by Lena Bourne
Outlaw's Salvation (A Viper’s Bite MC Novel Book 2)
Lena Bourne
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
THE END
About the Author
Also by Lena Bourne
Copyright © 2017 by Lena Bourne
All rights reserved.
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FULL BOOK CATALOGUE BY LENA BOURNE
Prologue
The light inside is broken, but I still work. I read those words on a one of those Internet memes once, printed over a picture of a dark vending machine. They sum up my existence perfectly.
Just insert money, could be added now, after I spent a year as a sex slave, being offered to anyone who could pay, and to some just for fun.
I was freed and got my life back. But I was dead inside even before being trafficked, and it’s worse now. A year of therapy and easy living didn’t cure it, because nothing can cure it.
I was certain of that fact. In my mind, it was as unerasable as my name.
But I was wrong.
I’m not one for rehashing the past, but this story deserves to be told from the beginning.
Chapter One
SAMANTHA
The trial starts in two weeks. The public prosecutor delivered those words triumphantly when she called me this morning. I haven’t been able to un-hear them all day. They’ve laced every thought I had since. I have no intention of testifying, no intention of yet again going over all that’s happened in the year I spent as a sex slave, being forced into prostitution by Shade, the former president of Viper’s Bite Motorcycle Club. Or I suppose he’s still the president, only there’s no MC left. I’m the star witness against him. That’s what they’re calling me. But I’m not gonna do it.
No one knows I won’t be testifying yet. Not even my sister Tara, even though I’ve dropped so many hints when we talk that anyone even remotely listening would’ve picked up on it by now. But she’s still too in love and can’t really focus on anything else. I’m not jealous, I wish her all the happiness in the world, God knows she deserves it. I just wish I could have some of my own happiness back too. And achieving that starts with not testifying against Shade.
I’m leaving LA later tonight, heading to Mexico, so no one can force me to do it.
The screen door of my balcony hisses open, and I turn to see Randy’s blonde head poking through.
“There you are, Samantha,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
That’s simply not true. I came out to the balcony to watch the sunset, but that was over hours ago. I’ve spent those hours sitting here alone in the darkness. I’ve been doing a lot of that since I was freed, and I kind of hoped hooking up with Randy would change that, but it hasn’t. He was in bed all this time watching a football game or something. He’s only wearing a pair of pajama pants, his chest and arms bare, the light from the living room hitting him from behind and sharply outlining his well-defined muscles. The half smile on his lips is very inviting.
“I’ll be right in,” I say and smile back at him. “Why don’t you go warm the bed for us?”
He grins wider and retreats back into my new beachside condo. The one they forced me to move into, because it was apparently too hard to keep me safe and protected in my downtown LA penthouse. I still miss that place. Randy’s the textbook example of the all-American boy next door. He’s blond, blue-eyed, tall, wide and buff, and he even has some very pretty tats. Not too many, and not in visible places. That wouldn’t do for a professional, high-end bodyguard that he is. He’s older than he looks, and he’s actually the leader of the group of bodyguards that have been trailing me for the last year, protecting me from the threat of retaliation by the MC whose leader I’m supposed to help put behind bars. But I’ve been in no danger yet, and I doubt anyone’s coming after me.
Randy’s the only bodyguard here tonight. Has been every night since I seduced him a couple of months ago. A girl can have some fun, can’t she? Especially if she’s spends her days so heavily guarded, she can’t even go shopping without two hunks with earpieces looking over her shoulder. Or breathing down my neck, more like. At least the rest of my escort hangs back now that Randy’s sharing my bed, so that part of my plan worked.
I wish Randy was enough, that he was the one who could keep me safe forever. But he isn’t. No man is and never will be. I don’t have the ability to fall in love, hence I probably can’t be loved either. I lost all that during the long years of abuse by my father and his pedophile buddies. The sex slave stuff didn’t even make it worse, it just reaffirmed it. But with Randy, I’ve found I can actually fake a relationship too. He even moved some of his stuff in here last week. But that’s not what I want.
I wish I didn’t have to do what I’m planning to do. But there’s no other way. I’m not testifying at that trial, and I’m sick of living this easy, eventless life that’s so damn safe and comfortable I feel like I’m suffocating.
I get up off the lounge chair, giving the sleeping pill laced bottle of iced tea another good shake before following Randy to the bedroom. He always gets thirsty after sex and this brand of iced tea is his favorite drink. I should have no trouble getting him to drink it.
And once he’s asleep, I’m leaving, driving down to Tijuana to have some fun. Free and unfettered fun. Like it used to be. I haven’t had an orgasm with Randy yet. In fact, I haven’t had one during most of my stint as a prostitute. Not a real one—the toe-curling, vision-blurring, breath-stealing kind. The kind where I forget who and what I am for those precious few moments. Searching for those mind-blowing orgasms was the only reason I was always such a slut. Everything else is just getting hurt by people who are supposed to love you. So I’ll just have the orgasms, thank you very much, and leave everything else to those who want to risk getting hurt. I can’t.
I feel rotten for drugging Randy. That’s what my burly biker date did to me on that fateful, windy night in Vegas. I woke up in my underwear in a filthy, smelly room with no windows. I spent more than a week in that room, starving, getting raped and listening to threat after threat from that monster Shade. Threats about how he’ll personally torture me to death if I don’t do as I’m told, find and torture me and my family if I try to run. He only let me out of that room once he deemed me broken. It felt like a year later. But the thing is, I was broken a long time ago. And the only reason I went along with all he had planned for me was to protect my sister from the same fate at his hands. If my family consisted of just my dad, I would’ve happily let Shade do his
worst to him.
I want nothing more than to see Shade suffer. Go to jail for the rest of his life. But do I have to suffer all over again for it to happen?
Randy is lying in the center of my bed, naked and grinning, his hard cock in his fist. He couldn’t even wait for me before getting started. He’s pretty to look at, and his cock is of a good size, but other than that he’s not the kind of guy who really cares about pleasing a woman. He goes through the motions, does the right things, but his orgasm is the most important thing to him. In that, he’s no different than at least 80 percent of all men. Or at least of the ones I’ve been with. And by now, I’m sure that’s already a statistically relevant number.
I walk over and place the bottle of iced tea on the nightstand, pointing at it. “For later.”
“Thanks, I’ll need it,” he grins and winks at me. There’s something very soft in his eyes. Could it be something more than lust? Love even? I’ve never actually seen that directed at me, so I wouldn’t know.
I slip my silk nightgown over my head and join him on the bed. He flips over and kisses me, covering me with his heavy, hard, muscular body. I kiss him back, moan and writhe under him like I’m supposed to. Like I’ve done a so many times with all those rare clients who didn’t want to hit me or tie me up. I wish I didn’t have to fake it all, wish I could enjoy Randy’s kisses and touches like he enjoys mine. But I don’t. And it’s not him. In fact, it’s most likely me. Maybe I’m just incapable of having orgasms anymore. And on this vacation, I plan to find out once and for all whether Shade did manage to break me after all.
Dawn’s just breaking when I reach San Diego. Randy took forever to fall asleep deeply enough for me to dare leave. I haven’t slept a wink yet, and maybe I should, since I’ve almost dozed off more than once on the drive here.
I’ll stop at the first mall I pass, sleep in the parking lot until it opens and then get my hair done, and buy some new clothes. I didn’t pack much before I left, because I was afraid Randy would wake up. After that, it’s straight on to Mexico. By my calculations, Randy shouldn’t be up before noon. But he is a big guy and I only gave him four of my sleeping pills, afraid to give him too much and accidently kill him, so I may be wrong about that. Maybe he’s already up, already raising the alarm that I’m gone. But no one knows where I’m going. I’m meeting my friend Abby from group therapy in Tijuana. She was trafficked too, and just like me she wants to just forget all about it. That’s why she’s been in Mexico since the end of June, just living it up. No one from my old life knows her. Or cares to. They don’t even want to know me anymore, as I more than painfully realized after I pulled my shit together long enough to get discharged from that mental hospital.
Word spread very quickly about where I’d been, and what I’d been doing. Or been forced to do. Very few of the people I used to hang out with called to see how I was. Even my sister Tara was gone, so I had no one to talk to. At first, I didn’t really care, since I had little desire to do anything, but sit around staring out of windows even after I got back home, but eventually I heard about a party and wanted to go. So I snuck out of the bathroom window of a restaurant where my bodyguards and me were having dinner and went to the party. The guys were super attentive, I had my pick of them, and for a minute it was even better than the old days. Until I overheard a group of them talking about me, about how I’d probably be up for some gangbang action. Apparently one of them had me already, back in Vegas, while I was on the clock, as he put it, and he wouldn’t mind a repeat performance for free. I snuck out of the party after that and didn’t go to another one. But it’ll be different in Tijuana. Chances are slim that anyone’ll recognize me there. It should be no problem finding a stranger for a night or two of nothing but passion, the kind you can only really get from a one-night stand. At least I hope that’ll happen. I miss my old self, the talkative, fun one, not this pensive Samantha that just lives inside her head most of the time. I’m ready to just have fun again.
I pass a huge mall that’s shaped like a castle, then have the hardest time actually getting to it once I exit the highway. But eventually I manage to pull into the vast, empty parking lot in front of it. The garage is still locked, since the mall doesn’t open for another couple of hours, and the sun’s already beating down on my car. But it’s almost September, and my windows are tinted. I need sleep. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and I’m pretty sure my judgment is impaired, since I just had the hardest time deciding which way to turn at an intersection of the empty parking lot. For the first time in forever, I’m sure I’ll manage to sleep even without taking a sleeping pill. But once I get to Mexico, there won’t be any such thing as “without a pill”. I hear you can get prescription medicine without a prescription by the kilo down there. Just this one last errand and then the fun will begin.
The incessant buzzing of my phone wakes me. I’m covered in sweat, and it’s so hot inside my car I have trouble breathing. I swing open the door, and it bumps into the car parked next to mine, making me cringe. But at least I can breathe again now. Not that it isn’t nearly as hot outside as it is inside the car, but there’s a slight breeze blowing in from the ocean. I can smell the salt and it literally makes me yearn to be at the beach.
My phone’s still buzzing. They’ve started searching for me. It’s probably Randy, or my dad even, and I’m not picking up for either of them. Once I get to Mexico, I’ll send a text to Randy apologizing for drugging him, and I’d just as soon never speak to my dad ever again. But ever since Tommy nearly choked him to death and threatened to expose his dirty secret—our dirty secret, the one I’m not even sure I want to ever get out—the man’s been checking up on me daily. He never showed this much interest in me. Not even back when he was molesting me.
But it’s neither Randy nor Dad calling. It’s my sister Tara. And I have to let her know I’m alright, tell her what my plans are. Else she’ll worry sick and do something stupid again. She can’t make me change my mind. But she deserves to know, after what she went through trying to find me after I was abducted. I’d still be stuck getting sold for sex, if it weren’t for my sister.
“Hi, Tara,” I say as I pick up.
“Oh God, Sam,” she gasps more than says. “Tell me you’re alright, please.”
She sounds so worried, so frantic, a painful stab of guilt passes through my chest. I really should’ve told her of my plans before I executed them. Now she’ll worry. She always worries.
“I’m fine, sis, just on my way to Mexico,” I tell her. “I’m going to finally have some fun again.”
She inhales sharply, and I can just picture the shock and disbelief on her face right now. Disapproval is probably there too, and I can picture it all so clearly, it’s like she’s standing right in front of me.
“But the trial starts in two weeks,” she says. Clearly, she’s up to date with everything going on with me. Her husband Tommy probably can’t wait for his brother to get sentenced. But that’s just me being mean. I’d still be getting sold around like a piece of meat, whipped and fucked every which way if it weren’t for what Tommy did for me. Tara found me, but he’s the one that saved me. I wish I could testify. I really do. But there’s no way I can go over all that happened to me again. I’ve only just started to forget some of it.
“I know. But I’m not gonna be there.” I say it firmly, but it comes out very shaky anyway. “I can’t.”
The silence that follows really says it all. Tara understands, deep down she does. Despite how vocal she is about talking being the best therapy, she knows how hard it is to actually do it. And, more specifically, she knows how hard it is for me to talk about it.
“Are you alone?” she asks. “You can’t be alone. It’s too dangerous.”
“Don’t worry. No one will look for me where I’m going, and I have a foolproof plan.” It consists of cutting and dying my hair, and staying in Mexico for awhile. I think it’ll work. As long as I don’t pose an actual threat to Shade, he’ll stop looking for me. If
he even is. Besides, when I don’t show up in court he might forget all about me. Whereas, if my testimony puts him in jail, he’s that much more likely to hunt me down and kill me once he gets out. I haven’t told the FBI all I know about him either. I haven’t told them about all the bodies buried in the desert. Because I know that if I do that, I’m as good as dead, no matter how many bodyguards surround me.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” Tara says, exhaling loudly like she’s been holding her breath this whole time.
I tell her not to worry, but I don’t think she heard, because she’s having a hurried conversation with Tommy. I hear them talking, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
“Sam, we’ll come to Mexico and meet you, OK?” Tara finally says. “Tell me where you’re going.”
“There’s really no need,” I say. “The last thing I want to do is ruin your honeymoon. I hear Sicily is wonderful this time of year.”
I don’t mean it to, but it comes out a little harsh anyway. I wanted to be there for their wedding, but they didn’t even tell me they were getting married until it was done.
“It’s fine, Sam,” Tara says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “We have all the time in the world. I’d love to see you. It’s been so long.”
The sincerity and happiness in her voice actually makes my eyes mist over. I would love to see her too. It has been too long since we just hung out. Almost two years, since I’m not really counting those few days together after I was freed and before she was off on her European adventure with Tommy.
“That’d be awesome!” I say, and then proceed to tell her the name of the resort I booked. It’s right on the beach and apparently has one of the best nightclubs in all of Tijuana.
“OK, we’ll be there as soon as we can. I’ll call you once I know when we’re arriving,” she says in her business-like tone. She’s already making travel plans in her head, I’m sure. But the happy undertone is still there in her voice and it’s contagious. I’ll get to see my sister again. And I can’t wait. I just hope she won’t try too hard to get me to testify. Or prevent me from having some fun. But I’ll deal with that once it comes to it.