by J Bree
His sigh down the phone is long and loud. “Nah, his problem is with my last name more than my club. Anywhere you take her, I’ll find her. Pure and simple, that girl is my angel.”
Angel. He’d called Odie that, and he knows I’ll get exactly what he’s saying.
He’ll kill whoever gets in his way to get her back.
Maybe I am getting fucking soft because I reply, “Well, how the fuck are we fixing this? I need this job done right so you need to think quick.”
He mumbles under his breath and then says, “Gimme five, man. I’ll call back once I’ve got it.”
So I guess now I’m helping Colt motherfucking Graves hide his girlfriend from his daddy and hers.
What a fucking day.
I cut the ties on Savannah now I'm sure she's not going to run. She takes her phone back and gives me a side eye. "How the fuck do you know him? Tank would kill any member of his club hanging out with Demons."
I light a cigarette and when she stares at it with longing I hand her one as well. "I don't belong to a club, I'm not the type to sign my life and loyalty up for that bullshit. I'm not becoming some dickhead's bitch-boy."
She blows a long stream of smoke out and sighs like she's come home at the taste of it. "I never expected him to send someone outside of the club for me. Fuck, I musta really pissed him off."
I shrug. "Guess so."
I hear the roar of the bikes before I see him.
Savannah straightens in the passenger seat, the fiery halo of curls around her face an easy target for the Demon prince to find.
He has three other guys with him, none of them shocked to see me or his girl, and Colt swings off of the bike like a pro, stalking over to rip Savannah’s car door open to get to her.
I snarl at him, “Watch the fucking car, dickhead. I’ll put a bullet in you for that alone.”
He ignores me, the dick, and wrenches Savannah out. “Fuck, baby, what happened? I thought you were laying low.”
She tucks her face into his neck and breathes him in. If I had any doubts that they were fucking obsessed with each other before I certainly don’t now. Something rolls around in my gut, a familiar feeling now I have a woman of my own.
The things I’ve done to keep her safe… I imagine Colt would do the same. I slide out of the car in time to hear her filling Colt in, her tone not even hushed a little.
“Tank sent one of his guys up last week and I told him to fuck off so he sent this guy. I didn’t know he had gangbanger friends but apparently he does!” she shrieks and I level Colt a look over her shoulder.
He stares back at me with the sort of defiance only a kid growing up in hell can have. “They’re not friends. The Butcher will take money from anyone. How much did Tank offer you?”
I lean back against my side of the car, nonchalant and arrogant. Like I give a fuck about his opinion of me… except that maybe he should watch his fucking mouth before I kill the lot of them just for mouthing off.
The extra guys shift on their feet, uncomfortable as fuck to be this close to me. I don’t know what the fuck Colt told them about me that they’d even come here.
What does his daddy think of our friendship?
“They’re solid. There’s no way they’re saying a word about her or you.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? I think you’re forgetting the drugs I gave your club on a fucking platter came from my oldest and most trusted friend. He kidnapped my girl and sold her off at the skin markets.”
Colt flinches just a little. I’m sure he’s only thinking about his girl and how fucking bad those markets are, but then he shocks me by saying, “You get her back okay? You kill the man that bought her?”
A savage grin slashes over my face before I can rein it in. “She’s safe. She took the buyer out herself, me and the Wolf trained her well.”
The guys get even more fucking twitchy and Colt grimaces. “Of course you know the Wolf. Any other boogie men in your crew? Any more monsters come to life that you hang out with on the regular?”
The grin stays just as savage, just as fucking proud on my face at that. They’re terrified of the scrawny little kid.
They should be.
Even if she weren’t fucking good at what she does, she has me behind her now, on anything from here out.
I decide to fuck with him, just for fun and because my day hasn’t been the best. “I saw the Devil last week. Seems like a decent enough guy.”
If by decent I mean a fucking deranged psychopath that I’m going to steer fucking clear of just as best as I can.
Two of the guys swear and walk away, kicking dust up as they make their way back to their bikes. The blood is completely drained from Colt’s face and his hands are clutching a little tighter at Savannah’s waist.
“Tell me you’re fucking joking? Was he in the Bay? Fuck man, shit is about to get really fucking bad down there. You better pack your girl up and get out of town. Get out before you get dead.”
His voice is eight shades of fucked up and I get that the Devil is bad but this sounds a little more like a personal story.
“What would you know of the Devil?”
Colt kisses his girl softly, putting a helmet in her hands and nudging her over to his bike and away from this conversation. “The Devil came to Indiana years back, took out the entire clubhouse, except me and my brother. We were in the back with our moms, both of them fucking high and passed out. We sat there in that tiny fucking bunk room and heard more than a dozen men killed. Not just killed, they were sprayed out on the fucking walls, not a body to be fucking found but gallons and gallons of blood and ground up organs fucking everywhere. Fourteen men, man. Not one of them survived. So yeah, I know of him and I know you need to get the fuck outta the Bay if he’s calling because you’re no match. No one is.”
Well.
Holy fuck.
I knew the story, didn’t know it was the Demons and certainly didn’t know there were survivors.
I nod my head and light up a cigarette, offering one to Colt which he takes. “Take the girl and keep her safe. I’ll square shit with Tank, lie about whatever I have to to get us all out of this safe. Keep her alive man, keep her away from your fucking dad. Last thing that girl needs is to end up with Grimm’s target on her back.”
He levels a stone cold look at me. “You think I don’t know? I live with the man, I know all about his list of fucking sins. It’s long and fucking deranged.”
Chapter Fourteen
Odie
Mon Monstre has been home from his day trip for a full week before I finally break down. My work on the paintings is slowly eroding all of my strength, one by one as the faces appear, until I reach the worst of the men. Painting Alcatron is like standing on the surface of the sun, impossible and incinerating.
Illi leaves for the night with a piece of toast in one hand and his keys in the other, kissing me hot and hard over the kitchen sink as I wash up.
He arrives home twelve hours later to me sobbing.
I can't stop the sounds tearing out of my lips, the agony and pain clawing at me. Painting Alcatron is like standing in the rain only to find the droplets are made of acid, eating away at your flesh and leaving you stripped to the bone.
I thought it would be like the others, a healing experience but instead I feel like that dirty, broken, terrified girl. The one Illi had found and brought back here. The one who didn't know that the sun could shine again. I feel worthless.
"No more fucking painting."
I hear him snap but I can't react, I can't lift my head up from the floor. I can't think about anything but the filth on my skin.
"We're taking a fucking day off from this shit. No more facing demons."
He tries to touch me but I roll away from him. I don't want him getting dirty too. Then, he really snaps.
"Don't for one fucking second think you're going back into yourself, Odette. We've walked through fire to get you good again, we're not dragging our asses back to hell f
or a fucking painting."
The sobbing gets worse.
It's not a painting, it's the inside of me. The parts he can't see because the packaging it comes in is too pretty to see past. Every stroke of the brush is what's going on under my skin.
How can he not see that?
I try to move away from him but he's too fast, too angry, too done with all of this bullshit of mine to let me. Instead, he scoops me up into his arms and stomps back to our bedroom. He's still dressed for war, his boots covered in mud and blood that he's now tracking through the house.
When I point this out to him, my voice drenched in tears and pain, he snaps, "I couldn't take the time to get them off my fucking feet while you were rolling around on the ground screaming, could I?"
I didn't know I was making any noise.
He sits me on the counter in the bathroom and then bends down to unlace the boots. The sobs are still bursting out of my throat but I've numbed out a bit. The pain now back down to the subtle ache and not the clawing sharpness of talons in my gut.
"I'm sorry."
His eyes meet mine and he grits out through clenched teeth, "Don't fucking apologize to me, Odie. Not now and not ever."
He strips down, slowly revealing every inch of his hard body to me, the blood and gore streaked over him a sign of a busy day at the office for him.
A giggle bursts through the sobs.
"I'm glad my dick is so funny to you, baby girl." Illi drawls as he steps into the shower, his eyes still on me as he begins to soap down and wash away the evidence of his night.
I shake my head at him. "Maybe I am broken, mon Monstre. Maybe I'll never be fully healed again. I'm laughing at the deaths you're responsible for tonight. Normal people don't feel that way."
He scrubs a hand through his hair, the piercings in his nipples flashing as his pecs flex. My mouth waters a little as my pussy clenches. At least my breakdown hasn't ruined my appetite for him.
"No one is normal, baby girl. Everyone has skeletons in their closets. Everyone has deep secret needs, things they don't talk about at the dinner table. Everyone craves a little blood when you push the right buttons. I don't give a fuck if you're normal. I just want you and I really fucking want you to stop crying."
I nod and dash away my tears on the sleeves of the sweatshirt. It doesn't stop them from coming but it's something to show him I'm trying to stop the onslaught. I'm trying to pull myself back together and stop with the craziness of my trauma.
When Illi finally gets out of the shower and dries off, I think I'm better. The tears are now streaming silently, no sobs or sounds coming out of me, and there's a smile on my face.
"Baby girl, the only tears on your face from here out better be from choking on my dick."
Another giggle bursts out of me.
How can he say that to me and my only response is my pussy weeping, desperate to taste his come as he pumps it down my throat? One of the worst things Alcatron did to me was choking me, forcing me to swallow his come.
But mon Monstre could tie me up, choke me until I passed out, spit on me, carve his name into my skin, and I'd thank him and beg him for more.
That is the length of my love for him.
The depths of my adoration.
I need more of him, every last inch of his greatest perverted desires. I want to fall at his feet and let him use me, knowing that it would be the greatest joy of my life.
"Gimme those eyes, baby girl. I need to see how much you want me."
I stare up at him, my lashes still heavy with tears and my cheeks sore from the constant streams of my salty tears.
A smirk forms on his face, manly satisfaction shining through him. He’s fixed me with the power of his naked body, the promise of sex and the life we will lead the moment his list is finished with and we can start fresh in a world where my rapists no longer exist.
“Are you mine, baby girl? Do you belong to me, to be used by me?”
Used.
“Yes. Yes, mon Monstre, please use me until I can’t feel anymore. Please make it stop hurting.” The words slip from my lips like a prayer, a whispered exaltation because I live and breath for this man.
This monster of mine.
“Turn around and get those hands on the countertop, baby girl. Don't let go."
A shiver runs through my body, my blood igniting and every fiber of my body singing for him.
I do exactly as he says. "Good girl. Now spread your legs out a little. Show your man how good you can be, baby.”
His hand smooths down my spine, stroking and teasing gently as he goes. My legs fall open as my body obeys him without a single thought running through my head. It’s as though everything switches off for him, like all I can focus on is being a good girl for him.
Only for him.
He takes all of the things I hated about my old life and he breathes new meaning into them. I’m a good girl, I obey him, I am pretty and I am agreeable.
And I am worshipped.
His lips come down onto my shoulder and I feel the velvet touch on my skin before the flash of pain as he bites me there, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh as he sucks a mark there.
I want to bear his touch, I want to be branded by his love.
He sucks marks all the way down my spine before he leaves a purpled braised imprint of his teeth on my ass, slapping the other side until the skin is red and hot to the touch. My legs tremble and my pussy weeps as I try to hold back the orgasm furiously balancing on the edge.
When he finally impales me in one stroke I come violently, screaming out until my hoarse voice breaks and I begin to weep again, my body pushed to its limits and beyond.
His hands are the only thing holding me up as my hands scramble uselessly at the counter to hold on as he pounds into me, that piercing of his brutal as it hits all of the most sensitive spots inside me. A second orgasm destroying me before he finally finds his own release, his hips pushing and grinding me into the sink.
When he pulls away I expect there to be come dripping down my legs but again he’s managed to get a condom on without me noticing. I sigh, frustrated again that I haven’t been able to feel him inside me without the barrier.
He cleans up and pulls on a pair of boxer briefs, grabbing a sweater to pull over my head before leading me over to the bed. I don’t know if I could possibly go to sleep yet, the sex was perfect but my mind is still feeling all of the gutting terror it had before.
The orgasms only held it off for a minute.
Mon Monstre tucks me in and then walks out to the kitchen for a bottle of water. I’m expecting him to fix himself some dinner or to lock up but instead he brings over a knife roll from the kitchen. I’ve never seen it before and when I raise an eyebrow at him he shrugs.
“This was in my jacket pocket, baby girl. This isn’t for our food, it’s a work set of knives. Lemme talk you through it.”
I nod and scoot back in the bed so he can open up the roll. There’s a lot more than knives in here… though there are a lot of knives as well. There are cleavers and saws and even an awl.
It looks like a very painful toolkit.
“When you get back to those paintings of yours, I don’t want you thinking about what those men did to you. You’re stronger than that, baby girl. I want you thinking about what I’m going to be doing to them. This is how I’m going to get their hearts out. I can be in there from the front or the back, depending on whether or not they’re already dead. Then I have to crack open their ribcage, either with the bone saws or the cleavers and brute strength. Then I’ll rip their hearts out with my bare hands, put them in jars to bring home to my girl, and I’ll get rid of their bodies. I think I’ll send them off to the cannibals. That way they’ll get turned into shit exactly like they deserve.”
Nothing about what he says disturbs me.
Except… “You know cannibals? Do they live here?”
He grins and rolls the toolkit back up, tying the leather straps with the sort of care a true p
rofessional would use. “They live in the city, yeah. They’re not interested in jail time so they buy from professionals. Don’t worry about it, baby girl. No one is touching you here. Not ever again.”
I nod and when he leans down to kiss me I cup his jaw, pulling him further down into me. There is nothing this man wouldn’t do for me.
Not even feeding my enemies to cannibals.
Chapter Fifteen
Illi
The Unseen clubhouse has seen better days.
The entire fucking place is held up with rusted nails and rotted out cladding and crumbling bricks but no one here gives a fuck. I always thought the Dive was bad but this place… this place really does look like it belongs here.
The docks on the south side of the Bay are notorious for being a gangbanging shithole.
No one has any sort of pride in their shit here, no one except me. The minute I got out of the group home I wanted something clean and warm and fucking expensive. The warehouse was the perfect blending of my work and the home life I wanted.
The fact Odie feels that way too, that she loves the place that I built with my own two hands, just cements her as the perfect woman for me.
I send a text to Harbin before I get out of my car because if I walk up to the front door and some asshole Unseen dick tries to stop me I’ll be giving him a sharp right hook and maybe the sole of my left boot.
Fuck it, I’m in the mood for blood and I’m sure he’d bleed just fine for me.
Harbin spoils all my fucking fun and meets me at the door. “This is a fucking terrible idea, man. Anything he asks from you, none of it is worth it. We can take out Alcatron without his help.”
I shrug and light up a cigarette. “I want him to die in a very specific way. This isn’t just about taking him out. This shit is an eye for an eye… then I’m taking his head with it.”
Harbin shakes his head but a slow smirk stretches across his face. “You really are a sick fuck, Butcher. Guess we’ve gotta go pay the price then.”