Brutal Beast (Vicious Vipers MC Book 5)
Page 17
He closed his eye and wheezed.
I pulled my knife from the sheath inside my boot and stabbed him through the shoulder.
“Ah!” He shrieked and bowed beneath me.
“Talk, mother fucker,” I said through grit teeth.
Harlon sputtered and spit but didn’t say a word.
I ground my knife around a bit, digging into bone and smiling as the stench of piss rose from beneath me. “Pansy assed little bitch. Tell me, and I’ll end it quick.”
“Fuck you.”
I yanked out my blade, flipped it to my left hand, and sank it into his other shoulder, his screams like fucking music to my ears. “I can go all night long, Harlon. All of your men are dead, and we’re out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. Might as well spill the truth or I’m gonna take my good old time spilling your guts.”
“Pritt.” He gasped as I yanked my blade free. “Stacy Pritt.”
Mother fucking cunt.
I swept my blade over Harlon’s throat and watched him choke on his own blood until his mouth stopped working and one good eye went blank.
A few heaved breaths left me before I finally lifted my head. My brothers stood around me in a ring, all staring, not a single one with a trace of remorse or disgust in their eyes. I shoved my knife back in the sheath.
“Devil?” I asked into my mic.
“Already on Pritt,” Devil replied, and I let out a rushed exhale, knowing I wouldn’t have to worry about that fucker.
“Vigil?” Stone asked, his face and chest splattered with blood.
“I’m good.” I stood, flexing my hands. “Toss their bodies in the trucks and put them in the old barn out back. I already told Ryker to bring up the cleaners, but get this shit cleaned up the best you can.”
I stalked toward the house, every inch of my skin crackling with energy, the fire inside of me still burning bright.
“Vigil.”
I turned to find Sin jogging to catch up to me, pulling his t-shirt off overhead.
“Might want to at least wipe off your face first.” He tossed me his shirt, and I nodded my thanks before continuing on my way, doing as he’d suggested.
I yanked that damn clothes basket away and pulled open the hatch with shaking hands.
Bright light hit me in the face, and I raised a hand to shield my face. “It’s me. It’s okay.”
“Oh God...” Mila whispered as I backed out of her way, and she got a good look at me. She stood and threw her arms around me regardless of the blood, and the tension drained out of me.
Devon scrambled up and eyed me, his dark eyes round as they landed on my face and flitted down over my splattered clothing.
I stuck out my free arm, and he smashed into me, his hands clutching at my sweatshirt same as his mom’s.
“Harlon?” Mila whispered against my chest.
“No longer a concern,” I said, fighting off the adrenaline crash shakes. “I told you I would keep you safe. No one is going to touch what’s mine.”
Devon chuckled amidst the gore and obvious violence. “Told you, Mom.”
A shuddered sigh went through Mila, and I hugged them both tighter, my eyes closing in a prayer of thankfulness to a God I normally didn’t give two shits about.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mila
Hours later, I finally got Vigil to lay down in bed with me. He hadn’t allowed me or Devon outside even after Ryker and a handful of other brothers showed up to deal with the mess. Vigil had showered, handed off his bloodied clothes, and then got on his cell with Devil. I heard enough to know that Marshal Pritt had been the inside man who’d led Harlon to us.
I also heard the news that Stacy Pritt had breathed his last breath and he would soon be swimming with the fishes.
“Why’d he do it?” I asked, knowing like me, that Vigil couldn’t sleep even though it was after four in the morning.
“His father always had it out for Ricky and me.” Vigil snapped his mouth shut, his entire body going tense.
I nuzzled my cheek against his chest, and snuggled closer against his side, entwining my legs between his. “Devon told me about what you and your brother did.”
A rushed exhale left his lips, fluttering my bangs on my forehead. “And you’re still here.”
“There’s no other place I’d rather be, Vigil.” I propped up onto an elbow to find his blue-gray eyes intently studying me in the bathroom light we’d left on.
He pushed my hair back from my face, and I leaned into his palm. “I’m not a good man.”
I couldn’t keep from smirking. “Devon seems to think you are.” My smile faded as his face remained stern. “We all have demons,” I whispered, tracing his lower lip with my fingertip. “But you’ve slayed yours—and mine. That makes you pretty damn good in my book, Frankie Capello.”
He grimaced. “Call me Vigil.”
I smiled again, but my lips flatlined when he didn’t respond. “Those high school boys?”
A shadow flitted over his face, but he held my steady gaze. “Wasn’t my hand, but it was on my orders. Not gonna lie, wildcat. Those boys picking on your son also gang-raped a girl last year and got her pregnant. A botched abortion came after dozens of pay offs. Those boys got away with what no man should.”
“Is she okay?” I asked, my stomach in knots as demons tried to raise their ugly heads from the memories in my mind.
“She will be—eventually.”
I nodded, digesting yet another mouthful of words and truth. “Is everything going to be okay for us?”
“It will.” His voice held conviction. “Two other Demons got loose during the transit, but my Viper brothers in Vegas are taking care of that little problem. There’s a dozen still behind bars, but their days are numbered as well. It’s time to end them once and for all.”
Knowing what I did about the Demons’ club—the abuse and rape of women, the running of guns and drugs, never mind the young girls who’d disappeared from our neighborhoods without a trace...
“I’m glad,” I whispered, closing my eyes once more. “I trust you, Vigil.”
He squeezed me tight, and I gave into exhaustion.
****
I woke to Vigil rolling me onto my back, settling his hard, hot body between my thighs. “Morning, wildcat.”
I blinked in the bright sunlight shining through the windows to find a wary face peering down at me. “Morning,” I said with a soft smile, running my palm along his whiskered cheek, shifting my hips to rub his hard length along my clit.
His pale eyes lightened as though my simple greeting lifted tension clear off his body. Vigil might be a brutal beast of a man, but he was so much more.
“Look at me like that,” he muttered with a glint in his eye while rocking against me, “and I might beg you to ink my claim on your fine as fuck body.”
“Look at me like that, and I’ll drag your ass to the tattoo shop myself.”
Vigil took my hands and pressed them overhead. My legs wrapped around his waist without thought, and he pushed slowly into my body, our gazes locked, and our hearts thrumming between us.
“You gonna let me love you forever, Mila Zeigler?”
“Only if you’ll let me love you back.”
He bottomed out, but held still, his cock twitching deep inside me. “You gonna let me adopt that son of yours?”
“If he’ll have you—and you promise to love him, too.”
Vigil’s smirk caught my breath, and he leaned in to swipe his lips over mine. “It’s a deal, wildcat.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lynn Burke is a full-time mother, voracious gardener, and scribbler of spicy romance stories. A country bumpkin turned Bay Stater, she enjoys her chowdah and Dunkin Donuts when not trying to escape the reality of city life.
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