“What have you done?”
Han turned with the gun still in his hands to see his mother…his fox beauty mother standing in the doorway. Tears ran down her cheeks as she once again screamed at him. “What have you done!”
What have you done?
Han jolted awake with his mother’s question ringing in his ears to find himself in the real nightmare. He was hanging from some kind of dock hook, and his screaming shoulders were just two of many pain points on his body.
It all came back to him in a flash.
The 24Ks who’d flipped his car and brought him here to this warehouse had a great time using him as a punching bag. He was pretty sure they’d broken a few ribs. And based on the labored wheezing coming out of his mouth, the tips were pressing into something vital, like a lung.
The plan was to reel him out, shackled and hanging from the old warehouse’s pulley system if the Reyes and the Reapers put up too much of a fight about swapping their Silent Triad deal partner for the 24Ks.
Han had overheard the other gang talking about it during one of his partially awake phases.
Apparently, that big switch-out meeting was happening now.
He could hear them in the distance, arguing in English.
“This don’t feel right,” Waylon, the president of the Ruthless Reapers, said, his flat Midwestern accent echoing through the warehouse. “Han’s the one that put this together. And I don’t know you.”
“Han will soon be dead along with the other two Silent Triad dragons,” the 24K doing all the talking, assured him. He spoke in the same clear, almost unaccented English as Han.
A purposeful appointee by the 24K Dragon, Han assumed, to further reassure the two factions that the 24K would be a worthy replacement. “So we’ll be taking over the rest of their territories. You can either join us now or be sorry later when we find others to do your job.”
Han had to get out of there.
But not to save himself. He needed to find Jasmine. She was only here because he’d decided to bring her with him to Delaware at the last minute. The street gang and motorcycle club he’d recruited for the start of what he’d hope would become a lucrative partnership were holding out for now. But his death right in front of them would probably be enough to convince them.
Being adaptable to changes, especially those accompanying sudden death, was a foundational rule in their shared underworld.
And there was no telling what the 24K would do to Jasmine once a new deal was set in place. He’d spotted a bar handle door right behind where he hung. There was no way he’d make it far in his condition. But if he could get free of the shackles binding his wrists, find her, and get her outside to the docks where she could call for help—well, the 24K would put a bullet in his head as soon as they realized she was gone. But she’d be safe.
And right now, that was all that mattered to him.
“You trying to threaten us?” Ant, the Reyes leader, asked the 24K doing all the talking.
“No, I am only letting you know that you will have a better future with us than you would have had with Han,” the 24K answered, impatience lining his voice.
Things were escalating. He had to act fast.
Biting down against the pain that sliced across his torso when he twisted his body, Han yanked down hard on the shackle binding his left wrist. If he was willing to break a few bones in that hand, maybe he’d be able to get it out.
And he was willing to break anything to save Jasmine.
But then, she appeared right in front of him, wearing the same peach dress she’d had on earlier.
Han blinked. Surely she was a hallucination, like that old memory of his mother.
But no…her dress was ripped and speckled with blood, and her hair hung down to her shoulders in a ponytail-holder-free curly mess. He’d never hallucinate that. Or her assessing his shackles with a whispered, “Wow, this is a crazy dramatic way to try to kill somebody.”
It was her! Suddenly his pain and misery didn’t matter anymore.
“Door. Behind you,” he wheezed out. “Run.”
She glanced at the door behind him. And her eyes lit up when she saw the easy way out.
Beyond her, he could hear Waylon say, “This doesn’t smell right to me. We’re out. Find another MC to distro your shit.”
“Run,” Han wheezed again. There was no need to modulate his voice as she had. A labored whisper was all he could manage in his condition.
Jasmine ran, and his heart filled with relief. He was doomed, but at least, she would escape with her life—
That thought cut off when she suddenly reappeared, this time with her arms wrapped around a massive bag of grain, which she carefully set down right in front of him so as not to make a sound.
