by Hilary Storm
“Yes. Get here as soon as you can. We’ll start when you do.” I hang up, frustrated that I’m having to deal with all this bullshit when I feel like I need to be looking for Piper.
Beast steps out of the room and leaves the door open. I can hear a few of the guys start to show up and they’re all greeted with Blade’s grumbly voice. “Have you seen my fucking sister?” At least he’s starting to feel like it’s something we need to focus on even if he’s practically raging in the face of every one of the guys walking through that door, probably thinking they’re all the leak in the club.
It’s not long before he’s dragging them all into the chapel to sit them down and interrogate each one. They all seem collected and innocent and it begins to piss me off. It’s fucking getting dark and we need to get the hell out of this room and find her.
My phone vibrates and I look to see Tank calling again, so I pick up.
“Boss, there’s someone at the salvage yard. I went dark as soon as I saw all the lights. There’s at least five from what I can see. Do you want me to go in solo?”
“Someone is on our property without our knowledge… You fucking never go in solo.” I start to make my way to the door before I end the call. Blade is on my heels along with Beast and the clubhouse door slams behind us before I say a word.
“Tank says we have company at the salvage yard. Chewy is off the grid and never checked out; we need to make a trip to see who’s decided to stop by.” Blade stands with his hand on his beard before he turns to look back at the row of bikes lined up in front of the house. I don’t wait for him to decide if he’s coming, stepping over my bike and firing up the engine before I look back to see both of them following suit.
I need to do something with this aggression before I fucking kill one of my own club guys thinking about where in the fuck Piper could be. The wind hits my face as I speed down the road with a rage that can only be explained as one similar to the way Blade acts every fucking time he’s ready to kill a mother fucker.
We pull up next to Tank and kick off the lights at the top of the overlook. I can see the lights in the middle of the yard and men standing, but I can’t make out how many or tell what they’re doing.
“Do we go in guns blazing or get closer to see what’s going on?” Tank begins to ask questions that I’m thinking to myself.
“We go in blazing. I don’t fucking tip toe,” Blade responds as he looks down at his phone. He puts it against his ear and I watch the insanity take over his face as he begins to listen.
“Touch her and I’ll fucking cut your skin off one fucking inch at a time, starting with your god damn dick.” My insides twist all to hell with his words because I know this call is about Piper.
I stand and pull the phone out of his hand not giving a fuck if he decides to lose his shit on me for it. This is about Piper, so it’s my fucking business.
“I’ll make you listen to her cries if you fuck with me. You have a load that’s mine and it’s time you learn your place when it comes to transporting my fucking guns.” I can’t place the name and hit speaker on the phone as I look down to see if the number showed a name. Of course it didn’t. The voice sounds familiar, but fuck if I can tell who it is.
“Let me hear her.” That’s all I can get out. The look on Blade’s face matches the way I feel when the fucker forces her to say something to us.
Fuck. Piper. How the fuck did I let this happen to you?
Chapter Nine
Piper
“Give me your brother’s fucking number or I’ll use a knife instead of my dick to fuck you.” I glare into his eyes knowing he’s not kidding. He doesn’t give a shit if I live or die. I finally give in knowing this will devastate Evan, but I do it in hopes that he can somehow magically show up and save me like he did when we were kids. It’s just fucked up that he’ll have to hear all of this.
I whisper his number and watch him dial it with the largest grin on his face. The sound of Blade’s voice pulls at me and I regret giving in immediately.
“There’s only one question here… Do you want me to talk to you while I fuck your sister or should I let my guys have her first?” He doesn’t get the chance to finish before I can hear Blade’s voice roaring back at him.
Hands grip me from behind and I hear a zipper lowering before I feel a cock against my back. The leader points back at the guy behind me and he takes a step back. I don’t know whether to be thankful that he stopped that or scared to death of what he has planned for me instead.
“I’ll make you listen to her cries if you fuck with me. You have a load that’s mine and it’s time you learn your place when it comes to transporting my fucking guns.” He’s talking about firearms and that only verifies my instincts about who this guy is. I’ve been guessing that he’s a big deal in another club, only making this scarier than just a random attack. This means war. I know my brother well enough to know he’ll ruin his club to get revenge for something like this.
“Say something.” He grips my face as he moves the phone closer and forces me to talk. I can hear Switch yell back as soon as I say the single word that came out of my mouth. The only word that keeps circling my head and has me more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life. ’Seven’.
“Piper. Talk to me.” He wraps his palm over my face to stop me from saying anything else, but makes me listen to Switch continue to talk with Blade yelling in the background.
“It’s time I get paid some of what you cost me. How much do you think this pussy I have here is worth?” He takes the phone away from me and starts to take a few pacing steps in front of me before he walks around behind me. The sound of his zipper tells me my luck has run out and I swallow hard trying to prepare for what he’s about to do. Tears fall down my cheeks and I squeeze my fists tight to remind myself that I’m still strong.
He slides between my legs and shoves inside me with a vulgar roughness. I’m instantly sent into the horrors of my own memories as I fall back to the last time this happened to me.
He pulls me back to reality every time he begins to talk and I hear Switch on the other end of the phone losing his shit. “Piper, baby. Listen to me. I’ll fucking kill this mother fucker. Stay strong, I’m coming for you.” The scum with his hands all over me tosses his phone to one of the other guys before he picks up his pace and goes even deeper as he lifts my legs, giving him complete access.
It takes everything in me to go numb and stay that way until he finally drops me. I don’t even know how long it took him, but I don’t even try to stand once he drops me. The torture of another set of hands spreads over my skin and I go black. This is the safest place for me to be.
Voices swirl around in my head as the rough texture of so many things scrapes over my skin. Hands. Knives. Zippers. Chains. All of them making it hard to keep down the poison stirring in my stomach.
Switch
“I heard the fucking chain scrape across the metal. They have her in the mother fucking yard.” I don’t say another word before my bike is roaring straight for the yard. I’m going to kill every one of these fuckers with my goddamn bare hands.
Before I can get to the bottom of the clearing, I see a truck hauling ass followed by two bikes. Blade zooms past me with Beast right on his ass when I slide to a stop for Piper.
My heart aches at the sight in front of me. Fuck. She’s naked and blood is dripping from her lifeless body as she hangs with her arms spread tight by a chain on the fucking bars we use to torture the guys we bring here. I can’t explain what’s going through my mind as I race to hold her.
“Shit. Talk to me, Piper. I’m here baby.” She doesn’t move or help me as I lift her into one arm and work to release her from the chains with the other. My arms are covered in blood as I hold her against me and try to find where it’s coming from. “Show me something. Come on.” I yell into her face and begin to feel frantic when she doesn’t respond to anything I say.
I take off running with her in my arms until I’m inside the
shop. This fucking place is not clean enough for me to even find a solid place to lay her down, so I lay her on the hood of one of the cars someone’s been working on. She doesn’t move a fucking muscle and I fight to keep the insanity inside as I let my eyes look over her body.
She has blood and cuts all over her body, so bad that I can’t tell where she’s hurt more. The anger inside builds as I take it all in. “I will fucking skin these mother fuckers alive starting with their dicks, Piper. Please show me some fucking sign that you’re with me.” She shows me nothing. Fuck.
I reach for my phone and call Shadow. Before he has a chance to say hello I’m ordering him around. “Bring me a fucking truck to the salvage yard now. Someone has fucked up Piper bad.”
“On my way.” He barely lets me finish before he hangs up and I look back down at Piper hoping to see some sort of response. I finally find a half cluttered table and race to lay her down on it so I can see her closer. That fucking hood isn’t working.
I can’t stand what I’m seeing. How can this be the same woman that I held just this morning? I know she has to go to the hospital, but with all this blood everywhere, I just don’t know how bad everything is. She still has yet to react to me, but I can see that she’s breathing. I pull my flannel shirt off and drape it over her body and begin to talk to her once again.
“Piper please, baby. Can you hear me? I’m here for you.” I squeeze her hand and she doesn’t react at all. Nothing I do gets any sort of response from her and I begin to flip the fuck out as I look at her and see more cuts and even further swelling from the obvious beating she endured. Her arms are marked heavily from the chains and her eyes are nearly swollen shut. My screams of outrage and frantic desperation fill the shop as I wait impatiently for someone to get here.
Shadow finally pulls up with the truck and I meet him outside with her in my arms. Blade and Beast will deal with the guys if they can get to them before all the fuckers get away. If not, we’ll find them. I’ll make it my last mother fucking mission to wipe them off of this planet if it’s the last thing I do.
“Holy shit.” Shadow jumps out from the truck and opens the back door for me to slide her into the back seat. I sit in the back with her and feel the wetness of the blood on her back soaking me even further.
Shadow starts out driving like a bat out of hell. “Chill the fuck out. I’m ripping her fucking skin here.” She needs steady and I know he’s just trying to hurry, but the more I have to grip onto her, the more beat up she’s going to be after all of this. Her cries gut me and make me feel like fucking shit forever letting her out of my sight.
Fuck. This pisses me off. How in the hell did this happen to her? Who in the fuck was it that came to the house this morning and how in the fuck did they get her to go with them? I normally don’t let shit like this get by me and I know I did this time. She had me so damn distracted and I let my guard down.
I continue to beat myself up about her condition the entire way to the hospital. Shadow calls in a few minutes ahead of us arriving, so they’re waiting with a gurney when we pull up. It takes some hustle to keep up with the doctors as they race her through the halls and nurse stops me to see if I need help because of all the blood on me.
They shove me out of the way in the room, actually allowing me in, but not anywhere near as they begin to work on her. The chaos of the night flashes over me as I watch them try to clean her up in hopes of seeing where the real injuries are. They turn her on her side and the doctor on that side shakes his head before he tells the nurse to clear the room.
“Not a fucking chance. I’m staying. I’ll stand back here, but you’re not getting me out of here.” The doctor meets me with a glare that turns into an understanding when he sees my own. Luckily he has decided I’m not worth the battle and continues to work on her without focusing on me being in the room.
They pull the shirt from her body and I become even more outraged thinking of anyone hurting her at all, let alone how she is right now. An overwhelming desire to kill someone continues to take over and I have to work like hell to keep it at bay and stay calm. The last thing this place needs is me losing my shit and causing a fucking scene when most of them are rushing to work on Piper.
She still hasn’t moved or reacted to anything they’re doing to her. Her body has to be in shock and I just hope like hell she went into a safe place within her head before those fuckers hurt her this bad. I hear one of the doctors say she’s going to need blood because she’s lost so much.
He looks close at her back before he looks over at me and questions. “Seven? Does that mean anything to you?”
“No. Other than she said it on the phone when I was trying to get to her. I had no idea what it meant.” I still don’t and can only imagine that it means there were seven of them which only makes me crazier inside when I think about it.
“She has the number seven cut into her back. I need to do a rape kit and a few places need stitches. She’s going to hurt for a few days, but other than that we need to let her rest and see what happens.” I stand silently as they continue doing what they’re trained to do while I plot doing what I’ve been trained to do.
She’s still lifeless and for the first time in years I find myself actually saying a prayer. I just need for her to wake up and tell me who I need to kill.
“Can you please step outside while we do the rape kit? The patient deserves her privacy in this situation.” I look down at the tiny nurse trying to reason with me. She knows this was a far-fetched request, but I get that she’s just doing her job. I just can’t leave her. I refuse to.
“I’ll turn around and that’s the best I can do. I’m not leaving this room until she does.” The nurse nods at me quickly as if she expected that response. I consider this a compromise and turn around. My ears are at full alert as I listen for any information I can get as they continue their examination.
“No.” Piper cries out half coherent and I can’t handle it any longer. I move to be next to her as they swab and study between her legs for evidence. Gripping my own fist in a death grip isn’t making this any easier to watch. She shakes her head and says no quietly again before the doctor finishes and I reach for her hand and lean over to talk to her. She has to be able to hear me.
“Baby. I’m here. The doctor is almost done and I’m taking you home the second he is.” She moves her head again, but she still hasn’t opened her eyes.
“Please don’t.” She begins to shake her head even more and the doctor steps away from her. I know he hurried during that exam, but the truth of it is, I don’t need his evidence to handle this. Justice will be met for her and I’ll search until I go to my death bed to make sure of it if that’s what it takes.
The nurse covers her and begins to clean her arms and legs. She’s almost unrecognizable and it’s killing me to see her like this. Blade is going to lose his shit when he sees her and I can’t wait to watch the determination in his face when he instantly decides the fate of the men responsible for this.
The nurse finishes cleaning her up, but she’s still so swollen and red that I’m afraid to touch her when they actually move us to a room. I sit next to her in a chair and hold one of her hands and simply watch her. She’s still out of it and in a way that’s a good thing. She needs to rest and honestly I don’t know what I’d be able to say to her right now if she was awake. My anger is consuming every bit of my being and I can feel the rage building inside me even more as I look at the injuries that remain after the blood has been wiped clean.
I glance at my phone and there’s still no call or text from Blade, so I can only imagine the shit they got into. I decide to call Tori and have her come to support Piper. “Tori, I need you to come to the hospital. It’s Piper. She’s alive, but she’s going to need us both when she wakes up.”
“What in the hell, Switch. What happened?” I can hear her moving around quickly as she begins to question me. I know there’s no great way to tell her what I know, so I decide to make her come here
before I break all of this to her. For one thing that’s the safest thing to do for Tori’s sake as well.
“I’ll tell you everything when you get here. Who’s with you?” I know Blade has her covered, I just can’t think straight as to who it would be.
“Yes, Sarge is here.”
“Have him bring you. Consider yourself stuck to a bodyguard until we tell you otherwise.”
“Blade already called to tell me that. What the fuck is going on?” She’s scared and I know she can tell this is bad, but I can’t talk about it over the phone.
“I have to go. I’ll talk to you when you get here.” I hang up before she has a chance to ask another question. This shit is fucked up and I don’t want to deal with Tori having a damn break down before she’s here for me to watch over. That’s something I’ll always do for Blade, or any of the guys in the club. I’m hoping Tori can get Piper to wake up and talk to us together. They’ve been best friends for years and maybe her voice will snap Piper out of it. She’ll no doubt be here as quick as she can.
I look over at Piper’s face again. Her eyes begin to shift under her lids and I decide to try to talk to her once again. “Piper. Can you hear me?” She squeezes my hand and starts to open her eyes.
She mumbles the word Seven once again and my skin erupts with enough adrenaline to kill a thousand people.
Seven. What the fuck is Seven? The only thing I can think it means is seven men and then that’s not even comprehensible. I continue to torture myself by imagining the torture she’s endured and let it fuel me. Not that I need any more fuel.
Chapter Ten
Piper
My body hurts everywhere. I’m afraid to open my eyes and I begin to feel nauseous the second I let myself remember what happened.
The darkness of the hell I’ve been trapped in feels safer than facing the reality of what will go on once I open my eyes. Here I don’t have to talk about it. It’s over. What’s done is done. If I stay right here in this state, I don’t have to deal with people as they try to cope with what happened to me.
