Ride To Vengeance (A Rough Riders MC Novel #3): A Rough Riders MC Novel #3 (The Rough Riders MC Series)

by Selene Chardou

  If they decided to rape, torture and then kill their captive, there was no one to worry about what had happened to the faceless women. As far as the local authorities were concerned, the women had never gone missing in the first place and where they were wanted, needed and missed dearly, no one would have known what happened to them anyway. It would be like they’d never existed. One day they were there and the next day they vanished—poof, like smoke—into thin air.

  Despite the warm temperature of the water, a chill wafted through me and I slowly stood up in the tub. I felt like I’d given birth and hoped wherever Fernando had gone, he wouldn’t be back for a while. I was in no shape to perform any sexual activities.

  After I dried off and wrapped a robe around my body, I walked back into my bedroom and located a pair of loose white linen pants and a matching cami before I slipped over a loose peach linen blouse. The bastard had provided me with clothes but no undergarments. I still felt uncomfortable with venturing any other place into the house.

  There were bodyguards everywhere. Not that they would touch me like that—they feared Fernando more than I did. However, it still felt awkward to endure their stares as I passed them.

  My stomach grumbled and all the sudden, whether I wanted to explore the house or not, it was no longer an option. I needed to eat. I couldn’t remember the last meal I’d had but it had been a while. Surely my captor wouldn’t want me to starve to death.

  I gathered my sense of courage and opened the double doors to my suite. It was a bright and beautiful day with cerulean skies, sunny and very few white fluffy clouds. In fact, the day was too gorgeous to be trapped in my gilded prison fit for a queen.

  I hated this. I despised my situation but even worse, nothing could or would be done about it. Not by anyone, including the man I loved and that hurt my heart. It made me despondent and I wondered if there was any way I could figure this shit out. There had to be a way. I wouldn’t accept no for an answer.

  I couldn’t.

  “Impossible” was not a word in my vocabulary.

  Ever.

  “Ohhh, look who just decided to grace us with her presence,” a Mexican-accented voice cooed in delight.

  There were a lot of the people who surrounded Fernando I couldn’t stomach but Lola had to be the worse.

  As his “bottom bitch”—i.e., in not so ghetto speak, “main woman”—she strode around like she owned the place and everyone in it. She might have thought she had power but she didn’t have shit.

  I’d known and felt Fernando’s love before. As sick as our present situation happened to be, he loved me even now. He still wanted me even though I’d been with another man for the last several years. He’d never felt any of those emotions for this woman and because I innately sensed this, I had a natural leg up in any situation that arose between the two of us.

  Lola was the average Shakira wannabe. Of Mestizo origin on her mother’s side along with Lebanese and French ethnicity on her father’s, she possessed light olive skin, green eyes, which she assumed made it okay to die her raven black hair flaxen blonde with platinum highlights. Personally, she looked a hot mess but with a hairdresser and human hair extensions on-sight, she actually looked pretty good for her twenty-seven years.

  If anything about the situation surprised me, it was the fact Fernando would even allow a woman as old as she was to be his main piece and the female he showed off at events and club openings. I suppose she was quite attractive if the “fake everything”-type of woman—from her hair to breast implants and an expert nose job—was a man’s type.

  Still, Fernando’s words always echoed in my ears despite how much I tried to dissipate them. “You’re every man’s type with that gorgeous deep complexion, those complex amber eyes and beautiful face with a body to match. Don’t ever let any woman think she’s better than you because you are the cream of the crop.”

  “Actually, to be honest, I was hoping to avoid you,” I finally snipped as we both strolled toward the dining room.

  “Ha! That’s an impossible feat. Not when Nando has been keeping your bed warm at night and neglecting me. What does he see in you anyway? You, with your dusky complexion and surly attitude?” She glared my way with cool seaweed green eyes. “Still, it’s fuckin’ ‘Naomi this’ or ‘Naomi that.’ What the fuck? Is your coochie fur-lined or somethin’?”

  “Fuck you, bitch.” I turned lethal eyes on her and all I wanted to do was grab her hair by the extensions and just start to yank until she yelped in shock. “You don’t know shit about me. Why you’re accusing me of having a fur-lined pussy, did it ever occur to you Nando goes on and on about me because I’m real? Nothing on me is phony . . . unlike some I am what I am. Actually, I’m very proud of my heritage.

  “I never tried to bleach my skin or stay out of the sun,” I continued, digging the blade deeper. “I never swear up and down my ancestry is Spanish when anyone with half a brain knows there were a lot more Africans and Aztecs cultivating the land back then than Spaniards. I am proud of my Mestizo heritage the way I am proud of my black American heritage. I hide myself from no one. Not even you—”

  “How. Dare. You—”

  “What? Accuse you of lying and perpetrating? You think people look at you and see Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson? No, they look at you and see a poor woman’s Christina Aguilera with green eyes and fake blonde hair. You can try to run from what you truly are but you can’t hide.”

  “My father is Lebanese and French—”

  I laughed out loud, cutting her off. “Funny how the Lebanese part comes first and my geography is pretty good. Last time I checked, Lebanon isn’t a part of Europe . . . but maybe you know more than I do. A well educated, Drug Enforcement Agent. In that case, please allow me to retort.

  “Lebanon is not a part of France. In fact, they speak Arabic there—not French. It isn’t even a pseudo former colony like Algeria where they do, in fact, speak French. It’s nothing to France. You’re a Mexican woman who thinks just because her skin is fair, she is white and much better than a mayate like me. Newsflash—the Mexican part alone gets you a demotion in a place like the States.

  “You think your people are better than mine because I happen to be part black? Who the fuck do you think the gringos are preparing for the underclass of the next generation? They need someone to watch their bratty little kids, clean their oversized McMansions and mow their fucking lawns. Good luck with being the new slaves, you cheap whore.”

  “You. Fucking. Cunt.” Lola glared at me with cool green eyes but I couldn’t give a damn about her or anyone else in this fucking ostentatious palace that had become my prison.

  If it was up to me, I would kill them all and not even pause long enough to place a call to Ronan just to let him know I was on my way back to Vegas.

  That’s how much the blood boiled inside of me and I couldn’t bring it to a simmer. Not even the consequences of my actions would register; with the wrath I would face from Fernando, there would be many, conceivably directed at the people I loved most.

  I was in a dangerous situation with amoral people and yet, I acted like I was on a bad episode of Big Brother.

  “Bring it on, you fake fuckin’ skank,” I sneered in anger.

  Before I had time to react, Lola attacked me—acrylic nails stabbed at me while fake blonde hair flew in every direction.

  No fucking way! This bitch did not just go Jerry Springer on my ass because I actually knew how to fight. Not ghetto, “hit ’em up style,” but actual hand-to-hand combat. I’d been an officer in the military before I was DEA after all.

  I head-butted her in the face and felt a crunch as her nose broke and blood began to pour like water out of a vessel. Before she could attempt to fight back, I used the heel of my right hand to shove that same broken bone directly into her brain. She stared at me with a dazed look before she fell to the marble floor in a heap like dirty laundry.

  Shit!

  Goddamn motherfucking crap on a fuckin’ stick shit
!

  I’d killed the bitch in the heat of the moment and my training not only frightened me but also exhilarated me at the same time. If she’d been Fernando’s “bottom bitch” then I was just begging to be made an example out of and he wouldn’t be gentle or kind about it. In fact, he would make me suffer more because he knew I could take it due to my military and DEA training.

  Out of nowhere, a manservant rushed forward and bent down before Lola. He bent down and rushed to grab her wrists to check for a pulse I knew he wouldn’t find. The bitch was deader than disco and all because of what I’d done.

  “Señorita Suleiman has no pulse,” he murmured to himself more than me before his dark eyes met mine and narrowed suspiciously.

  I acted completely innocent and bent down next to him. “Of course she has to have a pulse,” I murmured before I bore my arms, which displayed the damage from her wicked acrylic nails. “That can’t be possible.”

  The manservant stood and yelled for help.

  Jorge, or whom I liked to refer to as “The Sadist” was the first to heed the call. He and the manservant spoke in rapid Spanish I could completely understand.

  “Did you do this?” Jorge questioned in anger.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” I murmured, my bottom lip quivering enough to fake fear and remorse. “She attacked me—everything happened so fast I think she did the most damage to herself.”

  He rolled his eyes as he placed a call and spoke in rapid ghetto Spanish to the speaker. Half of it I understood—the other half went right over my head. I was fluent in proper Spanish but the language of the lesser educated might as well have been Greek to me. It was like a person who’d studied the Queen’s English all the sudden understanding someone from Appalachia.

  “You black bitch. You won’t get away this time.” Jorge grinned in triumph though I merely looked away and rolled my eyes.

  At this point, I had nothing else left to lose.

  They’d stripped me of my life, my dignity and the man I loved. Ronan wasn’t everything to me—simply the air I breathed and the reason why every morning I woke up with a smile on my face. Without him, I could be something to someone. I was his everything and he was my world. He was that important to me and to not have him in my life killed me a little bit more each day.

  “You can’t kill me so I have gotten away with it.” I smirked at him, ignoring the manservant.

  He quickly removed his nine-millimeter from its holster but before he could switch the safety off, adrenaline coursed through my veins again. I ran to him like a woman possessed and used all my strength and energy to throat punch him with a left fist he never saw coming.

  The gun dropped to the marble floor as both of his hands went to his crushed larynx. I could admit to doing a lot of bad things—including murder for my country, the DEA and the Lucifer’s Saints—but I couldn’t stand to watch Jorge suffer by suffocating to death.

  I knelt down and picked up his nine-millimeter. It was heavy, a Desert Eagle II made of steel. I should know; my father not only owned a gun shop but he was notorious about his love for the American-made brand of weapons.

  My heart thundered so loudly in my chest, I would have sworn the manservant could hear it had he not high-tailed it out of the room the moment I attacked Jorge. Apparently he valued his life more than one of his fellow co-workers.

  It was too easy to switch the safety off, chamber a round and fire it directly into Jorge’s head. The scene—directly out of a David Lynch film—left behind was gruesome. Blood, brains and bone decorated the area where now two dead bodies lay almost side-by-side; Jorge’s blood spreading like a pool of dyed Karo syrup.

  I stepped back from the bodies though my hand gripped the gun tighter than before just as the man of the house strolled through the elaborate front doors. He’d obviously been riding since he wore riding crops, black leather boots and a crisp white polo shirt.

  Fernando ignored his obviously distressed manservant as he strode directly to me. His glance towards Lola and Jorge were cursory at best.

  His amber-green eyes lacked any real emotion as he ordered his manservant to take care of the bodies and clean up the mess they would leave behind.

  “How stupid of me,” he began quietly. “I always underestimate you. I forget you’re not the same naïve girl I met all those years ago. You’ve had military training and worked for the United States government. You lost your innocence a long time ago. Still, I have to ask . . . why did you feel the need to murder two of my best? Lola was the queen of blowjobs plus she was a pain whore. Jorge was the perfect guard dog. He watched out for me and would report on other members of staff I was suspect about.”

  “Whoops,” I murmured sarcastically. “If you could just return me back to the States now that you’ve had your fun with me, I’ll be out of your way. You won’t have to worry about coming home to any more scenes fit for a remake of Pulp Fiction.”

  Fernando shook his head as he smiled wryly in return. “No, that won’t happen, not now at least. I like you feisty—it gives me something to work with when I tie you to the bed and fuck you six ways to Sunday for the mess you just made. You’ll have so much of my cock inside of you, you’ll choke on it.”

  I tried to back up but I couldn’t move. My body, drained of the earlier adrenaline, now ached all over and I remembered the soreness between my legs and the rawness of my throat. The thought of him taking me again and so soon . . . all day with no break or let up allowed a small sob to escape from between my lips.

  “Oh no, don’t tell me mi querida is still sore from last nights’ exertions. That was just a normal night of perversion and fun. Remember, I haven’t seen you in a very long time. I’m going to be gentle with you at first, I promise. I know you must be sore. I’ll give you something to numb the pain so all you feel is pleasure and you’ll be screaming my name before the night is through,” he explained in a soothing voice.

  “I . . . can’t. Every time it happens, you remind me why we shouldn’t be together. How you are just stripping me of my humanity. It wouldn’t have been that easy to murder Lola or Jorge if you weren’t raping me—”

  “Raping you?” Fernando’s face contorted into feigned ignorance. “You enjoyed last night. I made sure you came five times. One doesn’t have orgasms if one is being raped. You reveled and came alive during my violent acts of sex with you and admit it—you like it rough. Isn’t that why you’re with someone like Ronan? He doesn’t exactly seem like the most sentimental of lovers.”

  “What I do with Ronan is pleasurable because I simply want to be with him.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to be with you. I can admit . . . perhaps there was some feelings left for you beforehand but you’ve stripped them all away. Everything between us now is tainted, ugly and dirty. You think if you drop me off to the Saints—beaten, bloody and pregnant, you’ll have won? I’ve got news for you because you won’t. I would have your seed scraped out of my womb before I ever brought a child into this world that belonged to you!”

  The sudden change from somewhat jovial to downright cruel took place so fast, it made the Airbus seem slow. Fernando closed what little distance remained between the two of us and backhanded me as if I were a rag doll. I fell to the floor, the gun scattering from hand. The metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth as I realized he’d cracked my jaw.

  He sat astride me at the small of my back grabbed me by my hair, pulling so hard I could almost feel strands of my hair being torn out by the roots. “You think this is how you will defeat me? By using words of abomination like abortion and threatening to hurt me the worst way imaginable?”

  I sobbed and shook my head. If I could have said I was sorry, I would have but it caused too much pain to open my mouth let alone attempt to talk.

  “You know . . . even though you did what you did . . . I was just going to punish you. I saw no need to bring the Saints into our lover’s dispute. But now . . . you’ve just proven to me you don’t care about what we have. You don�
�t give a shit about our shared history or us. We are and were simply nothing,” he whispered in my ear.

  I shook my head vehemently again as the tears fell from my eyes.

  That simply isn’t true! I loved you at one time—goddamn it—and I would have done anything you asked me to do!

  But I couldn’t say the words. My mouth refused to cooperate with my brain.

  “This is what’s going to happen. You want to be treated like a whore? Fine, I will grant you your wish. I’ll fuck you and use you up and then I’ll pass you on to my soldados. Then I’m going to carve up that gorgeous face of yours and dump you off in Vegas. After that . . . Ronan can have you back. When you look like shit, are disease ridden and no one would want you on your best day.”

  My nails bit into my skin painfully and I tried to overcome the pain and misery I felt but it was simply no use.

  “And your little stunt,” Fernando continued, “will cost you dearly. I’m thinking of taking out a member of the Saints. Heads is Hardy—tails is Ronan.”

  I heard a coin flip before it landed just inches from my face on its head.

  “Look what we have here. The motherfucker I wanted to take out in the first place.” He rose from my back before his hands wrapped around my throat and brought me roughly to my feet. “But first . . . you and I have some unfinished business.”

  A tear slid down my cheek as I steeled myself for the inevitable.

  Soon, the only feelings I’d have would be wrapped in a heavy shroud of terror and unimaginable agony.

  Chapter Seven

  Ronan

  Ronan awoke with a start.

  His head ached with a dull throb; the familiar feeling of a hangover from one drink too many again.

  However, the golden body laid out next to his with a golden fan of natural honey blonde hair and her arms wrapped around the pillow like a lover were unfamiliar to him.

  Who the fuck was she and when the fuck did he have time to screw her? How could barely remember his own name last night let alone getting together with some chick and inviting her into the very same bed he shared with his old lady.