Judgment Road (Torpedo Ink #1) Read online

  “The owners of the Ghost Club are targeting the families of club presidents. They spy on the club members to get dirt on them. They use gambling debts against them.”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “Anya, they take the wife or daughter. If they aren’t paid, they kill the women by cutting them up into little pieces. I imagine that was done to your roommate.”

  She winced, but pulled the sheet over her eyes. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “That night I came back and wanted you fired, I’d rescued a woman and her daughter. The hit squad was already there, and I interfered. Took a knife to do it. Now, they have another woman. She just finished chemo. They have to be stopped.”

  “And you thought I was helping them. That’s what all of you thought of me. That I’d help these horrible people cut up women. Please go away. I’ll be out of here in the morning.” Her voice was muffled and it sounded as if she was crying again. He felt her breath on his thighs. He felt the wet of her tears and it gutted him. He deserved the pain, she didn’t.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Anya. Get that through your head and don’t bother putting energy into fighting me on it.” He massaged her scalp slowly, gently, wishing it helped ease the pain slicing through her head.

  He let the silence stretch out, hoping she’d fall asleep. She didn’t. He didn’t. He stared at the wall, his fingers moving in her hair. He might have needed that touch more than she did, he only knew he couldn’t stop. He needed her to make it through the night. Through another day. She’d said they were as bad as those targeting innocent women. Were they? He was. He knew he was—he’d shaped himself into a cold-blooded killer so the others could have life. Maybe someday live free.

  “When we were children in Russia, we were taken from our homes, our parents murdered because they opposed a man by the name of Sorbacov. He was smooth and charming with his wife and children in public, but in private, he had certain proclivities. His appetite ran to really young boys. Torture and even snuff films. He liked to see girls tortured. He enjoyed watching them killed during sex. He surrounded himself, in one of the four schools he started, with like-minded men and woman. Sick bastards that enjoyed inflicting pain.”

  He fell silent again, staring at the wall, seeing nothing but Anya’s face as she sat in that chair beside Absinthe. So pale. Chin up. Defiant. Alone. His heart had stuttered. Melted. His stomach had cramped and he’d wanted to vomit right along with her. He’d let her go through that alone. He should have held her in his arms. He should have sat with her, his hand on her, connecting them. He should have done something to make her understand that truth was necessary to them, because they couldn’t afford a spy in their camp. It wouldn’t be tolerated. More, they didn’t know any other way than what they’d grown up with.

  “I was four years old when I was taken there. Savage was two. We had two older sisters. We came from a family of privilege and to see our parents murdered in front of us, and then to be taken to a place with thick walls, few windows and a dungeon of sorts in the basement, was terrifying. There were nearly three hundred children brought into the school over the years. To be accurate, two hundred and eighty-seven children. Eighteen survived.”

  Her hand moved on his thigh. A small brush of her fingers, but she was listening to him. He didn’t know why he was telling her, and he’d never repeat his story in the light of day. Demons ruled him, demons he’d found inside of him and deliberately cultivated. He’d fed that darkness, needing it, without knowing, when he was so young, what the consequences would be.

  Reaper picked up her fist, opening the fingers so he could press a kiss into her palm. “You wondered why we don’t think about nudity. They didn’t let us wear clothes. We didn’t have a bathroom. Often we had to watch when they hurt others. They taught us control of our bodies by forcing us to have sex with older men and women and then with younger ones. If we failed in our control, we were savagely beaten. If our partner failed to arouse us, they were savagely beaten.”

  He pressed her fingers to his mouth, his teeth scraping gently against the pads. “My sisters were brutally murdered trying to stop Sorbacov and his friends from taking Savage and me up to the rooms where they film the torture and rape of children. They left their bodies on the dungeon floor for two days. We were returned bloody and traumatized. You can imagine what it was like to have our sisters lying dead on top of everything else. If Czar hadn’t stepped in, we both would have lost our sanity.”

  He wasn’t altogether certain he hadn’t lost his sanity that day. He remembered the pain and humiliation. He remembered rage and guilt because he couldn’t stop them from hurting his younger brother, and he’d been only four. He also knew that was the first time he became aware of the darkness in him, a place he could go to be able to do whatever was necessary to stop men like Sorbacov.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone else. It isn’t so you’ll understand what we did in order to protect ourselves, it’s more the need to have you know me. I wanted you fired to protect you. I’ve never had a normal erection. Not one I didn’t order up to get a job done. I’ve never been all over a woman the way I was with you. Out of my mind. Needing to be inside you more than I needed air. It’s always been a planned, run-by-the-numbers seduction. When we were given our freedom, a few years ago, I didn’t want to bother ordering my body to want someone. Not even for release.”

  He paused to look down at her. Her eyes were open, the long lashes fluttering. He felt the kiss of them brushing against his thigh. Her gaze searched his face as if studying him to see if he lied. He pushed the fall of dark hair from behind her ear, his fingers gentle when that particular characteristic wasn’t a part of him.

  “I saw you working in the bar. I heard your laughter. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. So fucking beautiful, Anya. Not just your body, but something else. I tried saving you. I wanted you gone when I realized I couldn’t stay away from you. When I realized my cock was so hungry for you it wouldn’t stop raging no matter how much I commanded it to. I wanted you. I never wanted anything for myself until I saw you.”

  He broke off. He couldn’t tell her the rest. How he loved the club. How that was his life, the best part of him. The only good part of him. Now, he didn’t want to look at his colors, the colors he’d taken such pride in. He didn’t want to look at his brothers and sisters. Everything he loved, every person he loved, had lost him the one person he cared for. He needed. He’d been willing to try to change enough to have a relationship with her. He’d believed he would be better because of her. He’d convinced himself he’d find a way to grow, that she would stick around and be patient enough to let him make mistakes.

  “In the end, though, it wasn’t their fuckup, it was mine,” he murmured aloud. His club hadn’t forced him to do anything. He’d chosen to stand with them. He could have chosen to stand with her. He should have. But there was Czar. He’d been Czar’s shadow, his sword, since that first kill when he’d been five years old. He didn’t know how to be any different. Czar’s sword was who he was. “You’re right, Anya. I should have stood for you. I knew that light in you was real, but they needed to know it and somehow, at the time, it was important that they saw you the way I do.”

  He stroked her hair, willing her to go to sleep. His fingers still tangled with hers, because he wasn’t willing to let her go. He only had until she was on her feet to try to find something to make her want to stay. His brain wouldn’t shut down. He didn’t talk. He didn’t share. Now, it was like a floodgate had opened, and he wanted to share who he was. He was desperate for her to see inside, to look past all the layers of darkness and find that part of him she’d touched. The part that needed her to save him. He wanted her to see something good in him, because he couldn’t find it and it would be lost if she wasn’t there to bring it out.

  The door was open and Lana stood in the doorway, knocking softly to grab his attention. “Is she asleep?”

  He shook his he
ad. “Drifting. The pills are starting to kick in.”

  She came in and sank down on the bed, dropping one hand on the blanket, finding Anya’s ankle beneath it, as if she wanted that connection as well. “I like her, Reaper. I like her a lot. When you brought her to my room, I was so upset. I thought she was like the other women and I didn’t want any of them in my private room. And then I could see she meant something to you so I really looked at her, the way I did at Blythe, and I realized she was someone very special.”

  Reaper nodded. “Gotta agree with that, Lana.”

  “I should have stood up more, fought harder for her. I said something, but I didn’t push it. I wanted to because I knew the moment I took the time to know her, she was incapable of betraying us like that. Now, I feel like I betrayed both of you. You fought for her, but you needed someone to back you and I didn’t do it. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Reaper sighed. “In the end, Lana, it’s about Czar and Blythe. The Ghosts are targeting the wives and daughters of the presidents of the clubs. That means they would go after Blythe. Above all, we have to protect them. As much as I hated it and hated everyone because they were insistent, I knew it had to be done. I should have at least asked her myself first.”

  “She wouldn’t have told you, she was too scared.” Lana sighed and rubbed Anya’s ankle through the blanket. “I hate us sometimes, Reaper. I hate that we can’t ever be anything but what Sorbacov made us.”

  He nodded. “I know what you mean.”

  “They taught us two things, Reaper. How to have sex every way possible and how to kill every way possible. They left out relationships. They left out love. They left out all the things everyone else knows about. Blythe wouldn’t have let us make the decision to interrogate Anya that way. She would have stopped us.”

  Reaper shook his head. “Czar wouldn’t have allowed her to know or weigh in.” He looked past Lana to see Czar’s wide shoulders framed in the doorway. His gut clenched. A surge of rage boiled deep. He suppressed it, threading his fingers through Anya’s fingers, reminding himself she didn’t need raised voices and anger.

  Lana glanced over her shoulder and saw their president. “I’m staying close tonight and tomorrow. Just in case she needs me. Let me know if you think of anything I can do.” She stood and touched Anya gently. “Those things she said about you weren’t true, Reaper.”

  He didn’t reply, he just watched her go. He wasn’t the only one hurting over what had happened, and somehow that helped.

  Czar came all the way in to stand beside the bed.

  Reaper shook his head. “You’re not my favorite person right now, Czar,” he said honestly. “Go home to your woman and leave me with mine.”

  “Reaper, you know Absinthe was as gentle as possible under the circumstances. If she hadn’t fought him so hard …”

  “Bullshit. She was protecting herself. My woman’s broken, Czar, so you could know yours was safe. Go home. This isn’t the time.” Reaper leaned his head against the headboard and closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the man he’d protected for nearly all his life. He was angry, but mostly at himself. At the choices he’d made and never stopped making. The choices he knew he would continue to make.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “You heard her. You heard what she thinks of all of us, especially me. She wore me on her skin, just as I asked, and I repaid her by letting Absinthe rape her mind.” He knew Czar wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. He knew. He knew and he was ashamed.

  “Reaper.”

  Reaper shook his head. “Go, Czar.” He was suddenly weary. “There isn’t anything to talk about tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, not tonight. Tonight I’m going to hold her and make sure the demons don’t come for her. Nothing’s going to hurt her again. You can give me that much, can’t you? One fucking night with her before she walks out of my life for good.”

  “I’ll give you your space now. And I’m sorry, brother. Take some time with her, but we’re going to have to talk about those three in the bar tonight. I really am sorry for the way this turned out.”

  Reaper was sure they all were sorry. Especially him, but it didn’t change what they’d done to Anya. He waited to talk to her again until Czar left the room, closing the door behind him, locking the two of them in the room alone together.

  “You awake?” Because her breathing wasn’t even.

  She nodded her head. Her hair slid over his thighs. Tangled around his cock. It felt right to just sit on the bed with her head in his lap. It didn’t feel as if she was trying to control him. Or seduce him. It felt comforting. Peaceful. He imagined this was something men and women did at the end of the day, just breathing each other in when they were both hurting like hell.

  “Is the headache any better?”

  “Strong pills.” The soft murmur was said against his bare thigh. Her lips whispered over his skin like a caress. He closed his eyes to savor the feeling, letting it comfort him even more.

  The pills were strong. Steele had made certain he’d given her ones that would block the pain as much as possible. It wouldn’t take away betrayal or hurt, but hopefully her head would be better.

  “I liked them. Preacher. Lana. I liked them.”

  His heart sank. There were tears in her voice. “Baby, they liked you too. No one wanted you hurt, least of all me.”

  “I thought they were becoming my friends. Maybe even family.”

  “They were. They are. Families fight, Anya. Families get past hard things.” He wanted to hope. He wanted a fucking miracle. Was it too much to ask for her? Did the universe hate him so fucking much that it wouldn’t even allow him to have one good thing that was all his in his life?

  “I wouldn’t know,” she whispered. “I never had a family.”

  That just about killed him. He brushed her hair back from her face again. She was still, holding her head carefully in case moving it brought back the throbbing pain. He held himself just as still in case just shifting his legs caused her pain.

  “Is he some kind of human lie detector?”

  They never discussed one another’s psychic talents with outsiders. Was she an outsider? Not to him, but it was ingrained to protect the others. “Something like that.” He was deliberately vague. There was no explaining Absinthe’s talent anyway. He’d practiced for hundreds of hours, working to be able to use his voice to reach into other’s minds. He’d sat on the floor in the dungeon, bloody and bruised, tears running down his face, practicing, so maybe the next time he could stop what the pedophiles running the school did to him and the others.

  “Is my car fixed?”

  “It’s a shit car, baby. I told you that all ready. The boys are good, but they aren’t miracle workers.” His heart accelerated. She wanted that car so she could disappear out of his life.

  “Did they get it running?”

  He was glad to tell the truth. “Not yet. They’re trying. Roller skates are probably safer.” He hoped for a brief smile, even a small one, but he didn’t get it. The only sign he had that she wasn’t completely pulling away was the hand he was still holding. Either she was too worn out to notice, or, like him, she couldn’t quite give up what they’d started.

  “I don’t know how to skate.”

  “You never learned?”

  “No. It wasn’t something we had a lot of time for. We would leave the shelter in the morning and hit the street, looking for food.” Her head stirred then, rubbing against him like a cat. It was small, that little subtle movement, but he took it as a caress, just like her lips whispering over him. “Well, Mom looked for drugs, and I looked for food,” she corrected. “She was only sixteen when she had me. Her parents kicked her out, and she stayed on the streets. I stayed with her.”

  “God, baby,” he whispered. His fingers tangled in her hair.

  “I didn’t have it bad, the way you did. My mom ran interference. I didn’t understand that was what she was doing, but to keep them away from me, sh
e went off with them.” She whispered the confession to him there in the dark, just as he’d confessed to her. “I wish I’d known what she’d sacrificed for me when she was alive.”

  “She didn’t want you to know.” He hadn’t wanted Savage to know the brutal things he’d endured to keep the worst of the offenders off his younger brother. The problem had been Savage had thought he’d been keeping those same offenders off Reaper.

  “I didn’t want it to be over,” she whispered, and then his thigh was wet with her tears. He wasn’t certain if she meant her mother’s death, or the two of them.

  “I don’t want it to be over either,” he answered, and there might have been tears in his eyes. He knew he meant the two of them.

  TEN

  Anya woke to screams, to pounding in her head, and visions of shadowy men and women surrounding little boys, reaching for them, and she couldn’t stop them. She tried to fight them. She tried pleading. She did what her mother had done and offered her body in their place. Nothing stopped those monsters from seizing the terrified children.

  “It’s all right, beautiful. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you.” That voice, so like velvet, stroking over her skin, soothed the pounding in her head. “That’s it, Anya, come back to me. Open your eyes.”

  It took a moment to realize there were arms around her and someone was moving a cool cloth over her forehead. She’d had plenty of nightmares in her life. She’d never once remembered waking up in someone’s arms with a voice telling her it was all going to be okay. Her mother hadn’t been a woman to allow her to cuddle at night. She’d had other things to do.

  She took a breath and breathed Reaper into her lungs. He was still with her, still holding her close. She shivered with awareness, with the last remnants of her nightmare clinging stubbornly, but his body heat surrounded her and his arms felt strong. His heartbeat was close and steady.