The Butcher of the Bay: Part I (Mounts Bay Saga Book 1)

by J Bree

  I lose myself in the panic as we drive.

  The trip may have taken hours or maybe just minutes.

  I have no clue.

  It’s only when we arrive at the gated community that I come back to my senses, fear pulsing through my veins and depriving my brain and limbs of the blood it needs, making me lightheaded. Car doors open around me and then my door is opened for me, one of the large men moving to grab and get me out by force.

  I act on instinct, barreling into the chest of the man opening the door and catching him off guard. My placid demeanor so far has lulled them all into thinking I’m accepting of what they’re doing, that I’ve decided to lay down and take their abuse and rape.

  That’s not who I am at all.

  I might not know how to get myself out of this, but with every fiber of my being, I want to be out of this.

  I run across the pristine lawns and let out a scream that could wake the dead, praying that there’s someone around me who cares that these men want to hurt me.

  It’s late at night, I must be waking people up with all of this noise, and yet not a single light comes on in any of the windows.

  They ignore me.

  It doesn’t matter, I keep running through the street, flinging my heels off of my feet and ignoring the pain in my feet as I cut them on glass and sharp rocks. Nothing will stop me from trying to get away, nothing except-

  Hands clamp around me and lift me into the air as if I am nothing.

  I kick and scream, another hand clamping over my mouth that I try to bite but he’s too strong for me, whoever this man is. He carries me the short distance I managed to run in a handful of strides. Still no lights come on, no one looks out of the windows to see what it is that’s happening out here.

  This is not a normal suburb.

  These people have been trained to see nothing, to hear nothing.

  And I am nothing.

  A sob once again takes over me until I’m trembling in my captors arms. He grunts and snaps at the other men, talking too quickly and in a mix of English and Spanish so I can’t keep up.

  I feel a mouth press against my ear and then my captor whispers, “You will stop fighting, little whore, or I will slit this pretty throat and use your corpse. Eventually you will start to stink, it’ll be a shame to lose you but I’ll burn your body until there’s no trace of you left on this Earth.”

  My whole body freezes.

  I really am nothing to these men.

  Nothing but a way to release violence and need into a vessel. My entire body begins to tremble but the screams fade into nothing and my limbs grow heavy, dropping away from where I was fighting back.

  Maybe I do want to live.

  The hand moves away from my mouth and strokes my hair away from my face. “Ahh, so you can be trained? Too bad. I like it when my whores fight back.”

  The tremble gets worse. Does he not want me to follow his instructions? Is there truly no easy way to do this? My mind continues to cling to hope that this is something I will endure and then move away from.

  He drags me forward, past the men crowded around the door, all of them watching me as though I’m some prized piece of meat. My skin crawls and bile creeps up the back of my throat.

  What if they all rape me?

  What if I’m here to service them all? That’s what whores do right?

  The man marches me forward as I panic until we step into the house.

  It’s like a tomb.

  There are no windows or natural light, if I hadn’t walked in from outside I wouldn’t be able to tell what time of day it is. The windows are all covered with metal sheets, the walls are all too thick, as if we’re in some sort of bomb shelter. My prospects of escaping are looking worse and worse the more I look around.

  The front room is smokey and full of men talking and packaging drugs as they talk and laugh amongst themselves. They don’t bother looking up at us, busy in their work instead.

  We move through and past several more rooms filled with men, drugs, and one with piles and piles of money. Floor to ceiling, there’s cash everywhere and two large dogs with spiked collars sleeping in the doorway, their muzzles stained red.

  My feet stumble and the man holding me chuckles in my ear again. “Pretty, aren’t they? They have a taste for human flesh. I wouldn’t go sneaking around the house, little whore. They’d leave nothing but bones behind.”

  I’ve stumbled into a nightmare.

  That’s what this must be, I must have passed out from one of my father’s beatings and now I’m trapped in this hell-scape.

  We make it to a dining room, overly formal and ornate considering the mess of drugs and smoking men that exist outside of this room. An older man sits and eats dinner at the head of the table, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass sitting in front of him and a cigar smoking between his fingers even as he chews. His hair is white and thinning, strange looking when his mustache is still dark and bushy under his nose. The suit he’s wearing is tailored though I can’t see if it’s a designer. He obviously cares about how he looks, even if he doesn’t care about the state of this house.

  He glances up and his eyes are black voids, no emotions or humanity in them as he looks me up and down.

  The arms fall away from me and I tense, forcing myself not to crumble into a pathetic pile and weeping woman on the ground.

  There’s silence for a moment, no one speaking or even breathing, and then he picks up the tequila, taking a long sip before setting the glass down.

  My heart starts to pound in my chest. I don’t want to be fed to the dogs. I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to fucking be here!

  Finally he speaks, his voice dark and in perfect English.

  “Chain her to the bed. I’ll play with her later.”

  Dear god, no.

  The room I’m left in is filthy.

  The sheets are stained with blood and other questionable things, and the second I’m shoved down I feel as though bugs are crawling over me. Tears start to slide down my cheeks as the men laugh, ripping my legs apart to secure them in cuffs to the end of the bed. They wrestle my hands into a set of handcuffs, snapping them shut so tight they bite into my skin and my hands start to go numb immediately.

  They leave my panties on.

  Small mercies, though my stomach revolts at the idea of what’s to come. That man… he’s coming to me. He’s the one who truly owns me.

  The lights are turned off as they leave and without a window, the room plunges into pitch darkness.

  The tears streaming silently down my cheeks slowly turn into sobs and they come harder than before, my body wracked with grief and fear and loathing of every last one of these people. Every fucking person I’ve ever known. Not a single person I’ve ever crossed paths with has ever seen me as anything more than my face and body. No one sees a human being worthy of respect when they see the packaging I come in.

  I lay there, chained to the bed, legs splayed open and wait for what’s to come.

  The walls are so thick I can barely hear any life outside of it, only the panicked beat of my own heart to keep me company. I’m so used to being abandoned for hours now that it barely registers to me when I finally fall asleep, countless hours later.

  I’m startled awake when the door opens.

  The room is still dark but I have no way of knowing how long I was asleep. I guess time doesn’t matter here anymore. Do I really want to know how much time is passing while I’m captive?

  Then he speaks, that flat tone still dark but he speaks in Spanish so I don’t understand what he’s saying at all but I can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s not happy at all. The light flicks on and blinds me, my arms jerking to cover my face but the handcuffs only dig further into my tender skin. I can barely feel my hands now, the numbness almost completely removing all sensation.

  I wish my entire body was that numb for what’s to come.

  My eyes adjust to see the older man standing by the bed, slowly removin
g his clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on the chair besides the stinking bed. I watch him in silence, my face a mask of disgust and loathing.

  He doesn’t like that at all.

  The sharp sting of his palm snaps my head to the side but I barely even notice it. I've been at the mercy of my father's temper for so long that this kind of pain doesn't even register.

  I’m more concerned about how quickly he’s getting to taking his pants off.

  His face gets angrier and angrier the longer I go without crying out in pain, and then he hits me again, this time a closed fist that makes my vision white out. My head snaps back against the pillows, groaning softly under my breath and I hear the sound of his belt unbuckling.

  Oh god, no.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t have to see the assault. Feeling it will be bad enough, I don’t need the image in my head as well. He laughs at me, the sound weird and disjointed in my dazed head, and then he climbs on top of me. I choke on my own vomit and at the sound of my gagging he grabs my throat, squeezing as if he’ll be able to stop my body’s reaction to him.

  His skin is hot where his presses into mine.

  I want to die.

  He rips my panties off and laughs again as he strokes my intimate flesh. The laughing messes with my head until I want to cower away from him, duck my head and hide but I still can’t move.

  I think I pass out until he settles back down over me and shoves himself inside me.

  He's not wearing a condom and I've never been less aroused in my life so the pain is unbearable. I can't help the scream that bursts out of me and my arms tremble as if I can heave myself out from under his weight. He groans in my ear, chuckling as I whimper, and his hips begin to move.

  My mind scrambles to find something else to think about, for some kind of escape, but I'm present for the entire, horrific act.

  The only blessing is it lasts all of three minutes before he groans again, the hand around my throat tightening until I think he’s trying to kill me now he’s had his fun.

  I can't stand the wet feeling of his come dripping out of me. When he finally moves off of me he laughs again, murmuring under his breath as he grabs my face and squeezes my jaw as he inspects the bruise that’s coming up from his fist.

  Then the door opens and another man steps in.

  Oh god.

  Please no.

  Chapter Eight

  Illi

  There is no getting her back.

  I get the name of the buyers off of the Vulture and quickly find out the cartel she was sold to is a fucking ghost operation. No word of where they are, where they do business, fucking nothing. I try every fucking one of my leads and then I start breaking down doors, pissing drug dealers and their momma’s off trying to find her… nothing.

  Fucking nothing.

  I get really fucking wasted.

  Next level, can’t-even-piss-straight, fucking trashed.

  I didn’t even drink this much when my mother died at the hands of the fucking Twelve when I was a kid. Not even when my old man left me at a safe place so he could run from them, get away from his debts that had already cost him the woman of his dreams. Would cost him his life too but he did his best for me.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, it’s bad if I’m thinking about that bullshit. It’s really fucking bad if I’m drinking and reminiscing about all of the reasons I became untouchable.

  It’s pathetic and not at all like me. I never get this messy and never in public with no one to watch my back. Doesn’t matter though. One look into that siren’s eyes and she sucked my fucking soul out and made it her own.

  I need her like I need air, and now that she’s gone, I’m drowning. How the fuck did I think my life was complete before her? How had I not known that something so vital to me was missing?

  D’Ardo won’t answer my calls, still fucking pissed at me for knocking him out down at the docks like a little bitch. I’d piled him into his car with his little flunkies to go back to the vaults to sleep it off and the kid had split, taking off and scurrying back to whatever little job she had for the day.

  She still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  It shouldn’t fucking matter but now that I’d lost her respect… I thought less of myself.

  Fuck, it shouldn’t be possible with how fucking badly I think of myself for my part in the rape, torture, and, fuck me, murder of that stunning woman.

  Because I’m fucking wrecked but not a braindead dickhead, I go to drink at the biker bar down the street from the docks and my warehouse, where I have more friends than enemies and people I know will watch my back while I get fucking messy. I like being around bikers because, for the most part, they don’t give a fuck about the Twelve.

  I have a lot of complicated feelings about the entire institution that runs the underworld of Mounts Bay.

  My father was once a respected businessman. A butcher in a good part of town and we lived a white picket life until I was ten. My mother was a classy stay-at-home mom who tucked me into bed every night with a bedtime story about good men who saved the princesses. I wanted for fucking nothing, knew nothing about the horrors of the city, always had a belly full of good food.

  I didn’t know my father had a gambling problem until his debt collectors came knocking.

  He didn’t know how dangerous those men were until they hacked my mom to pieces.

  My belly was never full in the foster system.

  Fuck me, there isn’t enough whiskey and bourbon in this fucking bar to get me through tonight if this is where my mind is going. Never even had the fucking woman and yet I’ve failed her just as badly as my old man failed my mom. I’d sworn I’d never be like him and yet there I was, handing the French dream over to her killers last night.

  I’m a fucking joke.

  I empty my glass and pour myself another one, ignoring everything around me in favor of the oblivion the drink beckons to me with. There’s three different clubs here tonight, like there are most nights, but the crowd is a little rowdier than it usually is. Fuck, all I need is for a fight to break out so I can carve some guys up. If anything could ease the ache in my chest, it would be that.

  The chair in front of the booth I’m in pulls out and I sigh, already fucking knowing which asshole isn’t going to let me wallow in my misery in peace.

  Harbin takes the seat and whistles a low sound at the state of me. “Who the fuck died? I didn’t think you had family left. Fuck, did someone skin your grand-momma alive or something? You look pretty fucking grim, man.”

  I down another shot and give him a glare, hoping he gets I’m not in the fucking mood. He raises an eyebrow and stays put, sipping at his own beer a hell of a lot slower than I’m working through my whiskey.

  “I’m struggling to find a cartel I need. No one knows where the fuck they are and I’m about to start knocking down every fucking door in the Bay to get to them.”

  He stares at me for a second, rubbing his chin with his scarred hand. He’s just as busted up as I am, just as tattooed too, and though he’s not built like me, he’s not the type of man you should underestimate in a fight.

  The man feels no pain and has no conscience.

  He’s a good man.

  “Right. Who is it then? I can help out. Don’t know why you’d be this gutted over a fucking job but-”

  “It’s not a fucking job.” I hiss back at him, and his shoulders roll back. Fuck. I’ve gotten his attention.

  “Well, fuck me. I thought you didn’t do personal?”

  I gulp down some more whiskey so I don’t wring his fucking neck. “This is exactly why I don’t do personal. This fucking… misery. The cartel is run by some scumbag called Alvaro Alcatron and the whole business is made up of his family. He’s got like fifty nephews and cousins on his books. The closest I can get to him is one of his buyers but D’Ardo won’t tell me shit. I’m about to break down his motherfucking door and start some shit.”

  Harbin nods and scrubs at his c
hin some more, his eyes following a couple of the Silver City Serpents in the room. They’re usually allies so I’m not sure what his fucking problem is today but I also couldn’t give less of a fuck.

  “I know a guy, might be able to help. Fuck man, I thought going after Grimm’s boys was bad enough, you sure are in some deep fucking shit at the moment. Maybe you need to take a break, hit up a titty bar, blow off some steam.”

  My teeth clench together. I can’t think of anything fucking worse than going to the titty bar right now. The only one on this side of the city is owned by D’Ardo and it’s full of vacant eyed girls, half of them underage, and all of them doped the fuck up.

  None of them want to be there.

  My stomach turns.

  I can’t ignore that shit anymore. I can’t stand by at all now because, fuck, I’m part of the problem. Not once have I given a shit about the skin markets. Yeah, I’ve never bought because it’s not my thing, but not once have I tried to stop D’Ardo from doing them.

  Fuck, I’ve stood by and watched him stalk, torture, and groom the fucking kid.

  I’m a fucking disgrace.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re having a life crisis here, aren’t you? Fuck, we need more whiskey, man!” He shouts out to the bartender, lifting my empty bottle. I’ve got fucking nothing left.

  Roxas appears out of the crowd with a fresh bottle in his hands, slapping a few backs as he passes some friends and shouting out barely veiled threats to guys he wants to knock the fuck out. I size them up and decide quickly they’re not worth our time at all.

  Fuck tonight and fuck this entire city.

  “Oh great, here I was thinking we were going to be having a good night celebrating!” Roxas laughs out as he pours us all drinks.

  “What fucking news?” I snap, and Harbin makes a face at his best friend.

  “Man, he isn’t up for it tonight. Let’s save it until after he purges his mood from his system. Maybe we should pick a fight with Tank, he’s been a secretive cock lately. I’m sure he’s planning something shifty.”