“People are never who we think they are,” Viper tells me. “Hell, I can guarantee that there are things I’ve done that you would never be able to forgive. You wouldn’t even be able to look me in the eye again, but I don’t fucking pretend to be something I’m not.”

  I swallow hard, trying to process everything he’s told me. “This is why you’ve always warned me away from him,” I say. “I just figured it was some kind of pissing contest between you and Crew. I never thought there was real weight to what you were saying.”

  “At first, perhaps,” he tells me with a slight shrug of his big shoulders.

  I nod, trying to work through all of the information. “You said he started working with his brother over the past year.”

  Viper presses his lips into a hard line, and the way his eyes darken suggests that this is the part he’s been trying to protect me from all this time. “I don’t know all the details, and I doubt I ever will, but from the intel I’ve been able to find, Crew got himself into some financial trouble last year. He had a hard-on for the underground.”

  “What’s that? Like fighting or something?”

  “Mm-hmm. He was a gambling man, and he made some bad choices with money that didn’t belong to him. When those debts caught up to him, he had no choice but to either ask Mason for help or lose his fucking life.”

  I never knew that he liked to gamble.

  “What does asking for his brother’s help actually mean?”

  “From what I can tell, Mason paid his debts, and in return, Crew would work for him, sourcing women for Mason’s henchmen to snatch off the fucking street, and if he couldn’t bring in enough women to cover those debts . . . Well, that’s where you came in.”

  My eyes widen. “What? What do you mean, that’s where I came in?”

  “You’d been in Crew’s life for quite a while, and Mason isn’t the type of man to allow himself to be blindsided. He makes it his business to know everything about everyone, and when this beautiful seventeen-year-old with no family connection and nobody to miss her came storming into Crew’s life, Mason saw dollar signs. He’s been wanting you for a long time, and Crew has always protected you from that, but twelve months ago, that changed.”

  I shake my head, not wanting to hear this and already fearing the worst, but Viper isn’t the type to stop on account of my feelings. “Part of their deal was if Crew failed to pay back his debt, Mason gets you, and usually in this world, spilling blood is just as good as any currency, however Mason wasn’t the one to spill that blood, so according to him, Crew bailed on his debt. Now Mason has free rein to take what he’s owed.”

  I drop my face into my hands, my head spinning. This is so much worse than I was expecting. I thought maybe he was just some asshole who perhaps gets a little rough, but this? Fuck. How am I supposed to handle this on top of a stalker? It’s too much. Hell, not to mention the betrayal pounding through my veins that Crew could have ever agreed to a deal like that in the first place.

  “So, umm . . .” I start, unable to get my wild thoughts in line. “What happens now?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “Everything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s up to you, Kyah,” Viper starts. “You can either continue as you are, stay in your apartment with my men on watch, or you can move into my place until this shit has been dealt with.”

  “What do you mean by dealt with?”

  Viper looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m gonna kill him,” he says nonchalantly, as though this kind of shit just happens every day.

  Horror blasts through my veins, quickly drowning me with fear. “What the fuck, Viper?” I screech, nervously looking around. “You can’t just say shit like that. Why can’t you just call the cops? Have him arrested.”

  “And get a reputation as a rat?” he grunts in disgust. “Do you know what the fuck would happen to me then? Fuck, babe. I know you’re smarter than that.”

  Shit. He’s right. I can’t pretend to know anything about what it’s like to be a part of a club, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Sons of Anarchy to know that being labeled as a rat is far worse than any death sentence.

  “I’m not living with you,” I tell him, ignoring his jab.

  Viper nods. “That’s what I thought.”

  My gaze falls, and I realize the two coffees and the sub Viper ordered are sitting at the edge of the table, the coffees now cold. “You should have told me the second you found out Crew made that deal,” I tell him, my heart breaking for a million different reasons.

  “Like I said, it’s not my business to tell,” Viper says. “All you need to know is that I’m doing what I can to protect you. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, Kyah. Nothing was ever going to happen to you. Besides, Crew knew I would have ended him if he ever let his brother anywhere near you.”

  My brows furrow, and I glance back at him, staring into those lethal dark eyes. “I don’t understand you, Viper. Why are you going out of your way to protect me when I’ve gone out of my way to reject you over and over again?”

  Viper lets out a heavy sigh before grabbing some cash and putting it on the table. He gets up from his chair and walks around to my side, offering me his hand like the perfect gentleman, though we both know he’s anything but.

  Letting him help me out of my chair, he leads me through the back of the café, and a strange nervousness settles deep in my gut, getting worse when he pushes through the back door and out into a dark alley. “Let’s get one thing straight,” Viper says, pulling on my hand and forcing me to a stop as he presses his big body into mine. “You belong to me, Kyah. You always have, and I know I said I would wait until you were ready, but I am becoming impatient. You forget that I have access to your security feed, and I see you with your new neighbor. You’re letting him get too close. Letting him come into your apartment, letting him eat that tight little cunt out in the hallway—”

  “Excuse me?” I grunt, cutting him off as I shove against his chest, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, his hand locks around my throat, and he pushes me back until I’m pinned against the filthy wall behind me.

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking to you, Kyah,” he growls, leaning in, his big hand squeezing just enough to leave me gasping for air, and more than certain that I’ll be permanently scrubbing his name off my schedule. “I’ve invested too much time into you to allow you to fuck around with someone else, especially now that Crew is out of the picture.”

  I clench my jaw, narrowing my gaze to furious slits. “I’ll never belong to you.”

  Viper just grins, adjusting his hand around my throat until he’s pushing my chin up, my gaze locked on his. “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” he tells me before crushing his lips to mine in a forceful, bruising kiss, his tongue invading my mouth. He pulls back, clenching his jaw as though he didn’t just violate my mouth. “You already do.”

  26

  REID

  A deep rage filters through my body as I sit back in the café across from High Voltage Ink, barely able to control myself, the need to kill bursting through my body, making it almost impossible to breathe.

  Not only did I just learn that Mason Ledger cornered Kyah when I wasn’t there to protect her, but Viper just shoved his tongue down her throat when she’s made it more than clear that she doesn’t want any kind of relationship with him.

  I need to do something about this. Neither of those bastards are going to get away with this bullshit. But considering Viper currently has a protection detail on Kyah that benefits her safety, I’m gonna have to start with Mason Ledger.

  Being in my line of business, it’s not hard to find the right contact who can point me in Mason’s direction, and by the time night has fallen, I stand outside one of his many warehouses, each one filled with the horrors of what he does for a living.

  I trust that Viper would have eventually done this for me, but he seems to enjoy taking his time, and that shit isn’t going to work for me. Every day he’s allowed to pass is another day where Kyah has been in danger while under his protection, and if something had happened to her, there’s nowhere he would have been safe from me.

  After completing a full perimeter walk of the property, I get a good feel for what I’m going to expect inside, and it’s clear that Mason has hired more than his fair share of security, but unfortunately for them, they won’t be seeing any action tonight. I’ll be in and out before they even realize their boss is dead. Though the security cameras might be an issue. This system is far more complex than the one in Kyah’s apartment. I won’t even bother trying to hack into it. I’m just going to have to be cautious. Though, is anybody really going to go searching for the man who killed Mason Ledger? They should be too busy celebrating his death. Besides, what are they going to do, call the cops to say that someone just murdered the head of their human trafficking ring and to come down to their warehouse immediately? Yeah right. I think I’m safe.

  Not having the patience to draw this out, I find the best point of entry and pull a black mask over my face before making my move and keeping to the shadows. There’s one security guard covering this door, and as he peers down at his phone, assuming he’s safe, I slip in behind him, my hand covering his mouth as my other arm locks around his throat. I squeeze tight as he struggles against my hold, but it takes only a moment before the asshole is out cold.

  He drops like a heavy sack of shit, and I drag his body into the shadows while doing my best to evade the cameras. I steal the key card off his hip and unclip the radio from his belt before letting myself through the back door.

  The warehouse is a fucking maze, and the amount of women in cages makes my stomach turn. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting a good hard-on for ending someone’s life, but even I have lines that I won’t cross. And this here . . . fuck. The idea of Kyah ending up in this warehouse to be sold to the highest bidder makes my skin crawl.

  There must be at least forty or fifty women of varying ages, and considering the way they’re each presented in lingerie and scattered throughout the warehouse with numbers on the front of their cages, I can only assume that tonight is auction night. Though, unluckily for Mason, I’ll be the only bastard reaping rewards tonight.

  Not wanting to be caught before I get the chance to satisfy this wicked need burning inside of me, I move through the warehouse, heading for the back, knowing a man like Mason Ledger is probably lounging in his office with his feet up while his men do all the dirty work.

  The warehouse doesn’t have a great setup, and it doesn’t take long to figure out what I’m looking for. I creep through the maze-like hallways with my head down, evading both the cameras and Mason’s henchmen before finally coming to his office.

  The door has been left open, however, Mason is nowhere to be seen. Judging by the cold drink on the desk with fresh condensation around the glass and the phone left out beside his laptop, it’s fair to assume the asshole has probably gone to take a shit.

  Slipping inside the office, I step in beside his shelving unit, keeping me hidden from the door while I wait. The lights are out, so it doesn’t take much to keep me concealed, and after only a short ten-minute wait, the man of the hour finally returns.

  Mason switches on the light as he passes over the threshold and strides into the office, his gaze so focused on his desk that he fails to notice me. He takes his seat at his desk before swiping his hand over his phone and checking his notifications. His back is to me, and I shake my head. This fucker is making it too easy, but in a warehouse full of hired security, easy is what I need tonight. Though there’s no telling if this will sedate the burning need to spill blood within me. Either way, I’m sure it’s still going to be fun.

  Stepping out from beside the shelf, my hand silently swipes across the end of Mason’s desk, collecting an old computer cable, and I quickly unravel it as I move in behind him. Then just as his back stiffens and he finally senses that something isn’t right, I snap the cable around his throat and pull tight.

  Mason immediately struggles, clawing at the cable, but it’s no fucking use. My hold on him is rock solid. I lean forward, bending down toward his ear as he gasps for air, struggling and failing to fill his lungs. “You made the biggest mistake of your life going after my Kyah,” I tell him, purring in his ear as I feel my cock thickening. “She belongs to only me.”

  Mason doesn’t even bother to try and respond, and as he begins to weaken, I feel that same desperation I felt when I killed his brother.

  I’m not going to make it.

  I’m going to come in my fucking pants again.

  “Ahhh fuck,” I grunt, adjusting my hold on the cable around his neck, freeing one of my hands to plunge into the front of my pants and fist my cock, but it’s not enough. I whip it out, my tip hovering right by Mason’s ear. “Don’t mind me,” I hiss through gritted teeth as I rest my cock over his wide shoulder. “Just gonna leave this here.”

  My hips jolt as Mason lets out a strangled groan, and I can’t help but start jerking off, right there on his fucking shoulder, but damn it, it’s just too good. I tighten my hold on the cable, pulling even tighter, and just as Mason’s body goes slack, I come like a horny fucking teenager. “Fuck,” I groan low, my hips jolting forward as hot cum spurts from my cock and splatters against Mason’s suit jacket.

  I stand there for a minute in shock, my chest heaving.

  I really need to get to the bottom of this whole spontaneous ejaculation while murdering the men in Kyah’s life thing. Perhaps I need to book a therapy session, though I don’t know what I’m supposed to say without getting myself locked up. All I know is that it feels fucking incredible.

  Once I catch my breath, I release my hold on the cable and glance down at Mason. He’s covered in my cum, and usually, I would do everything in my power to clean up behind me and not leave even a shred of evidence that could bring a kill right back to me, but let’s be honest, the cum splattered over his suit jacket is a fucking work of art created in Kyah’s name. How could I possibly destroy that? Besides, the assholes who work here aren’t exactly calling in the feds to look into this, and they sure as fuck don’t have the necessary means to DNA test my cum. Not to mention, the likelihood of someone being responsible for scraping my cum off his jacket is next to none. And if you ask me, I think it’s the perfect gift to offer his workers . . . perhaps even a warning.

  Ahhh, my sweet Kyah. She makes me careless, reckless, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Hearing noise out in the hallway, my gaze snaps up, listening intently to the sound of the footfalls and realize they’re coming this way.

  Shit. I guess my time is up.

  Taking the cable with me, I jam it into my pocket before darting across the room to the small window and sliding it open. I launch myself out into the night, and just as I find my feet and close the window, I watch as two of Mason’s men appear in the open doorway.

  A grin settles across my face as they dart into the office, one of them grabbing hold of Mason’s shoulder and quickly pulling his hand away in disgust, realizing he has a palmful of cum. I laugh to myself. This day couldn’t get any better.

  Then with a stupid grin across my face, I take off into the night, more than proud of myself.

  It’s a little after one in the morning when I arrive at Kyah’s apartment. Slipping in through her living room window, I grin to myself. It’s locked just as it always is, but with the right amount of wiggle, it slips right open.

  A breath of relief sails out of me as I step inside her apartment, her familiar scent welcoming me in, and without hesitation, I make my way toward her bedroom. The door is open as usual, and as I hover in the doorway peering in, I find her asleep. Only there’s something different tonight.

  She’s tossing and turning, unable to find peace while she sleeps. She almost seems frustrated, sad maybe, and it puts me on edge.

  I silently make my way across her room, not making a single sound, but even in her sleep, I know she senses me here, she always does and I appreciate when she doesn’t try and act up. She allows me just to be, for us both to remain in peace, and a part of me wonders if it’s because she’s just as hungry for me as I am for her.

  Knowing how the armchair likes to squeak when I sit down, I take my time, lowering myself into it carefully before leaning back and watching her. She’s so fucking beautiful when she sleeps, but I hate the way she tosses and turns. She groans and grunts, and I wonder if maybe this is some kind of nightmare. After having to deal with Crew, Mason, and Viper, I wouldn’t be surprised if she started having nightmares. It makes sense. She’s dealing with a lot right now, but I’m doing everything I can to try and minimize that stress.

  Perhaps all she needs is to relax, and that is something I can more than help with.

  My tongue rolls over my bottom lip as my cock hardens within my pants, and I can’t help lifting myself out of the chair. I stride toward her, lingering at the foot of her bed.

  God, she’s so fucking beautiful.

  I take her blanket, fisting it into my palm and slowly lifting it over her and pulling it back, taking my time so that I don’t startle her. She wears a tiny black thong and a loose-cropped tank that rides up her body, gathered just beneath her perfect plump tits. My mouth waters.

  I need to have her now. I need to fucking taste her.

  Creeping around the side of her bed, I drop my fingers to her ankle, slowly dragging them up to her knee before trailing further up her inner thigh. She groans, instantly relaxing into my touch, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  I do it again, and this time, she groans a little louder.

  “That’s right, my sweet Kyah,” I whisper into the dark room. “You like that, don’t you?”

  She continues moving around in her sleep, and I gently kneel at the end of her bed. Taking her knee, I slowly roll her to her back and her thighs open wide like a fucking offering to take exactly what I want, but this isn’t about me. This is about giving her what she needs.