Billionaires and Brilliance

Chapter Sixteen- Jessica And Anthia Experience Bondage. Not The Fun Kind.

Anthia bit her lip in pain as she was shoved to the ground. The female Stray still had her knife pressed against Anthia's neck and pulled back on her hair so that she was forced to look at the man in front of them. They stood in an alley outside of the base of the Strays. It was getting dark, making a long, jagged scar across his cheek even more ominous.

"Who are you?" Jessica asked from beside Anthia. She, too, was forced to her knees by the boy that had attacked her and was now biting back tears.

"The leader of The Strays. Who are you?"

"Jessica Hayes, I used to be Ryan Coleman's roommate."

The man scowled and looked at Anthia. "And you?"

"Anthia Wright. Also used to be her roommate. We came here to find her. We have a friend, Cassidy, she has a house outside the city. She was going to let Ryan come live with her if she wanted."

The girl did not seem to like that answer. The switchblade at Anthia's throat pressed harder, cutting into her skin. Blood ran down from the cut and it took everything in Anthia not to cry. "We're sorry."

"You know you're not supposed to be here," the girl hissed. "You know that Strays protect their own before anything else. I can't tell if your brave or just stupid."

"I like to think that it's a healthy mixture of both. Look, Ryan is our friend and we know what's best for her. No offense, but it's not you guys."

The man chuckled. "I've decided. It's stupidity."

"Yeah? Go screw yourself, asshole."

The girl pulled harder on Anthia's hair, jerking her head back and shoving the pointed end of the blade into the soft skin under her chin, hard enough to cut but not enough to do serious damage. "Watch your mouth."

Jessica spoke up before Anthia could make the situation worse. "Please, just ask Ryan, she'll tell you. Let us talk to her."

The man sighed. "Unfortunately, we just gave Ryan an assignment not ten minutes ago. She's going to be gone for a few days."

The girl looked up. "What assignment?"

"Those four people you met on patrol. I've heard they're the ones that had loose lips about our location. She's going to go take care of them."

"And you didn't send me with?"

 "I can give you the details later if you want to go catch up with her, but you might have a hard time finding her. You know how good she is at covering her tracks."

Jessica looked relieved. "So we can go?"

"I never said that."

"Well, you can't kill us without talking to Ryan first."

"I can do what I please, girl," the man snarled.

Jessica's eyes widened and she shut her mouth, deciding silence was the best option.

"We can hold them here until Ryan comes back," the girl suggested. "That could work."

"And have a missing person report filed? No. Especially if others knew where they were going. I don't want the police poking around here." The man said. He examined the girls in front of him like problematic puzzles.

The boy spoke up. "What's stopping us from killing them now? The procedure is to kill trespassers that knowingly enter our territory to find us. We don't even know that they are who they say they are. They could be spies. You know that the Skulls have it out for us."