Chapter 5 Blood in the Dark

The pitch-black darkness of the concrete cell was a living, breathing entity. It swallowed the faint glow from the hallway the moment the heavy steel door was pulled open.

Ivy pressed her spine against the rough cinderblock wall. The freezing stone bit into her skin through her damp clothes, but she welcomed the sharp sensation. It grounded her. It kept her mind tethered to the physical space around her instead of drifting into panic.

A massive silhouette stood in the doorway, blocking the dim emergency lights from the corridor.

This man was not Cole.

Cole moved like a shadow. He was deliberate, silent, and precise. The man standing in the doorway swayed heavily on his feet. He breathed through his mouth in ragged, noisy gasps. The sour, nauseating stench of cheap whiskey and stale sweat rolled off him in waves, overpowering the metallic smell of the underground vault.

"I know you are in here," the man slurred. His voice was thick with venom and alcohol. "The Enforcer thinks he can hide you. He thinks he can keep the traitor's prize for himself."

Ivy did not make a sound. She controlled her breathing, inhaling slowly through her nose and letting the air slip out through slightly parted lips. Silence was her greatest advantage. Sight was useless in this lightless room, leaving them both to rely on sound.

She remembered his face from the brief walk through the hallway earlier. His name was Jax. He was one of the lower-ranking members who had stared at her with open, predatory hunger.

A sharp metallic scrape echoed off the walls.

Jax had drawn a knife.

The faint ambient light from the hallway caught the edge of the blade for a fraction of a second before he stepped fully into the cell and pulled the heavy door shut behind him.

The lock clicked into place. The darkness became absolute.

"Leo cost me fifty thousand dollars today," Jax spat into the black void. His heavy boots dragged across the stained concrete floor, moving blindly toward the center table. "That was my cut of the cartel deal. My money. And since your boyfriend ran like a coward, I am going to take my payment out of your skin."

Ivy ran the mental map of the cell she had memorized over the last several hours.

She was standing in the back left corner. The metal table was bolted exactly four feet to her right. The chairs were pushed in. Jax was currently navigating the space between the door and the table. He was angry, he was drunk, and he was acting on impulse.

Those three factors made him incredibly dangerous, but they also made him predictable.

"Speak up, sweetheart," Jax taunted. The sound of his blade scraping along the metal surface of the table sent a screeching echo through the small room. "Let me hear you beg. It makes it more fun for me."

Ivy remained perfectly still. Her mind worked with the cold, sterile calculation of a machine.

She was not physically strong enough to overpower a patched motorcycle club member in a fistfight. If he got his hands around her throat, she was dead. She had one chance to end the threat, and it required using his own size and momentum against him.

She waited in the oppressive dark. She listened to his boots scuffing the floor.

Jax grew impatient. The silence was unnerving him. "Fine. We can play hide and seek."

He lunged away from the table, swiping the knife blindly through the empty air. The blade cut through the dark with a soft, deadly swish. He was moving toward the right side of the room. He was guessing her location.

Ivy shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. She needed him closer. She needed him to commit his full body weight to a strike.

She reached down, her fingers grazing the icy metal of her belt buckle. She unclasped it with a sharp, metallic snap.

The sound cut through the quiet room like a gunshot.

Jax reacted instantly. "There you are."

He charged toward the source of the noise. Ivy heard the heavy thud of his boots closing the distance in a fraction of a second. She heard his ragged breathing. She smelled the sickening wave of alcohol radiating from his skin.

She did not retreat. She waited until the very last possible millisecond.

As Jax lunged into the dark corner, swinging the heavy blade downward with all his brute strength, Ivy pivoted sharply to her right.

She dropped her shoulder, slipping beneath his wild, uncoordinated arc. Jax swung at empty air. The sheer force of his own heavy swing carried him forward, throwing his balance violently off center.

Ivy reached out in the dark. Her hands found his thick leather vest. She grabbed the tough fabric, planted her back foot, and used every ounce of his forward momentum to push him directly into the wall.

Jax slammed face first into the unyielding cinderblock.

The sickening crunch of cartilage echoed in the small room as his nose shattered against the stone. He let out a muffled grunt of pain, his body rebounding slightly from the impact.

But Ivy did not stop. Survival meant neutralizing the weapon.

Before Jax could recover his footing or swing the knife again, Ivy grabbed his extended right arm. She locked her hands around his thick wrist. She twisted her body, using her torso as leverage, and wrenched his arm violently upward and behind his back in a brutal hammerlock.

She pushed his broken face back into the cinderblock wall to pin him in place, applying agonizing pressure to the joint of his shoulder.

Jax roared in fury and pain. He thrashed against the stone, trying to shake her off. He was much stronger than her, and she could feel her grip slipping on his leather sleeve.

She had to break the lever.

Ivy adjusted her grip, sliding both her hands down to the thick joint of his wrist, right above the hand clutching the knife. She braced her own shoulder under his triceps. She took a sharp breath, shut off the part of her brain that possessed empathy, and twisted his wrist outward with a sudden, vicious snap.

The loud crack of his radius bone breaking sounded like a dry branch snapping in half.

Jax released a bloodcurdling scream that ripped through the silent underground vault. The heavy hunting knife slipped from his paralyzed fingers and clattered harmlessly onto the concrete floor.

Ivy immediately released him and stepped backward, retreating into the center of the dark room.

Jax collapsed to his knees. He cradled his ruined arm to his chest, sobbing and cursing into the pitch black space. The smell of fresh, metallic blood rapidly mixed with the sour stench of whiskey.

Ivy stood in the dark, her chest heaving as her lungs desperately pulled in oxygen. Her hands were shaking, coated in a sticky warmth that did not belong to her. She had survived. She had neutralized a threat that should have easily killed her.

Then, a deep, mechanical thumping sound echoed through the floorboards.

The underground backup generator had been triggered.

The harsh, buzzing fluorescent light directly above Ivy flickered violently. It buzzed like an angry swarm of hornets before snapping back to life in a blinding burst of white light.

The sudden illumination burned Ivy's eyes. She blinked rapidly, forcing her vision to adjust.

The cell was a scene of calculated carnage. Jax was curled on the floor near the corner, his face a mess of crimson blood from his shattered nose. His right arm hung at a sickening, unnatural angle. He was whining in agony, rocking back and forth on the stained concrete.

The heavy steel door of the cell had been thrown wide open.

Cole stood framed in the doorway.

He had his heavy black handgun drawn and leveled straight ahead, prepared to shoot whoever had bypassed his locks. His face was a mask of cold, lethal fury. He had come down to the vault expecting to find a dead woman. He had expected to find his asset slaughtered by a rogue club member.

Instead, the Reaper of the Devil's Saints froze in his tracks.

The gun in his hand did not waver, but his dark, calculating eyes swept over the room. He looked at the broken, bleeding man writhing on the floor. He looked at the hunting knife discarded in the corner.

Finally, his gaze locked onto Ivy.

She was standing perfectly straight in the center of the room. Her dark hair was disheveled. Her chest rose and fell with steady, controlled breaths. She raised her hands slightly, turning her palms toward the harsh overhead light. Her skin was painted with Jax's blood.

She did not look terrified. She did not look like a woman who needed saving. She looked like a survivor standing over her prey.

Cole stared at her. The rigid, logical foundation of his world shifted on its axis.

He was not feeling affection. He was not feeling a sudden rush of romantic warmth. What he felt was a dark, dangerous shock. His mind rapidly recalculated everything he thought he knew about the prisoner. He had claimed her to solve a puzzle. He had claimed her to read financial ledgers.

He had not realized he was locking a weapon inside his vault.

A heavy, suffocating tension settled over the room. Cole slowly lowered his weapon. His dark eyes remained fixed on Ivy, studying the cold detachment in her posture.

Jax groaned on the floor, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the concrete. "She broke my arm. The crazy bitch snapped my bone. Kill her, Cole. Shoot her right now."

Cole did not look at the injured man. He kept his eyes locked on the woman standing in the center of the light. She had not only proven her innocence regarding the money, she had just proven she could survive the wolves in his den.

"She is mine," Cole murmured, the dark rumble of his voice carrying a new, lethal weight.

Author's Note:

Ivy just proved she is a serious force to be reckoned with. She used the darkness and Jax's own anger to survive. Cole arrived expecting a tragedy but found a warrior instead. How do you think the rest of the club will react when they find out what Ivy did to a patched member? Let me know your predictions in the comments below! Please like and share this chapter to keep the tension rolling. See you in the next update.