Thumper by Marie James

Chapter 6

Thumper

“I don’t answer to you,” I snap into the phone. “Bring her. Now.”

I slam the phone down, uncaring if I break the fucking thing. I’ve paced my office for the last two hours, both a little grateful and pissed that there are no cameras in the exam room. I know I’d watch, telling myself that I’m just making sure the girls are treated right, but I’d know the truth. I can’t keep my mind off what’s going on in the basement.

Six women. All taken right off the street. Some will be missed. Some will disappear unnoticed.

I give Angel five minutes to do my bidding, but waiting a second longer is impossible.

I slam back another glass of whiskey before storming out of the office and down the hallway. The room I took her in last night is empty, and I’m grateful he listened to me.

The next door is closed, and when I open it, I find the brunette looking at me with terror in her eyes. A slow, sinister smile spreads across my face. She’s trembling as I get closer to her, and it makes my skin crawl. She’s been sat on an ottoman at the end of the bed, her legs bound at the ankles and hands tied in front of her.

How fucked up is it that I miss the brotherhood of the Cerberus MC right now? How do they keep getting into my head? Maybe because things were better for me there. I don’t fucking know, but that bridge was burned long before I took the job. They just didn’t know it. They could never forgive the man I’ve become or the things I’ve done since I walked away.

I step up to her, unable to resist pulling her head against my stomach as I take a few long, deep breaths.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

I swallow hard. Isn’t that a loaded fucking question?

I take a step back, looking down at her for a long moment before cupping her jaw in my hand. She frowns up at me.

“There are no cameras in this room, Lauren.”

“Maybe we should pretend like there are.” She lifts her tied hands, fingers trailing down my chest and over my abs.

“Lauren,” I grumble.

“I’m Lola.”

I give her a weak smile and step further back, letting my hand fall from her skin and preventing her from touching me. I’ve earned no right to touch her, and the guilt of having done so is fucking with my head. Even the whiskey I’ve drunk today hasn’t dulled that shame I’ve been riddled with since stepping into this fucking house.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

She blinks up at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language.

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Javi, stop.”

My jaw snaps closed.

She stands, the ropes around her feet making it impossible for her to walk.

“You have a job to do, and so do I. I know you know I liked what happened yesterday. I know I don’t have to say the words. You felt how my body responded to you, how it always responds to you.”

“Stop.”

“Do you know how hard it was to keep crying while I was coming on your cock last night outside? I’ve missed you.”

“It was wrong.”

“It’s not something we haven’t done before.”

“This isn’t Quantico,” I hiss, my hands scraping over the top of my head as I turn away.

I can’t look at her continuing to do so only makes this harder for me.

“You’re a better lover now than you were—”

“I raped you!” I roar, spinning around to face her. “I was never that man!”

She digs her teeth into her bottom lip. “I enjoyed—”

“Enough!” I snap. “Just stop. Please, just stop.”

I feel like I’m at my fucking breaking point. “I’ve killed men for doing what I did last night. I’ve killed men for less.”

“You fucked a girl who you’ve fucked a hundred times before, Javi.”

“That reasoning doesn’t hold water, Laur—Lola. I didn’t give you a choice, didn’t give you a chance to say no.”

“I wouldn’t have. You know how I like things.”

“And you know I tried to give you what you wanted even though we weren’t as compatible as you seem to think we were.”

“I’m well aware of why we broke up, Javier.”

I start to pace the room. My skin feels like it’s on fire. “Why are you here?”

“I’m working my way down to Costa Rica. There’s a compound there that—”

“And where were you picked up at?”

“Seattle. I think—”

“You know how fucking dangerous these guys are. What person in their right mind would put themselves in—”

“I’m not interested in having this conversation with you again. It got old years ago. I know what I’m doing. Berto and his band of assholes didn’t just happen upon me. My handler had intel that put me purposely in their path. I do have to say that finding you here is a surprise. Last I heard, you joined a biker gang. Actually, I also heard—”

“That was a job,” I explain, but just saying it makes my stomach knot.

Cerberus was more than a job, and although it started out that way, it was one of the first assignments that I actually hated when it ended.

“And this is a job. Are you going to be able to get out of whatever bullshit you have swimming around in that handsome head of yours long enough to see it through?”

“How can you be so blasé about what’s happening? About what I did to you?”

“We fucked.”

“I rap—”

“You fucked a girl who you fucked before. That’s all it was. And don’t even question why I see it that way. I didn’t take one for the team which I thought I was going to have to do if you weren’t here and it was another piece of shit having to prove himself to that piece of shit Berto. You know as well as I do that I would’ve stepped forward so none of those other women would’ve been hurt.”

“That’s so fucked up,” I mutter.

She shrugs. I knew Lauren Vos was a wildcat the first time I laid eyes on her during our FBI intake at Quantico and learned very quickly that she was into some things my twenty-one-year-old ass had only ever seen in online porn. We were wild together, but when light ass smacking and a little dirty talk turned into her demanding to be choked and slapped across the face to get off, I knew I was in over my head. We split amicably as friends because Lauren didn’t do serious relationships. Her heart was never on the line because she doesn’t have the ability to love.

She told me so from the beginning, and it became evident when I sat her down to talk one night, telling her I just couldn’t be that man for her any longer. She just said okay and moved on like we hadn’t been together for months.

I didn’t love her. That’s not what it was about, but you don’t spend nearly every waking minute with someone and not form an attachment, that is, unless you’re Lauren Vos.

“Jesus,” she sighs. “Really? You put more value in my pussy than I ever have. Just drop it, Agent Sosa.”

I watch her, her face a mask of irritation as she glares at me.

So, I let the subject drop. I can warn her about ending up in the wrong place and getting seriously hurt until I’m blue in the face and it won’t matter. She won’t listen. She’s as reckless as she is brilliant, only her luck is going to run out one day.

“Did any of them hurt you?” I ask, taking a step closer and tilting her chin to see the bruise on her cheek.

“I had to put up a good fight, but you know me. I get handled roughly, and it turns me on.”

It’s my turn to frown. “They didn’t fuck you?”

She shakes her head. “I was the second to get picked up, and although I couldn’t see what was going on, I don’t think they sexually assaulted any of the girls.”

“But everyone is covered in bruises.”

“It’s like they had to drive over a million street curbs to get us here, and we weren’t exactly wearing seat belts in the back of the truck. We were bounced all over the place. Most of the injuries on the other girls are from getting tossed around.”

I pull her closer, pressing her face against my chest as I breathe in the scent of her hair. The shampoo in the showers in the basement is as generic as it comes, and nothing compared to the lilac and honey I remember her skin being marked with years ago.

“I’m fine,” she says against my chest before pulling back. “Don’t turn into a pussy, Javi. Those girls won’t survive if you can’t keep your shit together.”

“I can handle it,” I assure her even though I don’t exactly believe it myself.

“I was trying to tell you earlier, before you cut me off, that the little biker gang you joined is out for blood. My handler intercepted some correspondence, and those fuckers are pissed.”

“They’re good at their jobs,” I tell her.

What I don’t say is that if they found something related to Cerberus and their plans for me, it was intentional. They’re too good at their jobs to just let some information like that leak. I know my own handler had to plant all sorts of horrible information about me to cover my story for why I joined Cerberus and why I left. Whatever was found, they wanted it to be found.

I grit my teeth, knowing that at any time, Cerberus could bust through the front door and put a bullet in my head. I knew that going in, and after what happened last night with Lauren, I wouldn’t even have ill-will toward them if that’s how all of this ends.

“I need you to keep an eye on the others.”

She drops back down to the ottoman. “Those women aren’t my mission.”

She tries to act hard, but she just confessed that she would offer herself up in their place if someone else was trying to go after one of them the way I did her.

“They’re my mission, and we’re friends. So, will you please just keep an eye on them?”

She looks away from me, and I know she has had to harden herself against life and many bad things, some before she ever joined the FBI. I don’t know why she repeatedly puts herself in the middle of these jobs, but I can ask myself the same thing if I dig deep enough.

But I can’t fight her demons and my own.

“Please, Lauren?”

“I’ll do my best, but the setup down there doesn’t actually allow for much interaction. Fucking cages, Javier? What ever happened to just chains and shit?”

I huff a humorless laugh. This woman has seen some shit in her lifetime.

“The house came ready for business. I’m not the one who set it up, but only Angel and I have keys. He’s here as my mentor, but I figured it’s better if less people have access to them. Those cages are as much for their protection as they are to prevent them from escaping.”

“Angel,” she says slowly. “I don’t think you need to worry about him. I don’t get that demon vibe from him, and believe me, I’ve met some pretty foul people.”

“He was pretty pissed about what I did to you, but keep an eye on him, too?”

“You know I will.”