, blackmail. They stand to loose too
much if just one girl slips away. It’s a whole business for them, one I never
wanted to be a part of, but hey, we don’t always get what we want right? Even
if you did get away, they’d find a way to do whatever they promised and more. I
promise you.”
    He swallows, holding my gaze with his intensity. His voice
drops about an octave. “And if you succeeded in escaping, it would reflect on
me. Make them suspect I helped you. Then I’m a traitor. Then I’m dead. They’d
love to have an excuse for me to be dead, Red. You’re their latest little
attempt to trip me up, a baited hook. They want me to let you go. They want for
us to fuck up and give them a reason to come after us. Hard as it may be to
believe, I’m not Mr. Popular around here right now. Shocking, I know.”
    Bane chuckles at his own self-assessment, and then allows
the merriment to drain from his face. Something haggard and hunted lies under
the jokes. I can see that he means it, and in spite of myself I feel a pang of
sympathy for him.
    “So you see,” he concludes, “I don’t want you here. But I
sure as hell can’t let you go.”
    Frustrated with myself for believing him, I let my head fall
in my hands.  “It’s not fair.”
    He’s the one who decided to join a biker gang. If being in a
gang isn’t all puppies and rainbows, it’s his own damn fault for making a bad
choice. Why should I pay the price? Me, I didn’t have a choice. But I can see
that it doesn’t matter: we’re both here anyway.
    “Come here,” he says, patting the covers next to him.
    My body seizes up. No way am I getting on that bed.
    He sighs. “I’m fucking tired, Red. I wanna sleep and you’re
a flight