Fear.
The loss of control.
It’s too fucking much.
The bikes come rumbling through the open clubhouse gates. I try to stumble backward a step, but Ridge doesn’t let me. His fingers tighten their grip on my hip and he pulls me closer, plastering me to his side.
It’s obvious that the bike in front is the president. He is the first to park and climb off of his black machine. It’s a beautiful bike, matte black and sexy as shit, if he wasn’t from such a horrible club, I’d admit that out loud.
“Riot,” Dragon growls.
The man squares his shoulders. He’s tall, bigger than most men, his chest barreled but he’s definitely not fat. He’s strong, his body thick, but defined with thick muscle.
He’s got longer salt-and-pepper hair, his beard matching, and his eyes bright blue as they flick from each of the men, then finally land on me. When they do, his lips twitch into a smirk.
“She don’t exist,” Ridge growls.
Riot tilts his head to the side and I watch as he licks his lips, then chuckles as his eyes scan my entire body slowly. “Seems to me that she very much does,” he practically purrs.
The man has charisma, and it sucks that he’s from such a horrible club, because he’s kind of hot.
“What was your deal with Angel? He didn’t have any drugs, so what the fuck were you doing with him?” Dragon barks.
Riot’s gaze slowly leaves me and swings over to Dragon. “He was in charge of getting women. I have friends with particular interests and since your men have the mark on transporting all the drugs and guns from one side of the country to the other. We dabble in a different kind of transportation.”
Dragon shakes his head. “Angel didn’t have shit, man. He was selling you a pipedream.”
“Not sure I give a fuck if it wasn’t real, all I really care about is my product. The first delivery was supposed to be for two weeks from now. I got customers who already paid a deposit. They won’t accept no for an answer and believe you me, I’ll drop your name as the reason they won’t get what they want.”
“What’s it they want? I know you said women, I want to know the details,” Dragon demands.
There’s a moment of silence, then Riot’s lips turn up into a blinding white smile. “They like to own women. Use them and then get rid of them when they’re done playing.”
I can’t help but gasp at his words. The way he so callously talks about killing these innocent people. I know that’s what he’s talking about, too. So basically, they pay for a woman, use and abuse her body until there is nothing left or until they get bored, then kill her and dump her body in a field somewhere.
Ridge’s fingers tighten against my hip again. I don’t know if it’s for my benefit or his, but I press my lips together and lean closer against him as I wrap my arms around his middle.
“What ages?” Dragon asks as if he’s seriously thinking about this shit. As if he’s contemplating gathering women for this asshole to sell on the black market.
Ridge growls along with a couple of other men behind us, but nobody says anything and they wouldn’t. Dragon is their president and there is no way they would question anything that he did, at least not in open forum, in front of an enemy.
Riot’s smile doesn’t even fade. “Fourteen to twenty. I need fifteen of them. There’s an order for younger and both male and female, but Angel didn’t deal with kids, so I go through someone else for those buyers.”
My stomach churns. The idea. The thought. It makes my entire body tremble with disgust and fear.
I open my mouth to say something when Ridge lifts the back of his hand to my head and forces my face to be buried against his side. I want to scream. I want to kill this fucker. Instead, my entire body shakes as I cry.
Everything is drowned out around me not only by Ridge’s palm against my ear but also by my roaring blood and my muffled cries against the leather of his cut. Then as if the storm is over, I hear the bikes’ engines roar to life and slowly they fade away.
TAZ
Turning to Dragon, I wonder what the absolute fuck he’s thinking. We don’t do sex trafficking, not like what Riot was talking about. Drugs and guns, that’s what the fuck we do. Women and children being delivered to their deaths? Fuck that.
“What?” Dragon barks.
Bones clears his throat, lifting his hand to rub the back of his neck. “You just promised him he’d have a variety of girls ages fourteen to twenty, what the fuck, man?”
Grinding my jaw, I wonder exactly that. What the fuck? Dragon’s gaze flicks to Trista then moves around to the men who are staring at them as though he’s just sold us to the Devil. I’m thinking that he has at this point.
“Did you want your families to die? They had men on them, and they weren’t bluffing. They slaughtered us years ago and I have no doubt they’d do it again without hesitating.”
Clearing his throat, Wolfe takes a step forward. “It ain’t right,” he announces. “Not at fucking all. Innocents do not belong in this. Children do not belong.”
“You want your woman dead? I don’t want my babies gone, my woman gone. Sometimes you have to do shit you don’t agree with to save the ones you love.”
Silver grunts, then marches ahead of all of us, until his nose is directly in front of Dragon’s. He’s pissed the fuck off, and I don’t blame him. I’m pissed too, but beyond that, I feel goddamn betrayed by my own president.
“You better figure out a way to make sure none of this shit comes to fruition. You promised him something that none of us will help you deliver.”
Dragon shakes his head once. “You don’t have to. I’ll call the Italians.”
“You’ll call the Italians?” Wolfe asks. “The same men who whored out your wife her entire life? You’ll call them?”
Dragon clears his throat. “They get shipments from Ireland. They’ll be able to fill this order and we can be done.”
“They get shipments and turn those girls into high-class call girls. They aren’t sold, abused, and killed and you know it,” Silver growls.
Dragon lifts his hands. “What the fuck do you want from me? I’m trying to save our women and our kids. If I fucked with them tonight, they would have killed everyone we love. They would have killed our families. I had to take the opportunity they gave me and there was only one.”
“Ramos fucked us all,” Bones says, his voice deep and rumbly. “Jaguar did no favors and Ramos and his crew fucked us. Karma fucked us. His brother Kade, fucked us. Everyone has fucked us, and this is where we are now. We have to try to dig ourselves out of this shit and Dragon made the right decision.”
I’m not surprised Bones agrees with him, he has to. They were just patched over and made part of our club. He can’t go against Dragon, shit is just too plain fucking new with them. He is right though. Jaguar, Ramos, Kade, and Karma fucked us.
“We could fight a war, I’ve been stockpiling, but what they were proposing, it wasn’t a war, it was a slaughter. I’m willing to go into talks with the Italians, but I’m not willing to transport children, not for that shit,” I say.
Trista whimpers against my side. She’s been so quiet, I forgot that she was here. We really shouldn’t be discussing this in front of her, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Fuck it, nothing does.
“I’ll call Santoro, but my favors with him are limited. The only thing I think he’d be willing to work with me on is his prices for the women. I know he gets some and trades them with Ireland, he has to have a resource.”
Silver snorts. “I don’t give a fuck what your favors are with him. I don’t agree with any of this shit and I’m making it clear. I’d rather go to war than hand-deliver a bunch of innocent girls to their abusers and be responsible for their deaths.”
“Gotta say, brother,” Wolfe murmurs. “I agree with Silver on this one.”
“So, what? You want me to break my word and have us go to war with the Punchers?”
Mountain takes a s
tep forward. “Yeah, we do. You ain’t much of a man, you don’t stand up for something. You ain’t much of a president, either. Your men are tellin’ you that they don’t agree. We don’t fucking agree, brother. We could take it to a vote, but swear to fuck you’re not going to like the vote that comes next.”
“That a threat?” Dragon growls.
Mountain shakes his head. “No, it’s a promise. You’re our president for a reason. We trust you to make decisions for us. Some of those decisions we trust you to make without asking for our input or vote. If we can’t trust you, then you don’t need to be our president.”
Everyone around us is silent, we watch and wait for Dragon to say something. He dips his chin in a slow nod. Lifting his gaze, he flicks it around to meet all of ours for a moment before he lifts his head.
“I won’t always make decisions you like, but I will always make decisions for the better of the club. This was a decision I made because they had our balls in a vise.”
He clears his throat, then jerks his chin toward the group. “I didn’t want to make it, but at the same time, I don’t want to start a war either. The Punchers don’t play fair. They will slaughter us and they will not give a single fuck if they do it dirty.”
Wolfe chuckles. “I know you got more in you than that shit,” he barks. “You ever start a war being fair? The fuck, brother? You start a war to win and that means we play dirty as shit, especially when we’re against these assholes.”
“So, what? You want to blow up their clubhouse? Send them underground? What are your fucking plans?”
Bones chuckles. “Yeah, my guess is he’s thinking of playing the same way they did, except on a larger scale, blow up their clubhouses, simultaneously.”
“That’s what you want? That’s just going to piss them off.”
Mountain clears his throat. “Blow up their clubhouses and their residences, simultaneously.”
Dragon shakes his head once. “I’ll call the Italians, see what they say. Blowing their shit up takes too goddamn much manpower, and it will only cause them to retaliate. I’m trying to protect our families here, and not just ours, our men all over the country who have no fucking idea this is going on.”
Silver shakes his head, then lifts his hand and points his finger at Dragon’s chest. “Fix this shit, brother. Just goddamn fucking fix it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TRISTA
The men climb on their bikes to leave, but I am too shaky to get on the back of Taz’s machine, not right now. I hear Bones’ voice, then. Feel the deep rumble of Ridge’s chest before he starts to walk, me still plastered to his side.
“We’re going to get you a drink, then we’ll head back,” Taz says soothingly.
Lifting my face from his shirt, I look into his eyes. “Okay,” I whisper.
He smiles softly and I know that this is his protector side. I haven’t seen it in a really long time and I miss it. Without thinking, without looking around at the men in the room, all of which are strangers and watching us, I lift my hand and curl my fingers around the side of his neck.
Pushing up on to my toes, I slide my lips across his, then slip my tongue out and trace his lips with it before I slide it into his mouth and taste the rest of him. Taz’s hand wraps around my lower back, pulling me against him with a groan.
Nibbling on his bottom lip, I whimper, wishing I could do more, wishing he could be inside of me this exact minute. A cheering noise causes my entire body to jerk. Turning my head, my eyes widen at the men in the room.
There are at least two dozen men, they’re all clad in leather and cheering for us. Pressing closer to Taz’s chest, I gasp. He laughs as his arms squeeze around me.
“Let’s get you a couple shots, loosen you up.”
Turning my head, I look up at him. “I don’t think I need to be looser.” I breathe.
His eyes widen, then he throws his head back in laughter. Dipping his head, his lips touch the top of my head before he shifts my body against his side. He guides me toward the bar where he helps me up on to one of the stools.
A shot glass appears in front of me along with a bottle of tequila. Taz lifts the tequila and pours me a shot.
“No salt and lime, you’ll have to improvise,” he murmurs next to me.
Shifting my gaze from my glass to his eyes, I smile. “I can do that,” I whisper. His gaze is liquid black and I didn’t know eyes could be so sexy, but his are.
Picking up the glass, I down the shot with a hiss as it burns. Grabbing ahold of the beer bottle that’s also been set in front of me, I lift it to my lips with a sigh. I’m slightly less shaky and only then do I start to look around.
My breath hitches when I see a cage in the middle of the room. It’s on a platform and there’s a naked woman inside. She’s on her hands and knees, her legs spread and her head bowed. My gaze shifts from her and I see that naked women are everywhere, on their hands and knees, everywhere.
“What on earth?” I whisper.
Taz chuckles next to me sliding his arm around my shoulders. “You didn’t know? Figured through the years you’d have heard rumors. Their women are kept as slaves. Not like the ones that Riot was talking about, but their Old Ladies are their slaves, it’s their kink.”
“I know about that kind of kink,” I whisper.
He grunts and I swear I can hear his teeth grind together. “Bet you do.”
“I never did it, but it’s on the interest sheet. A lot of clients are into it,” I say, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip.
Taz chuckles, but it’s completely humorless. “I just fuckin’ bet,” he snorts.
Tilting my head to the side, I look up at him and shake my head once. “Don’t. It’s over, don’t, please.”
“Is it?” he barks. “Is it over? Because you keep fuckin’ saying that you’ll go back there, go back to your life there.”
Pressing my lips together, I shake my head once. “I love you, Ridge. I love the promise of what we could have, what I hope we’ll have. What I don’t love is the fact that it could be temporary. That you aren’t as in this as I am.”
He doesn’t nod, doesn’t say a fucking thing. Instead, he just watches me for a moment before he lifts his beer to his lips and takes a long pull. I watch as he slides off of the barstool, ignoring me completely before he makes his way over to Bones.
I watch, wondering what the fuck he’s doing when I feel a presence at my side. Shifting my gaze from Bones and Taz, I turn to look at the man who is sitting just a tad too close to me.
“Pretty little thing, you sure you want to be with a Beast?” he asks.
He’s handsome, short black hair, dark eyes, strong clipped bearded jaw. Lifting my beer to my lips again, I nod once before lifting a shoulder. I don’t know what I am with Taz, especially the way he just walked away from me mid-conversation.
“I’m branded, so yeah,” I say.
His lips curve up into a grin. “I bet you are, bet you were before that hot poker touched your skin, too.”
“Just a few years before it was official,” I say with a low laugh.
He hums, then shifts off of his stool. “You ever change your mind, want a man who will cherish every fucking thing about you, dote on you, claim your mind, body, and soul, you just let me know.”
He doesn’t say anything else. I watch as he turns around and abruptly walks away. “What the fucking fuck, babe?” Taz’s voice hisses in my ear.
Turning to him, I arch a brow, not willing to shrink down beneath his gaze. He’s lost his fucking mind if he thinks that I’m going to never talk to another human again just because he’s stamped his name on my ass.
“That was me being polite in a strange environment after my man just walked away from me,” I state.
His lips curl up into a grin and he shakes his head once. “C’mon. We’re staying here tonight. Grab that bottle and get your sweet ass moving.”
“We’re only an hour from home,” I breathe.
He snor
ts. “You’re in no shape to ride and I need a goddamn real drink after the clusterfuck that was tonight. Bones has us set up in a guest room, Dragon knows where we are and we’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”
“Okay,” I breathe as I slide from the stool.
Reaching across the bar, I grab the bottle of tequila and reach for the shot glass. “No glasses,” he grunts.
With the bottle between my fingers, he takes my other hand in his before he tugs me toward whatever room he has ready for us. I don’t ask any more questions as I pass by the men standing around and the women crawling naked on the floor.
TAZ
Slamming the guest bedroom door behind me, I flip the lock before I turn to face Trista. She’s sexy as shit, even scared out of her brain, mascara staining her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen.
I watch as she lifts the bottle of tequila to her lips and sucks back a swig. “Take your clothes off,” I demand as I hold out my hand.
Trista extends the bottle and I slowly slip it from her hands to my own. Lifting the bottle to my lips, I watch as she takes all of her clothes off until she’s completely naked in front of me.
“Turn around,” I demand.
She shivers slightly, then does as I’ve demanded. The brand on her ass is no longer covered with a bandage. It looks raw and painful still, scabbing slightly, but fucking gorgeous, nonetheless. Without me even asking, she bends over slightly, showing me her mark before she looks over her shoulder at me.
“You know who you belong to?” I ask, taking a step toward her.
She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, shaking her head once. “Who?”
Snorting, I continue to close the distance between us. Lifting the tequila to my lips, I take another long pull before I slip my hand between her thighs. Using two fingers, I slip them inside of her, curling them with a grin.
Trista’s eyes close, her lids lower and she watches me through her lashes. Bringing my tequila to my lips again, I take another pull, my fingers working between her legs.
UnTouch Me (Savage Beast MC Book 5) Page 21
