Blue Fire

Chapter Thirty-Three - Red Demons

SARA

Being knocked out was a blessing.

Uncomfortable didn't even begin to describe how I started the week, agony was more like it right now.

I was pretty much naked. That much was very clear to me as there was a slight breeze wherever the fuck I was. I tried to swallow but a gag was tied so tightly around my head that nothing would go down.

My limbs were spread wide. Tied to something and keeping me spread-eagle and open to whomever wanted a look.

I refused to open my eyes.

If I did, it would become real and frankly nightmares were better than this.

"They must be rolling boss, line's waiting," a man said and I felt the bed shift beside me. I breathed as evenly as I could and kept my eyes shut in the hopes of having another few minutes of this being a dream.

A hand came to my cheek. Warm and smooth, it pushed some hair off my face before I smelled cologne and felt the bed shift deeper.

"Sara Gulliver. I know you're awake so you might as well look at me, darling."

His voice was smooth, cultured and held none of the accent from around here so he must be an implant.

But I listened to him and opened my eyes and saw someone I didn't expect.

I'd assumed some cigar-chomping rotund man who sweated a lot to be the man who was after me, the one who was targeting the club and my family. Maybe even a gaunt man, pale and colorless with beady black eyes, maybe even a jacked fucker with machineguns somehow surgically attached to his arms and long flowing hair that was slightly greasy.

Instead, what I got for all my imagination, was a gorgeous man sat beside me who caressed my cheek.

His hair was a dark red enough to be almost brown, his face was carved and cut, jawline, nose and eyebrows all angular and almost perfect looking. He was younger than I expected, too, around his forties... Maybe even younger. He looked somewhat ageless, like he could be anywhere between twenty and fifty and I wouldn't be able to guess it right.

"There we go, darling. Let me see those pretty eyes." He smiled and he became even more beautiful with it. "My name is Montgomery Harts. But you know that already, don't you?"

I didn't know that. I had never heard the name, never even caught a whisper of it. But this was a man I assumed liked infamy, so I nodded and tried to swallow again but failed enough to cough my heart out.

He produced a knife from somewhere and cut my ties at my hands before cutting the gag from me and then rubbing my back with a gentle hand as I sat up and hacked for longer than I needed.

When I stopped his hand came to my chin and he forced me to look up at him again.

"There we are, precious," he murmured and stroked my cheek and I held myself as still as I could. I was mentally retreating into a place I saved for these kinds of situations, even though this one was far worse than any I had been in before.

"Now, Sara, I want for you to tell me about the Wilder Angels, can you do that for me?"

**

CATCHER

An hour.

Rilo was on me like a fucking hawk. He was bursting at the seams but he was on me. Four others were standing around me, ready to lock me down.