“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I tried to reassure her, but the fear in her eyes told me it would be years before she believed it. “Whatever hell you’ve been through, it’s over now.”
When I pulled out the knife on my hip she started to cry.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, cutting the zip-tie that held her bound wrists to the metal shackle above her head. Her arms went loose, and with a whimper she collapsed onto me.
“You’re safe, I promise.” She clung to me. “But I need to help your friends, okay?”
After freeing the other women from their shackles, I stormed to the end of the truck and jumped off. Cade had the driver at gunpoint. “You better call Bucky and tell him to get his ass over here fast. And tell him he’s going to need back up and some ambulances.” I indicated to the driver. “But get him out of here. Tell Bucky he ran off. He knows more than what he’s saying and I’m going to get it out of him.”
We took him to the abandoned drive-in theater where Scud Boney had lived out his final moments only a few weeks earlier.
At first, he was a tough guy. A real smart ass. But by the end of it, he cried like a baby and told us everything. His job was to pick up the cargo from a warehouse in Oregon and bring it here. He’d been with the girls for days, denying them food and water, and indulging in his own perversions with his choice of them whenever the opportunity arose. Apparently, he had a thing for the younger ones.
“But so what…” He spluttered, blood and mucus spilling from nose and mouth. “I’m not the worst they’ve seen. And not the worst they’re going to see.”
That bullshit deserved another up-close-and-personal moment with my fist. Repeatedly, until he was unconscious. Now it was my turn to indulge. In payback.
Some may have called me psychopath and sick motherfucker in the past, but I don’t enjoy other people’s pain. I actually thrive in peace. But I want what’s best for my family. My club. And to ensure order reigned in my town, sometimes I needed to inflict a bit of chaos on someone’s ass.
I didn’t get a hard-on over hurting someone.
Even when that person was a child trafficking, raping piece of shit. I didn’t enjoy the karma I was dishing up to his face.
It was a necessity.
My job as president.
Eventually, Ruger stepped in. “He’s done.”
With my chest heaving, I stepped away. “Take care of him.”
I looked down at my bloody knuckles. They didn’t hurt, but later they would hurt like a bitch.
I walked away and climbed on my bike. I was desperate to feel Taylor beneath me. To feel her tenderness calm the raging darkness in me. But I was going to take my rage for a ride and let it dissipate in the wind before seeing her. Because I wasn’t going to touch that beautiful body of hers while my mind was black with so much rage and hate, and lusting for revenge.
TAYLOR
Ten Years Ago
“My cock is so big you’ll taste it in your mouth while I’m fucking your pussy.”
Bradley Anstead, legendary corporate bad boy, leaned forward and planted a kiss on my bare shoulder. His dark eyes sparkled with cocaine and the lascivious thoughts crawling around inside his liquor-soaked brain.
He was going to fuck me. And he was going to fuck me good.
Or so he kept telling me.
“And you better believe I’m going to fuck you hard, pretty girl.” He grabbed his groin. “And I’m going to fuck you deep.”
Fighting back the urge to gag, I faked a smile and took a mouthful of champagne from my glass. It was good champagne. Cristal or Dom Pérignon. And the glass, too. It was some stupidly overpriced crystal from Europe. It was worth squillions. Or so Bradley had told me. Same with the Basquiat hanging over the fireplace, and the Louis the XV chaise by the window overlooking Central Park. They were all opulent belongings. All ridiculously over the top. All his.
Bradley Anstead was a mascot for young, corporate success.
Rich. Good looking. Successful.
Cruel.
He also had a thing for girls in knee-high boots. Like the ones I was wearing.
But he also had a lust for something he wasn’t ready to admit.
Something he knew would cause his cold-hearted and emotionally vacant father to look at him with that air of disappointment he always seemed to have saved for him.
Bradley had a reputation for ruthlessness in the business world, and as a ladies’ man in his circle of wealthy, successful friends. He was a corporate megastar. And his sexual escapades with women were legendary.
But he also had a secret.
A secret urge he couldn’t control.
A secret urge he hated himself for.
Because it was an urge he couldn’t resist. A secret desire. A need. An overpowering lust. And it frustrated him that he wanted something so badly, something his family and friends would never accept.