Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(38)

“She’s very pretty,” the deeper male voice said and my insides rolled.

I wasn’t sure how a voice could seem slimy, but this one did. Every time he spoke, it was like a snake weaved its way in my direction.

“You won’t hurt her,” Glitch said, and I felt my eyebrows pull together. “That was the deal. You promised you wouldn’t hurt her.”

That was the deal.

My mind shook against the walls of reality, but it was like trying to put together a puzzle in the dark. Impossible.

“You can go now.” The snake’s voice slithered and the hand on my shoulder squeezed again.

“Promise you won’t hurt her,” Glitch, who I could now tell was behind me, urged the other man.

Why would he hurt me?

Why was Glitch in the dark even though it seemed like he knew the voice?

My heart burned with confusion.

“I ain’t promisin’ shit,” the deeper voice growled. “You go on and get out of here now, or I won’t think twice about havin’ that order come down on your brother.”

“No,” Glitch’s voice was a pained whisper.

Brother, Glitch had a brother.

Suddenly, my sight was dragged into the light as someone tugged at my face.

There had been a blindfold over my eyes that was now missing.

I blinked.

Once, then twice and my head winced against the sudden brightness.

“Welcome to the party, blue eyes.”

A man, the man who I attributed as having the slimy voice, was standing in front of me in what looked to be a bar. It was empty, but somehow he still seemed to crowd the space.

He was big, bigger than his voice had suggested he was.

There was an edge about him that requested I hold my breath.

I was scared.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

My eyes dropped from the haunting look in his eyes to his chest. He was older, somewhere in his late thirties, I guessed, and fit. He wore a black shirt and over it was something leather, a vest.

I felt my memory strain. It nagged at me.

A cut, it was a leather cut. The kind the guy outside the bar had been wearing. Except this one was different. It had some kind of design on the left breast, a dog. Actually it wasn’t a dog, it looked like the hound from a nightmare.

No.

My eyes flew back up to his face, a face that only if you looked past the beard you could tell was somewhat disfigured.

No.

His mouth, which only seemed to move on one side, curled into a smile.

“You know who I am,” his slimy voice hissed.

I followed down to the stitching over the right breast of his leather cut.

He was right. I knew who he was.

There, on a white patch, it said, HOUNDS OF HELL MC and underneath it another of the same size said, PRESIDENT.

The man whose very memory haunted Rhys even in the daylight stood before me. He was worse than any image I could have pictured. Even the lines on the edges of his eyes seemed evil.

“Hyde Murphy.” His laugh was sinister, like the sound of demons clawing at the door.

I shuddered.

I was not the kind of girl who talked back to a man that looked like he’d saw me in half just for the fun of it. I was not the kind of girl who, before now, had ever seen a man like this outside of a TV screen.

No, I was not that girl.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

I shook my head, and the hand I’d forgotten was on my shoulder began to shake.

Glitch.

My heart rate thundered in my chest.

Would they hurt him?

Hyde jerked his head to the side, and I felt the comforting hand fall away.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Glitch move around me. My eyes assessed him for damage, but I saw none. I said a silent prayer to whatever God had been looking out for him.

His sight was down at the floorboards.

He wouldn’t look at me.

Hyde outstretched an arm, throwing it around Glitch’s shoulder, and I bucked at the restraints on my arms. They didn’t move. My outcry only came out as garbled sounds against the gag in my mouth.

Don’t hurt him, I wanted to say. Let him go, I wanted to beg.

No words would come out. No one would hear me.

“Look at her,” Hyde said to him, and Glitch shook his head.

What the hell was going on?

Hyde grabbed him by the throat, and I cried out as he forced his head up.

Glitch’s eyes were closed. “Look at her or I’ll cut your f*cking eyes out,” Hyde snapped.

Then, like the tides turning, his eyes opened and I knew.

That pain was unmistakeable.

“I’m sorry,” he mouthed as my heart broke.

Hyde’s sick laugh buried in my chest, and I felt bile rise in my throat.

“She knows.” He smiled. “She knows what you did.”

A tear slid out of Glitch’s eye, and he didn’t even fight the hand at his throat. “They threatened to kill my brother,” he whispered.

I nodded.

“The money we paid you didn’t hurt, either,” some other voice in the bar hissed.

It seemed there were more snakes in the hounds pit than I’d realized.

Hyde released him and Glitch’s hands went to his throat. “I’m so sorry, baby girl.”