Chaos Bound (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #4)(2)
The priest sprinkled the casket with holy water. She missed Father Doyle who had been a fixture in the church as long as she could remember. He had led the service when her grandfather died and had been very close to Grandma Kelly. If not for Father Doyle, she might have made an even bigger mistake than going to the Black Jack clubhouse on her fifteenth birthday.
In a low, soothing voice, the priest asked again that her mother’s soul rest in peace, and then he made a prayer for mercy.
Mercy.
A sob welled up in Naiya’s throat as she contemplated her last few moments of freedom. Not even Viper would dare step foot onto holy ground, but even if he did, who would stop him? The priest? The cemetery workers standing ready with their shovels? No one else had come for the funeral. Junkies didn’t have many friends.
And neither did she.
After her mother sold Grandma Kelly’s house and blew the money on drugs, they’d been forced to live above a sex shop with a cruel, brutal Black Jack named Abe. Parents didn’t want their children associating with the daughter of a drug addict and bike gang whore, and she’d been ostracized at school. Naiya took refuge in books, her only saving grace her intelligence and her determination to succeed at school so that she could leave the biker life behind.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
Damn the Black Jacks. Damn Viper. Damn her own stupidity for coming back to Devil’s Hills. But there was no running from Viper. She knew he’d kept tabs on her in college; she’d heard the Harleys, seen the occasional Black Jack cut. If she tried to run, he would hunt her down. The Black Jacks were one of the most powerful outlaw MCs in the country, and second only to the Sinner’s Tribe MC in the state.
And what kind of daughter wouldn’t bury her mother? Even if her mother had done nothing to save her when Viper decided to give Naiya a birthday present she would never forget.
Happy fifteenth birthday, love. Now lie still and shut the f*ck up.
The gate creaked. Heavy footsteps thudded across the grass behind her. Trembles wracked Naiya’s body. The priest intoned the last prayer, and Naiya placed the flowers on her mother’s coffin.
“Good-bye,” she whispered.
And let perpetual light shine upon her.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Naiya fought back a whimper of fear.
May she rest in peace.
“Amen.”
“No use praying, love,” Viper murmured in her ear. “God’s not gonna save you now.”
*
Sometimes Holt “T-Rex” Savage found pleasure in the pain.
In the furthest recesses of his mind, he could tell good days from bad.
On the bad days, Viper didn’t come to the dungeon. On those days, Holt suffered as his body tried to heal from countless months of torture. He felt every bruise, every cut, every lash, every bone that had broken and not reset. His lungs burned with every breath. His heart ached with every beat. His blood crusted beneath the manacles that held him to the wall.
But worse were the memories that assailed him when he stared at the Sinner’s Tribe cut—the leather vest worn by all outlaw bikers—that Viper had pinned to the cinder block wall with the dagger Holt received when he patched into the Sinner’s Tribe.
His cut. His club.
At least they had been until the Sinners betrayed him.
The Sinner’s Tribe MC—the club he had loved, the bikers he had called brothers, the president he had respected above all men, the man he had called friend—were nothing to him now. He had sacrificed for them, offered himself to Viper to save the life of the Sinners’ VP’s girl, Evie, and in return they left him to suffer and die.
Funny how history repeated itself. Except this time his sacrifice hadn’t landed him in juvenile detention, but in hell.
Yesterday should have been a good day. On the good days, Viper tortured him until his mind went blank, erasing memories, hopes, and dreams, wiping out the pain of betrayal and replacing it with fantasies of revenge.
Revenge had given him the will to live. Revenge against Viper and the Jacks. Revenge against Jagger and the Sinner’s Tribe. Once he was free, his wrath would know no bounds. He would surrender himself to the beast within until it had drunk deep of betraying biker blood.
But yesterday was different. Viper was excited. His dark eyes glittered in the semi-darkness of the dungeon beneath the Black Jack clubhouse that had been Holt’s home for countless months. Viper pulled out equipment he had never used before, tortured Holt without needing a break to rest his arms or to laugh or talk with the men who always accompanied him for what he called his “workout” sessions.
He was going to have a woman he had wanted for years, he’d said.
A girl he’d tasted once and never forgotten, he’d said.
The daughter of the sweet butt who had inconvenienced him by dying in his bed.
A replacement for the woman Holt had snatched away with his ridiculous sacrifice that had landed him in Viper’s dungeon and opened his eyes to the fact the Sinners were not the loyal brothers Holt thought they were.
All of which meant Viper didn’t need Holt any more. He would be working out his stress between the poor girl’s soft thighs. His whip would taste her smooth, creamy skin. His chains would circle her slim wrists. Her blood would stain his sheets. And he would drink the nectar of her screams.
Today was a bad day. The worst of all days. There was no pain Holt didn’t feel, no breath he didn’t fight for, no beat he didn’t have to squeeze from his heart. Today he wondered if there would be a tomorrow because even revenge was losing its battle to sustain him.