Nobody, no-fucking-body, could ever accuse me of not being a fighter, and this guy wasn’t here to give me some fucking roses. Not with that bottle in his goddamn hand.
Another howl escaped him, but he cursed, “You fucking bitch,” and managed to evade my clawing hands to raise the bottle high enough to gain some real momentum.
The second it collided with my temple, I knew I was fucked.
And not in a good way.
More than fear, I found I was furious. So fucking angry. So motherfucking wrathful that I knew, point-blank knew, that when Nyx killed this motherfucker, I was going to be there, stripping his organs alongside my man.
It was what kept me going as the cunt dragged me across the floor as though I was a bag of trash. He was limping from what I’d done to him, and I could only hope that my ball-busting capabilities had preceded me, and the fucker wouldn’t be able to get it up with the way I’d kneed him.
“He’s going to slit your throat, and I’m going to bathe in your blood,” I slurred, as I made sure I was a dead weight. I wanted, more than anything, to kick his legs out from under him, but I was seeing stars, and the way he was dragging me had my head connecting with the ground every goddamn step.
The agony wasn’t something I’d felt before, and the truth was, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be sick. But if that was going to happen, I was totally going to vomit all over him.
I willed my stomach to stop churning until the moment was right. Fuck, I hoped it was projectile, and I hoped like shit that I got him square in the fucking face.
The anger inside me kept me going, burning hotly like it usually did. I wasn’t a nice person, and I knew that, had embraced it a long while ago, but at that moment, I knew what I was capable of.
I wasn’t the kind of person who flew in a fight. I stuck around and got shit done. Even as dazed as I was, I thought about what he was doing, and how I could counter it to make him hurt, but I’d admit, his silence in the face of my threat, and what he was doing, dragging me instead of just raping me in front of the door where I lay, concerned me.
He had a game plan, and I had no intention of letting that come to fruition.
I cursed Sin for leaving to go see some bitch take her clothes off, when there were a dozen sweetbutts wandering around naked back at the compound, and managed to kick my leg out in the vain effort of trying to slow the bastard down. Maybe if I could keep him from doing whatever he’d planned, Sin would come back, and he’d save me from this absolute dick.
Was it weird that I was pissed about not knowing his name? Or for forgetting it? I wanted to humanize the piece of shit, remind him that I was a real fucking person, and to do that, I needed his name. Essentially, I was a hostage, and I’d seen enough crime shows to know that shit wasn’t going to end well unless I turned the tables.
For the first time, a slither of fear whispered through me. I thought about Nyx, and all the shit I still wanted to do with and to him, and I thought about how he’d feel when he found out about this.
He’d said he’d keep me safe, and on the first run out of the district, here I was, being assaulted.
Seriously, the man’s luck was bad. Mine was worse.
But… if the cunt managed to hurt me, permanently, Nyx would never forgive himself.
Jesus, I’d never forgive myself if I was about to be a crime statistic, and did nothing to save myself. Fuck, that made the fear slide out of the building as I gathered my strength and kicked my leg out once more. When it connected with his knee, I thanked God, Jesus, Buddha, and every other deity I could remember from Wikipedia when the dick crashed to the floor.
The second he collided with it, his intention changed. He scrambled over to me a second after he hit the ground and pinned me down. “Cunt, stay down,” he spat at me, and spots of saliva slathered over me.
I had little Tweety Birds floating around at the edges of my vision, but that didn’t stop me from laughing in his face. “Yeah, I’m just gonna let you rape me, fucker.” I twisted in his hold, shifted so I could elbow him in the face. Luck was back on my side, because I hit his nose again.
A wail escaped him, but even as the pain hit him, the rage came next. When he punched me, I knew I was more fucked than before. The Tweety Birds had started a chorus movement by now, and even as I tried to unseat him, tried to buck him off me, it just wasn’t going to work.
He dragged down my jeans, and I was glad I’d gone for the skinny ones that were a real pain in the ass to get on and off, because he struggled… Until he pulled out a knife and sliced them and my panties off me.
When the blade connected with my skin, I whimpered. The sound was weak, so frail, and I hated it. Hated it.
That was not me.
It wasn’t.
I blinked when his finger was there, touching me, touching where only I could choose to have someone touch me.
He thrust it inside me and laughed. “Nice and dry, just how I love it.”
I twisted again, but it wasn’t like before. I felt like I was being tossed about in the middle of a storm, but I wasn’t moving that much, and when my motion barely affected him, I started willing myself to puke because that had to fuck with anyone’s desire to do shit, right?
As I focused on anything other than that invasion, focused on anything other than the sound of his zipper coming down, I saw something at the back end of the bar.
A light.
Oh God, was it Sin?
I cried out in relief, and the sound had the bastard atop me jerking around to look in my line of sight.
When he did, I was doubly relieved to see him react to the stranger’s presence, because I figured I was seeing shit. Losing my mind.
That couldn’t be who I thought it was. Could it?
I blinked dopily up at the brother, and watched as my attacker got to his feet, his knife in front of him as he started to defend himself, but whatever he was doing, it wasn’t enough.
The intent in the Sinner’s face told me all I needed to know.
I was safe.
My attacker wasn’t.
In the end, it was anticlimactic.
The brother grabbed the knife and stuck it straight between his ribs, right in the cunt’s chest. As the fucker crumpled to the ground, his hands flailing around like newly caught fish as he bled out, the Sinner came to me and started rearranging me, pulling my jeans back together like that would help.
He caught my eye, and I caught his. It was then I knew I wasn’t imagining things. More than the blood seeping out of my attacker, more than his life blood puddling on the floor close to me, it was the look in his eyes and the way he raised his finger to his lips in a plea for silence.
I nodded, then cried out as the ache in my head made itself known.
“I’ll call the police,” I whispered, not even knowing why I was whispering, just knowing that I had to.
“You need an EMT.”
“I know.” I closed my eyes. “Go.”
“Thank you.”
I laughed, then regretted it when my stomach started churning. “You’re the one I need to thank,” I slurred.
“You’ll be all right?”
“Just dandy.” When my vision wavered, I bit out, “Go!”
He got to his feet and rushed out of the bar. I had the wherewithal to notice that he went out the back, and the second I heard the door snick as it closed, I let my rebelling stomach release its poison.
For a second, I just lay in my puke, and the stench of it was enough to keep me conscious. I used it to get some strength, to force myself into acting. Even though I didn’t want to, even though I just wanted to pass out, I knew I couldn’t.
So, exhausted, I patted down my pockets and remembered I’d dumped my phone back in the office because I’d gotten sick of checking to see if Nyx had sent a message. Wanting to moan in distress, I felt tears prickle my eyes as I knew I’d have to get the bastard’s.
As I slid across the floor, I slipped in his blood. My stomach almos
t protested but I knew I had to act, to move.
It was my first instinct to want to call Nyx, but wherever he was, he’d be no use to me. A scream escaped me when the bastard jerked as I patted down his jeans and found his phone.
It was one of the new iPhones, and I held it up to his face to open it. When his eyelids fluttered open, I saw how dazed he was, and then I registered that the phone hadn’t opened.
It needed a goddamn passcode.
My stomach churned as I thought about moving over to the office, and it was a no brainer to reach over and grab the hilt of the knife in the bastard’s chest. Before I did anything, I whispered, “What’s your phone’s passcode?”
When no answer was forthcoming, I stared into the bastard’s eyes, saw the hatred mixing with the pain, and I twisted the knife. His hoarse cry wasn’t music to my ears, but it certainly made my heart pound in satisfaction. Actually, it made me feel woozy. The shift of power was making me lightheaded.
“Stop!” he cried out, but I carried on.
And on.
“423,” he rushed out quickly, and I stopped twisting the knife. “341,” he slurred out the six-digit passcode, his tongue thick as blood gushed from his mouth. The sudden stench of piss and shit releasing from his body was enough to make me scuttle out of his way before any more of his poison connected with me, and I groaned as my body protested the move, but I had the wherewithal to know I had to do two things.
Firstly, I went to his settings and changed his passcode after I logged in. I muttered the number over and over again, refusing to let my addled brain forget the six digits. When that was done, I changed it to six zeros, then shifted his Face ID to recognize my own.
That took more energy than I had, but I wanted his phone. I wanted it because I knew, like fate was holding my hand, that this had happened for a reason.
And the only reason I could think of was here in my hand.
“Nice and dry, just how I love it.”
That was what he’d said, and it resonated with me on a level I couldn’t even begin to define. Maybe that was stupid of me, to put so much into those words. Bad shit just happened sometimes, and it was my unlucky day, but I had to embrace that, or I’d start to cry.
Yeah, stone-cold, knife-twisting bitch that I was, and I wanted to cry.
Fuck, more than that, I wanted Nyx, I wanted him so badly, but I couldn’t have him, so I had to woman up. He wasn’t here to save me. He was only God knew where, and I had to look after myself.
Like I’d been doing since forever.
Wishing we weren’t on the small dance floor in the middle of the room so I could prop myself up against a chair or something, I let myself cascade to the floor as I keyed in 911. When an operator picked up, I whispered the address of the bar, then said, “I-I’ve been raped.” He’d finger-fucked me. Was that rape or sexual assault? For a second, I just lay there, blinking, until her voice broke into my dark reverie.
“Ma’am? Is your attacker still on the premises?”
I knew I had to come up with some story that would satisfy the police, but my brain had been pushed to the limits by having to think about changing the passcode on the phone I was holding.
Because I was fading, I whispered, “I killed him. I-I’m going to pass out now.”
I heard her sharp, “Ma’am, stay with me,” but it was no use.
Clinging to the phone in my hand, I prayed that the next time I woke up, I wouldn’t be lying in my own vomit, covered in his blood, and there’d be no scent of piss and shit around me. More than that, I prayed Nyx would be there, because if he wasn’t… I didn’t know how I’d cope.
Ten
Nyx
Twenty minutes away from Blackpool, just before the border, I got the call.
Five hours away from my woman, and I got the fucking call.
I’d never been gladder that Link had caught up with us because the second my cell buzzed with the ringtone only Rex used, I stopped at the side of the road, pulling off instantly. Sometimes, he had intel that he’d feed to me before we made a drop, so I knew not to avoid it anyway, but this time? I was doubly glad I had pulled over to answer, but also wished I hadn’t.
Five hours… it took five hours to get back home, and I made it in three. Each of those hours killed me, slashed at the demon inside me until it was a bleeding mass of wounds that endured because it, too, suffered on Giulia’s behalf. I felt like I was dying, and only the fact I needed to stay awake and aware when I was riding at a hundred miles an hour and more kept me going.
She’d been attacked.
At the bar.
Hurt.
On Sinners’ territory.
I wasn’t sure who I was going to kill first.
Sin, the cunt I’d left to keep her safe, or the bastard who thought he could hurt a Sinner’s woman.
My woman.
Mine.
As rage throttled me, urging me on, even though I’d been riding for nine hours by this point, I made it back into town and headed straight for the hospital.
I’d never been more grateful to be a Sinner because, like they knew, and as they were aware of how I was, they didn’t say shit to me when I made it inside the clinic, but they were there. One at the entrance, another at the end of the hall, each one a marker I had to follow like some fucked-up trail of candy for Hansel and Gretel.
The receptionist didn’t fuck with me, instead, the second she saw me, she dipped her chin to avoid looking at me, and I ignored her, intent only on following the trail my brothers had made for me.
There were eight of them in total, and each of them dipped their chin at me without saying a word.
The tension in their faces put me on edge, because…
Rex had only said she’d been attacked.
Their response told me it was bad.
Really bad.
Was she dying?
Was another woman in my life…
Had I failed her?
Failed her like I’d failed Carly?
The thought was like a punch to the gut, and I almost buckled as I made it to the ward where Rex was standing guard. He was grim and tense, his face resolute, and his eyes wary as he opened the door for me.
I didn’t even greet him, just headed inside, and what I saw made me realize I hadn’t just let her down, this went beyond failure.
Fuck, I didn’t deserve to even see the state of her, and she was a fucking state. Her eyes were bruised, her nose broken. She had her hand and arm in a cast, and from the bulk beneath her hospital gown, I could tell she had bandages in places I couldn’t see.
She was cut and scraped everywhere, and I wasn’t sure if that was from a knife or... hell, I didn’t even know what I was looking at.
My back hit the wall opposite the bed, and I stared at her, stared and stared, trying to process how this had happened.
It had to be because I’d been staking a claim on her time. This had to be retribution because no one fucked with Sinners’ property, and that was a fact I’d helped hammer home every year I’d been an Enforcer.
Needing answers, because dealing with how badly I’d failed her was fucking with my head to the point I wasn’t sure if I was losing it, I just knew that I needed to make someone pay.
I needed to avenge her. I needed to do something because the thought that I hadn’t helped her get her gun license throbbed through my brain. I’d been thinking with my cock, not of her safety, and never in my goddamn life had I felt more ashamed of myself than I did now.
Because I felt like I was going to destroy something, I knew I needed answers, which Rex would have. He would be able to explain this to me, so I went to leave. But the second my hand connected with the door handle, she whispered, “Stay.”
The one word was softer than a murmur, and yet, it had the same effect on me as a bullet to the brain.
With my back to her, I let my heart and soul, fuck, the demon bleed into my voice, and murmured, “I don’t deserve to stay. I let you down.”
/> When she didn’t say anything, I closed my eyes, hating that she agreed. Even if I knew it already. Even if I knew I didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as she did.
Then, she whispered, “Don’t you think I deserve to be the one who decides that?”
“I told you I’d keep you safe.”
“You tried.”
I pressed my face into the door. “Not hard enough.”
A shaky sigh escaped her. “Please. Don’t leave, Nyx.” The quiver in her voice when she’d always been so strong, so fucking resilient, had me tensing even more. “Stay.”
Because her needs mattered more than my own, I pushed off the door. When I heard her sob, I knew she thought I was leaving anyway, but I twisted on my heel and swerved toward her, not stopping until I was at her side.
She looked so small on the bed, and it took me a few minutes to reconcile that this was her. Because while she was small, short, and curvy, she had so much presence that it was easy to think she was bigger.
This diminutive figure wasn’t the woman I knew.
I shoved the thought aside, because if I started thinking that, then I was fucked. Rage was always making my brain whirl, and throw in exhaustion after the long ride and no sleep, well, I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
The mustard-colored chair was on the same side as her cast-covered wrist, so I hauled it up and moved it around to the other side of her.
I wanted, so damn badly, to hurl it at the wall, to watch the destruction rain down, but I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
She needed me.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever been needed before, not really, at least, not by anyone other than the MC, and that was different.
She needed me in spite of my having failed her, and that meant something.
I wasn’t sure what. But it did.
When I took a seat in the chair that was way too small for me, I looked at her, saw her injuries up close, took in her red eyes and wet cheeks, and whispered, “I’ll kill him.”
Nyx: A Dark & Dirty MC Romance (Satan’s Sinners MC Book 1) Page 24