Monster: A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance

by Vanessa Waltz

  “What do you think, guys? Should I let her go?”

  The chorus of no bottomed my stomach.

  “Three against one. Sorry.” He leaned in so close his breath gusted my cheek. “You’re going to be so much fun.”

  I kicked, aiming for his balls.

  He blocked me with a raised leg, tutting. His fingers gouged my flesh, shooting fire to my elbow. His brutal strength made my hands whiten, and his eyes flashed with a warning.

  I clenched my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut.

  Block him out, my mind chanted. Hide.

  My head filled with pictures of a sunny day at the beach, tiny grains of sand sticking to my feet, kelp wrapping my ankles. The images doused water on the blaze in my throat.

  “My buyers are here.”

  “Tell them to come on down.”

  Cainan opened the door, and three men in suits descended into the room. He shook hands with them and gestured to Tony. “There he is, just as I promised. And the girl.”

  Ghost ignored their conversation, his fingers skating the edge of my waistband. “I’m holding back, Evie. I’ve got no idea why. Maybe I’m a greedy fucker and I don’t want to share you, but that can’t be it. I’ve shared women with my brothers before. Never gave a fuck.”

  “L-let us go. You’ll never see us again.”

  “Why would I want that?” he quipped, his nose trailing my cheek. “You have no idea how often I fantasized about destroying your cunt. Your father cockblocked me at every turn.”

  My stomach sank even lower.

  I need to get out of here.

  He gripped my head and twisted so that my cheek flattened on the wall. Then his lips touched my ear.

  “I’m taking your pussy.”

  A flicker of potent terror shot my heart. Fear gripped my throat, slowly robbing me of air. I tried to inhale. My lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Everything had retreated within the spiraling black mass inside me.

  “The devil inside me wants to do it now.” Ghost pressed his lower half into me, rolling his hardness onto my thigh. “Unless you give me a reason to wait.”

  I sputtered around the lump in my throat, not missing the suggestion in his voice.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve been laid,” he drawled. “Not much opportunity in the hospital. I guess I can wait a little longer.”

  I choked on air, my lungs seizing as I connected that hardness with the space between my legs. Then he held a finger to my face, stroking my cheek. I recoiled against the shiver of loathing, snapping away from his touch. He grabbed my jaw and twisted it around, away from Tony’s mad attempts to reach me, to the bikers and the traffickers’ eager staring.

  My teeth chattered, and then a ripple of fury swam underneath my panic.

  “I am not yours,” I burst in a hoarse voice. “I am not a fuck doll. I am not a receptacle for your dick or whatever insecurity makes you attack women. Fuck off.”

  Ghost shoved me. My knees struck the ground, and he fisted my hair. He ripped at his jeans. Down went the zipper, but I didn't see anything but the blue of his shirt. Dimly, I heard Tony’s enraged roar.

  “You're not going to bite me, are you?”

  “W-what?”

  He grabbed my hair and tipped my head. "You’ll take it like a good girl. Everyone will get their turn, and then, angel, we'll share your pussy."

  Just the thought of it shattered me.

  I recoiled violently. “Please don’t. Please—”

  “There is no bargaining when you're a club whore.” He worked his thumb in my mouth, hooking it behind my teeth. “Unless you want to be my old lady.”

  “Why the fuck would you want that?”

  “I want Costa’s money. After he’s dead, you and I are walking down the aisle. You’ll sign everything over to me. Say yes, and this stops.” Ghost watched me, his smile deceptively warm. “I won’t let them touch you.”

  Biting him crossed my mind, but his closed fist nudged my chin, as though reminding me. I flinched as he opened his hand and slapped me, the sting bursting over my cheeks. I barely kept it together.

  My mouth went dry as I pretended to consider his suggestion, searching for a way out. The ceiling rattled violently with Tony’s desperation. Blood ran down his wrists in torrents—God, I couldn’t look at him while this happened to me.

  My breath seemed to solidify in my throat, lodging like ice. I opened my mouth, but there was no sound. My ears filled with a violent buzzing. I turned my head as a plea wailed in my chest. I searched the other men for doubt, finding only ravenous hunger.

  “Don’t look at them. They’re hoping you say no.” His smile twitched. “So am I.”

  What should I do?

  No help was coming.

  Warmth trickled down my palms, blood swimming where my nails dug. I shook my head, tears blinding my vision.

  "You sure pride is the hill you want to die on?" he said as he teased his finger in my mouth. "You don't give me the answer I want in five seconds, and we're all taking you."

  “Wait.”

  “Yes or no?” Ghost slipped from my mouth, his fingers gouging my arm as he hauled me upright. “Marry me or get fucked by everybody in this room.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I—I can’t.”

  “All right.”

  His soft tone tricked me into believing I was safe, the momentary relief scoured by a tongue on my cheek. He licked me, from my jaw to my ear, which he bit hard.

  I was like a meat he savored. Disgust pitted my stomach, mingling horribly with a climbing dread. Acid shot up my throat. I swayed, fingers scraping his leather cut.

  Fingers.

  I had weapons, too. Ten of them.

  My thumbs shot into his eye sockets. I gouged them hard. He shouted, rearing back, teeth flashing, but I gripped his skull like a barnacle, shoving my fingers as deep as they’d go.

  Someone grabbed me in a chokehold. A fat, hairy bicep squeezed my throat, ripping me off Ghost. The room exploded with my voice as Ghost recovered, rubbing his eyes.

  “You’re not touching me ever again! I’ll blind you before I let you fuck me. You hear me? You sick, disgusting, pervert.” My gaze bounced from Ghost’s red-eyed menace to the dipshit beside him. “Try it again, you fucking—”

  The arm pressing on my throat cut me off.

  “Thanks,” said Ghost to Diesel. He lowered his tone as he faced me. “So you have some fight in you. Good.”

  “You all right?” Diesel asked.

  “I’m fucking fine, just surprised.” Ghost tossed his head, glaring at me. “Who taught you to fight like that, you little cunt? Was it your dad?”

  Being lectured on violence by this piece of shit was really rich. I wanted to call him out on it, but the arm crushing my windpipe prevented any speech. My lungs burned as I fought to grab him, sinking my nails into his flesh but barely gaining air.

  I gasped, clawing his arm.

  Even if somebody outside heard the screaming, they’d be slow to call the police. You didn’t rat on Legion MC and expect to live.

  Ghost glanced at the door. Shrugging, he turned back to me. “There’s no help coming. None that I can’t destroy, anyway—Diesel, ease up on her throat. I don’t enjoy fucking cadavers.”

  Air streamed into my lungs as the pressure on my windpipe disappeared. I sucked in greedily, the world spinning back into focus as Diesel traced the underside of my breast.

  Heat flared in my cheeks. I tried to contract, a vain attempt to shield my body from their roaming eyes, but Diesel’s iron grip prevented even the slightest struggle.

  I closed my eyes, my shame unbearable.

  “I like ’em bigger,” quipped Diesel. “I wouldn’t marry a woman with no rack.”

  I imagined my face burning a vivid scarlet.

  My blood pounded as Diesel’s hand slipped to my breast. He seized a handful and squeezed, the sensation nothing like my husband’s touch. It was so violating I had to clamp my lips shut. A rush of acid surged up my
throat.

  “But the plus side is they don’t get in the way while you’re fucking,” he said, tweezing my nipple. “I’m more interested in her pussy.”

  Ghost’s condescending glare dared me to object. Then he palmed my breast, and rolled his thumb over my nipple. He inhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes, as though drunk on the scent of my fear.

  “I call dibs on her pussy.”

  “You fuckers are forgetting me,” the man by the door chimed.

  “Plenty of her to go around,” Ghost soothed, his blue eyes impaling me. “She’s got a mouth, doesn’t she? You and Poison can share while I take her pussy. How does that sound, Evie?”

  How do I escape this?

  “Let’s put her on the table.”

  I dug my heels in the carpet, my mind a snarling mess of fear. I leaned back and kicked Ghost, my heel slamming into his stomach. He grabbed my foot, apparently unfazed by the blow. He yanked hard, ripping me from Diesel straight into his arms.

  A malevolent gleam had replaced the lust shining in Ghost’s eyes.

  My pulse rocketed.

  “Hold her still.”

  Terrified of the dark promise in that command, I cracked my head into his skull. I tore at his face, whirling, kicking, and screaming. I wouldn’t stop until they killed me.

  “I hope you’re on the pill.” He planted a nauseating kiss under my jaw. “Otherwise you’ll never know who gave you the baby.”

  A shooting pain hit my chest, crumbling my last reserve of calm. It was like he’d stabbed me. Then it burst out of me—“No! I’m already pregnant!”

  Tony’s inhuman snarling stabbed into my head. A gunshot-like crack sliced the air.

  Thirty-Two

  Tony

  30 mg Oxycodone

  5 mg cocaine

  1 needle

  1 prayer

  The chains fell from my wrists. I seized the machete they’d taunted me with. My throat tore with an inhuman sound as I slashed at Ghost’s outstretched arm, severing him from the elbow. I ripped Evie from him and tossed her behind me.

  I’d kill them.

  All of them.

  The whole fucking world.

  Three bangs erupted from the exit as Cainan fired at their backs. I exploded onto Diesel and stabbed his neck with the machete. He choked as I ripped it free. A man grabbed my shoulder. I whirled, slashing his face. Another took it in the gut, the one who wanted to rape my pregnant wife, until he disappeared into a puddle of blood.

  Soft sobbing filled the space as Ghost crawled over the bodies. I strolled to him and relished the sight of him, bleeding out, terrified. Then I pointed the knife’s edge on his back. My palm hit the butt of the blade, sinking it through his leather cut slowly, until it struck the ground, pinning him there like a bug.

  I spat on his twitching body.

  Rage still blinded me to the horrifying scene, like a red filter over my eyes. She stood there in black and white, stark against my rage. Then the veil lifted, and I took in the carnage, and Evie’s whitened face, and my throat tightened.

  She’s pregnant.

  Warmth glowed through me, extinguished by the cool draft of Cainan’s sarcasm. He stepped forward, clapping me on the back. “Congratulations, Anthony. You’re a daddy.”

  I grabbed his elbow, twisted it, and shoved him toward the floor, keeping my grip on him. “Ten seconds to explain yourself or I rip off your arm, too.”

  “I saved your lives. Took out two goliaths at once.” He turned his head, stony-faced. “Once you locked up the president, his VP, and the sergeant of arms, I made a deal with the only biker left with any power. The road captain. I did the same with the traffickers I haven’t been able to control. I promised Evie to the MC, and you to the traffickers. Then I got them to meet in the same room. Couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.”

  “And if I couldn’t break free?”

  I increased pressure on the bone, but Cainan didn’t react. He was as expressionless as a reptile.

  “I would’ve stopped it.”

  “I didn’t see you lift a fucking finger!”

  “Sometimes, you have to take a huge risk to reap an even bigger reward. You were right. Slow and steady wasn’t working, and I saw a golden opportunity to get rid of them. I knew you could do it, Tony. I’ve seen you fight so many times.”

  I ground into the precise spot where his arm would break.

  “She’s safe, isn’t she?” Cainan roared, yanking out of my grip. “Can’t you see the good in what we’ve accomplished? We single-handedly took down the Legion chapter and three of the worst traffickers. You should be thanking me on bended knee!”

  He still didn’t understand.

  None of that mattered next to my wife.

  My fist whirled, smashing into his jaw. His head slammed into the wall hard. He grunted, palm on the concrete.

  “I never want to see you again.”

  “What the hell is your problem?”

  “You. I hate you. I can’t stand the sight of you. You’re a sick man. You need to have your head X-rayed or whatever the fuck it is to find out why you are so screwed up.”

  Cainan’s lips thinned as he smoothed his hair, his flushed cheek the only sign I’d knocked him off-kilter.

  “You threatened my wife’s safety to get what you wanted. As usual, at the expense of others.” I let out a humorless laugh at his nonplussed expression. “There’s so much you’ll never understand.”

  Cainan flashed me a hard smile. “Fine. Find your own way out.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “My security can handle this riff-raff.”

  He turned his back on us and climbed the stairs, leaving us alone. Boots pounded the ceiling, their weight creaking the floorboards.

  I rushed at the door, locking it.

  Evie’s soft body pressed into mine, her arms wrapping my stomach. “I chose to come here. I can’t live without you.”

  “He manipulated you.”

  “He got us back together.”

  “Yeah. For how long?” I eyed the ceiling as the floor creaked. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but at some point that door would open. My gaze dipped to the carnage. The knot in my throat refused to dissolve. “Evie, I want to tell you everything…while I still can. You were almost killed because I haven’t told you everything. Again.”

  I couldn’t force out the words, my mind ravaged by the past. I took her face and gazed into her startled eyes.

  “I was trafficked by the club. I wasn’t at a rehab center. That was a lie I sold to the masses to hide where I’d really been, because I’m so ashamed of what I’ve done.” It poured out of me as I stroked her cheek. “Crash sold me to a man who brought me to…an island. It’s a place off the Caribbean called Leda, a human trafficking hub where people fly in to party, to network, to do all kinds of shady business deals. I was drugged, shipped over there, and sold.”

  Weakness tingled in my legs, and I let go of her to sit against the wall.

  “A psychopath named Attila bought me. I lived in his villa. It was smack dab in the middle of a jungle. Hot as hell. Humid. Naked women everywhere, all of them trafficked. He used me as an enforcer. I protected the girls from clients that got too rough.” I pressed my hands into my eyes until stars exploded behind them. “I saw things, Evie.”

  She sat beside me, slipping her hand around my bicep. “Did you try to escape?”

  “I couldn’t leave them. I had to help. I tried, but the overseer caught me. Whipped my back. Then the bastard put me in cage matches where I had to fight other men. I butchered them for their amusement. That’s how I met Cainan. He was one of the people watching me fight.”

  Her eyes glazed with tears.

  “I wasn’t myself. They broke me on that island. They made me so hateful it turned inward, killing me from the inside. Cainan saw that cruelty and knew he could hone it. He got me out when he found out how well-connected I was. I got to Boston. I was home for weeks, but I couldn’
t move on. I was stuck. I told nobody I was back. I didn’t want them to know because I couldn’t tell anyone what I’d been through. Who the fuck would believe me? Who would understand?”

  Evie cupped my cheeks and kissed me. Heat blasted across my lips, almost dissolving my urge to continue. Would this be the last time I tasted her kiss?

  “I was spiraling. I needed something to do, so Cainan gave me a purpose. He would allow me to join him in fighting human trafficking, but I needed to pass a loyalty test.”

  This next part was the worst.

  I had to get it out of me.

  “He told me to kill my father, so I did.” The tightness in my chest released as it spilled out of me. “I shot my dad, who never stopped looking for me, never gave up on me once, then I blamed it on your MC to start a war. Hands down, the most evil thing I’d ever done. I can’t even explain why I did it. I just—I wasn’t in my right mind and Cainan knew it.”

  My voice croaked, and I lost the energy to keep going. Evie’s raspy whisper chased my echo.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I blocked it out. I don’t have a memory of the actual murder. The only thing I remember is stepping onto my dad’s lawn for the first time in over a year, and hours later, Dad’s necklace dangling in my hands after I’d done it.”

  “The same one you’re wearing now?”

  She fingered the gold chain, finding the flat oval pendant nestled in the hollow of my neck, blazing with an image of St. Anthony.

  “I keep it on as penance.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d told her.

  I’d never admitted this to anyone.

  “I did so many things I hated on that island, and it turned me into a monster. A violent man with no self-control. I can barely look my mother in the eye anymore. It’s why I told you I never wanted children, because I feel so tainted. And after what I did to Dad, I didn’t think I deserved to father my own kids.”

  But I was a father, and the burden sank into my heart like golden light, warming me from the inside out. Relief flooded my veins. The fire inside me banked lower. Air came more smoothly in my lungs.