I slide my body back into the couch and look straight ahead. There’s no way I can say this while facing him. I take a deep breath, clearing my mind from the present and allow myself to go back to that fateful day. The day when I lost everything. My family. My best friend.
My life.
Tessa
Past
“It’s gonna be killer tonight. The party is supposed to be off the hook,” Sienna says as we leave the mall. The sun is slowly setting in the west allowing the golden glow of the parking lot lights to illuminate the blacktop. The air is still warm even though it’s the beginning of fall, but that’s what we expect in New Mexico.
“Devin said he’ll cover for me, so I don’t have to have someone from the club following us.”
“You mean you.”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Is that why we don’t have a babysitter now?”
When we aren’t with her brothers, then someone from their MC is with us—except today. Protection, Devin Sr. says. It’s the only way he’ll allow his little girl to have somewhat of a life. Even at the age of twenty, she still has to have someone close by. I don’t pretend to know how it is to live as a daughter of an MC president. My mama has told me time and time again to keep my head down when I’m around the clubhouse or even the members. I’m surprised she’s allowed me to continue my friendship with Sienna all these years.
“Hey, chicas. Que pasa? What’s up?”
My eyes shoot up to a group of guys walking towards us. The lights shine above them, causing dark shadows to fall upon each of their faces. They’re all wearing black leather vests, which only means one thing in these parts—MC club. The hairs on the back of my neck raise, an uneasy feeling comes over me as they continue to get closer. From my peripheral vision, I see more guys surround us.
“Looks like they’re all by their lonesome,” the second guy says as he scans the area.
“Tsk, tsk tsk, where’s your Papi, little lady?” Another guy asks.
Sienna’s hand grabs my wrist. Her nails dig into my skin.
“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t cha?” Another guy steps closer, taking her hair between his fingers, bringing it to his face before he inhales. “Hmmm… No wonder the Prez has a thing for the Sinclair ladies. They are some fine ass bitches.” He tilts his head back and hoots into the air, making me jump.
“What do you want?” Sienna snaps while I stand there, silent. My heart is pounding within my chest, my blood rushing through my ears.
“Well, that’s a damn good question.” The one who still has Sienna’s hair in his hands answers. He eyes her up and down, licking his lips. Without warning, he tugs on her hair, pulling her body to his. Her back hits his chest, making her yelp. “Now, now, little lady. Let’s keep this little exchange quiet, shall we?” he speaks in her ear, while he stares at me. Slowly I watch as his hand comes up and squeezes her breast. Tears instantly form in her eyes before they roll down her cheeks.
“You aren’t a Sinclair, are you?” The voice coming from the left asks me.
Turning my head, a man stands next to me. His eyes are crazed as he takes in my body. I start to shudder in fear as he runs his fingers up and down my arm. Sienna’s cries are muffled. I shake my head no.
“He only said he wanted the Sinclair bitch.” He takes a step closer to me, wrapping his hand around my waist, tugging me to his body. Dragging his nose up my neck, my body breaks out in chills. I close my eyes when I feel the wet of his tongue touch my skin.
“I say Prez can have the Sinclair bitch, and we’ll take this one.”
“Yeah,” another one sneers, “We can have our own little party.”
“Hell yeah, let’s fuck her.”
“NO!” Sienna screams at the top of her lungs.
“Get that bitch outta here, Jose. I don’t need anyone calling this in.” His tongue snakes up my neck again. “We haven’t had our fun yet, have we boys?” His chest vibrates with laughter.
I watch as the guy whose name is Jose hauls Sienna over his shoulder. She looks up, keeping her gaze on me. Her eyes are crazed, looking back at me as she fights against the man’s hold. She pounds into his back, but nothing seems to be working. She reaches her hand out for me, calling my name, crying for me, but there’s nothing I can do. I watch as my best friend disappears behind rows of cars. As soon as I hear the roar of both bike and truck engines, I know that I’m never going to see her again.
I squeeze my eyes closed as tears freely break loose. My body shakes against my captor’s hold. He grabs the back of my head, yanking it down. I cry out in pain. “Please,” I beg him through sobs. His face is right there, studying me, his eyes wild. He leans in and bites my neck making me cry out in pain. I jerk back, trying to get myself free from his hold, but it doesn’t work.
I feel his arm wrap about my midsection as he lifts me from the concrete. “It’s time to get this party started, boys.”
“Take her behind the dumpster. We’ll have plenty of time over there,” someone says from behind me.
“Fuck me, my cock is fucking ready for this bitch’s pussy,” I hear another guy call out.
The entire time we make our way over to the dumpster, I fight against his hold, praying that someone will see me, that someone will stop them. “I’d keep my strength if I were you. I like em’ to fight me a little.” He bucks his groin into my butt, and I can feel that he’s hard. I whimper which only makes him laugh.
As soon as we stop moving, I open my eyes and see that we’re in a cinderblock surrounded area. There are three substantial blue dumpsters and a small green one. The ground is littered with trash of bottles and food wrappers. The entrance is small, and from what I can tell it’s on the side so even if cars drive by, they won’t notice us.
“This is how it’s going to play out.”
He’s still holding me against his chest with his arm still wrapped about my stomach and a hand gripping my throat. I blink, trying to keep clear the tears from my eyes. When my vision finally clears, I see the group of guys standing before me. There’s five of them. Four of them are standing in a line, all wearing their black leather cuts, but the fifth guy stands off to the side. I notice that he’s only wearing a T-shirt, so that tells me he’s not part of the club. Even prospects wear a cut. I catch his eyes and mouth ‘help me,’ hoping that he’ll do something, but he only looks away.
“Tre, get your knife out and come here.”
I watch as one of the guys steps forward. He’s a brute of a man, years older than me. His thick neck strains as he sneers at me. Flipping the cover to a leather knife case that’s on his belt, he takes out the switchblade, swinging it open as he approaches. His other hand grabs at his crotch, and I can see that he’s hard. I start to struggle a little more, but it only makes the hold he has on me tighter.
“Now cut her clothes off. No need to be gentle. I like a little blood play.” As soon as he gets close enough, I jerk my head forward, connecting with his head. “Puta!, bitch,” he grunts right before his fist connects with the side of my jaw. Stars spring to my eyes as I go limp in my captor’s arms. I fight the urge to pass out, knowing that my fight or flight response has been drained. I feel tugging on my clothes, and then the cool air hit my flesh.
“You think you’re tough, puta?” he asks as he rips the cotton of my jeans. “I’ll show you tough.” The cold metal slides down my leg, removing the fabric. I cry out when I feel the blade turn and connect with my skin. “I should cut your fucking tits off and send them to your puto father.”
“Now, now, Tre. I think we’ll have more fun with her tits if we keep them intact. But you can rough her up a little more. I won’t mind.”
I watch as a smirk crosses his face, his steel eyes taunting me. I feel my ribs crunch beneath the force of his punch, and my knees buckle as I gasp for air. The arm that’s been holding me disappears and my body fall to the ground.
“Let’s do this, boys. Grab her fucking legs. Who’s f
irst?”
All five of them hover over my naked body as I roll on the concrete. They watch, licking their lips before they descend upon me. I can feel the burn as the first guy rips through me. He grunts as I lay there, somewhere between being present and no longer being mentally there. I can feel them pull at my legs, stretching me.
“Fuck, she’s tight.”
I know that voice. I hear him grunt into my ear and my body continues to jerk back and forth with every thrust.
“I’m gonna cum in this tight pussy, puta. You’ll never be able to get rid of me. Everywhere you go, I’ll be there.”
“Get it done, Tre, we want a turn.”
And that’s what they do. They rape me, each taking their turn. All the while the man in the T-shirt stands by with clutches fists by his side. Never once does he try to help me.
Not when I call for him.
Not when I beg every time one of them landed a fist to my face.
Not when I howl as they force me on my knees and take me from behind.
He does nothing but watches as each, and every one of them covers my body with piss and cum. He doesn’t come to my aid as they have their fill and walk away. In fact, it was his pale blue eyes that I saw as I finally gave away to the darkness.
Hawk
Vengeance
Revenge
Retribution
Those words have always been at the forefront of my vocabulary for as long as I can remember. It’s the norm when you grow up in an MC. We live by vengeance. That’s what makes us feared, and being feared is something that we need to survive. Sin has wanted revenge for his sister’s death for the past seven years. He’s still so hell-bent on serving out his retribution on the man who ended her life. I never truly understood his desire until now.
Tessa has gone silent. She’s a statue next to me. I can feel her anxiety radiate from her. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to proceed. My mind is telling me to roar with anger. To rip this place apart until my need to kill has weakened. But I can’t. I can’t scare her, and I’m not going to be that man to her. I don’t care that her eyes hold so much fear every time she looks at me. I now understand the reasoning. It’s her body that tells me no matter her worries, she trusts me. I’m not going to let my anger destroy that. Not when trust is hard for her to come by.
I do the only thing I can do, I pull her towards me. Her body is rigid but once she realizes it’s me she relaxes. Goddamn, I wish I can take away her pain. “I’m so fucking sorry, Tessa.” I know the words don’t mean shit. Nothing I can say will ever make what happened to her all right. It will never be all right.
“Mommy,” Sam’s sleepy voice calls from his room.
Tessa sucks in a breath but doesn’t move from my lap. I take the initiative to get up for Sam. I place her back down on the couch. I push her hair away from her blotchy, tear-streaked face. She’s still distraught, and I know the last thing she wants is for her son to see her like this.
“Go get cleaned up,” I tell her. “Get to your room and get in bed.”
As soon as I step inside the room the tension in my shoulders subsides. Sam is sitting in his bed, covered by a blanket with dirt bikes on them. The first time I met him, he was wearing a Harley shirt, and now his bed is covered with bikes. Something tells me this little guy, and I have something in common.
“Hey there.” I take a seat at the foot of his bed.
He rubs the sleep from his eyes, “Hi.” His voice is tiny, hoarse with sleep. “Where’s Mommy?” he asks as he drops his hands in his lap.
“She’s not feeling well.” The news makes his eyebrows shoot up, and he pulls back the covers. His little legs struggle to get out of the bed. “Hey now, it’s all right. She’s okay. There’s no need to worry, little man.” He stops trying to move from the bed but continues to look at me with his brows creased. He’s studying me. I pat his head. “What’s with the frown?”
He purses his lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m just visiting. It’s been a long time since your mom, and I got to talk. What made you wake up?”
“Bad dreams. Monsters and all that.” He draws a deep breath in and huffs out of his chest, making his hair that’s covering his forehead blow up. “Petey from school says that I’m a baby because monsters scare me.” He looks down and picks at his blankets. “But I can’t help it. I can’t control when the monsters come.”
I scoot closer to him. “You know what? I bet Petey makes fun of you because he has monsters, too. He’s probably just as afraid of them as you are.”
He looks up, eyes tight as he thinks about what I just said. “You think so?”
I give him a chuckle. “I know so because it happened to me when I was your age. My best friend did the same thing to me.”
“He did?”
“Yep, all because he didn’t want to get made fun of from his older brother, so he opened his big mouth and told his brother and his brother’s friends that I was afraid of monsters that hid under my bed.”
“Wow, that wasn’t very nice.”
“Kids aren’t always nice, and sometimes they don’t know any better.”
“Well, what did you do?”
“I punched him.” His eyes widen at my confession.
“Wow. And he was still your friend?”
“Yep. To this day, he’s my best friend.”
“Mommy says I’m not supposed to fight, so I don’t think punching him is gonna work.”
I know that I have no experience with kids, but the thought of Sam practically getting bullied irritates the shit out of me. “I’m sure what your mom says is probably the right way to handle it. But I’m telling you what I did when that happened to me.”
“Hawk?” He scoots his little body back under the covers, letting me know that he’s must be all right with his nightmare.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“How did you get rid of the monsters?”
“My dad.”
I don’t elaborate. I don’t need to tell him that my father wasn’t the type to check under the bed and in the closet. He wasn’t the man who would sit with me until my fears had subsided. He was the type who told me I was his son, his blood and there was no way he was going to have a son that was a pussy.
Sam’s shoulders fall. “I don’t have a dad,” he whispers.
Damn, this kid. “But you have a mom.”
He brings his gaze to mine. “Yeah. She’s pretty great.”
He doesn’t say anything else. I watch as he pulls the comforter over his shoulder and turns away from me. Taking that as my sign, I lift myself from the bed. As soon as I wrap my hand around the doorknob, I hear his voice.
“Can you please keep the light on?”
“No problem, little man.”
Checking the living room, I see that Tessa did what I asked and went to her room. As soon as I push through her room, I’m assaulted by a soft floral scent. There’s a side lamp on that gives the room a soft glow. My eyes quickly scan the room, seeing it’s sparsely decorated. There’s a low dresser on the opposite wall of the bed, with a few large prints arranged over the wooden structure. She’s already in bed, the covers pulled up close to her chin.
“Tessa?” I ask quietly, making sure to close the door gently.
“Yeah,” she responds as she rolls to her side, facing me. Her face is fresh looking. The redness washed away with the makeup. This is the girl that I remember. The one before she was introduced to makeup. My Tessa.
“Is Sam all right?” she asks.
“Yeah. He’s good. Monsters. You know how that goes.”
She pushes herself to the sitting position as I make my way farther into the room. “More than you know,” she deadpans, and I know that I fucked up by my comment.
Putting one knee on the mattress I give her a smile, hoping that I ease her tension. “Do you trust me?”
Her eyes widen, for only a second, but I know she remembers the first time I asked her that question. She gives me a sli
ght jerk of her head, so I continue on with my plan. I reach out for her hand, the same way I did that night of prom, and she gives it to me without question. I keep hold of her hand as I lie down and make myself comfortable. I take her hand and wrap it around my torso. She instantly wiggles her body closer to mine.
I have so many questions that are swarming around in my mind. The fury from earlier is still a simmer under my skin, and I know one wrong question, and one unbearable answer will set it off into an inferno, and that’s something I can’t let happen.
“How are you doing?” I decide to start with the small stuff. I know I need to ease into the subject at hand. Trust.
“Okay.” Her warm breath dances along my neck and shoots straight to my dick. I adjust my hips while keeping a firm hold of her. That’s not what tonight is about.
“So that’s why you left?”
She nods, not verbalizing the answer. This tells me that if I want to get my answers, then I’m going to have to go the easy route.
“Do your parents know the extent of your injuries, of what happened to you?” I feel her shoulders lift. “Tessa, do you still talk to your family?”
I feel the wetness hit my shirt because she sniffs. “No.”
I pull her up, making it so that she’s looking at me. Her heart is racing. I can see the vein in her neck pulse with every beat. There’s no sparkle in her coffee eyes, and it kills me that it’s no longer there. I could kick myself for not going after her when I found out that she skipped town. I should have gone to her parents and demanded that they tell me where she was.
I swipe my thumb along her cheek, catching her tears as they fall. When she closes her eyes, it takes all my willpower not to haul her closer to me and cover her lips with mine. I need to ease her pain, to bring light back into those eyes.
The next question is one that I don’t want to ask, but it’s crucial for me to know. More for my own sanity than anything. I make sure I own her gaze before I speak the words. I need to be able to read her.
“Is Sam’s dad one of the guys that attacked you?”
Hawk_Devil's Fury Book 3 Page 10