Twisted Devil (Vicious Vipers MC Book 4)

by Lynn Burke

  But that brain also proved nothing and nobody tracked me. There was no wall or dead end I couldn’t break through or escape.

  A silent thief in the night, a simple guy who’d been wronged and had taken it upon himself to bring sinners’ misdeeds to light and make them pay.

  It’s what I did.

  It’s what earned me the nickname Devil with the Vicious Vipers MC.

  It’s what lined my pockets and theirs while bringing justice to those who thought themselves above the law.

  Dasia Walker’s face stared back at me from the many screens atop my semi-circular desk. Those sad, haunted eyes muddling my damn head. She’d been abused according to what Ryker had told me—and the fucker who’d raped her took his last breath weeks earlier.

  I didn’t have the details of how on that last part, but I’d seen Ryker in action. Ted Griffey hadn’t met a pleasant end, that much I would bet my own life on.

  Fucker deserved it, abusing a young woman like that.

  My jaw ached as memories long buried in the back of my head tried to surface. It had been years since I’d thought about them, and shoving that shit back in the hell hole it snuck out of came a bit harder than usual. Having seen Dasia and knowing somewhat what she went through emotionally, fucking ripped my mind and heart in two.

  No child, whether eleven or seventeen, deserved such treatment.

  Dasia sure as fuck didn’t look seventeen, though.

  “Fuck.” I rubbed a hand over the top of my head, messing up my too-long hair. Time for a fade and trim up top—but it could wait until I got answers.

  I grabbed my silent cell off my desk, and the screen lit up before I could swipe to unlock it and bother Ryker again.

  “Ryker. Fucking finally,” I snipped when answering.

  “Fuck off, you obsessive prick.”

  “How is she?”

  “I’m calling Vigil for a meeting in an hour,” he said, rather than answer me, his low tone pissed beyond the usual broodiness he usually portrayed through voice and facial tics.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not getting into it over the phone. Just get your ass to the club.”

  The fucker hung up.

  Cursing, I hopped up and did as told, black bag with my laptop over my shoulder.

  ****

  I’d never been so livid in my life. My gut churned, filling me with the desire to slash throats and grin while watching blood spill down over my boots.

  Ryker had told the Viper officers gathered in Vigil’s office what Dasia had gone through the previous couple of weeks, and my fucking heart ached for the girl while my fingertips itched to rip flesh rather than tap keys.

  She’d been tied up in a goddamn basement for days on end without a real toilet or running water. Tossed into a container with a bunch of other women, the darkness and cold, never mind the fear, giving them one last push to attempt freedom.

  Sure, I found her beyond attractive, and my dick hadn’t given up on the idea of erasing all thoughts of her rape from her mind, but the need to protect her simmered in my blood … I felt like a goddamn animal driven by instincts.

  “Devil!”

  I jerked my head toward Ryker who still stood beside the office door, arms crossed and scowling.

  “You listening?”

  I wanted to clear my throat and shift like a kid caught with its hand in the candy bowl, but held his stare without flinching. “Yeah.”

  Ryker turned toward Vigil who sat behind his desk with a scowl deep as Ryker’s denting his forehead. “She’ll be staying at my place,” Ryker continued.

  “You going to notify social services?” Vigil asked.

  “Fuck no. If Pia couldn’t protect her, no one can.”

  Ryker had told me Pia tried countless times to find her a new foster home—and blamed herself for failing.

  “She’ll be eighteen in less than three weeks,” Ryker continued. “The state isn’t gonna find her here in that time, and why would they give a fuck anyway? One less life for them to worry about.”

  “Think the fuckers who took her are going to come looking for her, though?” Ricky, our VP and Vigil’s brother, asked, his gaze flitting from one officer to the next. “She’s seen too much,” he said when no one answered.

  “She’s under our protection,” Vigil stated, and I sat just a bit easier having his word as law set firmly in place.

  Ryker dipped his head in acknowledgement, his shoulders relaxing the slightest as well. “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t you bring her down to the dojo?” Stone said from his spot on the couch where he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his blue eyes intent as always. “I’ll set her up with karate classes in the mornings—teach her how to really throw a kick to the ball sack.”

  She’d dropped one of the fuckers according to Ryker’s retelling of Dasia’s escape, but I leaped on Stone’s idea.

  “Fuck, yeah. Give her a sense of empowerment, too.”

  Ricky nodded in agreement of my words.

  “Appreciate it, Stone,” Ryker said. “When she’s ready, I’ll give you a holler. I’m going to make some calls to old buddies in Southie and see what shit I can stir up,” he told Vigil. “She said they spoke Russian, so I’m thinking it could be connected to the fucker Arturo was working with out in Vegas.”

  I glanced over at Stone to see his face shut down, void of emotion. His woman, Giada, had been snagged and was being auctioned off when he, Ryker, and Klingon, the president of the Vipers’ Vegas chapter, had gone in, knives slashing and guns blazing to rescue her.

  The bigwig Russian asshole had met his end—and so did Arturo, the head of the Martínez cartel at the time. Ryker had found out a few months earlier, Arturo’s cousin—his childhood friend—had taken over the family business once they’d assumed Arturo had somehow met his end since he’d never returned to South America.

  “Think Martínez is involved?” I asked about that friend, sitting back and crossing my arms to keep my fingers still when they burned to tap keys and start digging.

  “Arrogant cocksucker,” Ryker muttered. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Martínez’s threat to take care of shit if he found out we were involved in Arturo’s disappearance still fucking hangs heavy over me, but Klingon assured me yesterday afternoon before this whole Dasia fiasco that all is quiet out there.”

  “How’s Jenny?” I asked about his sister who had decided to travel out to Vegas to stay with a friend after her and Ryker’s mom passed a couple months earlier.

  “Talked to her last night. She says she’s good—she’s got no clue I’ve got Klingon covering her ass in case Martínez finds shit out and tries to exact revenge on us.”

  “It’s been long enough, I’m thinking those Vegas Vipers know how to clean up messes.”

  Stone agreed with me, but Ricky merely grunted, the glass-half-empty fuck.

  “Devil,” Vigil said, drawing my attention back across the desk, “fire that laptop up and work your magic.”

  “Gladly.”

  “Find out what—who exactly, law and outlaw—we could be taking on if we decide to get involved.”

  “We’re already involved, fucker,” Ricky grumbled his favorite nickname for his big brother.

  Vigil and our VP had a nice long stare down before Vigil finally turned away. “She’s under our protection until she decides to leave. If we’re right in our thinking this is part of a sex slave operation involving the Russian mafia and possibly the Martínez cartel, we can’t take them on.”

  “We can if they don’t know we’re doing it,” I tossed out.

  Vigil turned his focus on me.

  I shrugged, having complete confidence in my abilities to unearth shit and make people pay the devil for stupid ass choices. “Just a matter of time and effort. I’m sure I can find enough shit to take both organizations down if we really wanted to.”

  “The Russian mob is world-wide, asshole,” Ricky muttered.

  “And computers are, too, you mi
serable cocksucker,” I offered back with a grin. “Contrary to what you might think, if shit is tangible—hell, even if it’s superstition—it’s buried in a network somewhere for black hats like me to sneak in and find.”

  “Cocky fucker.”

  “I call it confidence—fucking fact.”

  “That’s enough,” Vigil grunted. “Devil, you get the evidence to clean up Boston at least, and it’s a step in the right direction. Can you send that info to your contact at the FBI we unloaded the Burtonelli and Arturo shit to?”

  I nodded, still grinning at Ricky who seriously needed to get laid, the grumpy fuck.

  “Then do what you do best,” Vigil said. “Find what we need to keep these fuckers away from Dasia and maybe help in taking down whatever fucking rings actually exist.”

  “Could always toss a bone to Burtonelli and get him involved,” I suggested, glancing over at Stone. “Not that we owe him jack shit or that Giada is even interested in smoothing things over with her family, but with him leading in the polls and running for that seat on cleaning up our state...” I shrugged. “Might put him in our back pocket again.”

  A muscle ticked in Stone’s jaw.

  “Fuck him,” Vigil said, ending Stone’s deliberation. “Giada’s sister told her their father hasn’t breathed a word about the Vipers since that shit show ended, and I have no wish to stir up that fucking pot again.”

  “And if he gets elected like the polls are almost guaranteeing and he comes screaming for the outlaw bikers who enticed his daughter away?” Ricky the downer just had to ask while glancing between Vigil and Stone.

  “Then all the shit I have on him will go public, just like we promised,” I jumped in before the brothers started up and someone bloodied a nose.

  “He’s nothing to worry about right now, anyway,” Vigil said, waving his hand like a black fly buzzed past his face, putting an end to the Burtonelli topic.

  A few more club details, and he told us to get the fuck out and get shit done.

  Ryker pinned me with a glare, and his tip of the head indicating I follow him had me on his heels as we stepped outside into the Indian summer morning.

  “What do you want with the girl?” he asked, striding toward our bikes.

  Loaded fucking question, right there. I wanted her. Tied to my bed. At my mercy. Under me. In my goddamn head—but would she let me have her after what those pricks had done to her?

  “You keep your paws off her,” he said, when I didn’t answer.

  I decided to keep my thoughts to myself and give him the tamer response. “What I want is to protect her—make things right.”

  He climbed on his bike and lifted an eyebrow my way while firing up his Screamin Eagle. “She’s off limits, Devil—and I fucking mean it. I saw the way you looked at her, and you’re the last fucker she needs sniffing after her ass, got it?”

  I nodded to let him know I’d heard. “Cool your jets, daddy-o. I’m going home to dig up all the shit I can to make the fuckers pay.”

  Lips pressed in a tight line, he revved the engine and took off through the compound’s gate that hadn’t yet fully squeaked open on its rollers.

  I hopped onto my old CVO Street Glide—my beautiful orange baby—and followed, my mind set on what I had to do in order to end the fuckers who’d hurt my woman, because she was just that.

  My woman. Zero fucking doubt.

  I just had to get her to stick around long enough to give me a shot in helping her learn to trust humans with dicks again—and cool Ryker’s jets so I could bury my face in that ass, not just sniff after it.

  Chapter Three

  Dasia

  For a girl who’d enjoyed dancing on stage and stripping out of my clothes for cash, I hung at the back of the dojo, wishing to be a wallflower. Ryker’s friend, Stone, owned the place and had offered classes to help me learn some self-defense.

  Just in case Ivan and his Russian buddies came looking for the birdie who’d escaped their cage.

  I hadn’t thought much about that fact until Ryker had brought it up over breakfast a few days earlier. He’d assured me that the Vipers would keep me safe with such confidence and a gleam in his cold greenish eyes that a shiver had slid down my spine.

  Immediately, my mind had gone to my foster father who’d gotten mugged and hours later begged forgiveness for touching me that first time. Then my mind went to his disappearance after the rape.

  I didn’t ask, though. Didn’t want to know anything that would incriminate Pia’s man.

  If Ryker and his friends, or brothers as he called them, considered themselves above the law and took matters into their own hands, it would be best to stay in the dark and not be able to have truth pried from my lips.

  Loyal friends but terrifying enemies. Just like the mafia and the movies I adored depicting that kind of family life. It felt good to be somewhat on the inside, but it felt even better knowing they had my six, as Ryker called it.

  Still, I remained quiet at the back of the class so as not to draw attention to myself, learning to chamber my leg before snapping it out in front of my body. I studied the handful of other adult students in front of me, shifting my stance and pivoting as they did, my kicks and punches not nearly as fast as theirs.

  While I’d built back up some of my energy that the weeks in captivity had depleted, I struggled to keep from getting too winded.

  Sensei Jason, Stone’s dojo manager and class teacher, wasn’t a Viper brother, but they’d known one another for over fifteen years. If he had Stone, and thus Ryker’s trust, he had mine.

  At the end of the forty-five minute class, I had sweated through the t-shirt beneath the gi Stone had given me. Pia smiled from the chairs alongside the mats when I finally exhaled in relief at being done and turned to find her gaze on me.

  “You did so well!” she said with a big smile as I collapsed onto the chair beside her, grabbing at the bottle of water she’d suggested I bring along.

  “I’m so out of shape.”

  She huffed a snort. “Hardly. Karate is tough—I’m proud of you for even sticking through to the end of the class. I know I wouldn’t.”

  I swallowed a gulp of water, and it eased the thickness her words had brought. No one had ever told me they were proud of me. “Thanks,” I whispered, capping the water again.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled into Ryker’s driveway, and I stood beneath the shower’s spray for half of forever, still feeling as though the stench and dirt of that basement clung to my skin.

  At least tears didn’t pour down my cheeks as they’d done that first night Pia had offered me the use of their bathroom.

  Only three days, but emotionally, I’d made a lot of progress as far as I was concerned. I’ll admit to growing bored, though. The three of us had gone shopping that first afternoon, much to Ryker’s annoyance, but he refused to let us go off alone while buying me clothes, shoes, and other necessities. I’d told Pia to keep track and I promised to pay her back as soon as I could.

  The following two days I had rested and watched a shit ton of movies—the Marvel heroes from beginning to end, my favorites of all times.

  I’d been thrilled to learn about the dojo class and even more excited to start. I expected, though, my body wouldn’t be too happy with me the next morning.

  Talk about jelly legs. I had to hang onto the shower door while climbing out of the stall, but at least I found myself grinning over the fact rather than hating it. Ryker had signed me up for three morning classes every week, and I expected I would appreciate that day off in between.

  “How was the class?” Ryker asked when I joined them for dinner that evening.

  “Awesome. I’m gonna feel it tomorrow, though.”

  “Anyone make you feel uncomfortable? Checking you out or shit like that?”

  I bit back a smirk at his pissy tone and shook my head.

  “Good,” he grunted as Pia dished up the American chop suey she’d made. “Any of those fuckers so much as looks at you the wro
ng way, you tell me, Stone, or Sensei Jason if we’re not around.”

  I nodded and dug in, rich tomato sauce and tender hamburger with al dente elbow noodles quickly filling my stomach.

  “Certainly worked up an appetite,” Pia said, a smile in her voice.

  I peered up at her, realizing I hovered over my bowl like a starving animal. “Sorry.”

  Really, I had no rush to eat since a few hours of nothingness sat ahead of me until I crashed, and another full day of similar nothing to wake up to.

  Pia and I had already discussed me getting my GED, but she suggested holding off a bit to keep me out of the system until any fall out from my escape disappeared.

  I hated school and had gladly agreed. But, I needed something to do.

  “I need a job,” I blurted out, thinking about the clothes on my back and the slippers on my feet that they’d bought for me.

  “Not happening,” Ryker said, the grump.

  Frowning, I stared at him as he shoveled another mouthful of dinner between his lips. He must have felt my unwavering attention, because he lifted his gaze to me, an eyebrow quirked.

  “I need to pay you back,” I said, holding up my index finger, “and two, I’m going to go bat shit crazy sitting here every day all day until it’s safe for me to head off on my own. Not that I’m complaining,” I hastened to add. “I’m wicked appreciative of all you’ve given me.”

  Ryker chewed and studied me until I shifted my attention back on the little bit of food left in my bowl. “I could use some help at the shop.”

  Pia made a noise under her breath, one I couldn’t figure out the meaning of, but glancing between the two had me wishing I had someone I knew well enough to communicate silently with. No one would want to know my broken soul that well, though. Tainted. Stained. Used.

  And anyway, the thought of allowing a man that far inside my head, let alone my body, turned my insides squeamish.