What changed?
How had he cut me out so successfully?
And how had he done it so completely that he made me doubt I’d even seen the hint of something deeper?
Is it all in my head?
Running a large hand through his hair, he paced in front of the lineup. His bloody and bruised hand opened and closed by his thighs, violence wisping around him like an aura.
Slamming to a halt facing us, he sniffed loudly. “Suppose it’s now my job to welcome you.” He kicked at nothing, grinding his large black boot into the floorboards. “Excuse the disorganization. And ignore the fight you saw.” His eyes landed on each of us, pinning us to the concrete. “My name is Arthur Killian, but you and everyone else, address me as Kill. You’re a transaction—nothing more, nothing less.”
My eyes widened. His name… I waited for it to jog a memory.
Nothing.
An influx of men, five or six, appeared from the corridor, moving to lean against the button-leather couches. They looked as if they belonged in a lawyer’s office—the couches, not the men; the men looked as if they were born riding Harleys with cigarettes in their mouths and their minds in the gutter.
The women beside me shuddered, sneaking glances at the new arrivals. They were just as bloody; some with torn clothes, others with cut lips and bruised cheekbones. They all had an edge—wiry, unpredictable.
I stayed locked in place, watching, drinking information, and trying to stay as unnoticeable as possible.
Arthur Killian, whom I’d placed into the center of my new world for lack of a better anchor, spun to face them. “You gonna behave, or do I have to kick your sorry asses again?”
The men smirked, crossing their arms. “We get it. You’re still the Prez.”
Kill growled, “You get it, but you don’t feel it. Too bad. It’s done. Been done for four fucking years and I won fair and fucking square. You obey my rules. You don’t, you’re dead.”
A man in his early thirties with a stringy moustache nodded. “Know your reasons. Can’t say I’m pissed but I’m on board with what you’ve been saying. Wallstreet vouched for you many times. Gonna trust his judgment, regardless if you’re a shit-eating Dagger.”
“Hey. Club business. Visitors.” Black Mohawk cocked a chin at us.
Kill scowled, reining in his anger. “You’re right. Shut the fuck up. The lot of you.”
“You’re telling us to shut up? You’ve been demanding us to pledge fealty for years, and now that we’re about to, you want us to shut the fuck up?”
Kill gritted his jaw, a vein pumping in the cords of his neck. “Fine! But let’s get one thing straight, I’m not a Dagger. Not anymore. I’ll be the first to take them out—so stop this in-house fighting and have my fucking back for a change.”
The guys shifted but they nodded. One muttered, “That’s what I’m trying to do. You got my weapon.”
“Good.” The Prez—I guessed short for president—nodded. “We’re no longer sloppy one-percenters. We’re done with that shit. Haven’t I already proven that if you follow me, Wallstreet’s vision comes true and no one else has to die?”
A man with a short crop of dark hair and a skull shaved into the strands snapped, “That’s all fine and fucking dandy to say, but you’re hardly here! A Prez is meant to be seen with his army—”
“Enough!” Kill roared. “What I do in the name of this Club is none of your goddamn business.” He moved forward, his head cocked threateningly. “You’re grown men. I’m not your fucking babysitter.” Shoving a finger in Stringy Moustache’s face, he muttered, “You don’t like the money I’ve made you? Fine, give it back.”
Stringy Moustache gritted his jaw. “We earned it.”
Kill laughed darkly. “Exactly. Just like I earned your fucking obedience.”
Shaved Skull growled, “You think you’ve won? You’ll never win.”
“Funny. I just did.” Kill held up his bloodstained hands. “Karma, boys. I’m giving you until tomorrow morning to pack up your shit and leave if you want out.” His body tightened, terrible anger rippling over his muscles. “But if you stay, everything that happened tonight is over. Done.”
“Enough Club talk,” Black Mohawk snapped. “Time and place, gentlemen.”
My eyes ping-ponged between the scary looking men in identical jackets, to the blood-drenched president breathing hard through his nose. To the uneducated, he looked furious. In control, strong, and vital. To the ones knowledgeable on pain, the glow in his eyes wasn’t from anger but agony—the tension in his back wasn’t from ferocity but whatever caused him to bleed profusely.
How I knew the nuances of pain and body language, I didn’t know. It wasn’t explainable to have my entire life wiped out and only parts of my past just there… to be used unthinkingly.
But it was.
The men’s eyes trailed to us. A line up of despairing females waiting to hear our fate.
One cocked his head, sneering, “What about them? Unwilling women would be a damn sight more fun than the Club whores lurking around this joint. Wouldn’t mind me some live skin.”
Skin?
The women on either side of me whimpered, slapping shaking hands over their mouths.
Kill glared at us, before looking back to his men. “Five are already spoken for. You know the trades will happen tomorrow.”
“Okay, the sixth can be ours. Give her to us and we’ll forget about tonight.” Shaved Skull grinned.
Kill moved, charging into motion from a standstill. His face shot white as pain laced his system, but he didn’t hesitate.
His fist collided loud and hard with the man’s face. He went down like a heavy piano, complete with a bone-rattling crash.
“Get. Out,” Kill whispered. “I’m done with your shit. You’re cut.”
The man glowered up, his nose gushing blood. “You can’t banish me. I took the oath, motherfucker!”
“Can and just did. My Club. My rules. Tear off your patch.”
The man snarled, “You’re a fucking dead man, Killian.”
“Like I haven’t heard that before.” Kill snapped his fingers. Black Mohawk and Sandy-Blond charged to his side. “Strip his patch. Get rid of him.”
“With pleasure.” The men scooped the bleeding man from the floor, shoving him toward the exit.
“You’re dead. The lot of you—you hear me?” Shaved Skull waved his fist, uncaring that his nose rivered crimson.
“Yeah, yeah. Look at us—we’re fucking petrified,” Black Mohawk said, pushing him hard.
The other men stopped lounging against the wall, standing tall.
Stringy Moustache stomped forward, grabbing his bleeding comrade. “We’ve got him.” His eyes fell on Kill. “You look like the reaper’s ridin’ you, Kill. Get this done”—he pointed at us as if we were melting groceries needing a home in the fridge—“we’ll catch up at the meetin’ in a few days.”
Killian huffed, his chest rising and falling with a mixture of testosterone and adrenaline. He finally nodded. “Fine. Hopper, Mo, stay here. Need your help with the women. Keep them safe. The trade is for unsullied, unmarked stock. Don’t need any refunds being demanded.”
My back went rigid. He made us sound like animals.
We weren’t items to sell or be used.
Fear slowly crept thicker through my veins.
My eyes narrowed, searching for the shred of truth beneath his tone. He wasn’t like the men who slinked back to the garage. Yes, he was rough, tall, angry, dangerous, and entirely in bed with criminals, but there was a shrewd intelligence and rational mind hiding in his green, green eyes.
He was a walking contradiction.
Same as me.
Kill didn’t say a word, only nodded as the arrivals became deportees, and we were left in an eerily silent bubble of eight. Five women, three men.
If I knew who I was—what skills I possessed other than veterinary—I might’ve been tempted to negotiate for freedom or help grant a way
out of this for the women crying beside me.
I pursed my lips, searching for the overwhelming need to run, to hide—but it was still missing. The trickle of fear was my only hint of being alive. And that was directed at the man with the green eyes, rather than the horrific situation I faced.
I’m broken.
My fight or flight reflex had been torn out along with my memories.
We’re to be sold.
Kill ran both hands through his hair, centering himself. He winced, hissing between his teeth, and dropped his right arm immediately. Swallowing hard, he growled, “You’re lucky to overhear Club business. No one outside our oaths is privy to inner workings. But it’s probably best you saw that. You can take my word for it when I say things aren’t… stable. I’m the only one keeping you intact, so show some respect and believe me when I say, you do not want to piss me off.”
His voice increased in volume, the timbre echoing from gruff to gravel. “Forget what you heard. You can’t bargain with it. You aren’t lucky to know it. You’re damned. Forget about your old life because you’re never seeing it again.”
The coldness in his tone sent icicles shimmering in the air.
Another ooze of fear slithered through my blood.
A girl clamped a hand over her ears, a small scream erupting from her mouth.
Kill scowled, flinching as another wave of agony assaulted him. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here, who we are—what we want. If you’re smart, you’ll have figured it out, but I’m going to lay it out in black and fucking white.”
His eyes latched onto mine, drowning me in green grass, moss, and emerald. “You are mine. Ours. The Club’s. We own you—every inch. I’m in power, which means your welcome is a shitload better than it would’ve been four years ago, but my temper is short.”
His voice lowered to a decibel that echoed in my heart. “The only thing you need to remember—to make your stay with us seem like the fucking Ritz rather than a prison sentence—is to obey me. If I ask you to do something, you follow immediately and explicitly. You don’t, and my courtesy will end. And when that courtesy ends—it’s gone for fucking good.”
A shadow crossed over his features. Pain speckled his brow with sweat. Gritting his teeth, he swallowed before ordering, “Strip. The lot of you. I have to make sure you’re not hurt. Your new owners are expecting perfection—don’t want to disappoint them.”
My heart stopped.
“No, please,” a girl with long blonde hair begged. “Let us go.”
Kill held up his hand—it came up sword-fast and just as sharp. “What did I just say? Immediately and explicitly.”
“Do it, bitch.” Black Mohawk came forward, his hands curling by his side. Violence reentered the room, gusting into being with his uttered threat.
The girls twitched and fidgeted, looking to each other for help. Strange, they didn’t look to me—didn’t seek out my sisterhood or squeeze closer for comfort.
The longer we stood in the line, the more obvious my exclusion was from the tearstained, terrified women.
As much as I wanted answers, perhaps it was a blessing not to know who I was. To not remember my family, marital situation, or who I might never see again.
I was set apart from them. I couldn’t determine if it made me stronger or more vulnerable to be cast out from the group. A small lance of pain pricked my heart. I truly belonged nowhere—even this horrible life into which I’d been thrown.
Kill dragged a hand over his face, smearing a cut from his forehead and drawing the dark red down his cheek. “I gave an order. Don’t test me so soon. Not tonight.”
His gaze zeroed on mine. This time there was nothing there—no pull or whisper of knowing. He was in charge and I was nothing more than skin.
His lips pressed together as he dropped his vision to my breasts. A not-so-subtle command to obey.
Strip.
Looking down my body, I plucked at the faded blue jeans and white T-shirt with a large, intricate rose on the front. Both smelled of smoke but weren’t burned like my arm. I had no shoes, no jacket.
I didn’t remember buying the items, or where I’d showered and dressed this morning. In a way, it made no difference to me either being clothed or naked. They didn’t offer protection. They weren’t armor against evil happening.
They were useless. Just like tears were useless and terror was useless. I had no need for any of it.
I don’t know what I look like naked.
My heart kicked into a curious beat. I had no idea if I had freckles, or moles, or scars. I lived in the mind and body of a stranger. Maybe if I looked, I might know? Might figure out my conundrum?
I looked up again into the green eyes of my nightmare incarnate. He’d never looked away, his jaw locked as my fingertips traced the delicate rose on my T-shirt.
I sucked in a breath, my skin prickling. I couldn’t deny he stole everything from me with just one stare. But he also gifted a piece of himself in return. I read him clearly—or maybe I only thought I did.
His legs were spread, the stance threatening as well as for balance to combat the pain he lived with. He looked menacing, but something deep in my soul wanted to believe he wouldn’t hurt me.
Don’t be stupid.
I tilted my chin. I wasn’t. I was going out of my way to be rational and collected. Being stupid would be ignoring my instincts and running.
He means to sell you. Turn you into a whore.
I knew that. But my gut said he wasn’t a vicious man. He was a killer, undoubtedly. He’d lived a life of crime for a long time. But he was also hiding something that deep inside me knew. I couldn’t explain how I knew but I had met him.
Once upon a time, I’d loved him in a nightmare so much worse than this one. I’d grown wet for him in another reality, all while he worshipped me, adored me.
It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t separate fact from fiction, truth from fable.
Raising an eyebrow, he waited.
I waited.
We both waited to see who would break.
I did.
Not for him—but for me. I wanted to know who I was beneath my clothes. I wanted to shed the lingering past and had no reason to cling to things I couldn’t recollect.
Grabbing the hem, I tugged the T-shirt over my head.
The girls beside me froze, watching with moon-size eyes. My skin scattered with goosebumps as Kill sucked in a breath.
His inhale sent a clench fluttering through my core. Power. He’d granted me power over him with that tiny noise of appreciation.
Thick hair fell over my shoulder, dangling in my line of sight.
My hair.
Hair I didn’t remember.
I fingered it, running a soft wave through my fingertips. Whether it was natural or real, it was a beautiful shade of auburn and cherry. A rich pigment that spoke of passion and rippled like blood.
I’m a redhead.
My eyes traveled down my front.
I gasped.
“I know how much you’ve always wanted one. I wanted to be the one to pay for it. So you’ll always remember me.” He pulled a drawing I’d been working on for years from his back pocket. “I know how much this means to you.”
I leapt into his arms, hugging him.
“Thank you. So, so much.”
I turned to the artist, pulling my T-shirt over my head. Taking the drawing, I pressed it into his hands, then splayed my palms on my naked stomach and chest. “Here. Ink me here.”
The memory ended.
The first pressure of tears itched my eyes. The tattoo spanned my entire side, up my rib cage, engulfed my left breast entirely, and teased with the final design by my collarbone. The tattoo disappeared into my jeans below. My arms weren’t inked, and I couldn’t comprehend the amount of hours such a piece would’ve taken.
I was braless. I guessed my cup size was a full C.
Even my nipple was tattooed.
My heart bucked as a body I didn??
?t remember taunted me with such vibrancy—such experience and clues. Who was I to do such a thing?
The tattoo encapsulated something tugging deep and painful in my heart. It meant something. It meant everything. But I couldn’t remember what.
The design was a world within a world within a looking glass within a perfect mirrored pond. To the interloper I’d become, I appreciated the artisan lines of the feathering and shadows. The detailing was superb as well as entirely eye-catching.
But it was more than that. So, so much more.
The throb in my soul knew what it was, but nothing burst forth or let me guess.
To me, the perfect stranger, it was nothing more than a beautiful feather with cobalt-blue forget-me-nots, words intertwined with vines, and interlocking images so perfectly synced, I couldn’t tell them apart.
But it was my right side that made my heart pound in horror.
Burns.
Mottled tight and shiny skin graced my entire right side, almost a mirror image of the gorgeous tattoo on my left. Where beauty was inked, ugliness was stretched.
I waited for some memory of being in a fire. After all, the scars hinted at a terribly traumatic event in my past. But nothing. Not a lick of a flame or the scent of smoke.
My lungs worked hard, dealing with the amazement of my strange form. I expected a visceral reaction—or at the very least a minor freak-out over the bizarreness of my body. But the damn calmness never left, keeping me levelheaded and clear.
I didn’t know who I was, but soon… soon I hoped the story on my skin would make sense.
The new burn on my arm flared bright with pain. Old burns and new.
Is there significance in that, or am I clutching at straws?
I was a coin with two sides: scars and stars. Skin grafts and tattoos. Stunning and hideous.
Rustling occurred to my left and right—the other women stopped gawking at my uniqueness, rushing to follow suit and obey. My attention faded from my scars, back to my tattoo, drinking it in.
“What does it feel like?”
I tensed, grasping his fingers until sweat and heat erupted into a bonfire between our locked palms. “Like flames. Endless tiny teeth of hell.”
“Can you stand it? To have it all done?”