by K. Webster
I squirm at his words.
“I bet your pussy is ready. Tell me, little storm, did Filter get your hole nice and stretched to take a real man’s cock?”
“I hate you,” I snap.
He slides his finger out of my hole and smacks my ass. “But you want me.”
His body covers mine once again, sending waves of terror rippling through me. I let loose a sob when his cock rubs between my thighs in a teasing way. “You’re going to crave my cock every second of every day because once I’m inside you, it’ll feel like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. I’ll own you, baby.”
“Jeremy,” I say once more, my voice firm. “If you fuck me tonight, it’ll be rape because I don’t want this. I don’t want you. You can make me come and whisper sweet words, but you’ll be a rapist. Like the sonofabitches who raped your niece and sister-in-law.”
He freezes as my words sink in. Then, as though someone struck him with lightning, he climbs off the bed and yanks his sweats back up. I cry out when he grabs me and picks me up. We struggle as I fight to escape his hold. He’s stronger and thus more successful. I’m only freed from his grip when he dumps me on my bed in the guest room.
He stalks off, leaving me alone. I yank the blanket up over me, needing a moment to myself. Away from him while I figure out my next plan of action. Before I can decide what to do next, he appears with a vengeance, yanking my good hand out from beneath the covers. I scream when the cold metal of handcuffs wraps around my wrist, clicking shut. He jerks my wrist up toward the headboard and hooks the other end to the metal pole that attaches the wood headboard to the frame.
No escape.
“Copper!” I cry out, shooting him with a nasty glare. “What the fuck?”
His dark eyes are icy as he glowers at me in disgust. “You want to play the victim role, then be the fucking victim.” He shakes his head at me, his nostrils flaring. “I had good plans for you, Stormy. I was going to fuck you and keep you. But you’re still out for number one. You. Using what happened to my family as ammunition to fuck me up. Great job, bitch. You succeeded. Now I can’t get those goddamn images out of my head. Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted because I won’t ever fucking touch you again.”
With those words, he flips off the lights and slams the door behind him. I’m so shocked by the cold hatred flung my way, all I can do is gape in the darkness.
I’ve really gone and done it now.
Copper
I wake to barking. Loud and excited. Groaning, I try to ignore the pounding in my skull. Last night, I drank way too fucking much. Everything is a blur. Absently, I reach across the bed, looking for warm flesh. It’s then I remember everything.
The bath.
Her vulnerability.
My finger in her ass.
I was going to fuck her and keep her tucked into my side for last night and every single one after, but then she said some horrible shit that mindfucked me.
I slept alone while she slept handcuffed to her bed.
It’s for the best. Sleeping with her would have just sent me down a path I can’t afford to go down with Stormy. She’s our fucking enemy. Koyn would want to kill me. Filter probably would. Letting Stormy into my heart, like I was so clearly eager to do, would have betrayed my brothers in the worst way.
Never again.
Someone bangs on the door downstairs, really making the dogs go nuts. I slide out of bed, ignoring the intensifying throb in my head as I stalk through the house to see who the fuck is bothering me at this hour. If it’s Krista, I’m going to go off on her.
When I fling the door open, my dogs whine and jump, eager for attention. Koyn, in all his asshole glory, crouches to give Hansel and Gretel some neck scratches.
“Needy fucking dogs,” Koyn gripes, though there’s no malice in his tone. “You spoil them.”
I grunt out my agreement. “Look at them. It’s hard not to.”
Koyn chuckles and then rises to his feet. The dogs take it as they’re not going to get any more love and tear off the porch, eager to chase whatever squirrels they can find. I motion for him to come inside. As I busy myself at the Keurig, Koyn crosses his arms and watches me. He’s wearing his black Royal Bastards leather cut over a white Henley and dark jeans. His boots are muddy, which makes me cringe. Between his mess and the one we made last night, my floors are wrecked.
“Where’s the traitor?” he asks when I set a mug down in front of him.
“In bed.” I turn my back on him and stir some sugar into my own mug.
“Just couldn’t keep your hands off her, could you?”
I snap my head at him, narrowing my eyes. “What?”
“You have claw marks on you, big brother. I’m not stupid. But you, on the other hand, are. Even after I warned you about how Stormy will use you with her pussy, you went and hit it anyway.”
Anger boils my blood. “Fuck you, man. I didn’t sleep with Stormy. Give me some fucking credit.”
His eyes widen in surprise at my outburst. I’m normally the calm brother. Koyn is the one who flies off the handle and rages. The scarred X on his face seems out of place as he gapes at me in shock. Right now, he’s not a biker badass MC prez. He’s my younger brother who’s seeing a side of me I don’t let out often.
“Okay,” he drawls out slowly, his features relaxing back into a cool expression. “Then she’s been giving you some shit I take it?”
I sip my hot coffee, hoping like hell it will chase away this hangover. “Something like that.”
“You get anything else out of her?”
“Not since I called you last night. It’s all she knows, man.”
He nods and then tastes his coffee. His nose scrunches before he walks over to the sugar canister and dumps more in. “It was good intel. I did some digging last night.”
“Oh?”
“I took care of your problem with your superior. Any time they look us up or try to save a file on us or the Royal Bastards, it’ll open up an encrypted file on my server. Everything about it will look legit and as though it’s in the FBI database, but I’ll watch it like a hawk. When I’m not watching it, Halo or Bermuda will have eyes on it. Tell him you looked into it and it’s just a bullshit lead.”
“Good,” I grunt out. “And I will. Last thing I need is Dan opening up an investigation and linking it to me. My ass is too pretty for prison.”
His lips curl into a grin. “Your ass isn’t pretty, dickhead. It’s old. You’d be lucky if you had a couple of boys in there looking for a daddy.”
I flip him off and drink more coffee. “You’re the only fucker who gets off on that daddy kink.”
His gaze darkens and a sinister smile creeps over his face. “Hmph.”
“So what did you find?”
“A lot on Vidal,” he says, setting his mug down. “Has an agency devoted to traveling all over to small cities like Tulsa looking for fresh talent. He’s hard to pin down because he moves around a lot. I cross-referenced some of his meetups, though, and many of the women have vanished.”
“Like Erin.”
He nods. “He’s up to something. It stinks of human trafficking.”
A dark cloud seems to hang over us. With what Stormy said to me last night, it makes me think of the way those bastards hurt his wife and daughter. Then, how Genworth and Putnam hurt Hadley. The fact Stormy compared me to those fuckers has me sick to my stomach. She truly does think I’m a monster.
“What are we going to do about it?” I ask. “Hunt them down and slit their throats?”
Koyn chuckles. “You sure you’re not ready to patch in yet? You know your ass wouldn’t be a fuckin’ prospect like your dumbass son. You’d be my right-hand man.”
“Filter has that job,” I state, my tone bitter for more reasons than I can count.
Koyn, always the perceptive motherfucker, narrows his eyes. It reminds me of back in the day when Dad knew I was lying to him. All it took was that penetrating stare to have me barking out the truth.
“You may not be fucking Stormy, but you sure as fuck want to. You’re jealous of Filter, for fuck’s sake.” He scowls at me, disappointment dripping from him. “This was a mistake. I’ll deal with it.”
He abandons his mug, stalking out of the kitchen. Panic consumes me. My brother is ruthless. He’ll put a bullet through her head without thinking twice. I know he made a promise to Hadley, but Koyn’s been known to break a promise. Slamming my mug down, I chase after him, ignoring the throbbing in my head. I fly into her bedroom, sick to my stomach to see him looming over her.
“Don’t,” I growl, my tone laced with warning.
Koyn glances over his shoulder at me. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
With cautious steps, I approach the bed. Stormy looks pitiful as fuck. Most of her injuries she caused herself, but Koyn doesn’t know that. Her hair is frizzy and tangled. The normally smooth, made up skin on her face is red and splotchy, swollen from all the crying she did last night. The shock collar around her neck is pretty barbaric looking at it through an outsider’s eyes. Her hand is purple and her arm is twisted at an uncomfortable angle being handcuffed to the bed. The bandage on her other hand has fallen off, exposing the blood-crusted stitches along her cut. My T-shirt swallows her, but it’s ridden up, showing off her bruised ass.
Guilt slicks through me like oil on a lake.
I know this looks worse than it is.
“Wait until the guys hear about this.” He grins at me, pride in his eyes. “Like I said. Right-hand man.”
Stormy whimpers in her sleep. I know she’s in pain from all the shit she went through last night, but I’ll deal with that later. Right now, I need to get my brother out of her room before she opens her big mouth and earns that bullet from Koyn’s gun fair and square. If she uttered the shit she said to me about his family to him, there’s no telling what he’d do to her. And even though she pisses me the fuck off, I won’t let him murder her.
Her blue eyes flutter open and the moment she sees Koyn, terror gleams in them. She truly is scared to death of my brother, which makes it impressive she managed to be a mole under his fucking roof for so long. I give her a slight shake of my head, warning her not to speak, but since I don’t trust her not to, I know it’s time to bail and quick.
“Coffee’s getting cold,” I grunt, nodding at him to follow me.
Koyn stares at her for a long beat before turning on his heel and walking out of the room. I close her door and then make my way back to the kitchen. We drink our coffee in blissful silence.
Once we’re caffeinated and my head doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode, I make my brother help me round up my dogs. We begin the painstaking task of bathing them. Gretel is a baby who loves being pampered in the bath while Hansel always tries to make a great escape. Normally, I have to do this shit alone, so I’m thankful I have my brute of a brother to help. Eventually, we manage to get them washed and dried. They beg for treats since it’s always a given after a bath. As soon as I’ve rewarded them, even Hansel’s bad ass, they plop down on a sunny piece of real state in front of one of the big windows in the living room where the sun pours in.
“Stay for breakfast,” I tell him as I start pulling stuff out of the fridge.
Like old times, when we were kids, we work together in the kitchen. He handles scrambling eggs while I work on the bacon. I’ll eventually need to feed my prisoner and give her a bathroom break, but for now I’ll let her salivate over the savory bacon scent for a bit. That’ll be torture for any-fucking-one.
Koyn perches at the bar, a mountain of food in front of him. After making us some orange juice, I sit beside him. I’ve damn near inhaled it all when I finally get back down to business.
“Any leads on the scaredy cat?” I pop a brow up in question, meeting Koyn’s stare.
His relaxed features harden into his usual grumpy expression. “I’m pissed I even have to look into this shit.”
“You know we’re the only ones who can.” I polish off the rest of my breakfast before pushing my plate aside. “Bizzy is too dumb. If he were scared, we’d see it all over his face. He’s always happy and laughing.”
“I guess Gibson’s out too then?” Koyn asks. “Those two horse around more than they act serious.”
“Maybe, but Gibson always seems a little guarded. Shuttered despite the playfulness he has around his friend. Watch him when he’s alone. Gibson is always somewhere else. Keep him on the maybe list.”
Koyn nods, a frown furrowing his brow. He knows to trust me when I do my job. Profiling people is just something not only I was trained to do but something I’m good at.
“Filter?” I refuse to meet Koyn’s glare, but he’s going to get pissed because we’re discussing yet another liar within our ranks.
“It’s not him.”
At his clipped words, I snap my eyes up. “Just like that, huh?”
“You say you’re not wanting to fuck this bitch, but, man, you’re sure acting like a jealous boyfriend when it comes to my VP. I personally vetted his ass before I brought him in under me. He’s been with me since the beginning. Filter’s life has been documented and available for me to see dating back to his first run-in with the police in high school. He was a pretty boy who liked to fight, bulked up during college, lost his football scholarship, and nearly got his ass sent to prison for underground fighting. The guy was drinking himself to death by the time I found him. Nothing in his past alludes he’d be hiding from anyone.”
I know he’s right, but I can still detest the guy. “Someone who lost money on a fight? I mean, can you really rule him out?”
“Next,” he barks out. “Bermuda’s clean.”
Bermuda is a whiz with not only computers, but numbers too. The man was suited for Wall Street but had the bad luck of growing up in Oklahoma. His ranch hand job near Dallas was his big attempt at a real career, but in the end, that didn’t work out for him. Koyn sought him out, not the other way around like many of the others. Bermuda is definitely clean.
“Payne? Halo?”
Koyn scowls, running a palm over his face. “My first inclination is to say no.”
“But?”
“But Payne has a daughter in college. For all I know, he could be staying away from her if he felt threatened by someone. Anytime anyone mentions his family, he completely shuts down.”
Interesting.
“I’ll look into him,” I vow. “Keep an eye on him. Have Bermuda trace anything he can too. Halo?”
“Ex-military. I’ve already scoped him out, but you know how those guys are. Secrets galore.” Koyn lets out a heavy sigh. “Halo is broody as fuck and quiet, but I don’t ever sense him hiding his past from me. My gut tells me it’s not him.”
“No, dumbass, your heart does. He’s your brother by patch. Which is why your flesh and blood brother needs to help you see things objectively. He’s on the maybe list along with Payne and Gibson.”
“And Nees?” Koyn growls out, stabbing me with words I knew were coming.
“Blake may be young, but he’s my kid. He’s too mouthy to keep a secret. Up until last year, he lived with me, for fuck’s sake. If he were hiding something, we’d know it.”
Koyn smirks. “Remember that time he tried to keep that injured squirrel as a pet hidden away in his room?”
“He was eight. Sketchy as fuck expression he had, too. I knew he’d done something, but Krista just couldn’t imagine her boy lying straight to her face.” A chuckle bubbles out of me. “The poor thing died and Blake hid it in his closet under a mountain of shoes and soccer cleats. I never heard Krista scream so goddamn loud as the day she found that dead, rotting animal.”
Our humor fades and Koyn clears his throat, moving on.
“That leaves Dragon and Katana,” Koyn says, his gaze darkening. “Should we put them on the list too?”
“We know shit about Katana. He’s quiet and follows Dragon around like a puppy.” I let out a sigh and nod. “I’d say he seems more
protective than afraid and in hiding, but since we’ve always known so little about him, it’s smart to put him on the list. And Dragon?”
“Is probably a serial killer hiding from the authorities?” Koyn asks, smirking. “For someone so fucked-up, he has a big damn mouth. Dragon doesn’t seem the type to hide. If anything, people should want to hide from him.”
That’s the fucking truth. Dragon is two steps over the cliff of insanity, only held back by the precarious grip of his shadow Katana.
“He might not be afraid, but we can’t discount he might have secrets,” I say with a shrug. “Put him on the maybe list.”
Even though Dragon and Filter didn’t seem guilty when I mentioned someone hiding, it doesn’t mean they aren’t good actors. We can’t rule anyone out.
Koyn stands and walks his plate over to the sink. “You realize I have to look into half my fucking guys, right? What the fuck would Collins or Vidal want with any of them?”
“We’re going to find out,” I assure him. “These things take time. How’s Hadley?”
“Better now that she’s home where she belongs and safe from Putnam and her fucking father.” His murderous expression fades as he thinks about her. “I still can’t believe I’m going to have a kid, man. I never thought…” He trails off, vulnerability shining in his eyes. “I never thought I’d have a chance at a family again.”
“You deserve it,” I rasp out. “They’d be happy you found love again.”
We both grow silent, offering a quiet moment for his deceased wife and daughter. Eventually, he clears his throat and nods toward the door.
“I’m going to head out,” he grunts. “I’ll start investigating on my end.”
“Same, brother. I’ll also keep digging on Collins and Vidal leads.”
“All we have to do is wait them out. One wrong move and we’ll be on them,” Koyn vows, his body rippling with violence. “We’ll be ready. Those fuckers will wish they never heard our goddamn name.”
After giving my brother a squeeze to the shoulder, I see him out. Then, I make a plate of food for my prisoner. I’ve cooled off since last night and feel less hungover now that I’ve eaten, so I’m not ready to rip her head off anymore. When I enter the bedroom, her eyes are teary.
