Vicious Cycle Read online

  Mommy leaned forward in her chair. “Just let her go, okay? Using her won’t do you any good. Deacon doesn’t even know she’s his—I left him before I found out. He doesn’t like kids, so he won’t give a shit about her.”

  Mean Man tsked at Mommy. “He might not care at first, but I’ll give him some time. Even if he doesn’t want her, I guarantee his brother Rev will. And I’ll use any leverage I can against Deacon and his brothers.” He motioned to Crank. “Put her down.”

  Relief filled Willow when she felt the ground beneath her feet again. Mean Man crouched down beside her. “I want you to listen to me, and listen well. You tell no one what you saw here tonight, understand?”

  Although Willow bobbed her head furiously to show she understood, it didn’t seem to satisfy Mean Man. He leaned in to where she could feel his hot breath burning against her cheek. “If you say a fucking word to anyone about me or what you saw, I will come to you in the night and cut out your heart. Got it?”

  Apart from the times when she explored with Dora or escaped with Angel Mommy, Willow spent a lot of time afraid. But, until now, she had never experienced such intense fear. The tremors seemed to flood every part of her body. Although she shook from head to toe, she couldn’t make herself reply.

  But somehow Mean Man was satisfied with her lack of response. He turned back to Mommy. “Does she have somewhere she can go?”

  Tears streaked down Mommy’s cheeks. “Yes. She stays with the lady down the hall a lot.”

  Willow’s fear dissipated a little at the thought of Mrs. Martinez, whose warm and cozy apartment she stayed in during the times Mommy was away with Jamey or working. Mrs. Martinez always cooked something for Willow, and she even let her help prepare the food. She let Willow call her Mama Mari, and it was like getting to have a grandmother the way her friends at school did.

  “Fine. She goes down the hall, and we finish this.”

  “C-can I at least say good-bye?” Mommy questioned, her chest rising and falling with her sobs. Seeing Mommy cry made Willow start to cry.

  “Hurry it up,” Mean Man replied, shoving Willow toward the chair where Mommy sat.

  Clambering as best she could into Mommy’s lap, Willow buried her head in Mommy’s neck. Still bound tight by her fear, she couldn’t seem to make her lips move to say the words she was screaming in her mind. No matter how mad and mean Mommy was, Willow always loved her. She wanted nothing more than to be hugged and kissed by Mommy, but she very rarely got what she wanted.

  “I love you, Willow. You be a good girl for Mrs. Martinez. She’s going to take you to your daddy. You be good for him, okay?” Willow nodded. Mommy started to cry harder. “I’m sorry I was a bad mother, baby. I hope you’ll have a better one now.”

  Willow jerked back to stare into Mommy’s eyes. What did she mean a “better mommy”? Was she going somewhere? If Willow went to live with her daddy, did that mean she would never see Mommy again? It made her cry, and her tummy twisted. “I love you, Mommy,” she whispered, finally finding the words she desperately wanted to say.

  “I love you, too, Willow.”

  “All right. Enough sentimental bullshit. Crank, take the kid down the hall. Tell the woman to get the fuck out of the building for the next few hours if she knows what’s good for her.”

  Big Booted Man responded by snatching Willow up again and marching her to the door. As Willow gazed over her shoulder, Mean Man closed the gap between him and Mommy. Just as they started out of the apartment, Mean Man’s knife went to Mommy’s throat. Mommy looked straight at Willow. “I love—” Her words were cut off when the knife slid across her neck.

  Willow’s mouth opened in a scream, but nothing came out. As hard as she tried closing her eyes against the sight of the red blood pouring from her mommy’s neck, she couldn’t. The last thing she saw as she was taken from the apartment was Mean Man turning back to her as he brought his fingers to his lips to remind her to keep quiet.

  Willow knew that she would never tell. She never, ever wanted to see Mean Man again. No matter what was done to her, she would never tell.

  Real men don’t cry. Yeah, that old adage sure as hell didn’t ring true in my line of work. Over the years, I’d come to see that even the biggest and baddest fuckers have their breaking point. It’s not just the physical torture that breaks them. Sometimes, just a threatening mind fuck involving their wives, girlfriends, or daughters cues the waterworks until they’re blubbering like absolute pussies. And at the end of the day, most would rather be beaten within an inch of their lives than give in to their emotions and show weakness. Men can handle physical pain, but it’s the emotional shit that truly fucks with us.

  To prove my case, I give you Pussy #1: Frankie Delbraggio, or the dumb fuck sitting before me with a mixture of tears and blood streaming down his fat-ass cheeks. He was the current recipient of my wrath because he decided to pull an idiot move, thinking he could double-cross me by working with another club. He’d gotten greedy both for more money and more power in his territory. In the process, he’d become overstretched and let one of my club’s gun shipments run late.

  Sure, at first glance he looked like your worst enemy—a really menacing bastard with tats and piercings who you sure as hell wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. His skin was leathered from years of hard living, and his arms, which were currently bound behind him with cable ties, were pockmarked with track marks from the heroin addiction he just couldn’t beat.

  As sergeant at arms in my club, the Hells Raiders, I had to be the strong arm—the main man who used physical and emotional torture to get shit done. If I let someone like Frankie get away with drag-assing his feet on shipment deliveries and wavering in his loyalty, the whole club suffered. I couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with that. The Raiders are my life. They’ve been what I lived and breathed for from the time I was a snot-nosed, thirteen-year-old punk plucked off the streets by my adoptive father, Preacher Man, or Preach, as he was affectionately known.

  Standing behind Frankie to lend a hand if needed was my adoptive brother, Benjamin, or Bishop, as he was known. He chomped on a piece of gum while eyeballing Frankie contemptuously. He was probably less pissed about Frankie fucking us over and more pissed over the fact I’d torn him away from some heavy action with one of the sweet butts—aka the ladies who willingly spread their legs for club members. At twenty-three, Bishop, with his baby-blue eyes and wavy, dirty-blond hair, thought only with his dick most days. Even though he’d been patched in when he was just nineteen, he still had a lot to learn.

  While I’d worked Frankie over with a few right hooks and sucker punches to the gut, I’d broken through to him only when I’d taken his wallet. Between the weed, condoms, and a few twenties was a picture. After I gazed at it for a moment, a smirk curved across my lips. Waving the picture in front of him, I said, “Mmm-mmm. Look at that pretty piece of ass.”

  My words caused the shakes to run through Frankie’s body. His eyes, which had once held such defiance, glazed over. Bingo. This girl, most likely his daughter, was his Achilles’ heel. “How old is the sweet thing? Fourteen? Thirteen?”

  When he didn’t respond, I slammed another right hook into his jaw. “When I ask a question, you fucking answer me. Got it?”

  Frankie nodded weakly. In a hoarse voice, he replied, “Twelve.”

  “Ah, just a baby. Man, I bet she has one tight pussy.” I cocked my brows at him. “Nothing like breaking in a fresh piece.”

  As his broken jaw clenched, Frankie’s arms jerked against his binds. If he could have gotten loose at that moment, he would have tried his best to kill me. But even though he was playing right into my hands, I wasn’t done with him yet. No, I was about to go for his jugular. “Let me make one thing clear to you, Frankie. The next time you try to double-cross me and my boys, I’m going to find your pretty little daughter. Not only am I going to take your precious baby girl’s cherry, but I’m going to ass fuck her, too, while all my brothers watch. Then any one of my
guys who wants a chance can have a go at her.”

  As if I had taken a knife to him, my words seemed to tear through Frankie’s skin, nicking an emotional artery. Tears poured from his eyes as he began to imagine something so horrific done to his little girl. His massive body shook under the weight of his sobs.

  I’d painted a pretty depraved and disgusting picture for him. But what Frankie didn’t know was it was all a fucking elaborate lie. I didn’t go for underage pussy, especially little girls. I knew my men didn’t, either. If I ever got wind of something so fucking sick, I wouldn’t have waited for a vote in church—our club meeting—about blowing their ass to the curb. No, I would single-handedly cut their balls off, take their patch, and send them packing. The Hells Raiders might have been a lot of things, but sick-fuck pedophiles weren’t one of them.

  Once I had let Frankie stew in his torture long enough, I cleared my throat. “So are we good now, Frankie? No more playing us with the Iron Lords, right?”

  “Y-yes,” he stuttered, as his teeth chattered from his full-body shakes.

  I cocked my brows at him. “Yes, what?”

  His eyes, which still shone with tears, widened. “Yes, sir, Deacon. You have my word. I won’t ever fuck you over again. I swear on my life.”

  “And your daughter’s?”

  He cringed at the mention of his daughter. “Yes, mine and hers. I swear to God!”

  “Glad to hear it.” I then slid the picture of his angel-faced daughter back into his wallet. “Glad to know that your baby girl will be staying safe and sound, too.”

  “Yes,” Frankie whispered, a tremor of what appeared to be relief going through his body.

  Glancing at Bishop, I gave a nod. He took his pocketknife out of his jeans and cut the ties binding Frankie.

  “Have a good one, man. I look forward to our shipment next month,” I said with a shit-eating grin.

  Frankie gave a brief jerk of his head in acknowledgment as he rubbed his wrists where they had been bound. With a final wave, I headed out the door of Frankie’s warehouse with Bishop on my heels. As we stepped into the intense May sunshine, I felt grateful for the warmth that heated the exposed skin below my T-shirt and the leather cut, or vest, I wore that boasted the Raiders’ logo. When I slid across the seat of my bike, I caught Bishop’s chuckle behind me. Craning my neck to look at him, I demanded, “What?”

  He shook his head with a grin. “I was just thinkin’ it was good I was with you and not Rev when you started in on that kiddie-pussy shit. He would have freaked the fuck out and ruined everything.”

  I snorted at the mention of my adoptive brother Reverend, or Rev, as he was known within the club. Nathaniel was his birth name, but none of his brothers called him that. The only person who refused to call us anything but our given names was my adoptive mother, Elizabeth. Although Rev was six foot four and a wall of muscle, he was really a tenderhearted pussy when it came to most things. He was the gentle giant who loved puppies and kids and that rainbows-and-hearts shit. Most of the time, he had too much goodness and integrity to fit into our world. “Yeah, well, that’s the reason no one ever voted him in as sergeant at arms. They knew he wouldn’t be able to do shit when it came to being a hard-ass.”

  “True,” Bishop replied, as he slid across his bike’s seat. After putting on my helmet, I kick-started the engine. There was no other feeling in my life quite like the roar of the engine beneath me. The only peace I found was on the road. Although I now had the support of a loving family, I still felt like a loner—an outsider still searching for a place to make his own. Only the road offered a place for me to be my true self.

  As I wound my way through the back roads toward home, Bishop stayed close at my side. When we got to the compound, there were a few scattered bikes here and there. It was only four, and members didn’t really start hanging around until they were done with their straight jobs. Years ago, when the cotton mill went bust, Preach had the business sense to buy the property. At the time, it wasn’t for the Raiders. No, he was holy rolling then and focused on his ministry. After growing up in the MC world, he’d found Jesus in prison when he was just twenty. When he got out three years later, he buried his biker past and became a Pentecostal preacher. That’s where he’d met my adoptive mom—she was a fresh-faced, pure-of-heart-and-body, eighteen-year-old beauty. The daughter of a church elder. She saw him as the lost black sheep she could lead into the fold.

  But even after he married the virtuous woman and started spreading the good word, the biker bred into him raged and clawed to be free. Then, two years after I came to live with him, his preaching ended in a true blaze of glory. That was the night he killed one of his own flock. I’d never been given the entire story, but I did know it had to do with the man hurting Rev somehow. Preach didn’t do any time—instead, the transient man just “disappeared.” Most of the congregation had been made up of truly lost souls without hope or family, so it was easy to bury him in the deep woods behind the compound without anyone asking questions.

  After that night, the biker emerged strong and proud, which caused Preach and Mama Beth’s marriage to go down in flames. They separated after that, but they never divorced. My mother, along with my brothers and me, stayed in the village row house while Preach slept at the clubhouse that had once been his church. While she loathed the biker world, Mama Beth watched helplessly as each of us followed in Preach’s footsteps by patching into the Raiders. I think the three of us boys kept her constantly on her knees in prayer. But even though we were badass bikers, we still loved and respected the hell out of her. She was the best mother a guy could ever ask for, and she never treated me any differently from her blood sons.

  Once I eased my bike to a stop in front of the clubhouse, I pulled off my helmet and hung it from one of the handlebars. I didn’t have much to say to Bishop or to the two prospects who stood outside the clubhouse’s front door. No, I had a singular focus at the moment, and that was getting some ass. After handling a job, I needed a release, and sex was usually how I did it. With a determined step, I headed inside.

  Guns N’ Roses blared from the jukebox. My gaze flicked around the room, searching for one thing in particular. Or one person in particular. And then I found her. Behind the bar, Cheyenne Bates bent over the worn, mahogany counter, washing down the spilled beer and wiping away the crushed peanuts and chips. Her long blond hair was swept back in a ponytail. At the perfect view of her ample cleavage, my dick pounded against my zipper. As if she could sense me watching her, she jerked her head up, her intense blue eyes meeting my gaze. A slow, seductive smile slid across her lips.

  Holding up a hand, I crooked a finger at her. She tossed the rag on the counter and then hurried around the side of the bar. She teetered on her tall but sexy-as-hell heels as she closed the gap between us. She threw her arms around my neck and then hoisted herself up to wrap her legs around my waist. “Hey, baby. I missed you.”

  “Hmm, I missed you, too,” I replied, dipping my head to nuzzle the tops of her breasts. I steered us past the other guys and down the hallway. Once I got to my room, I kept one hand kneading Cheyenne’s ass while the other went to open the door.

  I’d been fucking Cheyenne almost exclusively for the last year. Occasionally, a new piece of ass might turn my head when I was on a run or at a rally. But I liked the fact that Cheyenne knew exactly how to blow my mind as I was blowing my load. She wasn’t one of those chicks who expected you to get them off several times before they even thought about touching your dick. She always took care of me first. I like that shit.

  Once I set her down on her feet, she sank to her knees in front of me. Her fingers came to my waist to loosen my belt and then unbutton and unzip my jeans. When she sprang my cock, she wasted no time sliding her lips down my shaft until I was deep-throating her. “Fuck,” I groaned, my head falling back with the out-of-this-world sensations of Cheyenne’s incredible head-giving skills. The woman had a mouth like a fucking Hoover.

  Taking her head
in my hands, I began to flex my hips and fuck her mouth. It wasn’t long until my balls were tightening up and my cum was shooting into her mouth. She sucked and licked up every drop. I stared down at her with a lazy smile. “You sure know how to treat your man good, baby.”

  “Mmm, I love it. My panties are fucking soaked now just from sucking you off.”

  The fact that she could almost out dirty talk me was another thing that made me hot for Cheyenne. Sure, she’d been a sweet butt for years and years, and she’d been broken in by every single guy in the club, including Preacher Man. Her experience made her worth my time. Of course, since I’d been fucking just her for the last year, she had it in her head I was going to make her my old lady. But that was never going to happen. Not with her or any of the other club whores—not any girl, period.

  Grabbing her shoulders, I drew her off her knees. “I think it’s time I felt just how wet I got you.”

  “Yes, please.”

  Cheyenne pulled off her skintight T-shirt. Like magnets, my hands went straight for her tits. After freeing them from her see-through bra, I brought one to my mouth, sucking and biting at her nipple. I alternated from breast to breast while Cheyenne panted and moaned. My hands came to her jeans. Once I slid them down her legs, I grabbed her by the waist and tossed her onto the bed. Her eyes burned with lust as I loomed over her.

  After tearing off her tiny scrap of a thong, I jerked her legs wide apart and buried my face between them. Cheyenne shrieked her approval, her acrylic nails scraping through my hair. “Oh yeah, baby. Just like that. Fuck me with your tongue!” she shouted, her hips rising in time with my tongue.

  A loud knock banged at the door, and then Rev’s voice followed. “Deacon, I need you out front.”

  I didn’t even bother raising my head from Cheyenne’s pussy. Instead, I shouted, “Get the fuck out of here. I’m busy.” While I returned to licking and sucking Cheyenne’s clit, the unwelcome interruption remained at the door. I growled in frustration when the banging on the wood started up again.