Page 82 of Caged Hunger

Wiping his nose with his hand, Basher looked at the blood smeared on his finger and smirked. It wasn’t a proper kidnapping without a bit of blood and probably a broken nose.

Everything hurt—his nose, his jaw, his back, even his thighs hurt.

He glanced around at the guys sitting in the back of the van with him, glaring.

Yeah, these pussies looked like the type to gang up on him, then kick him in the ribs and legs when he was down on the ground, unable to defend himself.

The only way these homos got a jump on him was that they caught him by surprise.

If he had been paying attention instead of worrying about Cameron and what he was going to do to the man who was currently stalking his guy, he would have heard the van roll up and the sound of these assholes breathing before he even opened the door.

But no, he had been distracted, so they got the jump on him.

Don’t get him wrong. He wasn’t complaining about being distracted. That was a good thing. It meant he had someone in his life he cared about more than himself, someone to worry about and be distracted by.

And hey, if he had to take a few punches to the face and kicks to the ribs for Cameron, he would choose pain and blood every time.

“Once again, I see Caplan Jr. is hiding behind his goons. Will your wannabe boss ever grow a pair and fight me himself?” Basher asked, recognizing a few of the faces around him as the guys from the bar parking lot the night things went to shit and he got his ass thrown into prison.

“Oh, don’t worry, Tony’s waiting for you. He has been for a very long time,” the guy sitting across from him said.

They were all seated on the floor in the back of the van. Basher was the only one with his hands bound, the restraints digging into his wrists with every bump in the road.

Across from him sat a hard-faced man who hadn't taken his eyes off him since they'd left. A hunting knife rested in his hands, the blade glinting as he idly turned it over and over, like he was imagining all the ways he could use it.

“I take it he sent you boys to make sure the coast was clear and that I was safely secured before he met me face-to-face?” Basher taunted.

The man across from him smiled.

“You just wait until we get there.”

Basher nodded slowly. These assholes didn’t scare him. He’d dealt with men like them his entire life.

What had him grinding his teeth was the fact that he’d been taken away from Cameron. The thought of leaving him unprotected sat in his stomach like a lead weight.

Marcus and the others would look after him. They had to.

If anything happened to Cameron while he was gone, there wouldn’t be a corner of the earth these bastards could hide in.

“So, how much longer?” Basher asked, taking note that they had been driving along a dirt road for the past twenty minutes.

The van came to a stop.

The man across from him smiled. “Looks like we’re here.”

Basher let the men yank him from the back of the van and lead him across the dirt toward a large barn that had seen better days.

They were on a ranch—somewhere. The smell of cattle hung heavy in the warm air. Though Basher couldn't see any animals from where they were, ranches like this covered enormous stretches of land.

The structure they were heading toward was an old barn. Faded dark-green paint clung to the lower walls in chipped, peeling patches, while a deep-red roof loomed overhead, weathered by years of sun and rain. Several of the windows were cracked or shattered, and some had lost their glass entirely, leaving dark, empty holes that gave the place an abandoned, haunted look.

Whatever this barn was used for, the owners didn’t appear to worry about people getting in.

“Basher! My old friend! How the fuck are you?” Tony Caplan shouted, stepping out of the darkness. He wore a black-and-white pinstriped suit with a matching black tie, and his hair was slicked back like he had stock in hair gel.

Someone needed to remind the guy that he was twenty-eight, not forty-five. Wearing a suit like that, to what might very well be a possible execution, was the kind of thing normally reserved for aging mobsters and men with an unhealthy obsession with old gangster movies.

“Still hiding behind your daddy’s men, are you, T? When are you going to get hair on your balls and actually face me like a man?” Basher asked as two men led him to the center of the barn and began wrapping chains around his wrists.