by SE Chardou
The biker stroked my hair as I continued to sob, snot and tears co-mingled as I tried to quiet myself. I had to be strong for my mother. She was the one suffering right now. They’d obviously raped and beaten her; she had so little left. If I cared anything about my family, I wouldn’t be concerned about my own emotions right now. I could save the tears for another day.
“Here’s the problem, Sophia,” another biker I knew to be as Nel began, “I know Abandonato. He’s thick as thieves with that nigger, Raymond Jackson, up in my area of the state. Do you honestly believe he’s going to pay back what your old man owes? He stole two million dollars from the club. Think about it . . . that’s why he’s lyin’ in a pool of his own blood. What happens if Angelo says no?”
Mom cried silently, tears falling from her gorgeous amber eyes in waves. “He won’t. I swear to God Angelo loves me, and he would do anything to save Magnolia and me. He won’t say no.”
Nel looked at Brad. The moment Brad shook his head, I screamed, if only to block out the noise of the bullet piercing my mother’s skull.
“Come on, let’s get the fuck outta here before the cops show up.” Brad continued to grip my arm painfully as he led me out of the house.
A black cargo van waited out front and I was quickly thrown into the back with Brad as Nel climbed into the driver seat and took off.
I didn’t know what to think at the time. I only knew my life would never be the same again. My parents were dead and no one would ever know what happened to me.
I died that night too. On the inside at least even if my heart continued to beat and I still breathed. It was a lesson taught early on to me in life. Some of the most horrific events can be unleashed on the human psyche but our bodies continue to function and we remain.
If I could have gone back in time, I probably would have found a way for them to kill me too. It was a better alternative than what they had in store.
Brad brushed a calloused hand through my long sable hair with its chestnut highlights. “You’re a very valuable commodity indeed. Worth hell of a lot more than two mil. You’re gonna pay off what your parents owed us.”
“How?” I questioned.
His other hand not in my hair grabbed my breast and squeezed gently. “How do you think?”
I began to sob again despite not wanting to show an ounce of weakness to these animals. “Please don’t . . . I don’t wanna be a sex slave. I’m only thirteen.”
“Who ever said anything about a sex a slave you dumb bitch?” Nel questioned from the front seat. “Nah, you ain’t gonna be doin’ no favors for no one except Brad and me. We’ll teach ya. By the time you’re fifteen, you’ll know how to take a DP like a pro.”
“D . . . P?” I looked from Brad to Nel and back again. “What’s that?”
Brad laughed in my ear, his breath smelling of whiskey and cigarettes. “That’s when my cock is fuckin’ your tight little cunt and my brother has his cock up your ass, fuckin’ you so hard, you think you’ll be seein’ God but it ain’t nothing but stars. You belong to us—you’re our property now to do as we see fit. Never question an order and you’ll be able to work your way outta servitude. Make somethin’ with your life.”
I didn’t like this plan at all but my choices were limited and like an animal trapped behind a caged door, I had no other options.
Christ to God, I never understood why Maya Angelou wrote a book about a caged bird singing but I was starting to wise up now. My life would only get more difficult, and whether I wanted to believe it or not, I was not only fucked but caught in a tangled web my parents weaved.
There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go.
I’d officially reached the bottom and I hated it with a passion.
Part One
Trapped Prey
Twelve Years Later
Chapter One
Magnolia
I hated Las Vegas with a passion though unfortunately, not only was it my home base but the city where I collected my cash and found out about any upcoming jobs. My place of employment was, technically, Decker Repair & Auto though that was merely a front for the White Knights MC Vegas chapter.
I wasn’t a member of the fucked up Neo-Nazi white supremacist club—thank God—but I did work for them on a freelance basis. There wasn’t really a pretty or polite way to say what I did for a living but then again I wasn’t a “bite your cheek and shut the fuck up” type of girl either. After spending seven years as Brad and Nel’s personal sex slave, I’d been forced to endure three abortions. The only live birth—a little boy, who was given to one of the old ladies up north who couldn’t have children—produced the only real family of mine that remained alive.
I’d suffered countless degrees of depravity locked in a box; compartmentalized in my mind, hidden in a secret place I never visited. Anxiety, depression and feeling sorry for myself were first world luxuries—though surrounded by—I couldn’t afford. Not if I wanted to stay alive, intact as a fully functional human being as opposed to a ghost of my former self. It would have left the average person suffering from post traumatic stress disorder like a motherfucker yet apparently, I’d numbed myself to all that shit.
I was a contract killer and very good at what I did.
Too good in fact.
It didn’t help my hatred for the male sex was legendary and although women weren’t too high upon my priority list either, I could handle myself with a weapon or without one. I knew how to hide razor blades in my mouth, gouge someone’s eyes out and other ingenious ways of making a human being suffer. I’d learned from the best, after all.
Brad and Nel murdered my family when not long after I turned thirteen years old and bound for high school. I’d skipped a grade in school and had been an honor-roll student, not that it mattered much anymore.
Stockholm Syndrome is a bitch. The two twisted fuckers and their old ladies became my family. I watched Marian Decker, Brad’s daughter, grow into a striking young woman and leave the family home. She attended the University at Lake Tahoe and had no intention of coming back to Vegas.
Not that it bothered me. My life was one of solitude and a lot of time spent in my fucked up head. I didn’t rely on anyone else to find happiness and the only time I felt any emotion at all was snuffing out a human life. It was jacked up—I knew that. It certainly wasn’t normal behavior someone my age should have exhibited but my humanity died the night my parents were taken from me. I truly didn’t know what it was like to feel normal—whatever normal was. It was simply a concept they used in the real world for people who could act their way through life and fake it until they made it. That wasn’t—nor had it ever been—me.
I strode past a couple of the WK members in the clubhouse and walked directly to Brad’s office. I wasn’t there to make chit-chat and I sure as fuck wasn’t a sweet butt. I might have earned my place in the club on my back but I didn’t service any man now unless it’s what I wanted to do.
My issues should have affected how I viewed life but sadly, they didn’t. I still enjoyed sex, despite countless episodes of rape, dubious consent, sodomy and forced bondage but I liked to think they’d given me character. I was badass and no one in their right mind would mess with me, not if they wanted to leave my presence with their dick intact.
A couple of old ladies and club whores looked my way with obvious derision but fuck them. The only good thing that had come out of my extensive years of childhood abuse was I didn’t sashay my ass around half-naked. I wasn’t dressed to the nines but I had inherited my mother’s sleek fashion sense. I kept my sable hair its natural color and on the longer side. Today, it fell down my shoulders and around my face in long, wavy strands of silk. My hair also complimented a pair of faded, fitted blue jeans and a fitted, scarlet cotton baby doll blouse paired with matching wedge espadrille sandals.
It was my day off so I certainly didn’t see the need to wear my usual all-black outfits and steel-toed shitkickers that had saved me on more than one occasion.
My e
yes glanced in the direction where I could feel someone looking at me intensely. Serra sat on a black leather sofa, nursing a Southern Comfort and Coke. She nodded her head in my direction and I did the same to her before I continued down the dark hallway that led to Brad’s office. I knocked on the door and heard a male voice beckon me to come in.
I opened the door and closed it behind me before I stood for a moment. Brad was there but another guy I vaguely recognized also sat in the room. He looked comfortable enough on the whiskey brown leather love seat Brad had facing him across from his large desk.
It was easy to size up this mystery man without being too obvious about my intent. I knew he was tall, easily almost a foot over my natural five foot, four-inch height had I been without the wedge sandals that gave me an extra three inches. Not only was he lean with muscles in all the right places but he was extremely clean-cut. Although dressed casually in blue jeans, a short-sleeved black t-shirt and matching steel-toed shitkickers, it was obvious he could also blend into the world of the moneyed and powerful.
I stood for a moment to glimpse his face before I committed it to memory in the space of time it took me to blink my eyes. Rugged, handsome yet an air of overt sexuality that couldn’t adequately be described, at least not by me, and my limited vocabulary.
Sharp Slavic features blended with genes from various Celtic ancestry, a Roman nose, high forehead, sculpted cheekbones and chin, finished off with luscious full pink lips. Creamy skin with a hint of peaches almost gave him a girlish complexion if it weren’t for the few days’ worth of dark hair growth on his face, which matched his hair. And those eyes, my God, a woman—even me—could get lost in those artic depths of blue with a hint of pale green.
I stared at my benefactor who motioned for me to sit before I took a seat beside Mr. Cold & Deadly. There was no mistaking I recognized a kindred spirit in this man. His might have been inviting in a physical sense but the depth of calculating apathy existing within him couldn’t be underestimated.
Brad lit a cigarette, set his lighter down and dragged before his ice blue eyes met mine. “How was Seattle?”
I rolled my eyes with exaggerated sarcasm. “Cold and overcast. There were a few nice days but overall, the weather sucked. What do you want me to say?”
He stared at our guest for a beat too long; then his eyes turned toward mine. “I’m not sure you two have met. Max, meet Mags. Mags, this is Max.”
I glimpsed in Max’s direction though I didn’t bother to offer either hand resting casually on my thighs. “Do you have a last name, Max?”
“Cartier.” His voice was deep, honey and molasses rolled into one. “You’re Reynolds’s kid, aren’t you?”
I scoffed out loud as I crossed my arms against my chest. “Yeah, Riggs was my father. What difference does it make? He’s dead now.”
“You look just like him . . . that’s all. Seems like you’ve also picked up his charming personality too.”
Brad cleared his throat. “The reason why I called you in today is…well, you’re free to go.”
I could almost feel my heart open up and swallow itself. “What do you mean I’m free to go?”
“You’ve paid back all the money your father stole with interest, babe.” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “You’re not a member of this club nor do you want to become one. Surely you didn’t think I’d keep you at my beck and call forever? I know I have treated you . . . harshly over the years but I don’t want you to think I am a complete and utter monster. It’s time for you to live your life, Mags.”
Several strands of hair had fallen into my face but I didn’t want to brush them away with the way my hands were shaking at this sudden revelation.
I was free to go.
But go where?
My adolescent and adult life had never been my own to control. I was property of the White Knights MC and now they were letting me go? How could this be?
Freedom was such a pleasant dream for me, something to carry me to the land of dreams at night but it was never a reality I’d ever thought I would see—not in my lifetime at least.
I nodded my head and forced myself to meet the Vegas charter president’s eyes. “All right. I mean, I have money and I can take care of myself but . . . my employment has always come through the club—”
“That is where I come in,” Max interrupted in a deep, calm voice. “Decker was concerned about how you would take this whole ‘moving on’ issue so I am here to assure you that your services will always be required. As a matter of fact, I have a job you would be perfect for if you would be willing to consider my offer.”
I straightened my posture as I turned toward a man I barely knew. “If I’m being given my freedom, what makes you think I want to be tied down with someone else? I’ve always been a free agent. If the WKs are letting me go then believe me, I plan to continue to be my own person,” I explained in a cool voice.
His blue-green eyes shined with a look of disbelief at my lack of respect for him but he ground his teeth together, his jaw flexing before he blinked and the look disappeared. “I don’t want to own or control you. I simply need your services for an upcoming job and if you’re willing to consider it then we might have a way for you to smoothly transition into this . . . new chapter of your life.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
Max leaned toward me, the subtle smell of expensive cologne teasing my nostrils. “Well, the operation would be delicate and it’s not something Decker wants to be directly involved with nor does he want any knowledge of it. I suggest you pack your belongings and we can be on our way. I will tell you the job once we have left together.”
I raised one of my perfectly shaped eyebrows. “What if you tell me about this new job and it turns out I’m not interested?”
“In that case, I can drop you where ever you want to go. I have to make a pit stop in Northern Nevada. If that is where you would like me to leave you after I have made my proposition, I will.”
My hands flexed before they grabbed my knees involuntarily. It sounded like a fair enough deal. My options were obviously limited and although there was nothing more than I’ve ever wanted or desired in my life, I knew this feeling all too well. I hadn’t felt it since I was a thirteen-year-old girl when my parents had died before my eyes.
It was fear of the unknown.
Brad never had to worry about whether I would return from a job because the club was all I knew. Where would I go? The thought of disappearing and starting a new life never occurred to me because it had been raped and beaten out of me as a teen. I didn’t know anything else but the club and although the chances they would ever come looking for me were slim, it still never registered with me that I had a choice at all.
My father had stolen money. He was the reason I never grew up with him or my mother. I no longer resented him but I was loyal to a fault and understood his misdeeds had to be paid back by me. It wasn’t a question of stupidity or blind faith—it was the only way to restore my family honor and the Reynolds name. I would not be a coward and slink off into the darkness without knowing my parents hadn’t died in vain.
Now I’d held up my end of the bargain, their lives seemed meaningless, worthless. I’d lost so many years for what? To prove I was a badass who could survive by taking orders? I no longer had any and my world fell to pieces. I barely held on to my pride, let alone my sanity. How could this be happening to me?
I breathed deeply. “Fine, I’ll go with you. Give me around twenty minutes. I don’t own much and it won’t take me long to gather my belongings.”
Max nodded in a curt manner.
I stood and walked out of Brad’s office, unsure if there was anything else left unsaid between us. From the way my former mentor/rapist/protector glanced at me in a forlorn manner, I guessed that would have been everything and nothing but we didn’t live in a world of regrets. Our feelings would have to stay exactly as they were—there was no room for second-guessing in this life or the next.
No matter how much I tried to calm myself as I readied myself to say goodbye to my current situation, I couldn’t get comfortable. I didn’t know anything about this Max Cartier character. Even his name was stupid and obviously made up. He didn’t look to be a Cartier anymore than Coach handbag could be passed off as a Louis Vuitton.
Obviously he could clean up and make himself look presentable but a run in with any of “our” kind would give him away in ten seconds flat. His eyes were beyond hollow or merely dead. They were hard as glass, cold as ice and clear as crystal. No one acquired eyes like that without having been drug through the depths of Hell and back with the story of their ordeal intact.
“What do you plan to bring with you?” a male voice questioned.
I stood up straight and turned to see Max, standing there at my door. “Only what I need. The rest, I can have Brad pack up and put in storage.”
He walked into the room and the only reason why I knew he was closer to me than I would have liked him to be was his body heat. It radiated off him in waves . . . or maybe that was because we were only inches apart. He reached over and grabbed an old photo of my mom, dad and me. It was taken the same year their very lives were snuffed out. Somehow or another, Brad had gotten a hold of it and given it to me for my fourteenth birthday.
“Were you a happy family?”
His question forced me to pause in the middle of folding a pair of jeans. “Yes, I suppose we were. I loved them very much and the life I lived with them . . . often times, it feels like a dream and this has always been my reality. It’s kinda like the Matrix and taking the blue pill—you wake up in that fucking pod and realize your whole life is a lie.”