“Seriously?” I say with wide eyes.
“They take it out on everybody when you fight. We’ve all tried it and we’ve all ended up bleeding from several places. It’s not worth it,” the brunette whispers.
Shit.
My heart starts to beat wildly inside of my chest, and my bottom lip trembles as I’m now officially on the verge of tears.
“They’re never going to find us, are they?” I ask as my eyes go from woman to woman in the room.
“I’ve been here for a year,” the brunette rasps.
“Oh, fuck,” I say as tears start to stream down my face.
“They don’t know I’m infertile. Once a girl gets pregnant, she’s taken away,” she whispers.
I pinch my eyes closed so tight that I see stars. I want this nightmare to disappear. I want to open my eyes and be in my bed, lying next to Paxton. I don’t even care what bed, the clubhouse, our house, anywhere but here.
“The sun is starting to set,” Ginger whispers.
“What’s that mean?” I ask, opening my eyes to look around.
“It means it’s almost time,” the brunette says in a warning tone.
I don’t ask anything else. I don’t need that clarified. Not in the slightest. I suck in my lips to keep from whimpering as I bring my knees up, resting my cheek on them as I await my fate. Whatever that looks like.
“It’s time to break in the new girl,” a voice calls out as the door flies open.
I look up and my eyes widen at the man in front of me. I’ve met him before. Just a few days ago. He’s a member of Fury’s club, and one of the men that Paxton trusts.
Holy shit.
“Drifter?” I whisper, looking at the man who was introduced to me as Fury’s Vice President not very long ago.
“Surprise, cunt,” he grins.
“How, why?”
“Not your fuckin’ business,” he growls as he stalks toward me.
Drifter bends down and wraps his hand around my bicep before he pulls me roughly to my feet. He then shoves his shoulder into my belly and picks me up over his shoulder. He turns around and starts to walk me out of the room.
I look up and make eye contact with all of the women. They all look at me with varying degrees of pity, and I know that this, what comes next, is going to be horrendous.
I keep my lips pressed together as he lets me fall to my feet. I sway when he bends down and unties my ankles. Then he rises, and his hands dive into my hair before fisting tightly, making my scalp pull. I try not to wince at the pain.
“The club thought they’d be cute. They thought they could cut off contracts, and they all thought that it would just go away,” he growls.
“So you betrayed them?” I ask, trying to keep him talking. The longer he talks, the longer until he rapes me.
“Been playing both sides of the fence, darlin’, my whole fuckin’ life. Dad was an Aryan. I prospected with the Devils the day I turned eighteen,” he grins. “Now, it’s time to play.”
I suck in a breath when he reaches for me. Unfortunately, there isn’t much fabric between us, and Drifter grabs the hem of my t-shirt with each hand and rips it in half up my body. I shake, unable to stop myself as I’m standing in just my panties and no bra in front of him. His eyes scan me and he grins.
“Nipple rings. Nice,” he grunts as he reaches out and touches each ring.
I dig my fingernails into my palms, fighting a shiver in disgust, keeping my face impassive, and trying to keep the bile from rising up my throat.
“Does the carpet match the curtains?” a man’s voice asks from somewhere behind me.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Drifter asks as his fingers reach for my panties.
I feel heat at my back, but since my hands are still tied, I can do nothing but stand and wait for whatever comes next. Then a knock on the door has Drifter’s head popping up, and he takes a step back from me.
I watch as he pulls a gun out of his waistband and walks over to the door. Three more men suddenly appear, and the man who was behind me wraps his arm around my neck, pulling me into his chest. His arm moves and his hand squeezes my breast before his rancid breath hits my face.
“Can’t wait to play with you,” he whispers.
I don’t make a move or a noise, trying my hardest to keep absolutely still and show no emotion at all to his words.
I hear Paxton’s voice, and then there’s a shot that rings out, but I don’t see who falls. The man holding me whirls me around from the front door.
I scream out in pain as my ankle twists, and I try to struggle to get away from him. His grip is tight, and his hand has moved from my breast to my neck. He squeezes, and I stop screaming, but I don’t stop struggling against him with all that I have.
Chapter Thirty
TORCH
Drifter stares back at me when the door opens. Drifter, my own fuckin’ Vice President. The man we trusted to run our club when Fury was locked up a few years ago; the man I trusted as a brother, as my family.
“Drifter?” I ask, my gun at my side.
“The fuck you doing here?” he barks. I watch his arm move.
He’s got a gun in his grasp, and I jerk to the side, a bullet going through my shoulder. I hear another shot ring out and watch Drifter fall, Fury appearing and walking through the door, another shot, and another.
My eyes aren’t on any of the action. Instead, my eyes are focused on Cleo. I lift my gun in my other hand, my non-dominant one, and point it at the fuck whose hand is wrapped round my wife’s neck.
“You try and shoot me, I’ll choke the life outta her,” he growls.
I don’t speak. I continue to walk toward him. He’s squeezing her neck, and she’s turning an ugly shade of red, but I don’t give a fuck right now. He can’t kill her by the time I point this gun to his pussy face and pull the trigger.
His eyes are wide and he’s searching for something, but I don’t give a single fuck of what it could be. He’s backed himself up against the wall, and I can hear my brother’s heavy boots stomping around the house. All his little buddies are dead.
“Let her go,” I growl with my gun pointed at his temple.
“Fuck you, spic,” he screams.
My eyes widen in surprise, and then I grin.
“I’m half-Persian, half-mutt, none of those being Hispanic, you fuckin’ idiot,” I chuckle before I pull the trigger. His body immediately falls to the floor, as does Cleo, who rolls to the side after I’ve kicked the disgusting fucker away from her.
I sink to my ass and pull her into my arms, my fingers touching the side of her neck, praying for a pulse. When I find it, I let out a sigh of relief.
FURY
I walk into the bedroom, anticipating to clear it of more sick fucks, but then I freeze in my tracks. Women, a whole room full.
I count—eight.
They’re all skinny, dirty, and white, of course. They look up at me, and one of them smiles.
“Holy shit, you guys came,” one girl with long blonde hair and brown eyes says. “I’m Ginger. My Old Man is Snake, from Canada,” she says.
My eyes widen in surprise and I take in each woman. They’re all barely dressed and look vastly different, but they have something in common. They each have brands. Ginger’s is across the side of her neck. Proudly on display, it says Snake in cursive.
“What the fuck?” I rasp. “He never told me his woman was gone,” I mutter, thinking about my friend.
“We’d been separated for a few months,” she says, her lip trembling and tears filling her eyes.
“What the fucking shit is this?” my Pops whispers from behind me.
“They need medical attention,” I inform him.
“Fuckin’ shit. We got a van comin’. Let me call ahead to the clubhouse, see if we can get doc there. It’s a couple hours drive,” he murmurs.
“Get somethin’ set up for nine women and Torch, he’s got a flesh wound he needs sewed up,” I grunt.
I cal
l out for a couple guys to help me with these women.
“There anymore of you?” I ask as I pick up Snake’s Old Lady.
She’s nothin’ but skin and bones, and it makes my body vibrate with anger.
“I don’t think so,” she whispers. “Please don’t call him,” she begs.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I call him?” I ask as my brows shoot straight up.
I’m careful not to jar her tiny body too much as I carry her to the van. She winces with each step that I take.
My eye’s catch my VP, the man I fucking trusted with my life for years, lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor. Blood that was put there with a bullet that I fucking shot, right in his goddamn traitor face.
“I don’t want him to know,” she whispers.
“Sorry babe, gonna call him. His names on your body, would make me no better than my piece of shit ex-VP if I didn’t give him the opportunity to take care of his Old Lady,” I rumble as I set her down in the open van.
“He won’t care,” she whispers.
“Know Snake, babe; known him for a lotta years; know he’ll fuckin’ care,” I grind out. She closes her eyes, and I watch as nothing but pure pain crosses her features. “We’ll get you all cleaned up. You’ll feel different.”
“I won’t,” she rasps.
I don’t get a chance to say anything else. The other women are set down in the van, and then I watch as my Pops carries an unconscious Cleo, with Torch looking ready to kill walking behind him.
“Wanna torch the house?” I ask, turning to him.
“Fuck yes,” he growls.
“Figured this could go down like that. There’s accelerant in the van,” I shrug.
“Might have to help me. My arm’s lame,” he chuckles.
“First, we take Drifter’s cut,” I grin.
“Fuck, yeah,” he grunts.
We take Drifter’s cut from his body before we douse the house with a can of gasoline, something we always have in the van. Then Fury throws in a match and runs away.
The house goes up in a burst of flames. The brothers load on their bikes; Torch’s bike is loaded into the back of a pickup truck we brought just in case. The van, with the women and Torch, driven by a prospect, takes off. My pops and I walk toward our bikes.
“Never woulda pegged him,” my dad mutters.
“No shit. He held down the fort while I was locked up, like a well-oiled machine,” I say, shaking my head with disbelief mixed with disgust.
“Let’s get these women taken care of,” he grunts before he starts his engine.
We ride down to Shasta, my Pops probably equally antsy to get home to his Mary-Anne, to ensure her safety after seeing what we saw today.
As soon as we pull into the clubhouse, I make a much needed and difficult call.
“Snake,” he growls into the phone.
“It’s Fury,” I announce. He chuckles.
“Shit, man, I didn’t even look at my caller ID. What’s up, brother?”
“Shits me to have to do this, make this call,” I say.
I close my eyes, not able to watch the men carry the women from the van to inside the clubhouse, where there’s surely a doctor ready to help them.
“The fuck, man? What’s up?”
“It’s Ginger,” I murmur.
I can practically feel the electricity from him spark through the phone.
“What’s Ginger? That bitch ran out of town two months ago,” he growls.
“She didn’t.”
“What the fuck aren’t you telling me?” he practically whispers.
“Need to come to Shasta,” I murmur.
“Tell me first. Fucking tell me,” he demands.
“She was kidnapped, held by my own fucking VP in Tulelake, in some shitty house. She’s been hurt, man,” I say as I lift my hand and run it across the back of my neck.
“Hurt,” he rasps.
“She didn’t want you comin’, but brother, you care anything for her, you need to be here.”
“Me and a couple boys are leavin’ in five,” he says before he ends the call.
“Did the right thing,” Sniper says from next to me.
“Did I? She didn’t want me calling him,” I murmur looking up at the sky.
“She don’t know what she wants. That was Kentlee, you guys were fighting or you felt like you hated her, you’d want to know if someone hurt her like that,” he mumbles, his voice gruff. “And I know Snake. Never met Ginger before, don’t know anything about her, but I know him. He’s the kinda man that’d want to know.”
I lift my chin and then pat Sniper on the back. He’s going to be my new VP—he just doesn’t know it yet. My brother-in-law, the most solid man I know. I can’t deny that I’m glad we found out what was happening, who was buying women—and, odds are, the reason our particular women were being targeted.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
“No shit,” he chuckles before he turns around. We watch a bunch of cars coming through the gates.
“The Calvary’s arrived,” he grins.
“They’ll help these women,” I murmur. Mary-Anne, Sniper’s sister, is the first to pull into the parking lot.
“Shit yeah, they will,” he grunts.
CLEO
I moan. I hurt. I roll to the side and realize that I’m in a bed. Opening my eyes, I expect to see that rank asshole, or maybe Drifter, but I don’t.
It’s Paxton.
He’s sitting in a chair by the bed, his head hanging down. He’s shirtless with a bandage on his arm. I look around the room and let out a sigh of relief to find that I’m in his room at the clubhouse. I’ve never been so happy to see this room in my entire life.
“Paxton,” I whisper, reaching out to touch him.
As soon as my fingers graze his forearm, he jumps and his stormy blue eyes meet mine. They sweep over me and then land on my eyes. He drinks me in for a moment before he stands and walks over to the side of the bed. I watch silently as he sinks down next to me.
“How you feelin’, sweetheart?” he asks as his fingers gently touch my throat.
“Throat’s sore,” I rasp.
“It’s gonna be for a while,” he nods. “The rest of you?”
“They didn’t hurt me,” I say with a small smile. “You got to me before anything happened.”
“Fuck, all of this shit is my fault,” he rumbles.
I reach up and cup his cheek with my palm, feeling his scruff as I focus on his eyes.
“You don’t control the world, Paxton. I’m okay. The other girls may not be, but I am,” I say, giving him another small smile.
“Yeah, fuckin’ barely. You get kidnapped, shot, then kidnapped and touched. This shit is not okay, and all of it is because of me. You can’t talk me out of feelin’ that,” he announces.
“I love you. Do you love me?” I ask, ignoring his self-pity-fest.
“More than anything, sweetheart,” he rasps.
“Then that’s all I care about,” I say hoarsely. “I’m alive, I’m breathing, and I’m not hurt. You’re here, right in front of me, safe and breathing. We have a whole beautiful life ahead of us.”
“Fucking hell, I do not deserve you,” he chuckles before he places his lips against my palm. He then lowers his head and presses another kiss to my lips.
“Why do you have a bandage on your arm?” I ask, pulling away from him slightly.
“Got shot,” he shrugs.
My eyes widen as I gasp before I sit straight up.
“Paxton, oh my God, are you okay?” I ask my voice raspy. My fingers gently touching his bandage.
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Flesh wound. Doc just gave me a couple stitches and some antibiotic. Be good as new in just a few days. Nothin’ like what you went through,” he murmurs.
“Please tell me this is all over,” I beg.
“We don’t know exactly what Drifter was doin’ or what his reasoning was, so I don’t know. I hope to fuck it is, though,” he sighs.
“His dad was an Aryan. He said he was playing both sides of the fence,” I say, remembering the information that Drifter so sweetly imparted on me before he ripped my shirt off and grabbed my boob.
“I gotta tell Fury and MadDog,” he announces, standing up.
He stops, turning back to me, his eyes going soft as he looks at me.
“You’ll be okay if I leave for a few?”
“Is Ginger okay?” I ask as my answer.
“I’ll send her in if you wanna see for yourself,” he grins as he continues to walk out of the door.
“That’d be nice,” I sigh.
I’m wearing another one of Paxton’s t-shirts, and instead of just panties, I’ve also got a pair of sweatpants on. I wait and jump slightly when the door opens and Ginger walks through.
She looks a million times better than the last time I saw her. Her face is cleaned off from the grime and dirt that had been there.
Her blonde hair is even lighter, now that it’s clean, and she looks much like me in a pair of men’s sweats and oversized t-shirt.
“Cleo,” she whispers as she walks up to me. Sitting down on the bed in front of me, she crosses her legs.
“We were found,” I grin.
“We were,” she nods. She’s not smiling, though, and it makes me curious.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I know someone called my Old Man. He’ll be here,” she whispers. “The other girl’s men have been filing in all day long.”
“You don’t want him here?” I ask in confusion.
“I don’t want him to think that he has to take care of me because his name is inked on my neck,” she states.
“How long have you been together?” I blurt, though I don’t know why.
“Before I was taken, we’d been off and on for six months. Before that, we had been together for six months straight,” she explains. “I’m broken now,” she whispers. “We fought a lot, and we’re both stubborn, and now this,” she shakes her head as she wipes a tear from her eye.
“You’re not broken. You didn’t ask for the things that happened to you. Paxton and I fight a lot; but we also love each other a lot, and the love I have for him outweighs everything else,” I say.
The Notorious Devils MC: Complete Collection BoxSet Page 139
