Ruthless (Dark MC Romance) Read online

  I jerked against the man holding me. “No, Cain wants her to himself. You know how he is.”

  The milk pooled around my hands, and I imagined my blood flowing into it, pinking the milk.

  “Cruel” Cain—the rising star of the Dragons, wants me? I knew about him, and just the mere mention of his name was enough to make me retch onto the floor.

  If I hadn’t taken Xanax, I would be screaming. There were awful stories about him, stories that reached all the way to LA. Some of them were downright stupid—like the ones about him beheading people with a long sword, or a pet bird that picked at the remains of his victims. I knew one thing about these kinds of stories; there was always some truth in the rumors. I heard of severed heads displayed on his victims’ cars, with notes written in blood on the windshield of the car to rival MC gangs that encroached on Dragon territory. The myth that surrounded him made me doubt in his existence, but one of the bikers just mentioned his name.

  “Cain?”

  The grin was in his voice. “Yeah, and he’s going to make you pay for fucking us over.”

  A shudder ran up my spine as the man with yellow teeth cocked his handgun against Bryan’s head. He was shaking his head, silent tears running down his face. The sting of betrayal burned in his eyes and I finally felt a tiny bit of his horror.

  “Why don’t we just do them both here?”

  “Cain wants her,” he growled in my ear. “Are you fucking deaf?”

  “All right then,” he said in a bored voice.

  Bryan screamed through his duct tape and struggled violently and I willed myself to say something—do something.

  Save your fucking husband! There was a small zwip sound, and a dark red mass flew out of the side of Bryan’s head, splattering all over the kitchen floor I just finished mopping. I stared at the chunks of brain sitting on the white porcelain, contrasting beautifully in a dark red hue. The milk crept around it and dragged the red pigment all over the floor.

  What just happened? My eyes slowly twitched towards my husband. I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it. My eyes traveled up his trousers and his ironed dress shirt, his beautiful body, the one I marveled over, limp. Then I saw his slack jaw, the giant hole erupted from the side of his head, and brain matter slopping down his face. It was too much. I bent over and vomited everything in my stomach on the floor. Ruining the rest of my mopping.

  “Ah, fuck!”

  The man holding me jumped back as I fell face-first in my vomit, tears choking my throat. I killed him. He had nothing to do with this. He’s dead!

  Wordless cries shook out of my throat as my elbows became slowly drenched with a mixture of blood and milk. Rough hands pulled me upright too quickly, and I swayed a bit as black spots crept over my vision.

  “Stop screaming, or I’ll gag you.”

  The man who shot Bryan cursed as he noticed blood staining his shirt. He wiped it on Bryan’s limp shoulder and I felt a violent surge of energy.

  “Who the fuck are you looking at?”

  “Let’s go.”

  It’s my fault.

  I didn’t feel rage for my captors, who hauled me upright and dragged me out of the house. Back towards the life I spent years trying to escape. I only had one person to blame. Myself.

  * * *

  Under my face, there was a rough, dry surface. I balled my hands and unstuck my face from the carpeted floor. There was no throttle of bikes, only the sound of a car engine and the three men’s low voices. Crusted with tears, I opened my eyes and realized I was on the floor. I raised myself on my elbows only to have one of their thick boots press down against my upper back.

  “Stay down.”

  My chest struck the ground painfully, without thinking I turned my head so that my nose didn’t smash against the floor. At least I had some instinct for self-preservation left.

  They’re driving north up the highway, probably. Back to Victoria.

  I’m being kidnapped.

  I realized it without a jolt of fear. Who would notice I was gone? I had no friends or family. No one who loved me. Except Bryan, and he was gone.

  Bryan’s coworkers would notice, and there would be a search for me, his wife, when they realized I was missing. What if they thought I was the one who killed him? They had no idea about the MC clubs, no idea who I really was. My situation was so hopeless that I wanted to laugh.

  I tried to glance at the car door, but the angle was too high.

  Maybe I should just open it—and throw myself out!

  I would die. At this speed, I would get horribly injured and I would probably be run over. Weighing my options, I decided that the best thing would be to cooperate for now. What the fuck was I going to do with three huge men? I had no chance—no chance at all at overpowering them.

  I should come up with something to save my ass.

  For a second, Bryan’s hunched over body burned in my mind. How could I be so preoccupied with my survival, when Bryan would never be able to do anything ever again?

  What am I supposed to do? He’s gone. Logic gripped me tightly, keeping my emotions from taking over.

  I didn’t yet feel a crushing wave of despair, and I hated myself for it. I was always good at compartmentalizing.

  You had to when you were the old lady of an abusive President of the Dragons MC. I never had regrets for fucking him over, and stealing his money—until now. For now, the Xanax or fear or adrenaline was keeping everything else at bay.

  They’re going to kill me. He’s going to torture and kill me.

  I waited patiently to feel blind with panic, or rage, or something—but I just felt uncomfortable from lying on the floor. It was cheap carpet, the kind you found in really inexpensive motels. I spent hours looking at the shiny buckle on one of their boots and my eyes glanced occasionally to their faces, trying to recognize them. I didn’t want to. The fact that they hadn’t covered their faces boded ill for me. Blood rushed into my heart as I heard the throttle of motorcycles around the car as it slowed down.

  “Get the fuck up.”

  He kicked my ribs; the steel-toed boot connected with the thin layer of flesh cover my ribs. It was a sharp, agonizing pain. I sat up to stare out the windows, which revealed a ranch house surrounded by a massive gate and barbed wire. The gate opened, and motorcycles sped past the car to park in a row of bikes that gleamed in the sun. The car parked and the door slid open, blasting me with hot sunshine. I barely stood up before one of them kicked me in the back so that I fell out of the car, onto the packed, dry earth.

  They jumped out behind me, their laughter ringing around me as I spat out dirt. Are they going to kill me right away? I felt detached from my body as they hauled me upright. Bikers standing outside the clubhouse walked towards us, grinning at them and leering at me.

  “Where’s Ace?”

  “Ace is dead.”

  The man who spoke had a dusting of salt and pepper hair. His face was leathered and there were sunspots from long hours outside. His jaw was hard as he looked at me through clear eyes. The man stood in front of me with a leather cut stretched across his chest with the small white “President” etched over “Dragons” on his right. His face had a scar that looked like someone slashed a knife across. As a result, the flesh pulled up his lips into a crooked grin. I didn’t recognize him.

  “He’s—he’s dead?” I tried to conceal how relieved I was.

  He spat on the ground in front of me. “Take this bitch to her cell.”

  I should run.

  Even though it was hopeless, the suggestion kept popping up in my head. I should run, I should run, I should run. The doors that led to the club were only a few meters away. Bikers jeered at me as I was led past them.

  Am I just going to walk to my own slaughter?

  Club whores gave me vicious looks as I was pulled into the club—a giant room filled with pool tables, booths, and a bar. There was a man eating something at the bar—a huge, bloody steak. His knife ripped into the flesh and cut another pink
piece, opening his mouth and letting it rest on his tongue before he gave me a wink and bit down.

  Then I lost it.

  “LET ME GO!” I screamed and lunged for the billiard balls; they were hard enough to crack open someone’s skull. My fingers grabbed one before he, whoever he was, pulled me back towards him. I whirled around with it inside my hand and bashed it against him. I only got a few feet before I was tackled to the floor and a heavy boot smashed against my fingers, bruising them against the hard ball. I didn’t feel it, not really, not with all the adrenaline pumping inside of my veins.

  “No!”

  Everything happened in a confusing blur of images and sounds. I was shoved down a staircase leading to a steel door that groaned when it opened. I smelled blood saturating the air but I could see nothing and with a small push right in the center of my back I flew forward and landed on concrete. My last glimpse of them before I was shut in the darkness burned in my mind for hours afterward.

  CAIN

  “Your toy is here.” Crash’s voice was impatient.

  A flicker of something, it might have been happiness, sparked in my chest. “Great. I’ll be right there.” There were few things in life that made me more excited than a human being completely at my mercy.

  “Just make sure the bitch suffers.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  Crash knew full well that I killed my victims to end their suffering. After breaking them down to a huddled, obedient mass, I had no use for them anymore.

  I already reaped my reward by hearing their screams stabbing my ears, by breaking them down so that I could shape them back together like wet clay. Their identity destroyed, I moved on to the next phase. The kill. It served two purposes. One, it satisfied my bloodlust. Two, it ended their suffering. I was not completely incapable of compassion.

  I was a god.

  The memories of all those quick, painless deaths made me swell with pride. I was good at what I did—sophisticated in my craft.

  I didn’t understand the anger in Crash’s voice. I knew that he was close to Ace, who died of a heart attack last year, but what did the bitch have to do with it? I tried to remember what Crash told me about her—that she was a junkie, a thief, and a liar.

  I don’t give a fuck what she’s done.

  It was a private thought, one that I would never share with anyone else, because they wouldn’t understand. I long since discarded the effort to understand why stealing was wrong.

  What the hell was right and wrong? If it was a feeling, then I lacked it. I finally decided that right and wrong were only rules established by the most powerful people.

  My motorcycle roared along the highway as I left my apartment for the club, the glorious excitement I felt so rarely ramping up in my abdomen. I weaved through the seedy streets of Victoria, and biked up the brown hills towards the pasture that held our clubhouse. It was a semi-removed location, which was strange because it was headquarters. One didn’t expect peace and quiet for a clubhouse with whoring and drinking, but it certainly had its uses. Really, it was a great place for me to train my subjects. A smile hitched on my face.

  The gates opened for me and I parked my bike along the others, flashing a grin at the curly-haired prospect who crossed his arms at me.

  “Spike,” I said as I cut the engine. “How’s it going?”

  He shrugged with a smirk on his face. “Oh, you know, just busy being the Dragon’s new bitch boy.” A limp, greasy rag hung from his pocket. I realized that my bike kicked up dust all over the bikes he just finished cleaning.

  “Sorry, bro.”

  “Next time, I’ll kick your fucking ass.”

  Coming from Spike, it was like a puppy showing his teeth.

  I raised an eyebrow at him, but Spike only laughed and stared back at me. I had to admire the balls on him. No one ever talked to me like that—like an equal. But I wasn’t one of those idiots who flipped the fuck out at every perceived slight. I liked the fact that he never tried to suck my cock. He was just an honest kid.

  Tank, the sergeant of arms, shoved Spike’s chest hard. “Show some fucking respect!”

  But Spike wouldn’t be humbled. His mischievous eyes danced to me as he raised his arms as if saying, “Who, me?”

  “Just leave the kid alone, Tank.” A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as Spike’s ridiculous face grinned at me. He was really the most annoying person in the world, but I liked him. I saw a bit of my fearlessness inside him.

  The clubhouse was in full swing as I walked inside. Club whores wearing nothing but pasties and G-strings eyed me hopefully, but I ignored them as I always did. Truth be told, I only fucked to alleviate the boredom in my life and to convince others that I wasn’t a faggot. Pussy did nothing for me most of the time.

  Crash sat on a barstool, sipping whiskey. When he saw me, he slid off the stood and threw his arm over my shoulders. “Cain, we shoved that little bitch in the cell for you—in the dark, just like you wanted.”

  Another flurry of excitement inside my stomach caught me by surprise. “Good.”

  “Listen, son. I don’t want this to take too much of your time. The Tigers are giving us a lot of problems.”

  I’m not your son.

  It was hard to tell what I felt for Crash. He recruited me when I was a kid, when Christ’s Cross brought us to a charity event. When he found out about my nasty habit of slicing open live cats and dogs to see how they worked inside, the habit that got me in that stupid rehab center in the first place, he adopted me. Instead of trying to constrain the sickness inside me, he built it up like a fire. He coached me in the ways of violence and taught me to redirect my energy on to more useful things. Crash raised me into the man I was today and somehow that made him think that I owed him something. He mistook my loyalty to him for affection.

  Could I kill him, if I had to?

  Doubt fogged my mind. Yes, I was loyal to him—as loyal as lion to his master. So far he taught me well—he taught me all the tricks I needed to survive. I knew how to beg to get a juicy morsel of meat, and how to play dead, to smile and shake hands, even if I didn’t understand the purpose in those meaningless gestures. But even a lion could turn on his master with the slightest provocation.

  “I’ll handle them. Don’t worry.”

  Crash gave me a fatherly smile and patted me on the back. He was proud of the beast he created.

  Unable to wait another moment, I descended the stairs in the back of the club with a duffel bag in my hand and peered through the darkness. Quiet. I flipped on the light-switch and the harsh, yellow light flared on a crumpled figure balled on the floor. She lifted her head and a long cascade of golden waves spilling down her head shifted aside to reveal an elfin face with almond-shaped blue eyes and small, red lips. A slim neck led to a pair of huge tits that looked like a schoolboy’s fantasy. For the first time in a long while, blood rushed into my face.

  She is beautiful, that’s for sure.

  Aside from the desire stiffening my cock, I couldn’t really feel anything else. My mouth watered as I imagined myself breaking this woman into a tool for me to do anything I wished, to see her dropping to her knees to zip open my jeans and wrap her pretty little lips around me. It would be so satisfying to see this gorgeous woman entirely bent to my will. Now excited beyond anything I could have ever imagined, I reached for the door and my fingers slipped on the cool steel. I opened it again and stepped inside.

  She looked at me like a frightened bird and uttered a small squeak. Her eyes kept darting to my face. Does she like the way I look? How amusing. I thought of the broken bodies I disposed over all the years and wanted to laugh at the hope blossoming on her face.

  “You’re Cain.”

  It wasn’t a question. Her voice was lower than I thought it would be and extremely calm. I didn’t expect that.

  “Yes. Surprised?”

  Her shoulder lifted. “Someone with a reputation like that, I expected them to be…” her voice trailed off.
r />   Less blonde? Taller? Shorter? Angrier?

  “Ugly,” she said.

  I smiled and walked closer to the woman on the floor who might as well have been my possession. There was nothing in the room, save for a toilet and a bed. There were no objects that she could use to defend herself.

  Did that explain the calmness in her eyes? I expected her to scream and plead for her life. Although the crying and screaming got tiresome, I enjoyed the begging. It was incredible to strip a human being down of all of their fucking pride or whatever and reduce them to the most basic human instinct—survival. It was fun. Even she would be reduced to a sobbing, begging, pathetic mess. The defiance in her eyes meant that she definitely wasn’t going to submit to me immediately.

  What should I do with this one?

  I never enjoyed violence on the weak; it just wasn’t a challenge. Anyone could tie a woman up and rape her or beat her into submission. No, that was too pedestrian for me. Too easy. I had to instill fear in her, yes—but there were other, more challenging and rewarding ways than inflicting physical pain.

  “What’s your name?” I said quietly.

  “Julia.”

  “Julia,” I said slowly, liking the way the name rolled off my tongue. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. “What did you do with our money?”

  Her eyes trembled. “It’s gone. I tried to explain that earlier, but listen—I can get it back. I can work for the club. I’m really good at hustling—”

  I made a sound of disgust that made her shudder. “Don’t bargain. It’s such a bore.”

  She bit her lip violently and I waited for the torrent of tears, the screaming. She must know that she’s going to die. All I saw in her eyes was a sullen resignation. Did she want to die? I made another sound of disgust. Suicidal people were not fun—not at all. There was nothing you could do to make them care. I needed to find out whether she still had life inside her.

  She got up to her feet and dusted herself off coolly. The strangest sensation twitched in my chest. It was similar to being surprised, but not quite. I never understood the phrase, “breathtakingly beautiful,” until now. Julia reached up and pushed her hair behind her shoulders and I noticed the way her tits moved up and down. I wanted her and I was fascinated by my desire. I imagined myself slamming her against the wall and tearing off her clothes.