With or Without Him (36 page)

It wasn’t a lie, and Haris needed Adil on his side if he was to find out anything about Malik.

“What do you want?” Adil asked. His tone of voice didn’t suggest he’d been won over by Haris’s offer.

“I need to speak to Malik.”

“I’ll ask him to call you.”

Adil cut him off.

Haris tried Malik’s number again but there was no response. Stan answered on the second ring.

“Can you trace cell phones?”

“It depends.”

“This is an emergency, Stan. I need your help.”

Tyler felt as if he were swimming in mud. Even the air he sucked into his lungs seemed to weigh him down. It was hard to think straight. He was on his feet, but someone was supporting him otherwise he’d have slithered to the floor. They were inside a building and it was dark and noisy. He no longer wore his coat. He couldn’t see properly. Everything was hazy. What were those mixed up sounds? Music? Screams? Moans? Tyler tried to pull away from whoever hung onto him, but they just held him tighter.

With no small amount of effort, he turned his head and saw that the guy who gripped his arm wore a leather mask covering the top half of his face.
That’s not good.

“Where…?” Tyler managed one word.

“Here you go,” someone said. Not the man holding him.

Tyler stumbled through a door and crashed to the floor. He put his hands out to break his fall but he still landed heavily and groaned. The floor was cold and sticky and smelled of…
oh fuck.
He gagged. Strong arms hoisted him into a sitting position, and the man shoved him against a wall and let him go. He heard the sound of two bolts sliding closed and then a phone was pushed into his hand.
My phone. When did I lose that?

“Call Haris. Tell him come to Garden of Hell. Room Seven.”

Garden of Hell.
He’d never heard of it. Even in the depths of Tyler’s befuddled—
I have to be drugged
—brain, he registered that this was the guy from the café, the orchestra thing had been a lie and he knew Haris. Tyler’s heart pounded and his stomach churned.
I’m bait in a trap.
He couldn’t ask Haris to come here. Nothing good would come of it. The man pulled the mask off his head and glared at him. Another lever clicked into place. Curly dark hair. Tall. Foreign.
Shit.
Was this the bastard who’d stabbed Jeremy? Was it so much of a jump?
Why can’t I think straight?

“Use your phone. Tell Haris to come. Tell him I whip you until he does.”

The man pulled a whip from a bag.
Oh fuck.
Tyler pretended to fumble with the phone before he managed to slap it to his ear.

“What do you want, you little shit?” Prescott snapped.

“I’m in Room Seven at Garden of Hell. Please come. I need your help.”

“Why the fuck should I help you?”

“Because…I’ll owe you.”

Tyler ended the call and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He looked up at the man.
Distract him.
“Who are you?”

“Rashid Al-Dakhil.”

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Why do you want Haris?”

The crack of the whip made Tyler cry out in surprise. The noise was deafening. He didn’t realize he’d been struck until pain flared in his lower leg.
Fuck it, that hurt.

“Take your clothes off.”

Didn’t seem like a good idea.

Rashid pulled a knife out of a scabbard fastened to his lower leg. “Do it or I cut off your fingers one by one.”

Now stripping seemed a
really
good idea. He wasn’t going to hurry. He still had his phone but would Rashid check it? He was an idiot not to. He didn’t look like an idiot but he looked mad. A muscle twitched in his cheek and his lips were compressed into a thin line. Tyler stripped. He didn’t have to pretend to go slow, his fingers weren’t exactly cooperative. They were probably more scared than the rest of him. Except for maybe a couple of bits of his anatomy doing their best to hide behind his kidneys.

“I don’t want to be whipped,” Tyler said. “I haven’t done anything to you. Why do you want to hurt me?”

He glanced at the door. Two bolts. One high, one low. Even if he managed to pull back one, this guy would be on him before he reached the other. To the left side of the door, a curtain hung across what he assumed was a window. It was too high to throw himself against. He tried to stand up to take off his pants, fell and banged his elbow. Tyler swallowed hard. How long before this drug wore off? Maybe he should pretend to be more uncoordinated than he was. He lingered over removing his pants but eventually they lay on the floor.

The whip sliced through the air and came down on his arm. “Everything off.”

“Fuck,” Tyler gasped and rubbed his arm.

An angry red welt bloomed on his skin to match the one on his calf. He shuffled out of his boxers and curled up with his hands over his cock and balls.

“Look, I’ll do whatever you want but lay off with the whip. It fucking hurts.”

Rashid dragged him across the room by his hair and Tyler fought to get free, but the fucker had little difficulty securing him. He yelled for help, twisted and squirmed, but he still ended up with his wrists in leather restraints. He shook from head to toe as he hung on the wall.

“Tell me why you’re doing this?” he blurted.

Did I make a mistake calling Prescott?
Tyler assumed he’d be furious enough with him to respond to the call, but maybe he’d just stand and watch while whip-guy went berserk.
Oh fuck.
But he couldn’t have brought Haris into this.

You’re an idiot.

Yeah, I know.

“Face wall.”

“Please,” Tyler said. “Don’t do this.”

“You want me whip your cock?”

Tyler turned. He gripped the restraints and tensed. He heard the swish of the whip moving through the air and tried to press himself through the bricks. The strike felt like a knife raking down his back. Before he had time to draw another breath, the whip hit him again and he screamed.

“Please. I’m not into this. Stop it. Stop. Finish. End. Give in. Surrender. Banana. Whatever fucking word you want. Please.”

There was a loud bang on the door and Tyler shouted, “Get me out of here. This guy’s a fucking lunatic.”

Rashid grabbed his hair and forced a sock into his mouth. Tyler heard him pulling on the bolts and he tried to push out the sock with his tongue as he turned. Prescott couldn’t have got here this fast.

Oh fuck.
Not Prescott. Lu.

Chapter Twenty

“Who are you?” Rashid asked Lu. He had the mask back on his face. It worried Tyler that his abductor didn’t care if
he
saw him but didn’t want anyone else to.

“Who are you?” Lu snapped. “This my sub. You no right to whip.”

Tyler struggled to spit the gag out. He felt like he was choking. Lu stalked across the room and pulled out the sock. Tyler gulped air into a dry throat and tried to ask for help.

“How you know he here?” Rashid asked.

“I hear Tyler scream. I know sound anywhere. He cry like big baby.”

Fuck you but keep talking.
At least he wasn’t being hit.

“He…” Tyler tried again to speak but he couldn’t get the words out.

Something warm trickled down his back and he guessed it was blood. At least he couldn’t see it, but…
don’t fucking think about it.

“Lu. Help me,” Tyler rasped. “He drugged me. Don’t want this.”

“Get out,” Rashid snapped.

“What his word?” Lu asked.

“I don’t have a fucking word,” Tyler choked out. “He just wants to hurt me.”

Lu smiled at him.
Oh shit.

“You leave now,” Rashid said.

“I’m bait to get someone else here,” Tyler croaked.

Lu picked the sock up from the floor and guessing what he was going to do, Tyler thrashed his head from side to side. Lu yanked on his hair to keep his head still and pushed the sock back in his mouth. He spun Tyler around to face the wall.

“You amateur?” Lu asked. “Need to play longer with toy before strike like that, draw blood. Messy. Give me whip. I show you.”

Hit him, Lu. Please.

Three fast strikes across his lower back made Tyler jerk into the wall.
Oh God, my cock, my hips, my knees. Have I been fucking whisked into some parallel universe?
A guy he’d hoped might save him was giving lessons on how to whip him to a guy who most likely wanted to tear him to shreds. Well, he would once he realized he hadn’t called Haris.

He closed his eyes as the whip hit him again and again, the pain shooting to every part of his body. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Rashid would have whipped him anyway. Who the hell was he? He clearly thought Tyler should know. He must have thought he wouldn’t have gone with him if he’d told him his real name. He likely would have.
I’m idiot boy.
Was Rashid an old boyfriend of Haris? Ex-business partner? Fucking escapee from a psychiatric hospital?

“See how I do? You can whip for longer time, still painful but damage skin less,” Lu said.

Bastard. Am I supposed to be grateful?
Tyler guessed Prescott had called Lu to see if he was near the club. He’d arrived so quickly, he was probably already in there. He only wore leather pants, his upper body was bare. Tyler clung to the hope that Prescott wouldn’t want him damaged but maybe the phone call was a mistake. Should he have tried to press 999?

The whip fell again, onto his ass this time, and Tyler cried out behind the gag.
Shit, that hurt.

“See how to do it now?” Lu asked.

“Yes. Thank you. Go now.”

“Tyler a brat. But he my brat.
You
go now.”

“No.”

As the whip fell again, Tyler shuddered into the wall. Lu pulled the gag out and Tyler sucked in air, trying to draw saliva into his mouth. “He wants to kill me,” he croaked.

“Prescott want to kill you too.”

Uh-oh.
Tyler’s balls tried even harder to climb into his body. The police weren’t supposed to be doing anything until Saturday as far as Prescott was concerned. So…

“Why?” Tyler asked, his heart bouncing on his stomach.

“Gerald heard he reported for rape.”

Tyler turned to face him. “He didn’t rape me.”
Oh God.

“Who did he rape?”

“Look ou—” Tyler choked off his warning as Rashid wrapped the whip around Lu’s neck.

Lu managed to slide his fingers under the leather but Rashid pulled tighter.

“Help,” Tyler screamed. He kept on screaming as the two men struggled. Lu pulled off Rashid’s mask, trying to push his fingers into his eyes. As Rashid dragged the mask back in place, Lu elbowed him in the ribs and Rashid doubled over. Tyler thought for a moment that Lu would break free but Rashid spun round, lashed out with his foot and Lu’s head smacked into the wall before he slumped to the floor.

Don’t look at the blood.

A breathless Rashid kicked the motionless Lu and snapped something in his own language. He rifled through Tyler’s clothing and pulled out his phone.

“You call number again.”

Don’t look at the screen.
But even as Tyler thought it, he saw it was too late.

“Who Henry?”

Tyler put on his best puzzled look. “Why?”

“You call him, not Haris.” Rashid struck Tyler’s head so hard with the whip handle that everything went black before his vision filled with blurred stars.

“Did I? I didn’t mean to,” he said with a groan. “Their numbers are next to each other.”

Rashid glared. “You speak to him now.”

Tyler groaned. He’d had enough. This wasn’t going to turn out well. If he saved Haris, at least he’d done something worthwhile with his life.

“Go fuck yourself,” Tyler muttered, tasting blood in his mouth.

“You want me fuck you with whip?”

“You already have.”

“Not like that.”

Rashid twisted Tyler round and shoved the handle against his anus. Tyler tensed.
Oh Christ, let me be brave.
“I’m not calling him here for you to kill him.”

“You will call him. How much pain you want before you do?”

“Touch him again and I’ll kill you.”

Rashid spun round. Tyler looked over his shoulder to see Haris standing in the doorway with another man, one he’d seen before somewhere. He blinked hard in case he was imagining it but Haris didn’t disappear. Relief fought dismay, but at least Haris wasn’t alone.

“Harissss.” Rashid hissed like a cobra and his eyes widened.

Haris wanted to pummel Rashid until
he
fucking screamed. Blood dripped down Tyler’s beautiful back where the whip had cut him.

“Stan, check the guy on the floor,” Haris said.

Lu was already coming round. He put his hand to his head and looked at the blood on his fingers. Tyler gagged.